Conflict (8 page)

But she was not found out.

She waited, her hands trembling. The Usik were chatting very near her hiding place. After a while the voices faded away and Aliana, with immense care, raised her head to look. The Usik were gathering berries. This must be an area where they grew regularly.
I must leave immediately!
She could not go forward, because the Usik were in her path’s way. She would have to go back to her starting point and try to find a way around the waterfall from the other side. Her heart sank once more. All her progress that day had been for nothing.

Retreat or risk dying at the hands of the Usik? No, I refuse to die, I’ll go back and find some other route to the river.

Silently, she crept away. Once she had gone far enough she stood up and began to run as if she had been lashed with a whip of fire. Aliana ran and jumped over roots and undergrowth as fast as her legs would carry her. She ran and ran and ran. And finally, breathless, her lungs burning, she stopped in total exhaustion.

Voices coming from ahead alarmed her.

They were similar to the ones she had left behind in her flight, with that curious sing-song.

Usik!

Coming from the waterfall ahead of her.

What can I do? I can’t go on, those men are sure to be Usik. If I turn round I’ll come up against the other savages I left behind. There’s only one course I can follow: south, just the opposite of where I want to go. It’ll take me further away from the upper river, I’ll never be able to make my way up-river again and get out of here. But if I stay here wondering what to do, they’ll find me. What to do? What?

Overcome by rage and fear, Aliana turned south, going further into the endless woods of enormous trees. She had no choice.

For three days she walked on southwards, away from the savages, afraid to retrace her steps. She survived by using her knowledge of roots, berries and insects. On the fourth day she was crouching beside a brook, drinking warily like some small wild animal. She had left the Usik well behind, so she was fairly sure she was out of danger. She had not heard them at her back for more than a day, not a single sound, nothing to catch her attention. The thought cheered her up. She had come very close to being captured, and now she was beginning to feel peaceful again.

A small deer came to the brook to drink, a little lower down to her left on the other side. Under the shade of the gigantic trees, which seemed to be getting bigger as she went deeper into the forest, it looked tiny. The little animal looked at her and Aliana, afraid of frightening it, did not move. It was so pretty. It radiated goodness. Suddenly the deer gave a start, turned and ran away.

Why do you leave, little one? I didn’t move. What scared you?

Aliana turned her head to look back.

A greenish arm was all she had time to glimpse.

Pain followed.

Then darkness.

Lotas was thoroughly angered. He was not at all happy with the results of the last contract.
A not too complicated job, something even I could solve easily,
he had thought when the elderly foreigner came to him with three thousand pieces of gold for the heads of the two Norriel and the girl in white armor with them. Half in advance and half on completion of the contract. There was no difficulty about killing two dirty savages in the streets of his city. Even so, he had heeded the old man’s warning about the dangers of the job. He had not been over-confident and had planned it well so as not to fail; the amount of gold was significant. He had been cautious and cunning, since those were his greatest virtues and had led him to the privileged position he held in the lowest depths of the city.

And yet everything had gone wrong. His men were dead and the savages alive. He could not understand how those highlanders had managed to defeat his men. Two perfect ambushes, carefully planned, which had never failed before. He knew the Norriel were fierce warriors, but he was at a loss to explain how they could have killed his expert men. He had sent several of his best mercenaries, experienced fighters, hardened and lethal. All dead… It was inexplicable.

He got up from his comfortable sofa of red tapestry and went across to the small steel window in the form of a bull’s-eye. From there he could see the port clearly, all the docks filled with activity, ships coming and going without pause in the great port-city. Goods and coin changed hands, smuggling was carried out under the noses of the city guard. Those fools were so dumb they would never manage to find their own noses if they were not stuck to their faces. Much less would they find his hiding-place in the docks, the center of all his illegal operations: a hiding-place he had built with years of hard work. It allowed him to conduct his business near the action, which is where he had to be, always vigilant, yet keeping a prudent distance.

The building which housed his offices, four floors high and occupying a whole block, had been a fish-smoking facility in better times: one of the most important in the kingdom at its peak. But the owner, a man of little brain and great weaknesses, had lost it at a game of cards. Since then it had passed from one owner to the next, all of them in the process of destroying the industry in a search for a quick reward, until it had finally fallen into his hands.

In order to get the building Lotas had had to persuade the previous owner to sign the deed, using a certain amount of violence. But in his humble opinion, those three fingers they had had to cut off to persuade him had been a small price for the man to pay in order to stay alive. The vice and stupidity of good men never ceased to surprise Lotas.

From the moment he had acquired the building, about three years before, Lotas had turned it into a maze of passages and false doors. Faced with any trouble, he had more than enough time to escape through the sewers which ran along the lower part of the city to the docks. In his building, in his home, he was untouchable. More than thirty men were posted throughout the enormous building, but only three of them knew the entire route to his luxurious and comfortable apartments. He had everything a man could wish for in his richly decorated main room: the best contraband liquor, the best food to be bought in the city, furniture and ornaments worthy of the nobility of Rogdon and, of course, women of loose morals at the snapping of a finger. Luxury and power: the things he had always wished for, the things which had always been so elusive in his life and which he could now at last enjoy.

Life smiled upon him.

Business was booming, and after several years of relentless fighting for power, he had finally risen to be King of the Docks. Now he ruled over them mercilessly, with an iron hand. The fruits of his kingdom were making him ever richer. He possessed everything, everything a man like him could wish for. Yet he was restless. Those savages worried him. There was no reason why they should, they were just a small nuisance, but they worried him. Lotas’ instinct rarely failed him, and it was now whispering to him to be wary, very, very wary.

This made him restless.

The door opened and one of his bodyguards came into the room.

“Trouble, Boss!” the hardened mercenary cried.

Lotas was upset. “What the hell is the matter?”

“The Norriel and the white warrior are standing in the square, in front of the entrance to the building, out of reach of our arrows.”

“So! What are you waiting for, imbeciles? Kill them!”

“We tried, and they killed four of our men in the blink of an eye. They say they want to talk to you.”

“Talk? What do they want to talk about? What crap is that?”

“They say they just want to talk to you, that there’s no need to go on spilling blood.”

“My ass! I don’t trust them. They want to get to me to kill me. I’m absolutely sure they’re looking for revenge.”

“What do we do? Do you want me to give all the men the order to go out and kill them?”

“No. They’d probably run away and we’d lose them. They have guts and they’re good fighters, but they’re not stupid. Let me think…”

Lotas pondered how best to turn the tables. He had to be cunning and get them to fall into his trap.

“Make them believe I’ve accepted their request for dialogue. Tell them I’ll wait for them in my private rooms to hear their demands. Lead them to the big hall on the second floor and finish them off. It’s a perfect place for a trap. Have a dozen of our men ready there for an ambush.”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Make sure they don’t survive!”

“Don’t worry, Boss, they’re dead men already.”

The sturdy bodyguard left the room with a firm step. Those stinking flies would trouble him no more, and Lotas was already thinking gleefully of the rich reward he would receive for their heads.

“New coins of shining gold will very soon fill my chests!” he said out loud, with a bitter laugh which filled the whole room.

Lasgol raised his right fist to the side of his head in a sharp gesture. The twenty veteran soldiers following him stood still and silent at once. He crouched before the rough oval entrance to the cavern and stared at the opening in front of him, which revealed a discouraging carpet of ice. Freezing cold hit Lasgol’s face with the strength of a right-hand punch in a canteen brawl. For the second time that day he was experiencing something unheard-of: the cavern he was looking at was completely frozen, as if winter itself had been trapped within those walls without being able to escape. Ice and frost covered every inch of the rock walls. It was as unexpected as the cave with the crystalline dome they had left behind a few hours ago. He still found it hard to accept that from there he had been able to wonder at the spectacle of a majestic lake above his head, with all its flora and fauna. It had been so unbelievable that for a moment he had thought sanity had left him in the darkness of the cavern, never to return.

For a long while he had stared in astonishment at that incredible waterscape in the ceiling of the cavern, unsure whether he was awake or dreaming, sane or crazy. This pursuit was rapidly becoming an almost other-worldly task. What they had seen was completely outside the normal everyday world, and Lasgol did not like it one bit. The experienced tracker was no friend of things he could not explain rationally, and the situation was getting more complicated with each step.

He breathed deeply and calmed down. He had been tracking the two fugitives for hours through the endless tunnels and caves around them. They were playing a dangerous game in the midst of that underground labyrinth of pure granite. The Assassin had done a wonderful job of erasing and confusing their tracks. He was smart, skillful and crafty. Lasgol had had to use his Gift, not to mention all his knowledge and experience, so as not to lose the elusive trail in that web of rock. His rival was a worthy adversary.

Once more he made use of his talent: a brief flash of green light enveloped him and he used his skill to sense Life, but he could not perceive any form of life in the cavern, either human or animal. Where had the fugitives gone?

A wave of unrest washed over him from top to toe.

Lasgol closed his eyes and allowed his body to absorb the humidity, calming his unrest … Down there, all around, impregnating everything, was something else… something occult…
I feel an ancestral power in this place, something that permeates it with an ancient spirit, one that reaches back thousands of years. A quality that’s not only ancient but also very powerful, a power of such magnitude that it makes my heart shrink. We’re in danger, I feel a great danger, there’s a lot of power trapped down here in the deep, watching, stalking. I don’t like this at all…
he thought, letting himself be driven by the feelings he picked up from his surroundings.
A danger I can’t see, but which is so close it touches my skin, an imminent danger which doesn’t come from either the assassin or the Masig…No… It comes from some other source I can’t identify, but it’s here, somewhere.

He turned his head to check on the soldiers who had joined him in this manhunt. They were from a mounted patrol which had been combing the steppes, also in search of the two fugitives. Luckily he had reached them a few hours after running away from the Masig, having been forced to let his prisoners escape. He had requested twenty of the hardiest soldiers from the commander, and he had got what he wanted; they were all veterans of many battles, tough, strong and trustworthy.

They wore the cavalry uniform in vivid red and white, the Norghanian colors. Their bodies were protected by scaled chain-mail, with a red tunic over it which bore the Norghanian coat of arms: the open wings of the majestic Snow Eagle, the bird-emblem of the kingdom, in radiant white. On their backs they carried a round studded oaken shield. On their limbs, arm-pieces of tanned leather reinforced with metal rings, with high riding-boots of the same material. Red helmets covered heads, cheeks and nose. The helmets were crowned with a rampant horse, identifying them as cavalry, and bore open wings on the sides, as was the ancient tradition. They all carried a sword, and as a second weapon many carried a battleaxe on their back. This was a favorite among the Norghanians.

The men had performed admirably during the harsh ascent. None had shown signs of weakness or lagged behind. Lasgol was perfectly aware that the climb had been very hard, particularly because of the pace he himself had set, and even more so because of the armor and swords they carried. Luckily the cavalry rode light. It was intended for swift attacks and did not use heavy armor, but even so what they carried was far from weightless. Lasgol knew the men were tired after being on the hunt for several days, but they would endure. They were Norghanian soldiers, they would not fail.

He looked at Toral, the captain of the group, who was waiting expectantly at his back. A long scar ran down the right-hand side of his face from his temple to his mouth, partially hidden by the winged helmet and the long blond hair which fell to his shoulders. His eyes, blue as the sea, looked back questioningly at Lasgol. His hardened face was the mirror of the man’s strength and stoicism. Broad-shouldered, with sturdy legs, the man seemed molded for battle. He was not particularly tall, which made him look still stronger and more compact, like a brown bear.

Lasgol looked thoughtfully at the rest of the crouching soldiers. They all looked as if they had been cut from the same original pattern, so that in the dark it was difficult to tell them apart. The image comforted him: with those men beside him he could face the freezing devils and come out victorious. He had no doubt of it.

He gestured to the Captain to wait, then advanced warily into the frozen cavern. He immediately saw the hieroglyphs, strange signs carved on the inside wall above the entrance to the cavern. He did not need to understand them to know they throbbed with power. This was part of the talent the Gods of Ice had granted him. He could sense an ancestral power, an elemental one, deeply earthy, which he could almost taste even though he could not identify it. The feeling startled him. Because of the character of his Gift, which was connected to Nature itself, Lasgol was very sensitive to the presence of other talents and powers. But he could not decipher this unknown and profoundly ancient magic. He studied the symbols carefully. They had been carved into the rock in some earlier epoch, in an era already forgotten by the men who now inhabited the lands of Tremia.

The Tracker hurried to the opening on the other side of the cavern and concentrated once more. Using his Gift, he tried to find out whether there was any animal or human nearby. Nothing, there was nobody near. Or at least nobody he could feel. He crouched down and weighed up the situation.
Keep on or turn around? No sense in going further this way with the temperature as low as this. It’s dangerous, we could all be frozen to death in there in no time. The logical thing to do would be to find another way, less harsh… where the temperature isn’t a problem. But that’s just what the Assassin and the Masig want me to think… Right? Yes, that’s what they want, but they won’t get their way, no sir!
He gave the trace of a grin.

He made a sign to Toral to follow him into the frozen cave.

They crossed it at a trot and found a tunnel at the far end. It was not more than two paces wide, with a strange bluish mist that reached up to their knees. Lasgol could not see any footprints clearly in this unexpected mist, leaving him no choice but to go on. A deep unrest settled both on him and on the men; a metallic taste, almost mineral, clung to his tongue. They went on cautiously with their weapons out and ready, two by two, in the deepest silence. On his left Captain Toral walked on without a sign of hesitation.

Where were the fugitives? Had they gone into that narrow tunnel? There was no other way, so they must have passed through there.

A metallic sound came from the Captain’s foot.

Lasgol instinctively looked towards the sound. The Captain stood still and the line of soldiers stopped immediately. Some basic survival instinct warned Lasgol there was danger: imminent and lethal. He focused on his skill to make his eyes like those of an eagle so that he could see the Captain’s foot through the mist. To the left of the boot he could make out a spring the officer had set off, and a little further back something red…
Damn! A bloodstain!
He looked up and ahead, and his attention was caught by a brief flash which was rapidly heading in his direction.

“Down!” he shouted, grabbing Toral and pulling him to the ground.

Two arrows of ice passed over the Tracker’s head and hit one of the men behind him, who had not been able to react quickly enough. The soldier fell to the ground, pierced by one of the long solidified-water missiles.

“To the ground, soldiers! Down!” he yelled again, realizing that the last two men were still standing there hesitating.

They dropped, but one of them was hit by another ice stake before he had time to take cover.

“Nobody get up!” Captain Toral ordered. At the same time two more frozen missiles flew low along the tunnel. The Captain looked at Lasgol with fury in his eyes.

“That tunnel is a trap, they’re decimating us!” he howled. “By all the Frozen Devils of the Mahuro!”

“It looks as if the whole place is designed so as not to let intruders in. It’s an infernal labyrinth. We’ll have to be incredibly careful, or else we won’t survive.” Lasgol breathed out noisily and looked into the captain’s eyes. “We’ll crawl on to the end of this tunnel. I’ll go first and try to find any other trap that might be in store for us. If anything should happen to me… the mission must be completed, do you understand, Toral?”

“You have my word, Royal Forest Ranger, we’ll catch the fugitives or die in this freezing underground hell. I promise you this Norghanian won’t let his country down.”

Lasgol began to crawl very slowly, almost flat on the ground, through the treacherous mist. His life was at stake. He found four more traps along the narrow passage and marked their location to avoid setting them off. With a sigh of relief he reached the end of the tunnel. He breathed out all the accumulated tension. He had made it safely, thanks to his Gift and the extraordinary skills it granted him. He had always felt unworthy of that gift from the gods, but perhaps today it would help those brave men to survive. He hoped he was right, and prayed that it might be so.

He made a sign, and the soldiers began to crawl on in his direction. As they made their way, he went into the cave the tunnel opened into. The temperature there was even lower; they would have to go quickly so as not to freeze as they went. He noticed a trail of blood on the frozen ground. One of the fugitives was wounded! They had fallen into one of the tunnel traps!
This makes things a lot easier. No matter how hard they try, they can’t hide their trail now. The wound might even be fatal… The question is: is it the assassin or the Masig who got caught in the trap?

They kept on at a steady pace because of the low temperature, whatever the risk that implied. The first symptoms of frostbite began to appear in the group. Purple faces exhaled great quantities of thick white vapor with each breath of iced air that filled their lungs. There was frost on the beards and clothes of the hardened warriors. The metal components of their scaled armor would bring them down if they did not reach some shelter soon. Luckily those men were accustomed to freezing weather, since they were all people of the snow and ice and would stand up to what no other mortal could in those extreme conditions. Lasgol guided them along the passages as he followed the unmistakable trail of blood.

At last they reached a cavern whose entrance was blocked by a great rectangular slab of polished jet-black stone. The slab was taller and slightly wider than the most battle-hardened of his men.
This is utterly unexpected. What’s this perfectly rectangular slab doing in such a formless kind of place? It makes no sense. This is no work of Nature. It has to have been built by man.
Lasgol studied it carefully, perplexed, trying to decipher the thing which reared before them. The men formed a circle behind him and looked on without understanding.

“It looks as though that marble slab …” said Toral, pointing at it, “…or whatever it is, seems to have been put there for a purpose.”

“Yes, it has. To block some small passage in the rock wall which must lead to another cavern, I guess.”

“Shall we move it?” offered the Captain.

“Go ahead. Try to shift it, although I have the feeling that we won’t be able to…”

“It’s not so big, surely we can manage…” said Toral.

Six men took their places around the slab. On the count of three they began to push to the right with all their strength; six strong able soldiers capable of bringing down doors, walls and more or less anything in their way.

They could not move the slab at all.

“Leave it, leave it…” said Lasgol, seeing their faces turning red with the effort. “Don’t go on, you won’t be able to move it.”

“I just can’t believe it,” said Toral. “It can’t weigh that much!”

“It’s not that, Toral, this slab has been sealed… with Magic. Brute force will get us nowhere with it. No matter how much we push, we won’t move it.”

Toral unsheathed his sword and struck the slab furiously. Sparks leapt as metal met rock, but there was not even a scratch on the surface. He attacked the slab again, this time hitting with the pommel: same result. He unsheathed his battle axe and hit the surface again and again with the back of it, which was shaped like a hammer. Not a scratch.