The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (12 page)

Urus blinked.

He had closed his eyelids a moment before, when a brilliant blue light enveloped the world. Now, when he opened them, he stood on a smooth stone road sloping up along the side of a cliff, carved like a notch into the rock face, with wide columns of stone left along the original cliff face for support. The gaps between the columns looked like vast windows that opened out to the sky beyond, dotted with small tufts of slowly drifting clouds.

The damp and oppressive air was so hot Urus felt like he was breathing the steam over a hot bowl of soup, only this air held no aroma of soup, only that of thick foliage and warm, damp soil.

He found Goodwyn at his side, also taking in the scenery, looking just as confused and disoriented as he felt. Urus still clutched one of the books from the room with the stone slab, its ornate lock still clasped shut. He stuffed the book between his leather vest and the acolyte's jerkin, hoping he might find a way to pry it open later.

"By Ishimani's tears, Urus, how did we get here, and where is here?" his friend said aloud.

"I don't know. I saw Kebetir attacking my uncle on the shore. Then the room flashed bright, and then we were here."

"The commander will be fine. Kebetir doesn't stand a chance against him."

"I hope you're right," Urus signed. "I'm worried, though. About him, and Kest, and everything else."

Goodwyn ignored the statement and stepped to the edge of the road between two of the thick carved support columns and looked down. He turned to Urus and signed, "I can't see the bottom." He leaned back and craned his neck, looking up at the cliff. "Nor the top. Who builds a road into the side of a mountain like this?"

Urus thought about it for a moment. "If this is the only way in or out, and there's a castle up there somewhere, it's probably the most defensible position around, with even more natural defense than Kest," Urus said aloud, not feeling self-conscious about his speech when Goodwyn was the only person who could hear him.

Urus felt a pang of pain. Kest was under attack, and they might as well be on the other side of the world. He looked past Goodwyn into the crescent-shaped canyon beyond. Huge needles of stone rose from the invisible depths, poking through layers of clouds, impossibly covered in thick green mosses. A few of the needles even had a tree or two growing on top. Through the mist, dark silhouettes of enormous birds circled over the canyon. It was a beautiful sight, beyond anything he had ever seen or read about before—the air was so wet and everything was so lush and green.

So much water! There's so much water you could practically squeeze it out of the air
, Urus thought. Life in the desert taught one to appreciate every drop of water.

"Where's Murin?" Goodwyn asked.

Preoccupied by what had just happened and the change in scenery, Urus hadn't even noticed Murin's absence.
 

"Maybe he's nearby," he said. "I don't know how it's supposed to work, but maybe the door didn't put us all in the same spot. Or maybe he got here first and started walking."

Urus studied the road again; it sloped down the side of the mountain to the left and climbed up it to the right.

"Let's pick a direction and go. Standing here isn't doing anybody any good," said Goodwyn.

"Up then," Urus signed. "If Murin got here before us he's probably up there, and if he gets here later, we can wait for him. Plus, someone up there might be able to tell us where exactly 'here' is."

Goodwyn nodded, and the two started walking up the road, finding that it took a great deal of strength and concentration to ascend the steep slope on the dew-slicked stone.

"So what do you think he meant by all that stuff about the doors?" Goodwyn asked.

"I don't know; none of this makes any sense. I didn't think any harm could come from a block of stone. But a few days ago I didn't think magic was real and look at what's happened since then."

"Yeah, nothing good," said Goodwyn.

The two were soon covered in sweat, their leather armor sticking to their bodies and making it twice as hard to walk. Urus still felt like an impostor, wearing the First Fist uniform. The slope was so severe that the road was carved into switchbacks. Urus couldn't imagine the amount of work that had gone into making such a thing. Cutting a road into a cliff seemed harder than quarrying sunstone to build the Kestian palace.

"What if they're not friendly up there?" he asked, mesmerized by the giant bird shadows in the sky above the canyon.

"Only one way to find out."

"Murin said the Order was after all the doors, not just the one in Kest, right?"

Goodwyn nodded.

"What if there's a door here, and that's why we showed up where we did? The Order could be on their way to attack this place, too."

"Or they could already be here." Goodwyn stopped to let the statement sink in.

"I don't like any of this, Wyn. This isn't like when we got lost exploring in the Valley of the Dead. We're lost, and we don't even know how lost we are or if we can get back or if there's even a city to go back to."

Goodwyn crossed his arms over his chest. "Kest has never fallen and it never will. When we get back we'll see the heads of those red-bearded invaders and all the others on pikes in the square."

Urus glanced out at the sky and the crescent canyon and noticed the birds again. He pointed. "Are those birds getting bigger or closer?"

They squinted through the mist. The dark, winged shapes were definitely getting bigger. As they moved closer, Urus could make out more details, like long, skinny legs and arms.

"Those birds have arms," Goodwyn said, echoing Urus's own thoughts.

The creatures soared on the hot updrafts, coming ever closer. Urus thought it odd that they never flapped their wings, only glided on the currents.

"Those aren't birds," Urus signed. "Those are people with wings."

"That's ridiculous," Goodwyn signed unconvincingly.

One by one, five bird-men pierced the veil of clouds and emerged in clear, sun-drenched sky. Each was clad helm to boot in brilliantly gleaming bronze-colored armor that looked far too thin to be real bronze. Their cloaks spread wide over their backs and stretched taut like wings.

As they approached the road, each reared up like a horse, their cloaks deflating and folding inward. Each bird-man expertly transitioned from glide to fall to walk, making the whole process look as easy and natural as a bird landing on a perch.

"They're talking to us," Goodwyn signed.

"What are they saying?"

"I have no idea; I don't understand the language. Their face guards being down isn't helping."

The armored bird-men gesticulated and waved their arms. Urus thought it odd that they bore no weapons, at least none that he could see.

"They're yelling," Goodwyn signed.

"I can see that," Urus replied.

"This isn't going to end well," Goodwyn started, pushing Urus down the hill a little. "Stay behind me."

Urus bristled. "I may be culled, but I can still fight."

"It's not that. You just need to be right there for the next minute. Trust me."

Urus didn't understand, but then he didn't understand how they had found the stone-door room, and he didn't understand how Goodwyn had managed to navigate through the dark maze of the dungeons either.
 

He took a step down the slick stone slope and readied himself for battle.

The bird-men's flailing grew more intense. Urus watched Goodywn's mouth moving, trying to placate the strange men.

Unable to think of anything to say, Urus tried the standard tradesign for "peace". The bird-men exchanged looks, then returned to their yelling, heads bobbing and arms waving.

Urus held up his hands, showing his palms to indicate surrender or submission. This must have infuriated the bird-men, because they stopped yelling and charged. The first two to arrive seized Goodwyn by the arms. The third hung back, and the other two circled around and sprung at Urus.

Urus pivoted to his right, facing his first opponent. The bird-man raised his gauntleted fist over his head for a knockout blow. Urus surged upward, grabbing his elbow and wrist. He twisted the man's arm back, carrying him backward, bending him over until he fell.
 

Without waiting for his opponent to recover, Urus whirled and caught the other man in the throat, gripping the soft tissue not covered by armor between his thumb and forefinger. For all that armor, the joints still had to be soft to let the wearer maneuver. Those joints, as the battlemasters used to say, might as well be giant bullseyes.

The second opponent dropped, grabbing his throat and gasping for air. Urus turned and kicked the first man in the head as he attempted to regain his footing. The other thing the battlemasters used to say was that men in heavy armor were like men wearing turtle shells; knock them on their backs and they are just as helpless.

Urus looked to see how Goodwyn was doing just as a glinting armored body flew through the air, close enough to his head that he felt the metal pull against his hair. If Urus had been standing a few inches further uphill, he would have been dead and likely headless.

Clearly Goodwyn did not need any help.

Within seconds, Urus and Goodwyn stood over a pile of rolling, injured bird-men, their armor shining on the outside but the wearers soundly defeated and bruised on the inside.

Urus bent and pulled the helmet off one of the downed soldiers, hoping that perhaps being able to look the man in the eyes might help. He had to hold onto the hope that this was just a misunderstanding and these soldiers weren't the Order or working for them, like the armies that besieged Kest.

The bird man's helmet came off easily, revealing the pale white face of a young boy beneath long, sweat-soaked blond hair. The boy looked to be a year or two Urus's junior.

"They're just boys," Urus signed.

"Your hideous face must have scared them into fighting," Goodwyn responded, forcing a grin.

Urus extended his hand to help the boy up, hoping this gesture wouldn't be as easily misunderstood as his first attempt.

Tentatively, the boy accepted his hand, and Urus hauled him up. The others managed to right themselves and stand, each removing their helmets. All five of their attackers were younger than Urus and Goodwyn.

Before anyone could say anything, not that it would have been understood anyway, four more cloak-winged men landed on the road, these bearing long, curved swords fastened to their hips. One of the new arrivals stepped forward, this one wearing several multicolored stripes of fabric across his breastplate. He pulled off his helmet and held it in the crook of his arm, a welcoming smile spreading beneath a blond, short-trimmed beard and mustache.

He said something that Urus couldn't make out by lipreading. A quick glance at Goodwyn confirmed it wasn't in any language they understood.

Urus shook his head, then repeated the tradesign symbol for "peace".

This time the leader of the bird-men shrugged. At least they could finally agree on something—that they had no clue what the other was saying.

He tried to speak again, each time in a language Urus couldn't read on his lips and that Goodwyn didn't understand. Finally, on the third attempt, the boys recognized Adosian, the common language of the continent of Ehmshahr, home to Kest.

Goodwyn and Urus exchanged encouraged glances and nodded they understood.

"Two boys from Ehmshahr are certainly a long, long way from home. I am sorry for the way my cadets treated you. They mistook your appearance for enemies," said the man in slow, broken Adosian.

Urus and Goodwyn looked at each other, wondering what might have antagonized the boys. Urus's gaze stopped at Goodwyn's suzur and the two full dagger sheaths on the sides of his boots. Then he remembered the two maces hung from his waist and similar daggers in his own boots. Compared to standard Kestian gear, the boys were poorly equipped and barely carrying any weapons. The pair would have no trouble being admitted to most holy shrines wearing those weapons.

We look about as intimidating as a pair of mice
, Urus thought. But he noticed that even the adult soldiers only bore a single weapon, which seemed odd.

"No harm done," Goodwyn said, also in Adosian, forcing a polite smile.

"To you, perhaps. My cadets may need a few days to recover, though I imagine their pride hurts more than their bodies," the leader said as his cadets took up positions behind him, avoiding eye contact with the newcomers.

Goodwyn introduced himself and Urus. "We mean no harm."

"My name is Knight Marshall Corliss Tudell. Welcome to Waldron," he said. "Come, you can tell me your story on our way up to the city. We have a long walk ahead."

10

"Magic?" Corliss scoffed after listening to their tale. "Look, boys, I enjoy a good story as much as anyone else, but I am a busy man and don't have time to waste on bards' tales like this one. Magic is a fairytale, a myth, the bedtime stories you tell your children. I've seen a jester turn an egg into a chicken, but we all know it's just a trick." Corliss focused mostly on Goodwyn as he spoke. That was fine with Urus. So far he hadn't needed to speak, and that was just as well. He just wanted to find a way back to Kest and to his uncle and get out of this hot, strange wet place.