The Crown Prince of Nua Cearta pressed himself against a boulder and peered around its edge to survey the moonlit mountainside. Behind him, his hammerson companions stood now with Kal and Gwyn at the mouth of a narrow passage that gave onto the slopes of Mount Thyus. The hammerfolk called it Folamh, "the Hollow Mountain," Kal had learned, in remembrance of their rugged ancestral caverns of the same name nestled deep in the Burren Mountains to the east of Arvon. That was one of the few things that had registered on Kal from Alcesidas' good-natured and continual banter. During the trip from the realm of the hammerfolk, the thought that they may have mounted this rescue operation too late had filled him with a nagging dread. Now it occurred to him that, in his distraction, he had paid no attention to their route up through the seemingly endless succession of tunnels and caverns that honeycombed the murky bowels of Thyus. Yet, late or not, he had come back to the surface and to the aid of his people, and with him he had a dozen grim-faced hammerson warriors and their prince.
"Alcesidas, where are—"
The Prince silenced Kal with a raised palm, not looking back. Kal's pulse quickened. The fresh air wafting toward him felt intoxicating after the dank darkness of the caverns. He breathed deeply and a tingle ran the length of his spine, then he shuddered as if a shadow had passed over him. This was a fey place, indeed, and even more so now, given the pressing danger of almost certain annihilation that faced his folk at the hands of the Boar and his minions. He wondered how many remained alive, if any, back at the Cave of the Hourglass, in the high reaches of the Hordanu's Enclosure.
"All seems well," Alcesidas whispered, glancing to his companions, "leastwise on this slope of the mountain. I hear not a movement on the path above. Come, we go this way." Alcesidas beckoned Kal forward and shuttered his helm lamp for him, his own already closed. Gwyn fumbled with the unfamiliar mechanism on his helm until one of the hammersons stepped forward, grinning, slapped the mute boy's hand away, and fixed the lamp for him. The group filed behind Kal. Alcesidas had clambered up a low rock face using rough-hewn handholds. In but a moment, they had all scrambled over the edge and were standing on level ground again, looking out over the mountain terrain.
The mountainside fell away at their feet, bathed in the faint silver light of a failing moon. A breeze sent torn shreds of clouds scudding across the sky. Kal blinked, the wind in his face making his eyes water. He had hardly more than a moment to drink in the sweet coolness of night air and the deep night sky before Alcesidas crept through a narrow space between walls of rock to their back. Behind the hammerson prince stole the hammerson swordsmen, silent as wraiths in their tunics of twilled black cloth. Each man had a small bundle of rowan switches tied around his neck, and each had his weapon held ready. A few of them wore packs, filled, Kal knew, with rope and spikes and other equipment proper to their haunts. Kal had seen the men produce their equipment from the bags, use it, retrieve it, and stow it again with remarkable speed and deftness. They were a hardy folk, endowed with large reserves of stamina. In the passage up from Nua Cearta, Kal had found himself pushed hard to match their relentless pace in a bewildering network of tunnels and vast caverns that undermined the mountain's fastness.
His senses alert, Kal dogged the shadow-cast figures of Alcesidas and his men over the stone-strewn ground and through a cleft in the pressing walls of rock. Clearing the gap, Kal regained his bearings, immediately recognizing the path that led to the Cave of the Hourglass. He could tell now where they were—just up from the shattered ledge where he and Wilum had come close to being heaved down the sides of Thyus by the boulder-throwing gathgour. The party turned and padded silently up the trail until they came to the sculpted column standing before the Cave itself.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Though spoken only loud enough to be heard, the challenge rent the stillness, and in its abruptness sounded as compelling as a lungful blast from an alarm horn. A lone figure stepped from the shadows at the mouth of the Cave and stood in defiance of the intruders, feet planted apart across the path. He held a longbow at full draw, pointed at Alcesidas.
"Who are you?" Frysan commanded a response from the short man facing him at little more than a dozen paces.
"Father . . . Peace. Lower your bow." Kal sidestepped from behind Alcesidas, and slowly moved toward Frysan, his arms held out at his sides. "It is me, Father, Kal. And this is Alcesidas, a friend—a friend fast and true." Kal continued moving toward his father, who relaxed his pose and lowered his weapon, as he shook his head in confusion. "Aye, a friend, as are these . . ." Kal gestured with a sweep of his arm to the hammersons who stood at his back. "And Gwyn, of course."
"Kal?" Frysan said, relieving the tension of his bow and pulling the arrow from the string. "How did—how did you manage to get past me here, and me none the wiser? I thought you were inside the Cave with the others. And these? Who are these fierce-looking lot . . . ? Re'm ena, but you've thrown my mind into confusion!"
Kal turned his head to speak to Alcesidas. "This is my father," he said, "Frysan be he named—"
"Ah, yes, Frysan Wright, and Marina be his wife, your mother. He is the leader of your people?"
"Well, in the slaughterdom wrought by the Boar, our thane was lost. Frysan is the best left among us. A soldier, brave, tried and true."
"Does he speak the Old Tongue?"
"Yes." Kal nodded and stepped aside. "He speaks passingly well."
The hammerson prince stood toward Frysan, lifting a hand. "I greet you, Frysan, in peace," he said.
"And I you, stranger." He studied the short man.
"Stranger? Let it be so no longer." The hammerson prince grinned and bowed his head to the Holdsman, "I am Alcesidas, Crown Prince of Nua Cearta, the domain of Magan Hammermaster, my sire, which undergirds this mountain that you call Thyus, but we call Folamh. I was apprised of your plight by your son, Kalaquinn, so strangely arrived to our caverns, and we have come to—"
"Frysan, what's happening?" Devved emerged from the Cave, sword in hand, roused to battle fury. "I heard voices," he said. Behind him pressed Galli and a handful of other Holdsmen awoken from their sleep, among them Bren, Kal's own brother, all brandishing bows or swords and ready to fight for their very lives in the face of the Black Scorpion threat.
"Stay your hand, Devved!" Kal raised his arm, bidding the Holdsman halt. "These are the folk of the hammer. Friends. They've come to take us all to safety, to their realm deep in the heart of this mountain."
From his look, it was obvious that Devved was not mollified by Kal's explanation.
"This is Prince Alcesidas," Kal said, gesturing towards the hammerson, who inclined his head gravely. "He is the son of King Magan, their lord. He has come—"
"Listen!" cried Galli.
From below rose the windings of a horn, ominous in the night, echoing in the distance from the mountain slopes surrounding them. It sounded again.
"Two short, one long . . ." said Kal. He shot a look at his father. "There's a breach at the Stairs."
"Aye, we're under attack." Frysan grew tense once more, alert, and cast a glance back to his fellows in the mouth of the Cave, and beyond them into the dark recesses. "Alarm! Alarm!" he cried. "To the Stairs!"
"Who's on watch duty there?" Kal demanded.
"Athmas, Manaton, and Thurfar," Frysan said, stepping forward with his sword drawn. Now others had come from the Cave—Diggory and Gammer, as well as Kal's mother Marina and some of the women of the Holding. They bore hastily collected utensils—knives, staves, and cudgels, whatever could be found in their haste and extremity—and had a fiercely determined air.
"Come," Frysan said, "we go!"
"No, my father!" Kal laid a hand on Frysan's arm, staying him. "You must remain here. You must rouse and gather together our people. There is no telling what dire danger draws nigh, how close we are to being overwhelmed by the enemy. Assemble the remainder of our folk. You must descend with them now, with all haste, to the home realm of Prince Alcesidas. You will be safe there." The Holdsmen looked on with surprise. Kal had spoken out to his father in the Old Tongue. "By your leave, Alcesidas," Kal continued without pausing, turning now to his hammerson companion, "will you supply a pair of your able hammersons as guides to my father and these folk of mine, so that they can make their way in speed to Nua Cearta, while we go in aid of the three men on watch?"
Alcesidas nodded to two of the hammer warriors that flanked him and spoke briefly to them. "It is done, Kalaquinn," he said, as the two detached themselves from the group and moved to join Frysan and the Holdsfolk gathered before the Cave.
"Devved, you stay with your son," said Kal.
With his well-muscled frame, like a thickset mastiff labouring to break free of its leash, the blacksmith struggled to restrain himself. Again distinct blasts of the horn drifted to their ears from the beleaguered men below, rising in pitch, the tones insistent.
"But, Kal—"
"We've no time for arguments." Kal cut him short. "You too, Diggory. You stay. And Bren, mother and father will need your able hands." Kal's younger brother frowned in disappointment. "The rest of you come now. Quickly, to the Stairs!"
"But, Kal," Galli said, "Can we afford to risk losing you? You should stay behind as well—"
"While my people risk losing their lives? No, Galli, we are to rescue now, not fight, and I will rescue all of the people that have been left in my care. I will . . . I must!"
Kal turned and ran, Alcesidas's men parting way for him as he led the charge down the curling path, touched only faintly by the radiance of moon and stars.
The windings of the horn grew ragged in their measure. At the same time, they sounded louder and closer, no longer distant. Kal ran harder. The soft thunder of many feet running close behind him egged him on ever faster. Soon he and his companions were midway down the path that led to the meadow of the Seven Springs. The horn blasts were almost immediate now. Kal turned a corner in the rocky defile, and a man appeared ahead of him. He held a horn in his hands, doubled over and catching his breath. He was flanked by two other men.
"Thurfar!" Kal cried, rushing to the Holdsman gripping the horn. "What's happening? You're wounded!" Kal gingerly touched the blood-smeared cloth at the shoulder of Thurfar's homespun jerkin.
"Bah, but a nick, Kal. A crossbow bolt—a couple Scorpions testing our mettle, middle of our watch." The trimly bearded Holdsman straightened, panting, still recovering his breath. His pleasant open features were ashen, drawn by strain and fear. "Only two or three of them, it was. They skittered back down the Stairs soon as we let loose a flight of arrows. Now they've come back, them and their mates, a huge number of them. Heard the clatter of them at the foot of the Stairs and saw them starting up. They'd of broke our wall quicker than quick. No way to hold them off, just us three. No way." Thurfar shot a nervous look at his companions. "We reckoned it best to retreat."
"That or leave our corpses for the crows to feed on," Athmas said, his voice quavering. His wiry frame seemed more stooped than usual, and his white-knuckled fingers worked restlessly, curling and uncurling around the hilt of his sword. "They're coming, sure enough. What are we going to do?"
"And who are them here with you, Kal?" Thurfar said, casting a side-long glance to the hammersons gathered behind Kal.
"Friends," said Kal. "Rest assured. Friends who can lead us all to safety. You did right, Thurfar. Let's go back."
"And quickly!" Galli called out from an embrasure in the rocks nearby. "The place is thick with soldiers down below." Kal and Alcesidas ran to the point of vantage, where side by side with Galli they spared a moment to gaze back down on the Seven Springs, the lip of Skell Force glistening in the first blush of dawn. The makeshift stone barricade at the top of the Stairs had been broken down. The night drake, with his mounted rider, was framed for a moment against the background of the early-morning sky. The creature swept low over the open area around the Seven Springs, while in the vanguard of the thickset Gharssûlian invaders, as elusive as shadows, tall and lithe, were a handful of Telessarian trackers, attended by a baying pack of bloodhounds.
After their hasty survey, the three men turned from the embrasure and rejoined their comrades.
"In all truth, I've little love for your upper world," Alcesidas said to Kal, as the group hurried back to the Cave of the Hourglass. "Too vast, too open for my liking. With all due respect, my lord Myghternos Hordanu, I'm always glad to get quit of it."
"Then let us," Kal said, "and with speed."
When they reached the Cave, save for the shattered mortal remains of Wilum, the place was deserted. In the soft light of their helm lamps, now unshuttered, the smouldering fire beneath the smoke hole and the lingering smell of food gave the area an eerie desolate feeling. On the stone walls, two torches sputtered. In order to keep it safe from desecration, Kal had Galli heave the slain Hordanu's body over his shoulder in order to bring it along with them for decent burial in the kingdom of the hammerfolk. At the same time, the vital satchel of manuscripts, maps, and scrolls that Relzor had dumped were quickly retrieved by a nimble spidery fellow, who was let down a long length of rope into a steep-sided sinkhole.
With calm and efficient haste, Alcesidas and his men outfitted the Holdsmen who needed helm lamps and then directed them to the passageway down which Kal had followed Gwyn.
"Why do we not return the other way, the way we ascended from Nua Cearta, below the Cave here?" Kal said, as they gathered before the tunnel.
"Why, do you perhaps fear the road back, Kalaquinn?" Alcesidas laughed. "You need not swim your way into our good graces this time. I promise."
"No, I—"
"Come, come, Kalaquinn, I jest. To be serious, however, I think it too dangerous for us to retrace our steps. We have not the time. If we continue from here, we'll rejoin the rest of your group soon enough. It's best that we stay together."
"What of the Telessarians we saw? They are trackers beyond peer in Ahn Norvys. Do you think they will follow us into the Hollow Mountain?" Kal said.
"Who is to say? They may do so. Though I believe it would be to their mortal peril. The caves and tunnels so densely undermine the mountain that I doubt not they would be lost forever. If one does not know the underground ways . . ."
"Still, I think it foolish to slight their skill," Kal said. "Let one of your warriors carry the body of my lord the Hordanu, Wilum, and let me and Galli keep guard over your rear flank. We have had some experience of their ways."
Alcesidas considered the suggestion for a moment and shrugged. "As you wish, Kalaquinn," He said, then directed, with a gesture of his hand, one of the hammersons to remain with the two Holdsmen. "So you don't get lost, which would be to your mortal peril." He winked, turned away, and led the party into the passage and out of the Cave of the Hourglass.
They passed the first branching passage, and Kal felt a twinge of dread as he cast his eyes up the diverging tunnel into the darkness. "My wrong turn," he whispered to himself and chuckled. "And a good thing I took it, else we'd all be as good as dead now." He fell silent, pondering the escape that he and his people had managed, hoping that it would succeed. At the end of the column, he hurried to catch up to the others, who pressed on at a remarkable pace.
For a while, their way led through a bewildering maze of tunnels that probed deeper down into the mountain, but remained largely free of obstacles. At length, moving swiftly, they caught up with their comrades, and in a wide chamber the whole party stopped to rest and reorganize itself.
There was a palpable sense of relief—the remnant of the Holding had slipped the Boar's grasp, and there was no sign of pursuit. They had found an escape. Kal looked at his folk. In the wake of fear, fatigue had begun to take its toll. He passed among them as they rested, offering a word of consolation to one person, exchanging a jest with another, to all seeking to convey some sense of encouragement in the face of their jeopardy.
Soon enough, and too soon for many, they sought their way again. Kal and Galli resumed their place at the tail end of the long straggling line. Now the journey grew many times more treacherous. Often the passageways proved so narrow that the opportunity seldom arose for them to walk even two abreast. At times Kal would hear the frightened cries of children and even adults and knew that they were about to skirt some awful chasm or be launched across a yawning gulf one by one in a strong wicker basket hung by the hammersons on an improvised bridge of rope, fixed into the rock by stout spikes. Other times they came to sheer underground walls that were scaled first by one of the warriors who would fasten a lead rope.
After some time, Kal could not imagine any tracker, even the most wily and artful Telessarian, equaling the agility and skill of these hardy mountain-dwelling folk, who showed so much patience with this bedraggled collection of anuasoi—heartsick demoralized women, querulous children, and exhausted men. It was a much less straightforward route they were taking now than when Alcesidas first led him up above ground for the rescue. Then their journey was all a conscious and unvarying movement upwards to the heights of the Cave, although they experienced one or two tight squeezes, where Kal felt like a bung in a beer barrel. Here, though, they were forced to make several dizzying climbs that seemed to be taking them farther up into the mountain, higher away from Nua Cearta. Kal found himself speculating how long the journey would take. In the file ahead of him a couple of the children whimpered from hunger and the damp that chilled them to the bone.
They entered a large and spectacular gallery of sparkling crystalline rock, vaulted with a glence-like dome, but with myriad pillars, sinuously sculpted, Kal supposed, by the uncanny art of hammer and chisel, not by the random action of ancient underground streams—all done in such a way as to take on the semblance of living creatures. Some of the glittering figures looked small and bestial, some larger, more akin to men, while others resembled mad gesticulating giants armed with club and sword. It was a fascinating pantomime, a revel of sardonic grimacing faces, alive with the subtle suggestion of movement. Alcesidas called a halt here, where there was enough space for them to break out of their single file. Frysan inquired about the petrified forms.
"We know not by whose hand they came to be, Master Frysan. They were found as you see them, when our people first arrived in these parts. Meriones, our bard, says that they serve as an ill-humoured warning to those who venture farther into that passage yonder," pointed Alcesidas, "which is the reason why we make this pause. We embark now on what we call the Ellbroad Bridge, for that it is a narrow path, at most an ell in width, that crosses over a fathomless abyss. Moreover, this bridge is well nigh two goodling bowshots long. There are some of our hammersons who do call it the Look Not Down Bridge, for that it is best to look straight ahead when one crosses it, which is exceedingly good advice. I caution you not to peer over the sides of the bridge. To make certain there is no mishap, I bid you anuasoi to rope one another each to each about the waist. Here, Dalboron," the Prince bade one of his subordinates, "give Frysan your cordage."
Alcesidas arranged the order by which they would cross the fearful-looking bridge, deciding that he and four of his men, one of them carrying Wilum's body, should be first. Following him would be Devved's wounded son, Chandaris, carried on his stretcher by a fresh pair of hammersons. Then there would come Devved himself, as the lead of the two rope anchors on either end of the file of Holdsfolk. The other anchor was to be stout-limbed Galli, with all the other men, women, and children coming between him and Devved, each one roped to the other, children staying close to their parents, the men space evenly throughout. This way, if there were to be any mishap, two of the strongest Holdsmen would be holding the crucial rope ends. Behind Galli came the rest of Alcesidas's detail, one by one, sure-footed and not needing to be linked to one another. Last to come was Kal, keeping an eye open for pursuit, still chary of the Telessarians that might be trailing in their wake, despite Alcesidas's assurances to the contrary. Kal had insisted, however, that Gwyn join the others, lashed together for safety's sake.
As the Holdsfolk were being roped together, Kal noticed that there were two other smaller passageways, besides the main one, leading to the Ellbroad Bridge, branching off obliquely from the chamber with the strange statues. Out of curiosity, during a lull in the bustle of preparations, Kal asked Alcesidas where these passageways led and was told that both of them wound their way farther into the topmost bulwarks of Mount Folamh. The opening to the left, he explained, pointing in that direction, led to a tunnel, which skirted the edge of the chasm spanned by the Ellbroad Bridge.
At length, they stood ready to make the crossing. A couple of the children began crying again, just at the moment when Diggory Clout had backed off, refusing to step out onto the bridge, whining cravenly that he was "mortal 'fraid of heights." Others were starting to catch his infection of fear, until Gammer stepped in and rang him a fine peal. Even her firm hand, however, did not stop him from muttering nervously, and wishing rather foolishly, under his breath, that he had stayed in the Holding to face the Black Scorpion Dragoons or that the gathgour had succeeded in carrying him off.
" 'Twould be better than this, I tell you, Gammer. You know that I can't abide high places. It's little short of a miracle that I've been able to come this far."
"Then you should've been born in the Dungheap and married one of their moon-eyed hens," she countered. "Get along with you now! And in silence, mind you. Can't you see you're making it worse for the young ones. Shame on you, Diggory Clout!"
Soon the folk of the Holding were all embarked on the Ellbroad Bridge, a slender band of stone, far narrower than an ell in places, a structure that nature itself had flung across the vastness of this pit. Its arched shape, like that of a grotesque rainbow, served to make it even more intimidating. Strange noises, like the scuttling of rats and deep growls, drifted up to them faintly from below, resonating off the stone. Alcesidas bade them sternly in Old Arvonian not to pay these any heed. Frysan translated this and other instructions for his clanfellows, whose ear for the ancient language was not as good. Galli was the last of the rope-bound Holdsfolk to step out onto the Bridge. The helm lamps, of which the hammerfolk had brought an extra store, provided ample light for them to see and watch their step. After Galli came the rest of the Prince's men, sure-footed and unafraid, encouraging him in their good-natured way.
Kal, who came last, set foot on the bridge and felt a queasy knot of fear and regret tugging at his inner parts. It was such a tiny and finespun thread of rock for such a gaping span. Did they know for certain it would bear the weight of them all? They would be sitting ducks while making their crossing. He shot a look back, but there was still no sign of pursuit. He should have let himself be roped to the others. Alcesidas had offered to take this last spot, but deferred to Kal when the latter insisted. Kal was after all the Hordanu. It was clear that they placed the office in high esteem. The man ahead of him looked a strong, capable fellow. They had placed him by his side on purpose—a guard to guard the rear guard.
It was all foolhardy bravado on his part—this thing about being the rear guard—done mostly to impress Alcesidas, show him he could be a tough-fighting Hordanu, a warrior like Hedric long ago.
In no time, Kal convinced himself that it would be sheer luck if he kept from losing his balance and tottering over into the black void that seemed to grip him with cruel sensate fingers, threatening to drag him down into the abyss and certain death. To screw up his courage, he kept telling himself that the width of the bridge gave ample room for him to walk on safely. Be bold, he urged himself. But the farther along the bridge he advanced, the more frightened he became, the more lonely at being positioned in the rear and unroped. What he would not do to have a corded lifeline tied to that man ahead of him, so sure-footed, so seemingly careless!
Just when he thought he would be forced, by his mounting anxiety, to swallow his pride and cast himself down on all fours to crawl along spider-like, the bridge trembled. Almost before he could react, piercing the shadow-wrapped stillness, there came the terrible scream of a despairing man being thrown off his feet into the impenetrable darkness. The reaction of his fellows came swiftly, even before the voice of the hapless man had thinned and receded to nothingness. Strident shouts of alarm echoed through the air of the cavern. Someone yelled Wilum's name. Dark figures crowded a long ledge that overlooked the Ellbroad Bridge from a spot almost directly above the column of warriors and Holdsfolk—to the left. Whoever it was, they bustled at their murderous business, heaving their shoulders into another large rock, preparing to hurl it down.
"Back, young anuas, back! Make way, or they will unrig us all here!" cried the warrior nearest Kal, as another heavy missile grazed the spot where the two of them stood transfixed. The rocky span shuddered again. A boulder tumbled past, thundering down against the side walls of the chasm. Kal thought he heard his mother screaming for his father, but it was impossible for him to know for certain, as he bolted back down the bridge. Goaded by the prodding shouts of the hammerson, he traversed the hundred yards of narrow stone at a flat run, until he regained the chamber with the sculpted figures. Their carven faces leered and seemed to express sardonic amusement at the sudden plight of the company.
Kal's breath stuck, and he fumbled for his wits. He had better do something to stop whoever it was. It couldn't be Ferabek's Telessarian trackers. The glimpse he had caught of the attackers told him that they stood too short for that. Within seconds the warrior who had urged him back off the bridge had come up alongside him, his stout battle sword drawn.
"This way, Master Kalaquinn, our murderous cousins are here. Let us be on them." He brandished his sword towards the passage that Kal had asked Alcesidas about earlier. The hammerson led the way up the tunnel. With a sudden spasm of fear that gripped cold his gut, Kal sensed others close behind him. He spun in time to set the beam of his helm lamp on two men dressed alike in odd garb surging at him with halberds ready to impale him against the bulging flint of the sloping passageway. He yelled an alarm, but the man ahead of him had already turned a corner. He slid his sword in a fluid movement from its scabbard and lunged ahead panic-stricken, to catch up with his companion, looking for his aid to meet these attackers. The halberded figures followed close on his heels.
He heard a shout, then the clash of steel over grunts and cries. Turning, Kal saw three of Alcesidas's warriors mowing down his pursuers from behind, not giving them the chance to swing around their halberds in the closeness of the tunnel. Already one of them was gasping out his last breath. The other had dropped his halberd, drawing his sword to engage his assailants. But as it was, he proved no match for the three who faced him and ended by crimsoning the rocky floor of the passage with his blood. There was no time for words of gratitude, as the four of them broke into a run up and through the snaking curves of the passage, looking for the parapet from which, as from a lofty siege engine, the enemy was raining down death and destruction. Ahead of them resounded the clangour of steel on steel—and voices.
"Yield now! Yield, or we shall make your corpse a sieve for to strain your slavish guts down on your brothers below!"
"Never shall I yield to muddy-mettled knaves! The temper of your swords does match the mottled white of your livers. One hammerson from Nua Cearta has more weight than a score of you Burren bellows-boys!"
Kal and the men with him clambered over a series of awkward ridges that rose sharply and fell, then rose and fell again, while the passage broadened out into a larger area. Countless stalactites hung like stony icicles, dripping water sullenly onto their leather-helmed heads. In the pooled lamplight stood the lone warrior who had preceded them on the attack. He was cornered now, in a tightly angled nook, which protected his back from the two foes who were trying, now one, now the other, to pierce the defence he threw up with deflective parries of his weaving sword. Their halberds gave them an advantage, which only the besieged man's extraordinary deftness matched. Six men besides, habited like the others in hose and jerkins of dull metallic grey, were grunting and groaning with the effort of rolling a large lopsided rock up a makeshift gangway, which they had rigged with cantilevered beams over the chasm.
"Hie, dispatch the others first," cried the cornered fighter. "I shall deal with these buffoons. Quick, before they drop that block over the edge, or I warrant it will shatter the Bridge to dust."
Kal and his companions leaped towards the gangway to face the six, who scrabbled down to meet their attackers. The gangway, already flexing under the bulk of granite, creaked and swayed with their shifting weight. The enemy had opened full wide the shutters on their helmets, allowing the beams of their lamps to sweep the oncomers. At first all was a blinding confusion of light. His heart beating like a drum, Kal launched himself forward upon the men together with his three companions and lunged with his sword at the first of the foemen who drew near him. It was an impulsive uncalculated move. The man sidestepped the thrust neatly and moved to cut Kal down from the rear as he staggered to regain his balance. But Kal wheeled around quickly enough to parry the blow to his shanks. Now he grew more wary and respectful of the hale sure-footed skill of his foe, who was joined by one of his comrades.
Two now faced Kal. They eyed him from beneath the glare of their helm-lamps, teasing him with feints and sudden movements that were pulled up short and then resumed. On either side of him he heard the clash of arms, mingled with the sighs, groans, and grim cries of wounded fighters. There was no way for him to tell how his allies were faring in this lethal contest. The sweat of fear and exertion poured down his face, burning his eyes. He longed to wipe himself with the sleeve of his tunic, but dared not let down his guard. These two were not stripling lads he was facing.
Kal knew that they had taken stock of him, could tell that he was green, not a tried warrior, as like as not to make oafish mistakes. All the same, his sole advantage was that, given his height, he overreached them with his long arms. They were wary. They tested him with interrupted probes by one or the other of their swords. They sought to divert him to one side, that he might lay himself bare, aiming to strike a vicious blow, unravelling his entrails with a well-swung sword. What these men lacked in reach, they made up for, not only by their quickness and agility, but by the forge-wrought might that powered their thick arms and wrists. Kal felt its brute force in the hit he had been barely quick enough to deflect. They were toying with him—smiling, feinting, pressing.
He inched his way backwards. There must be a way he could dispatch one of them and be left with just a single combatant to cope with. Even then, though, he'd have more trouble than he could handle. In the raw terror that gripped him, he found his situation oddly amusing. He shuffled another step back. He had no idea where they were driving him. The cornered warrior whom they had discovered taunting his attackers was lucky that he had found a niche from which to fend off his enemies. Still Kal drew back. Not even the footing he needed and two master swordsmen on him.
He felt he must be approaching the edge of the vast pit. He grew increasingly tentative now, as he tried to feel the ground behind him, taking small jerky steps. It was becoming ever more dangerous. His adversaries knew this. They hemmed him in and grew bolder in taking his measure, darting in swiftly under his defences and then back again outside his reach. They were taking their time to close for the kill. From the ragged edges of his concentrating mind he could make out their smug smiles, their sneering contempt.
"Aye, you're having great fun, aren't you?" Kal taunted them. His own voice sounded unfamiliar to his ear—smooth, measured, almost placid, belying the tumult of panic that lay beneath. "Yes, indeed, you smirking mongrels, you—"
His right foot felt nothing but air. Kal's blood froze. The man to his left now pressed to the attack, heedless of any possible countermove on Kal's part.
"Now we shall level you, anuas," he cried, as Kal fought to regain his footing, sweeping his foot around in a forlorn attempt to sidestep his opponent. There was something there. Something jutted out from the edge, something that his foot only just touched. A baleful tongue of sharpened steel came slashing towards his midriff. Now Kal had no choice but to stand his ground, what little there was, teetering over the brink. His attacker let go all self-restraint, as did Kal, who brought his blade down on the man's sword arm, severing the wrist and knocking the blade flying into the darkness of the abyss.
Kal was thrown off balance. A savage stroke of the other foeman's weapon whistled past his head. The Holdsman's sword slid from his hand, clanged once against the stone, and fell ringing into the chasm. Kal slipped. He heard a scream, his own. Scrabbling with his hands, he clawed at the solid thing his foot had just now scraped.
There was a handhold. There—the wooden struts supporting the gangway. Diffuse circles of light illumined the darkness around him. At the foot of the Ellbroad Bridge, the Holdsfolk standing huddled there had trained the full beams of their helm lamps onto the gangway, shouting to him, many screaming in horror. An arrow whistled close overhead from below, clattering off the stone wall high above the ledge. They had no clear line of sight past the solid wooden platform and Kal himself who dangled below it. He knew no more arrows would follow.
The man who had lost a hand to Kal's blade howled, beside himself with pain and rage, trying to stem the blood that spurted from his wound. Moving to the edge of the gangway, he looked to dislodge Kal from the structure. Clinging fast to a beam of the gangway with his left hand while sitting on its edge, he began kicking at Kal with his heavy boots. Pain exploded, white behind Kal's eyes, as the man hammered him in the side of the head with his heel. Kal screamed in agony, and his hand slipped from the thick plank, which left him dangling by one arm. Another blow to his head just missed him. Struggling, he swung his hand up again to the beam and eased his way farther out under the gangway. He had to escape. He had to escape not only the blows of the wounded man, but the other attacker as well, who could be heard laughing and shouting encouragement to his mate. The gangway, about two yards in breadth, swayed, as Kal moved farther along the beam letting his body hang over the void beneath him.
The wounded man stretched to afford himself more reach, to give himself one more go at the stubborn anuas. He had exposed himself to the bridge below and another arrow hissed through the air. With a soft thud, it pierced him through the shoulder. Now Kal, rather than edging away from the vicious kicks, swung himself back towards his startled attacker and caught the foot under his arm.
"Haree-hoo-sai!" Kal bellowed and pulled with all his might. The man found himself helpless to resist, batting the wooden structure with a handless arm, trying to find purchase. Screams reverberated off the sheer walls as, limbs flailing, he tumbled headlong into the chasm. The highland war cry still rang in the cavern and was taken up afresh by the Holdsmen on the bridge below.
Kal's temple throbbed with pain. His arms ached, but he dared not pull himself up. He would be easy prey for the swordsman who prowled the gangway still. The whole structure bounced and shook. What was the fellow doing? Where were the others? The structure swung. At any moment, it would break from its moorings on the massive wall of the abyss, crumple under the boulder, and career into the depths. The war cry gave way to shouts and screams. It sounded like a warning, but the clamorous voices were indistinct, unintelligible.
The platform lurched and pitched. It was the man above. He was trying to dislodge the boulder by jumping up and down on the planked ramp. He was trying to slide it from its precarious balance over onto the Ellbroad Bridge. A momentum was building as the structure wobbled and rocked. Terrified, Kal bobbed up and down beneath the beams. He tried to move closer to the rock wall. Kal yelled to his three companions, but he had no idea where they were or how they were faring. He heard the shuffle of feet tramping the planks above his head. There were the sounds of a skirmish and then the chilling cries of yet another man thrown down into the ravening blackness that gaped below.
The bounce and sway of the gangway slackened, then stopped.
"Hail, Kalaquinn! You have found a pretty place to hang yourself from. Let me lend you my arms to lift you from your unsettled perch." Kal was greeted by the familiar face of a hammerson, battle-begrimed but smiling, who leaned his body over the edge and held out his two sturdy arms, as stout as tree limbs. Beyond him, Kal saw the three other warriors, tattered, torn, bloodied, and somewhat the worse for wear, but to all appearances safe and sound. A cheer rose from the bridge below, as Kal was pulled up onto the wooden platform. The five men now turned back to the ledge and down the passage to the pillared chamber.