far as anyone in the Order could tell. He may not have been as fast a runner as the younger Knights, but when he stood his ground he stayed fixed and couldn't be moved. His weapon of choice when fighting on foot had always been the axe, and he made it flow as effortlessly as a dancer from Fayence made her silken scarves flow.
His preferred method of travel was not the forced route march, but he settled for the knowledge that Eminence Kesar, being a bean-counter and not a soldier, had enjoyed it even less.
They had followed the goblins' path out to the west coast, led by Crowe and Gabriella, and down the edge of Pontaine towards the foothills of the World's Ridge. They made sure to keep well away from Fayence and Eminence Kesar made sure that Kannis' liaisons kept Aristide just well-enough informed to keep him quiet.
The mountains, when they reached them, were as large as anything in the Drakengrat range, and yet both Kesar and DeBarres knew that there were far greater peaks beyond. They had picked their way through twisting canyons and riverbeds, until they emerged at one end of a deep and jagged valley.
It narrowed as they travelled along it and, at one point, they found the carcass of a huge lizard. Eventually they came to a point where they had to travel almost single file. This area led them to a deep, wide well, with steps clearly marked out. Gabriella and Crowe had marked the beginning of the great spiral staircase that had been cut out of the living rock.
The Knights and mercenaries had to restructure their whole column, in order to descend.
At the bottom of the enormous well or sinkhole was a wide natural archway, festooned with moss-covered stalactites hanging down. A valley was visible through this wide grey maw and, at the far end of the valley, a gleaming mountain rose up magnificently.
It took a whole day to get the entire force down the staircase and into this other new valley, and DeBarres had almost begun to fear that the job would never be finished.
Eventually, though, he rode under the stalactites himself and looked along the valley at the distant peak. Between there and the column, he could see Gabriella and Crowe riding back towards them.
The mercenary force had made camp on a rise to one side of the approach to the natural archway. Tents were put up and stakes set around the lower slopes of the rise. The valley curved around this rise before opening up into a field. On the far side of that expanse of arid dust and scrub grass, jagged peaks formed a curtain between the valley and the glinting peak behind.
There were other, larger, peaks around and beyond the one that all eyes fell upon, but they were merely mountain peaks. The other, the special one, gleamed and shone with myriad colours, like a diamond or carved crystal.
Preceptor DeBarres, Gabriella and Crowe all brushed into Eminence Kesar's tent without preamble. Kesar merely raised an eyebrow as DeBarres' lips barely passed over his signet ring.
'Am I to take it that your urgency signifies important news, Preceptor?'
DeBarres nodded. 'That's one way of putting it. Gabriella?'
'The valley ahead leads to the location we have for Kell's Freedom city. We scouted it out with a telescope and there is a manned gatehouse set into the defile that cuts through that ridge of peaks at the end of the valley.'
'A gatehouse?' Kesar looked at the maps that were unfurled across the table in front of him. 'So, there is a Freedom, after all.'
'If there's a town that the Faith doesn't know about,' DeBarres commented, 'it's a town with no Faith.'
'So what does it have instead, I wonder?' Kesar said.
'People who need faith, mate,' Crowe suggested with a cheeky grin. 'Unless, of course, you know something more than the rest of us?'
'If you want me to go into that wretched excuse for a city and clean it out,' DeBarres said, 'I can. But you'll have to be prepared for how long it'll take.'
'A siege? You don't think that a good idea?'
DeBarres shook his head. 'Not really. There are going to be enough paths in and out of there that stopping them up will be damned hard for us or for them, but…'
'But? If there's no problem with getting in — '
'There's also no problem for them to get out, individually if not in bulk. And that isn't good horse country, which means no cavalry charges. It's going to be our foot patrols versus theirs. Guerrilla warfare.'
'Somewhere in there is a force that kicked the goblins out of their homes. That's the threat that immediately concerns me.' Kesar said.
'Eminence,' Gabriella interrupted. 'Might I suggest that Crowe and I continue our scouting mission by going
'Into the city?'
'There are two reasons, Eminence. Firstly, we need to know how many heretics, mercenaries and sinners are populating the area, and especially how serious a military force they are.'
'And secondly?'
'Goran Kell. I've been through a lot to get him. He has, by proxy assassins, attempted to kill an Eminence, attempted to kill me and succeeded in killing Erak Brand. You yourself tasked me with finding him.'
'So I did. So be it, but, Sister DeZantez?'
'Yes, Eminence?'
'Make sure you are back here, at this camp, by midmorning of the day after tomorrow. This is my will, and the Anointed Lord's will and God's will.'
'As the Lord wills, so shall it be, Eminence.'
At Crowe's suggestion, Gabriella left her Faith surplice behind and took a plain, nondescript cloak. 'You ready for a bit of Freedom, pet?'
'Are you?'
'I'm used to it. You never know, you might get to like it.'
She didn't answer, but simply rode towards the ridge of peaks that cut off the valley from Freedom. She and Crowe found themselves in a deep gash in the rock, which then widened again after a couple of miles' journey.
At the end, a gatehouse was set up on the side nearest to Crowe and Gabriella.
'Hello, they have some soldiers here.' Crowe said.
'Not as many as you'd expect. They're mercenaries, so perhaps whoever hired them couldn't afford more.' Gabriella squinted at the tabards worn by the nearest soldiers. 'Three different companies. Do you recognise any of their colours?'
'One of them is from Mandrian's Hands…' He broke off. 'Yeah, well. Mandrian was always a third-rate ponce.'
'So his company wasn't an elite unit?'
Crowe barked a laugh. 'Mandrian's bunch of losers, a couple of wannabe companies I've never heard of, and what's left of the Free Company. You can probably imagine how much of a force they make up.'
'The Free Company, as in the ninety per cent slaughtered by the Anointed Lord in the last war Free Company?' Gabriella couldn't believe her ears. A few defeated old men were hardly the sort of force she would have expected to be commissioned to protect such a large city as this.
'That's the one.'
'And the Hands fought on the Faith's side… along with Joachim Foll.'
'The assassin who replaced Kell's assassin?'
'Interesting, isn't it?
'Welcome, friends,' one of the guards called out. 'Pass through, and welcome to Freedom!'
Gabriella and Crowe exchanged a disbelieving glance and did as they were bid.
'Why the midmorning after tomorrow?' DeBarres asked suddenly. He was still in Kesar's tent, listening to the bustle of activity outside. The troops were fortifying their camp.
'I'm sorry?'
'You gave a very specific time limit for Gabriella to return. I wondered why?'
Kesar took a deep breath. 'What I am about to tell you is known only to Eminences and above, but you will
