“It must be the Fells,” Khollo decided. “There’s not enough life to sustain a fortress in the north.”
“Precisely,” Janis agreed. “The question is where in the Fells?”
“Only one way to find out,” Khollo replied. “Go exploring. Send out our eyes and ears to find a fortress where the Fells meet the Basin.”
His announcement was met with silence. The others were staring at him sadly. “What?” Khollo demanded.
Janis sighed. “Khollo, we don’t know if these visions show the truth or not. Ezraan never found such a place as the one he dreamed of.”
“Ezraan never heard the voice either,” Khollo pointed out.
“True,” Janis conceded. “But if anything, that makes your case weaker.”
“I’m not insane!” Khollo all but shouted. “The vertag ripped apart my chest, not my skull! I didn’t even take a blow to the head. You’re all acting like I’m crazy, but I have given you the truth and if you had experienced what I had you would believe this voice and go looking for the source.”
The others would not meet his gaze, so Khollo tried a different tack. “Janis, if Ezraan had told you about something like this, would you have called him insane?”
Janis was taken aback. “Well . . . no, but Ezraan never went through what you have and – ”
“ – and he was older, more experienced, and you knew him better,” Khollo finished. “I know. But can you honestly look at me and believe I am losing my mind?”
Janis shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “I can’t. But your visions may be just that, visions. I can’t risk men on such little evidence.”
“Whoever it is that has been speaking to me is guarded by vertaga,” Khollo growled. “This could be an opportunity to not only find out who saved my life, but deal our enemy a serious blow. Now, do we search for the fortress or not?”
Janis sighed, looked at Hern and Sermas. “I am with Khollo,” Sermas said flatly, throwing a challenging glare at Hern and Janis. “He would not propose this without good reason. He has always been intelligent enough to interpret what he sees accurately.”
Hern nodded in agreement. “Right. He figured out the vertaga’s attack pattern. I say we trust his instincts on this as well.”
“Then it’s settled,” Janis decided, sighing heavily. “I will have Leon reach out to his men, ask them to search the foothills of the Fells for the enemy fortress.” He stood. “Out of curiosity, have you ever seen the source of the voice in your visions?”
“It’s always too dark,” Khollo replied, shaking his head. “But . . . I saw a cell once. There was a stench of rotten meat. And something was gleaming in the cell. Multiple things, really. I’m not sure what they were.”
“Chains maybe,” Sermas suggested. “But who would the vertaga keep chained up?”
“Or what?” Janis wondered as he left the smithy. “The vertaga are not generally fond of taking prisoners. Whatever we find, I think it best to expect the unexpected.”
Chapter 21
Khollo went back to work the next morning. With the question of his sanity temporarily put to rest, the others grudgingly allowed him down into the construction site, but still forbade him to do any physical work. Khollo obeyed, but only because he had little desire to pitch in alongside the diggers. He could tell just by looking that digging down into the center of the hill was difficult, slow, and generally unrewarding work. But, it was also necessary, if they were going to connect the fortress to the caves at the base of the hill that the villagers were expanding.
The foremen had extended the three arches straight into the hillside, knocking out the walls between them, with columns left at regular intervals. Khollo was impressed with the quality of work the villagers were producing. The further into the hill he went, the smoother the walls and the sharper the corners. After a brief inspection, he called his foremen together, including three new leaders from the second village, and showed them the plan for the underground stronghold.
After a fair amount of arguing and redrawing, the foremen returned to their groups and started digging. The original three foremen began creating the circular corridor that would surround an open shaft that would stretch from the lowest underground level to the roof of the highest floor. The space would be useful in the event that heavy objects needed to be moved from level to level. The three newer foremen took their groups and began excavating a stairway down to the next level and a series of rooms around the corridor.
It was only a few hours later when one of the foremen came running back to the smithy, skidding to a halt beside the work table Khollo had co-opted for his own studies. “Sir,” he said, gasping for breath. “We’ve found something, you might want to come and see it yourself.”
Khollo frowned. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” the foreman replied. “Or, at least, we didn’t do anything wrong. We just cut through the rock, working our way down into the ground and then – ”
“No one’s hurt, are they?” Khollo asked urgently.
“No,” the foreman said quickly. “No one’s hurt, thankfully. We found a cavern.”
Khollo increased his pace, moving more quickly towards the stairs that led down into the earth, ignoring the pain in his side. “A cavern?” he asked curiously. “That’s odd. How big is it?”
“You’ll see.”
As they descended the steps from the courtyard, which had been completed only earlier that day, Khollo passed by several workers standing around uncertainly, tools held loosely in their hands. The young leader frowned, disturbed by the lack of activity, but followed the foreman into the middle arch, then towards the new flight of stairs intended to
