She went down the rest of the way, to the floor of the tower. There was nowhere else to go from there except outside or back into the main structure. Wrapping the cloak tightly about her body, she went out the door and into the courtyard. A scattering of Goblins was at work, but none of them even bothered to glance over at her. She walked swiftly across the open ground to the nearest door, opened it, and ducked inside.
Now she was in a building backed up against the next wall leading out, a storeroom for weapons and armor, and she passed through it to a door on the other side and down the corridor beyond. The corridor twisted and turned through the building as she followed it, and soon she was hopelessly lost. She kept searching for a stairway leading underground, but found none. Her plan of escape was rapidly coming apart.
Finally, she found a door that opened into the next courtyard. But there were demonwolves everywhere, prowling the grounds and lying in the shade, dozens of them, huge gray beasts with thick ruffs about their necks and jaws strong enough to snap a spear handle. She glanced at them just long enough to measure the danger before shutting the door. If she had the use of her magic, she wouldn't have worried. Without it, she was no match for them.
But she had to get across the courtyard if she was to escape. There wasn't any other way.
She opened the door and looked out again, searching for an overhead walkway that would connect the two walls. There wasn't one, or at least one that she could see. Nor was there any indication of any other way across.
She closed the door again and stood there, trying to think what she could do.
In the next instant, the cry of alarm she had been dreading rose from behind her, the thunder of a drum followed by the deep moan of a horn. She didn't mistake it for anything other than what it was, and without another thought, she went out the door and started across the courtyard for the far wall. Instantly, the demonwolves glanced over at her, but she didn't look back at them, keeping her eyes directed straight ahead, trying to act as if she belonged, moving for the closest escape.
Just a few minutes were all she needed.
Behind her, the warning continued to sound, and now Goblins were appearing all along the battlements atop the walls on either side, turning this way and that, searching. She kept moving, trying not to let her panic take control of her, trying to stay calm.
She reached the door and grasped the handle to open it. The door was locked.
Without pausing, she turned toward the next door down, walking quickly to reach it. But by then the demonwolves were moving, their suspicions aroused. Heads lowered, ruffs standing up like bunched quills, muzzles drawing back to reveal the rows of teeth concealed behind, they advanced on her. The first low growls and snarls came from their throats. Alerted by the sounds, a pair of Goblins on the wall behind her stopped to look down into the courtyard.
A huge wolf positioned itself directly in front of the door she was trying to reach and turned to face her. She stopped at once, a mistake. The wolf snarled defiantly, sensing that she was either afraid or intimidated. She turned back the other way, but more wolves were closing in, blocking her passage, and trapping her. On the walls, other Goblins were gathering, staring down at her.
She was finished, she knew, unless she used her magic.
She reached quickly for the conjure collar to release its clasp, but couldn't find the catch. Frantically, she searched its length for a buckle, for any telltale bit of metal. Nothing. The wolves drew closer, openly menacing now, teeth showing as they stalked her. The closest was no more than ten yards away. She had no choice. Even with the conjure collar in place, she would have to use her magic to defend herself.
«Haahhh!» she growled at the wolves, making a quick warding gesture that caused them to fall back.
She advanced on them as if she meant to punish them and, uncertain as to what she might do, they gave way to her. They were creatures of the Straken Lord, after all, and it had trained them to do its bidding. At some point, punishment had been a part of that training. As fierce as they were, they couldn't completely ignore the responses that had been conditioned in them.
Her audacity froze them in place, but only for a moment. It was enough. By then she was back at the first door she had tried, her one chance at escape. She was discovered, and if she couldn't get through the door, her captors would be on her in moments. She quit looking at the walls and the wolves. She ignored the shouts and growls that rose behind her. She quit thinking about anything but the door. Bracing herself, she summoned the magic of the wishsong to break free of her prison.
But the minute the first strains of the magic rose within her, the conjure collar reacted with blinding pain that seized her throat in a paralyzing grip and froze her vocal cords. The pain was instantaneous, and it rushed through her with relentless purpose, knocking her backwards with its force, sapping her strength and numbing her mind. Caught in the terrible grip of the collar's magic, she stiffened and screamed soundlessly, unable to help herself in any way.
She went down in a heap in the dusty courtyard, tumbling into blackness, lost to everything but the pain and an unmistakable sense of failure that trailed after her through the gathering dark like a death shroud.
Twelve
Pen Ohmsford and his companions sailed theSkatelow through the northeast skies over the foothills fronting the Charnal Mountains in search of the village of Taupo Rough and Ker–madec. Finding the former would provide them with a temporary haven, — the latter, with the guide they needed to reach Stridegate. As Maturen of the Taupo Rough Rock Trolls, it was within Kermadec's power to give them the aid they required in their search for the Ard Rhys. The Trolls might be reluctant to help outlanders in most situations, but where it concerned Grianne Ohmsford, Kermadec would see that an exception was made.
It took them the remainder of the night, but they were sailing at quarter speed, slow enough that they could track movement on the ground and watch the horizon for shadows that didn't belong. Caution was needed, for there were things hunting them besides the Druids, and they were all too aware of how desperate their circumstances had become. They were lucky to have escaped the creature that had killed Gar Hatch and his Rovers and taken Cinnaminson as prisoner, and they were reasonably sure it was not done tracking them. But even if they avoided that particular monster, there was nothing to say that others hadn't been sent to hunt them, as well. At flight from a world in which all the safety nets they had once relied on had been taken down, they could not afford to make a mistake.
The boy came back on deck after Cinnaminson was asleep and, with Khyber's help, took down the bodies of Gar Hatch and his Rover cousins, wrapped them in sheeting, and stowed them below–decks for burial at a later time. Then he relieved Tagwen at the helm. While he checked theSkatelow's course and speed, he repeated to the Dwarf and the Elven girl what Cinnaminson had told him. For a while afterwards, no one said much of anything. Tagwen offered to take the wheel back so that Pen could get some sleep, but the boy insisted on staying at the helm through the night, just in case his flying experience might be needed for evasive action. Having gotten Cinnaminson back in one piece, he was not about to chance losing her again to carelessness of his own making.
So Khyber and Tagwen slept instead, and Pen was still at the helm when dawn broke in a slow brightening of the skies through gaps in a wall of massive peaks that rose before them. The stars and moon had gone, and the darkness was receding west, the new day a promise of the possibility, at least, of something better and safer. Pen's eyes were gritty and blurred by then, and his need for sleep was acute. When Tagwen appeared with a simple breakfast of bread and cheese he had scavenged from the supply room below, the boy was so grateful he could barely speak. He ate ravenously and, after looking in on Cinnaminson to be sure she was all right, went off to bed.
He awoke near midday when Khyber shook his shoulder and told him to come on deck. «1 think we've found Taupo Rough,' she announced with a grin. «Come see.»
He rose and went topside, finding Cinnaminson there, as well, come awake a few hours earlier to join the Elven girl and the Dwarf in the pilot box. Looking out over the ship's bow to the landscape below, he saw a cluster of dark stone buildings and walls stacked in close proximity to one another on a low bluff and backed up against a cliff face that was riddled with caves connected by ladders and walkways. His initial impression was of a warren
