Chris Northern - The Last King's Amulet

I reached for the bottle and Sapphire frowned as I upended it. “What will you do when you run out?”

“Drink beer.”

“You will have to face them someday.”

I shook my head. “When I have an army around me they can come.”

He made no response and we rode on down a narrow avenue between fenced enclosures. There were fires everywhere, in every camp, and the cattle were restless, noisy. They pushed against the fences here and there but the enclosures looked stout enough to prevent stampede. The wood of them was old and had seen use before. I guessed they were stored in the stronghold and only assembled in times such as these.

“I'd like to get some news,” I said.

He made a random gesture to the sprawling camps. There were thousands of people to ask. Go ahead, he didn't say, go talk to anyone you like, they'll all have news.

“He'll be in the stronghold,” I said.

Sapphire nodded.

“This is madness.”

He turned to look at me. “You only just thought that?”

The makeshift villages were largest toward the center of things. In the shadow of the stronghold there was a dense ring of them melding into each other. We sold the horses. We could always steal others if we needed them. I had imagined the Eyrie as I had read of it; a vast empty walled pasture with a sparsely populated stronghold at the middle. What I got was the whole Alendi nation crushed into a couple of square miles. A hundred thousand people or more. Getting him out of the stronghold, which would be equally full, would only be half of it. We could make him disappear for a while amongst so many, maybe, but ultimately we had to get him through the gates and no one was going to be leaving for a while.

We set up our new tents in sight of the gate to the stronghold amongst a hundred others and settled down to watch and think. We took it in turns to look and watch, sitting either side of a small fire, swapping places occasionally. There was a moat about the stronghold and a narrow bridge wide enough for one man to walk across comfortably. It was of wood and could be burned. The gate was small, also. Just a door, really. The stronghold was low and square. I remembered what I had read of the inside. A courtyard, surrounded by forges, and a single building running all around the walls and as high. In essence the walls were the building, peppered with arrow slits. A small army could stand on the roof and repel attackers. I measured one wall's length by eye, making it just under three hundred feet. Guessing the courtyard was half the size that made one hundred and fifty by three hundred twice, or ninety thousand feet, and one hundred and fifty by one hundred and fifty twice, or forty five thousand. One hundred and thirty five thousand square feet. Well, let's say it takes three feet square for a man to stand and fight, that would give enough room for fifteen thousand men on the roof. Not that they could all fight of course. That would be…

“Thinking of climbing in?”

“Eh? Oh, no. We would be seen for certain.” I looked back at the bridge. There was a guard detail, four men, passing people on and turning them back in equal measure. Clearly you had to have business inside if you wanted to pass. Most of the men coming out carried bundles of arrows and assorted weapons. Some carried food. What I was trying to get an idea of was what the magic word was. Who was passed and who turned back.

My attention drifted back to the roof. That would be only four hundred men usefully at the wall at any one time. That didn't seem enough out of fifteen thousand. Had I calculated right? Fifteen thousand sounded like a lot. Would the roof hold under their weight?

“My turn,” Sapphire said.

I nodded absently and changed places with him.

“Wake up.” A kick in the ribs reinforced the instruction. “Now!”

It was the middle of the night. The air was full of the already familiar sounds of cattle making the noises they make multiplied by thousands and spread out in the night. As I struggled to awaken I could hear the sounds that the dogs made in their sleep, the odd whimper, the occasional sleepy growl. I ignored them. I'd have a drink in a minute. I felt about as rough as I ever had and really didn't want to be awake.

“We are going in, or I am.”

I moved. No way he was leaving me alone. I needed this if I were not to be damned to poverty forever, a patron with no influence or money and one ex-slave as a client. A disgraced exile living on charity in a foreign land. It took a while to get up. My whole body was stiff and complained at me and my head throbbed, my stomach threatened to rebel. I could hear the dogs faintly, whimpering and whining in their sleep. Thank god they were asleep. I still needed a drink.

“Now?” I asked blearily.

He pointed. Torches lit the night, a procession of men were crossing the bridge, a throng of them waiting to follow. No one was checking them, no one was passing them. They were going in en masse and were expected. I nodded. Easy to tack on the end and just walk in.

“Now,” I agreed, and we went.

Torches lit the scene, the flames reflected in the dark water of the moat, pooling round each torch bearer, dancing on the walls of the stronghold. As the barbarians walked across the bridge in single file the crowd clustered at our side of the bridge was slowly thinning. We tacked ourselves onto the back of the group that waited their turn without incident, and stepped out onto the bridge when it came around to our turn. Ahead of us they passed through the small gate one at a time, torchlight dancing inside and fading, dancing and fading, until it was our turn to pass inside, Sapphire ahead of me and no one behind apart from four bored guards who had eyed us disinterestedly. The bridge was wide enough so that one man could walk without difficulty, but not so wide that two could pass or walk together without risk of being pitched into the dark waters only five feet or so below. I was relieved to make it to the end of the bridge.

A long corridor stretched away from the door, and to either side narrow but tall passages led inside the wall, all lit by torches paced at twenty foot intervals. It must have been fifty or sixty feet away, the doorway where Sheo stood facing us in the broad doorway, watching the new arrivals impassively, our gazes meeting for an instant. He didn't react but I froze for a moment, a thrill of anticipation running through me, before I stepped out of his line of sight. No half-expected shout of alarm followed me. I tried to imagine what he would do, tried to guess what he was thinking; was Kukran Epthel here? Was Sheo still in thrall to him? Would Sheo send men after me? I strode after Sapphire, my heart hammering in my chest, nerves frayed. He had moved silently into one of the side passages and ghosted along the corridor ahead of me, moving fast, passing in and out of light and gloom; and I followed, less assured, head pounding and belly rebelling. Our own shadows danced around us. He turned a corner and I sped after him. Sheo is here, I wanted to yell. He saw me! But yelling didn't seem like a brilliant idea under the circumstances so I hurried to catch him, holding in the fear, aware that Sheo had not instantly raised the alarm, hoping he was free of Kukran's influence, an ally, biding his time, or perhaps that Kukran was destroyed and Sheo here for some other reason. The fear of the unknown was almost worse than the fear that we would be discovered and find ourselves back in the power of the lich. The thought of that made me shudder. Dubaku was not invisibly near to save us. This time we would face Kukran alone.

When I turned the corridor, Sapphire's forearm was locked around the throat of an Alendi, his free arm gripping a wrist to keep that one from reaching his knife. Red faced and eyes bulging the Alendi struggled and failed to break free.