Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (15 page)

When the ledge finally ran out in a stand of scrubby wind-distorted pine trees, Kael stopped and pointed down into a ravine. ‘There.’

Sor peered over the edge. ‘A waterfall?’ he growled. ‘You climbed down a frozen waterfall? At night? In a blizzard?’

Kael shrugged. ‘I strung a rope. It’s only a furlong or so.’

‘Slaine’s stones!’

Duncan leaned over the edge and found Kael’s rope, which had been knotted at intervals for a sure grip. He shook it clear of snow then gave it a firm tug. ‘Seems secure enough,’ he said. ‘Shall I go first?’

‘No, I’ll go,’ said Sor, slinging his strung bow over his shoulder to leave both hands free. ‘Then if I fall off the rest of you will have a soft landing.’

Duncan suppressed a smile. ‘Still no head for heights?’

Muttering, his brother climbed over the rocks and gingerly began to walk himself hand-over-hand down the glassy wall of the gorge. Dislodged snow and ice fragments pattered into the dark below him, and in moments he was lost from view. After a few more minutes the rope slackened.

‘He’s down,’ said Duncan, with a sigh of relief. ‘Cara, you go next. I’ll follow you, then Kael.’

The young clanswoman took only a fraction of Sor’s time, vaulting onto the rocks and over the edge as nimbly as a goat. Once her weight was off the rope, Duncan took a firm hold and stepped up to the edge. Feet braced on the rock, he leaned back into space, holding the rope as tightly as his cold-stiffened hands would allow. Beside him, the waterfall groaned like a restless sleeper. Carefully setting his feet on the ice-slick gorge wall, he began to walk himself down.

The rock was rimed with ice but the more confidently he placed his feet, the less his boots seemed to slip. In only a few minutes he felt a hand on his shoulder and there was Cara crouched on a jagged pile of rocks by the foot of the waterfall to steady him as he found his feet. His arms and shoulders burned when he let go of the rope, his heart thudding painfully in his chest.

‘That was exhilarating,’ he said, hopping down into a deep drift. He peered through the swirling veils of snow for Sor and saw him crouched by the keep wall, his cloak and dark hair already almost white.

Duncan waded through the creaking drifts to join him and his brother flung out a hand. ‘Watch the ice!’ he hissed. ‘You’re on the river.’

Duncan stopped in his tracks. Through his boots he felt the faintest vibration and imagined black water rushing under his feet. He made the rest of the journey more cautiously, then crouched down next to Sor as the snow whispered around them.

‘Kael was right,’ his brother said, voice pitched low. ‘Unless you’ve got sentries along the wall up there, this spot’s not overlooked. We’re clear to the next watchtower.’ The other two joined them and Sor motioned Kael forward. ‘You take the lead, since you’ve been here before.’

Single file, they followed the scar-faced clansman along the wall. Snow eddied around them, thickening then lifting to reveal the pale rib-bone of the bridge over the river that carried the road from one side of the valley to the other and then up to the keep. The road itself was invisible, barely a dip in the dense white blanket covering the valley bottom.

At the watchtower’s bulky footings, Kael held up his hand and they halted. Motioning the other clansmen to stay back, he crept around the buttress, his footfalls almost silent in the deep drifts.

Duncan peered around the snow-crusted stone after him, but Kael’s dark shape was already fading into the blizzarded dark. If one of the Nimrothi scouts looked out of the tower window before he got into the lee of the gatehouse turret some two furlongs further along the south wall, he would be seen. Duncan strained to make out the firelight at the window, but at such an acute angle it was hidden from him. Besides, between the night and the snowfall he could barely even make out the shape of the tower. He hoped they would hide him as well as they hid the scouts’ fire.

‘Is he clear?’ whispered Sor.

‘I can’t see him.’

His brother swore.

‘Should we follow?’ asked Cara.

‘He’ll signal when he’s safe,’ Sor said. ‘Duncan?’

Duncan peered around the buttress again, just in time to see a snowball arc out of the dark. It burst harmlessly on his right shoulder, showering his face with chilly crystals. ‘That’ll be the signal, then,’ he spluttered.

Quickly, quietly, they moved around the buttress and along the base of the wall. Snow creaked under their boots, alarmingly loud in the cold mountain air. Then it was done, and they jammed themselves into the lee of the gatehouse tower with Kael.

He held a finger to his lips for silence and led them swiftly under the looming arch to the gatehouse entrance. The door was long rotted away, but some sacking had been rigged up across the arch from inside. Kael eased it aside and vanished into the shadows. Hooves shifted against stone inside, then were still. One by one the remaining clansmen followed him.

Inside the guardhouse the darkness was absolute and Duncan waited for his eyes to adjust before he dared move. He smelled dung and horse, sensed large shapes in a small space. Gradually his eyes found the glow seeping down the stairs from the fire above. As his eyes became accustomed to the dimness, he picked out the edges of curving steps, the silhouette of a horse’s ears sharpening against it.

The sound of steel on leather made him twitch. Someone touched his arm, then Kael, knife in hand, padded up the first few steps, silent in his soft boots. Duncan made to follow him and slipped in a fresh horse-apple. He stumbled against the flank of the nearest animal and it whickered, stepping out of his way. Kael froze on the stairs, bared teeth bright, knife winking orange. Heart racing, Duncan stroked the horse’s back to soothe it. No sound came from higher in the tower except a snap from the fire. Kael eased up another step and Duncan could breathe again.

His relief did not last. Before his feet had found the second step, Cara gripped his arm. He stopped and looked back at her. She cupped a hand around her ear and jerked her head towards the gatehouse doorway, where Sor had an eye pressed to a gap at the edge of the sacking. They’d heard something.

Listening intently, he picked up the rhythmic creak of saddle harness. The snow muffled the hoofbeats too well to make an accurate count, but there were at least two more mounted men outside. As he listened, straining his ears above the singing of his own blood, the hooves stopped.

More scouts, but how many?
How many?
He grabbed Cara’s shoulder, pointed at Sor and made a beckoning gesture, but his brother was already crossing the guardhouse floor, silent as a thief, and they climbed the stairs to join Kael a full turn above, out of sight of the lowest level. A pitchwood torch had been wedged into the crumbling mortar between two stones. Sor looked around, gathering their attention, and held up a hand with three fingers extended.

Duncan clenched his jaw. If their count was right, three more made five: one apiece and one for the pot. He drew his knife and pushed his cloak back off his shoulders out of the way, then Sor stabbed his finger in the direction of the upper level. Kael took the stairs two at a time with Cara on his heels.

From below someone shouted a greeting, his Nimrothi accent too thick to pick out the individual words. One of the two above answered. Boots scraped on stone and the light above brightened. A cry of alarm became a gurgle, then Duncan was running up the stairs as hard as he could.

He shouldered the swinging door aside and burst into the tower room in time to see Kael lowering a kicking Nimrothi warrior to the floor as Cara retrieved her knives from a body on the far side of the fireplace. Sor pushed past him and all four turned to face the doorway as feet pounded up the stairs.

Two Nimrothi clansmen burst through the door with shortbows drawn, flanking a third man who had a long knife in each fist. For a heartbeat no one moved, then the shortbows came up.

‘Stand fast!’ Sor bellowed, but the bows kept lifting.

One of Cara’s knives flashed across the room and took a bowman in the shoulder, sending him reeling backwards into the wall and his arrow tumbling across the stone floor. Kael charged the other and he misfired, the arrow shattering into splinters against the opposite wall. The third man lunged for Sor. A sweeping leg took the fellow’s feet from under him and Sor danced out of the way as the man rolled and was back on his feet as quick as a cat.

Duncan looped his arm around the man’s neck from behind and rested his knifepoint on his cheek. ‘Don’t,’ he said in the Nimrothi’s ear.

The warrior smelled of sweat and mountain air. He struggled but Duncan had the advantage of height and tightened his arm across the fellow’s throat. ‘Easy, now.’

The Nimrothi spat an obscenity but lowered his knives. Cara twisted them out of his hands and tucked them through her belt.

Kael wiped his own dagger on the coat of the bowman he’d tackled then sheathed it. On the far side of the doorway, the man Cara had brought down slumped against the wall, blood trickling from his mouth.

‘Barely breathing,’ Kael said. ‘He won’t last.’ With casual efficiency, he broke the man’s neck.

Sor clicked his tongue. ‘Now I can’t ask him any questions.’

‘He was dead anyway. You’ve got a live one – how many do you need? I’ll see to their horses.’ Kael trotted down the stairs without a backward glance.

‘That man,’ Sor muttered. ‘Sometimes, I swear—’ Raking a hand through his hair, he swung around to face Duncan and his prisoner. ‘All right, you can let him go. Cara, watch him.’

She grinned and twirled a knife through her fingers for the Nimrothi’s benefit. The man swallowed, looking warily between her and Sor as Duncan released his neck and stepped back. Then Cara frowned, glance flicking from him to the first two to die.

‘He’s Amhain,’ she said, pointing at the small bird tattooed on the man’s cheek. ‘Those two are Crainnh.’

‘Two clans,’ Sor said. ‘Interesting.’ He cast around the small room and found a crude stool that had been overturned in the fight. Righting it, he sat down and folded his arms. ‘Tell me how that came about and maybe I’ll let you live.’

The Nimrothi gave no sign that he’d understood, even though the words were spoken in a tongue that their two peoples had once shared. A wilful misunderstanding, then. Frowning, Sor repeated his question,

This time the prisoner sneered. ‘I’ll tell you nothing.’

He pursed his lips to spit and Duncan punched him in the kidney. The man staggered and glowered at him. Duncan held up his dagger. ‘Be glad I didn’t use this. Now answer the question.’

Still the Nimrothi said nothing.

Sor sighed. ‘This could be a long night, brother.’

‘At least we’re warm and dry.’

‘That’s true enough.’ Stretching out his feet towards the fire, Sor crossed his ankles. ‘You saw the face of the fellow who killed your friends, yes?’ he said. ‘Answer my questions or I’ll hand you over to him, see if he can loosen your tongue. Your choice.’

The Nimrothi’s glower lost some of its intensity. ‘The chief sent us to scout the pass.’

Leaning forward, Duncan jabbed his stiffened fingers at the fellow’s bruised kidney. ‘Tell us something we don’t already know, or you’ll be pissing blood for a week.’

The man shied, hurt and hate twisting his face to something murderous. ‘Faithless bastard!’

Sor clicked his tongue. ‘Answer the question.’

‘He wanted to know if the passes were clear, prove there were no iron men in the mountains.’ Eyeing Duncan truculently, he added, ‘He means to ride the war band south.’

Now that was interesting. ‘Whose chief?’ Duncan asked. ‘Yours?’

‘Drwyn of the Crainnh. He’ll be sworn Chief of Chiefs at the Scattering.’

‘He’ll go the way of Gwlach if he tries,’ Cara snorted.

‘And you’d do a Wolf’s bidding? A Stone Crow?’ Uncrossing his legs, Sor studied the fellow, blue eyes shrewd as a horse-trader’s.

‘If it means we take back what was stolen from us by the likes of you, aye, I would, and full willing!’

Over the Amhain’s shoulder, Duncan shot a look at his brother, trying to catch his eye. He had that itching, crawling sensation at the base of his spine that meant things were about to get more than simply interesting. He flexed his fingers around the haft of his knife to settle his grip, just in case.

The Nimrothi had found some confidence now and his voice dripped contempt like poison. ‘Sold your honour for safety, didn’t you?’ he sneered. ‘Gave up your balls and your freedom for the Empire’s leash. Where’re your iron men now, eh? These forts are empty and have been for generations – the Wild Hunt will carve up your precious Empire like so much tripe for the dogs!’

Duncan’s blood froze. Across the room, his brother’s face grew very still. ‘The Wild Hunt?’ he repeated.

‘The Speakers summoned the shade of the Raven and bargained for Her aid – Her Hounds are already running, and there’s no one’s skirts for you to hide behind this time,’ the fellow spat. ‘We will take back our home!’

So Kael had been right. The Hound they’d tracked these last few weeks was Maegern’s, and loosed a-purpose.
Slaine’s stones
.

For a long moment there was no sound in the tower room but the crackle of the fire and the dead weight of the Amhain’s words settling into everyone’s minds. Then Sor pushed himself to his feet and refolded his arms.

‘That’s quite a boast, friend,’ he said mildly. ‘You’re sure of this?’

‘Sure enough.’

‘You saw this summoning with your own eyes?’

‘No. Only the Speakers and the chiefs were there, and they told us after.’ Pride drew the Nimrothi up to his full height, no longer hunched by the pain in his kidney. ‘Eirdubh himself gave me the command to come, and when Eirdubh rides with Drwyn, the Stone Crow clan rides with him.’

Duncan’s sense of unease intensified. There was no time to waste; the Warlord had to be warned. ‘Sor,’ he began, unable to stay silent.

His brother quieted him with a gesture. ‘And the other clans? They’ll swear to this Drwyn, too?’

‘They’ll swear.’

‘How many?’

‘All seventeen.’

‘And how many men under arms?’