He switched his gaze to Iron Eyes, seeing the empty cast to the woman’s gaze as she lay immobile at her husband’s side. Her mind, he knew, was elsewhere. The sight provoked a rush of memory, another woman sitting on a hillside far away in both time and distance, her eyes empty as her soul soared free of her body . . .
Vaelin turned away, flexing his fingers to banish a sudden tremble before nocking an arrow to his bowstring.
“He climbs . . .” Iron Eyes said a few moments later, eyes still unfocused and voice little more than a hiss in the darkness. “He reaches the top . . . There is a man . . .” A spasm passed over her features, her lips drawing back from her teeth in an echo of a snarl before the placid mask returned. “Now there is not . . . The air smells of drink and five leaf . . . Men sleep and snore, others walk the walls . . . All eyes are turned out, not in.”
Lines creased her brow and she cocked her head a little, as if straining to hear something. “Voices . . . two men in argument . . . They speak of scouts . . . of men who should be here but are not.”
“The gate,” Vaelin said, although he doubted she could hear him in this state.
Iron Eyes lapsed into a silence that seemed to stretch for many minutes when it could only have been seconds. Vaelin nudged Ellese to silence as she let out a soft groan of impatience.
“He is there . . .” Iron Eyes whispered finally. “The gate is sealed with thick rope . . . His teeth are little, but they are sharp, his jaws are strong . . .”
Vaelin’s hands moved in front of Ellese’s eyes. First and second from the left, he told her before pointing at the sentries on the wall. Moving to Tallspear’s side he put his mouth close to the Cumbraelin’s ear, speaking in a low murmur. “The two on the right. Loose when I do.”
As Ellese and Tallspear rose to a crouch, Vaelin readied his own bow, fingers hooking the string on either side of the arrow’s base. He focused on the two men standing directly over the gate, still arguing and oblivious to the bear busily gnawing through the ropes below. The distance was a little under a hundred paces. He may not be the finest archer ever to emerge from the House of the Sixth Order, but he was far from the worst.
He heard Iron Eyes let out a soft sigh followed by the creak of the gate swinging open to reveal Little Teeth contentedly chewing on a length of rope. Vaelin, seeing the men on the wall suddenly forget their argument, drew and loosed an arrow at the tallest. Ellese and Tallspear both loosed a fraction of a second later, arrows streaking through the night air to send the sentries tumbling from the wall. The shorter of the two outlaws reacted quickly, subsiding into a crouch but not before Vaelin’s second arrow took him in the shoulder. He fell from the wall, landing heavily on the other side of the open gateway and shouting in shock at the sight of the bear who greeted him with an inquisitive growl. The man’s shouts died as Vaelin lowered his aim, sending his third arrow through the gateway and into the stricken outlaw’s chest, muttering a curse as he loosed. He had hoped to get inside without raising an alarm, but rarely did any battle conform to a plan.
“North Guard up!” Vaelin called out, rising and reaching over his shoulder to draw his sword. He ran for the gate with the North Guard close on his heels, hearing Tallspear’s hunting horn pealing out a summons to the others waiting in the forest.
A few outlaws came stumbling from the shadows in various states of undress, attempting to form a barrier across the portal. Their aim was quickly frustrated by Little Teeth, who began to whirl, lashing out with his claws and sending the outlaws into confusion. One man staggered back from the beast, clutching a bleeding arm, placing himself directly into Vaelin’s path as he reached the gate. He made the mistake of drawing the knife on his belt and died for it, Vaelin jabbing the tip of his Order blade neatly through the ribs to pierce his heart, leaving him kneeling as blood swelled his mouth.
The remaining would-be defenders were quickly cut down by the North Guard, though the obscenity-laden defiance they screamed out in the course of the brief but frenzied fight ensured any last vestige of surprise had now vanished. Looking around, Vaelin saw the interior of the stockade featured only a few huts and no structure large enough to accommodate the kind of numbers that must dwell here. However, his gaze soon alighted on an opening in the canyon wall. It was a typical mineshaft common to the Reaches, buttressed with timber and wide enough to allow entry by five or more men at once.
They didn’t come here to raid for riches, Vaelin surmised. They came to dig for them.
He could hear a rising tumult from within the shaft, accompanied by a flicker of torchlight that grew in brightness with every passing second. Working a mine, he knew, required many hands, probably a good deal more than he had reckoned to find in this place.
“Line out!” he barked to the North Guard, then turned to Ellese and Tallspear, jerking his head at a nearby ladder. “Get on the wall. Loose as soon as they emerge, see if we can choke them at the entrance.”
He nocked another arrow to his own bow and took up position in the centre of the guardsmen’s line. A glance behind showed the remaining North Guard and Bear People moving rapidly across the canyon floor. Judging by the sounds emerging from the mineshaft, Vaelin doubted they would arrive before this battle began in earnest.
“Lay it on thick, lads,” he told the guardsmen. “Don’t want me to tell your families you fell to a scum-blade, do you?”
He received a chorus of grim affirmation in response, even a few chuckles. Those with bows nocked arrows, and the others took a firmer grip on their swords. They were mostly veterans of the Liberation War. Having fought all the way from the Realm to the gates of Volar, witnessing countless horrors in the process, they weren’t about to succumb to fear in the face of outlaws, however many they might face this night.
Vaelin half drew his bow, eyes locked on the tunnel, now glowing brightly with burgeoning torchlight. He frowned at the sounds emerging from within. At first he had thought it the clamour of desperate men girding themselves for a fight, but now realised it to be a discordant chorus not unlike the din of battle. It continued on for some time as no new foe emerged from the shaft, rich in screams and rage and, as it wore on, terror.
Abruptly, the cacophony ended, heralding a short interval of eerie silence before two figures appeared in the shaft entrance. They were silhouetted by the glow, one standing tall, the other kneeling. Vaelin noted that the standing figure appeared to be holding the kneeler by the neck. As the kneeling man struggled, the other jerked him to stillness, Vaelin detecting the distinct clink of a chain as he did so. Hearing the creak of a drawn bow from the wall, Vaelin stepped forward, raising his hand. “Hold!” he called out, glancing up to see Ellese lowering her bow and frowning at him in bemusement.
“Wait here,” Vaelin told the North Guard, tossing his bow to the nearest one. He approached the shaft with his sword held low and to the side, his free hand raised and open. He came to a halt when he could make out the two figures clearly, finding he recognised one but not the other.