Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

It was metal, foul smelling, flaking off rusted bits in her hands. She let it slide on down into the sludge about her feet where turgid water swallowed it up without sound. Alon was at work again, and it was not too long before a second bar, torn from its setting, was freed, dropped, and likewise disappeared.

They might be striving to force entrance into a totally deserted building, and the very fact that they heard nothing, saw no sign of any guards, was to Tirtha a source of continued uneasiness. Those within might know very well that their prey was coming to them, resting at ease, needing only to wait. Yet what other recourse had she and her companions?

A third bar was freed. Then Alon dropped down from his perch to report in the thinnest of whispers:

“There is now a full opening, and I felt within. It is a foul place, but it is clear. There are even hand holds on the walls. Perhaps the lord here once planned a way of escape for a bad time.”

“That could be true,” murmured the Falconer. Tirtha could also understand the logic. Had this moat not been half dammed off from the river by the fallen wall and if, instead, the water in it had been up over the old markings they had felt as they had come, the opening would have been below the surface, completely masked. A determined or desperate in-dweller could well use it secretly. However, she eyed this particular door to Hawkholme with little favor. This opening was narrow, it was good that they had gone short of rations recently, and that she had always been thin, with few curves to plump out her jerkin or leggings. She wondered if the Falconer could force entrance, but, like all his breed, he was wiry, not thick of body.

“I go first,” Tirtha declared firmly. “But how will you reach it?” She looked to the Falconer; he could give her a hand up as he had Alon, but who could do the same for him?

“There will be a way.” He spoke with such confidence that Tirtha knew he was sure of his own ability. He caught her quickly under the arms to lift her, steadying her body against the wall until she thrust her hands into the mouth of the drain. One arm scraped across a broken space from which Alon had loosed a bar. She groped frantically within, seeking those holds Alon said existed. Then one hand, digging deep into noisome, crusty filth, hooked into what was manifestly a loop. A moment later she discovered its twin on the opposite side.

Tirtha was grateful for past hard work in the fields. What she had learned on Estcarp farms gave her the strength needed. Had she not had those years of hard physical work behind her, she could never have fought her way up that hidden ladder where the stench near choked her, her hair and garments rendered sodden and thick with foulness. Her cloak she had left bound to her saddle, and she was glad of that, for its folds would never have allowed her passage. As it was she felt the harsh rasp of stone against her leather garments, with now and then a painful scrape on her skin.

Luckily the way was not straight up but slanted. And Tirtha discovered, once inside the hole, she could feel ahead for each hold, drawing herself along more easily than she would have believed possible, though it was a worm’s progress. The nastiness of the foul encrustation choked her, so that she could only hope that the exit lay not too far ahead.

In the dark she could move only by touch. Also the stench grew even thicker, though this drain had been abandoned for many years. Finally, her hand hit against a solid barrier and she could have cried out in her dismay. Holding on with one hand, she clawed along that surface. The drain took an abrupt turn here.

The long slant, up which she had worked her way, ended in a right-angled space. Above that there seemed to be nothing but solid roof. She refused to let herself panic. She ran first one hand and then the other back and forth across the barrier. Her third such try brought success. She knocked loose a solid cake of encrustation, enough so that once more her fingers hooked into a space that felt carved to receive just such a grip.

First she bore down, dragging with all her might, to no purpose. Must she believe that, if there had ever been an opening here, it was now impossible to move? A last desperate try made her shove instead of pull. There was a grating sound. So heartened, Tirtha changed hands again quickly and put all the effort she could into a full sidewise push. Stationed so awkwardly, able to work only with one hand, she fought stubbornly. There was a give, the barrier moved, though with a louder grating that winged her heart to a faster beat. She held on for a wild moment, five fingers gripped on the sliding panel, the other hand flailing out into an open space. Then she was able to hook that hand over an edge and pull herself up with a wrench that took what seemed the last flare of her strength. Her head and shoulders rose into clean air as she flopped across the edge of a stone bench onto the floor of a narrow chamber in the heart of the wall itself.

A cool rush of night air struck at her as Tirtha pulled herself around to face the fissure in the wall through which that welcome breeze came. This must be the upper floor of the main dwelling chambers wherein the family had once had their private apartments. She scrambled to her feet, feeling about her. Her outflung hand broke a remnant of charred wood, as she stumbled into a narrow hall. The far end of it showed faint light, radiating from far below. Sighting this, Tirtha crouched, trying to still the gasps of air she had been drawing into her lungs, as if such sounds might betray her to any keeping vigil by that distant gleam of light.

Sounds from the wall chamber marked Alon’s arrival in turn. The boy moved out to clutch at Tirtha’s shoulder. They leaned against the wall together, intent upon the far end of the hall, until the Falconer joined them. With him came light, dim and wan yet visible. The pommel of the power weapon was awakening.

Again Tirtha left the other two, to slip along that wall. She passed yawning caverns on her right where more burnt wood marked doors to chambers, but those were not important. She had to reach the Great Hall. Only from there could she trace the steps to be taken for conclusion of her mission. And surely the Great Hall would be the one place where their enemies within would be.

Corridor’s end gave upon a staircase circling about a center core, winding steeply downward, the steps narrow edges of stone. There was a groove cut in the wall about this formidable coil of descent, perhaps to provide a hand hold.

At the foot of the spiral was a lamp in a niche, a basin of stone with a wick fed into it through a hole in the loose lid. The light it gave was limited, but that any here had seen fit to light this stair at all was a warning, one that Tirtha thought it well to heed. She hesitated at the top of that well-like way. Only one person at a time could descend, and if a guard waited below, out of sight…

She became aware of a soft rustle and glanced back. By the eerie light of the Falconer’s weapon, she saw that the bird which accompanied him was again perched on the man’s shoulder. Its head was extended well forward as it also stared down.

The presence of the lamp bothered Tirtha. Since they had come into the upper hall, the place had been utterly silent. Though these walls were thick, much of the interior had clearly been destroyed by fire and sounds should carry. Such quiet only meant to her that the three of them were, in spite of Alon’s earlier reassurance, not only expected but that a trap awaited them. She edged away from the stairway, then wondered if that was exactly how she was expected to reason—that the lamp below was set so as to make them take another path.

A hand caught hers, startling her, pulling her down so that she was on a level with the boy.