climbed the rungs as a child, but on the other hand he weighed more now than at age ten. Nor had steel armor tried to drag him off the rungs at every step with its extra weight.
Jotharam paused and rested by hanging off his rung from his armpits. Not really that comfortable, but he had no rope.
A hand brushed his foot below. He whispered, 'Hold on, I have to rest.'
The lord archer's voice floated up, ''Time is not our ally.'
The adolescent nodded, realized the archer couldn't see him, and said aloud, 'Just a few moments. Otherwise I'll fall and take the lot of you with me.'
'A moment, then,' agreed the lord archer. Then, 'Your discovery of this side route to the top could make all the difference. Tell me, son, what did Calmora say your name was?
'Jotharam. Jotharam Feor.' In the face of the archer's sudden compliment, he recalled his courtly manners, and added, 'I am honored to make your acquaintance, Lord.'
The man chuckled, 'I'm no lord when out in the field. I'm a soldier, same as you.'
The archer, not realizing Jotharam's true status, unintentionally paid him an even greater compliment. Pride opened a new reservoir of strength he'd doubted heartbeats earlier.
'I feel better now. I'm ready to go all the way to the top.
'Very good,' said the lord archer.
From farther below, he heard Calmora mutter, 'I needed the rest, too, Joth. But upward and onward, aye?'
Jotharam said, 'There's a space at the top where we can all rest again,' and renewed the climb.
Pride or no, when he finally pulled himself over the lip at the ladder's apex, the nausea of exhaustion threatened to loose the contents of his stomach.
Memory told him the ladder emptied into a chamber some eight feet on a side, a minor sublevel immediately below the tower's main observation level above. A series of narrow steps along the inner side of the chamber led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. He and his friends had always been too afraid to try to open it, lest their truancy so far beyond Sarshel be discovered and punished.
'Jotharam?' came a bare whisper. 'Can we risk a bit of light?'
'Yes,' he huffed, hoping the sound of his panting couldn't be heard in the chamber above.
A tiny blue glow appeared like twilight's first star, then swelled to the luminosity of a candle. Jotharam had to shade his eyes from the glare. The light emanated from a silver piece held by the lord archer. A hole pierced the silver disc, and a leather thong ran through it. In his other hand, the archer held a small bag from which he had apparently pulled the ensorcelled coin.
The illumination revealed a space very similar to Jotharam's memory of it, though it was smaller than he'd recalled, and the narrow stone stairs along the inner wall of the chamber were steeper, and. . something wet dripped down from the trapdoor they led to.
'What-?'
'Blood, of your countrymen, no doubt,' said the archer. 'The goblins eradicated the sentinels. Let us go quietly, and pay back the goblin assassins in similar coin.'
Calmora pulled her sword from the sheath at her belt as she ascended the narrow stair. Jotharam heaved himself off his hands and knees and pulled out his short sword, knowing that without training, he could contribute little.
The lord archer hung the glowing coin around his neck from its thong, then moved to stand next to Calmora. They looked up at the blood-stained trapdoor, only half a foot over their heads. The archer whispered to the soldier, 'Precede me, and if you can, clear a bit of space so I can fire my bow. Tyr willing, we shall take them by surprise.'
Calmora pulled back on the latch that held the panel in place, producing a slight squeal. Without waiting to see if the noise produced any reaction from above, she put both hands over her head and slammed the trapdoor open. Calmora pulled herself upward, and with a leg up from the lord archer, vaulted up and out into the observation level.
Even as the lord archer swarmed after Calmora, a guttural cry of alarm pealed from somewhere above. A shadow passed across the face of the open trapdoor, then came a metallic
Jotharam ran up the stairs and looked up. The lord archer stood right above, his booted toes overhanging the trap shy;door. His bow delivered a steady stream of fletched death to enemies Jotharam couldn't see. With each shaft fired, he uttered its number.
When the archer turned slightly to get a better lead on his next target, Jotharam jumped and managed to get his fingers over the trapdoor's lip.
He'd have to pull himself up without help. After the grueling climb, he wondered if he had the strength to gain the observation level without help. He grunted, contracting his arms, and with a sudden lunge, got an elbow over the edge. After that, he was able to swing up a leg and scramble up out of the hole.
A great device on iron legs squatted in the very center of the observation level. It seemed composed of crystal, glass, and iron, though many of its parts were ripped from their housings and scattered on the floor. Jotharam hoped it wasn't the Wardlight Calmora had mentioned earlier in the bunker dugout, though he supposed it had to be.
Besides the Wardlight, several crumpled and broken forms lay clumped about the open-walled chamber. A few wore the uniforms of Sarshel and must have been the sentinels the hobgoblins murdered.
All the rest were dead or dying hobgoblins and goblins, many with terrible slashes still welling blood, others with arrows jutting from their chests, necks, and heads.
Several figures struggled perilously close to the edge. One was Calmora. She simultaneously struggled with three ene shy;mies, two man-sized hobgoblins and a hairy-looking beast nearly the size of an ogre.
'Seventy-three, seventy-two,' said the lord archer, then, 'Calmora!'
Calmora looked up even as the near-ogre dashed forward, arms to each side, its legs pumping toward a lethal speed. She tried to leap away but stumbled on a dead goblin lying behind her. Calmora's attacker smashed into her without slowing.
Both went over the edge. Even as they vanished from view, the soldier raised her sword as if to attack.
'No!' croaked Jotharam, running forward a few steps before stumbling to a helpless stop.
All was silent in Demora Tower. The lord archer lowered his bow and said, 'Come away from the edge.'
Utter darkness filled the air beyond the tower, and foreboding stillness seemed to leech strength straight from Jotharam's limbs. His eyes were tacky with unwept tears. He'd known the soldier so briefly. …
If it was. true Calmora was a relative, then when he returned to Sarshel he would tell his mother the story of Calmora's bravery. She had the resources to commission a memorial for the brave warrior. A monument of black marble.
Jotharam wanted to wrench his mind away from the vision that played over and over, of Calmora's surprised look as she vanished off the edge, even as she hacked at the creature that pushed her off.
The boy turned from the dark expanse of sky and dark and asked, 'Why isn't the Wardlight completely broken?'
The lord archer continued to tinker with the bits and pieces pulled from the strange device by the hobgoblin assassins, but he said, 'Perhaps they didn't have time. Or they didn't want to create a suspicious racket by breaking the glass and shattering the crystal.'
'Hmm. How does it work, then?'
The archer grunted, pulled a slender rod from a socket he'd just placed it in, turned it around, and replaced it. Then he replied, 'Once each day, the Wardlight can summon a sunlike flash so potent all the surrounding land is revealed, even in darkest night. If I can get it to function, we will know the threat truly faced by Sarshel.'
'I wonder how late it is?'
'Just past middark,' answered the lord archer, a hint of impatience threading his tone. He picked up a glass sphere, which by some miracle hadn't rolled off the tower's open pagodalike zenith. The glowing coin hanging around his neck threw the archer's distorted, hunched shadow upon the upcurved ceiling.
