see a thing. I squinted and tried to blink away the involuntary tears. But it cost me a lot of pain before I finally got used to it and could look at the world normally.
The light streaming from the ceiling more than sixty yards above my head was like the light of the evening sun shining through the leaves of a dense forest. It was something warm, gentle, not too bright, and, of course (after the gloom of the catacombs), unbelievably beautiful. This was probably the first time in a week of strolling through the Palaces of Bone that I felt grateful to the architects and magicians who had created such a miracle in one of the deep caverns.
The cave was so large that someone had even built a little fortress in it.
Yes, yes! An absolutely genuine fortress!
Walls about twelve yards high, gates torn off their posts and shattered. Four ethereally elegant towers with spires as sharp as spears. (Correction—three with spires; the fourth seemed to have been flattened by a magical fist: all that was left of it was a stump.)
Another tower set right at the very center, with the same architecture as the other four, but incomparably larger. If someone suddenly got the urge to move in there and set up defenses, even professional soldiers would have a hard time trying to storm the fortifications (in my ignorant view as a thief).
The reason I hadn’t noticed the citadel straightaway was that its walls were almost the same color as the walls of the cave. I had to walk a long way before I reached this bastion that was sited so mysteriously, tramping along the reddish path that wound its way between the tall outcrops of stone sprouting up all over the floor like fingers. The path was littered with fine fragments of stone and every now and then one of them crunched under the soles of my boots.
When I got closer, I realized there was no way to go round the fortress. Its walls ran into the walls of the cave, and without the lost cobweb-rope, there was no way I could storm a barrier that was twelve yards high.
The only way to get to the other side was to walk through that yawning gap and hope there were gates on the other side of the fortifications, too.
I wasn’t exactly happy with the idea of going inside. There were far too many bones outside the entrance.
They were fearfully old … many of the dead had arrows stuck between their ribs. The archers defending the place had reaped a rich harvest. There were plenty of weapons, but they were so old and rusty that the touch of a boot was enough to make them crumble into dust.
Shields, helmets, bows with their strings rotted away, armor with barely visible engravings of a Black Rose, a Black Flame, a Black Stone, a White Leaf, or White Water. Elves from the dark and light houses, who had fought shoulder to shoulder, attacking the fortress.
And I knew the only enemy the elfin houses could reunite against. It had to be their eternal and most important enemy, their closest relatives—the orcs. There was a battering ram lying beside the smashed gates.
I stood there weighing up my chances, then sighed and took out the crossbow. I removed one of the ordinary bolts and replaced it with an ice bolt. There was nothing else for it; I had to go back or go on into the fortress.
Surprisingly enough, nothing grabbed me, either in the gateway or the narrow corridor with loopholes for firing arrows at uninvited guests. Now there were old bones crunching under my feet instead of small stones. The elves had been given a warm reception in here, too. The corridor smelled of mold and damp from the old wooden ceilings and of bitter almonds. A strange aroma for a place like this, to say the least.
I walked out into the courtyard and the red column of the central tower was directly opposite me. The entire space was littered with bones, like the area in front of the gates.
A serious battle. The skeletons of orcs and elves were sometimes intertwined in the most incredible poses. The rusty crescents of s’kashes and yataghans were scattered around under my feet. In many places the ground, the walls, and the bones were covered with soot, or even fused and melted. In the western part of the yard there were heaps of red blocks and fragments of stone from the ruined tower. Magic had been used, as well as arrows and swords.
Many elves had laid down their lives, very many, but I had no doubt about who had been victorious. The bodies of eight orcs were embedded in the wall of the central tower at a height of about ten yards above the ground. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the orcs had suffered for a very, very long time, even after the elfin shamans and magicians had finished the execution. It was surprising that time didn’t seem to have touched the dead orcs; for some reason it had spared them. I had the impression that they could have died only a minute earlier.
Their flesh hadn’t melted away like the wax of a candle or rotten meat, and it hadn’t dried up like a salty plum from over the sea. After traveling round the Border Kingdom, mixing with Algert Dalli’s men, and fighting that battle at Crossroads, I knew a little bit about the badges of the most famous clans of orcs. The defenders of the fortress had badges that were white and black, almost completely faded. I’d never come across clan insignia like that before. If I ever got out of Hrad Spein, I’d have to ask Egrassa what clan of orcs wore black and white.
There was a large old tree growing right in front of the tower. It looked a bit like a dwarf warrior resting after a long journey: short, stocky, and sturdy. And as old as the red fortress that now enshrined the bones of the fallen warriors. But unlike the dead fortress that had been abandoned for so very long, the absurd old plant was still alive. All the branches of this long-lived tree were covered with small white flowers and it seemed to be nestling under a fluffy blanket of snow.
The flowers had a scent of almonds, and I could even taste the bitter aroma in my mouth. The smell was beginning to give me a headache, so I moved on in a hurry. I couldn’t afford to stay any longer than necessary.
I took long, careful strides, trying not to step on any bones. Stupid really, but I couldn’t help myself— something told me it was best not to disturb the remains of the elves and orcs without good reason. But I wasn’t always able to avoid the yellowish bones encased in rusty armor. There were too many skeletons and sometimes my foot had no choice but to press the bones down into the crumbly sand of the fortress’s courtyard. Then I misjudged the distance and stepped on a skull.
It burst with a deafening sound, as if it was an overripe Garrakian melon under my foot, not a skull. I winced squeamishly and looked up from the bones for a moment at the tree.
My heart performed a crazy somersault in my chest, soared up into the sky, then fell back and got tangled up in my guts.
The flowers on the tree weren’t white anymore—they were red! Bloodred! The blood built up into huge drops on the petals and then fell down, sprinkling onto the bones and the sand. Like rain in some madman’s nightmare, the heavy drops fell from the branches and oozed out of every pore of the tree’s trunk. In a few seconds a small pool had already formed under the tree. The pool grew wider and wider, consuming the bones lying on the sand like some eerie predator.
A tormented, endless, spine-chilling howl of pain rang out from somewhere above me, making me stoop down and pull my head into my shoulders. I raised my eyes to look up, expecting to see a gryphon-dragon- manticore-harpy-Messenger-of-the-Master-or-the-Nameless-One swooping down on me, but … there wasn’t anyone.
It was one of the orcs fused into the wall of the tower, screaming continuously in agony. His face was contorted in incredible pain. That was more than I could take.
I ran for it, without even looking to see where I was going, scattering bones. The orc screeched like a pig under the knife of a clumsy butcher. I dashed to the other side of the courtyard and jumped over the stones from the ruined tower that littered the ground, lost my footing and fell, almost tumbling into the blood flowing across the courtyard, rolled away, jumped up, pressed my hands to my ears, and set off again at a run.
I realized I’d dropped the crossbow, went back, flung aside somebody’s ribs, grabbed the weapon, and ran for it.… The howling of that creature in torment was driving me insane, stirring up icy rafts of terror from the bottom of my mind.
My memory of the courtyard as I ran through it is a blur of the red column of the tower, the bitter smell of almonds, the bleeding tree, and the scream of an orc doomed to eternal agony.
Fear made me whimper as I ran. It took over almost all my mind; it was a miracle that I managed to leap out through a hole broken in the wall on the opposite side from the gates. The orc’s screams pushed me along from behind, forcing me to run faster and faster along the red path. I fell twice, skinning and bruising my knees, but I jumped up again and ran on.
I only stopped after the howling of that eternally living and eternally dying creature had faded away into the
