Here we go, Khollo thought anxiously. By the next sunrise, this will all be over. Somehow, that thought wasn’t as comforting as he had expected. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this could be a massive trap. But what choice did he have? After all, the mysterious voice had probably saved his life.
If it is a trap, we’ll find out soon enough.
“Shut up,” Khollo growled to himself.
“I didn’t say anything!” Sermas protested.
“Never mind,” Khollo grunted. “Quiet now.”
“Like I said – ”
Hern clapped a hand over Sermas’ mouth. “Just be quiet,” he hissed.
Khollo focused on the fortress once more. The stone walls loomed above him, nearly six meters high. He saw no sentries yet, but that didn’t mean anything. Beyond the walls was a tower, squat, blocky, and ugly, but also functional. Altogether, the fortress would be tough to take by conventional tactics. Fortunately, three young cadets attacking on foot was hardly conventional tactics.
Sermas nudged Khollo and pointed up and a little to the left. Khollo followed his gaze and saw a massive horned head swinging back and forth, surveying the land.
Time for a little target practice, Khollo thought. “Let’s light it up,” he muttered to Sermas and Hern as he raised his bow.
Chapter 23
In one fluid motion, Khollo drew, sighted, and released. His first arrow zipped away towards the vertaga sentry. There was a pause, then the beast staggered and dropped, a feathered shaft sprouting from its neck. Khollo strained his ears, but heard no alarm or rush of soldiers.
“Go,” Khollo muttered. “Sermas, you have the grapnel?”
“Oh, I knew I forgot something!” Sermas said, slapping his hand to his forehead.
“Sermas!”
“Just kidding, I have it. C’mon Hern.”
Sermas and Hern sprinted for the wall, Sermas twirling the three-pronged grapnel beside him. They reached the wall, crouching in its shadow for a moment. Then, Sermas stepped back and cast the grapnel upwards. It disappeared between two crenellations and landed with a faint chink! of metal on stone.
“Up you go,” Khollo called to Sermas.
Sermas nodded and began hauling himself up hand over hand on the rope. Khollo watched with bated breath as the younger boy flipped up and over the wall. After a moment, he signaled that all was clear. Hern began climbing as well and Khollo took off for the wall. By the time he got there, Hern was already at the top.
Khollo thought about climbing the rope, then decided that it might not be best to test his ribs with such a feat. Instead, he tied a loop in the end of the rope and put one foot through it.
“Haul me up!” he called softly to Hern. Hern nodded and began heaving on the rope, dragging Khollo slowly upwards. Sermas took one more look around, then joined in.
When Khollo reached the top, he quickly stood and raised his bow, ready for trouble. But there was nothing. No sentries, no soldiers. Nothing.
“This isn’t right,” Khollo muttered.
“Where are they?” Sermas wondered. “Only one sentry? Nobody in the courtyard?”
“Does anyone else feel like this is a trap?” Hern asked.
“Can’t be,” Khollo countered. “They don’t know we’re here, and they didn’t know we were coming.”
“So what do we do now?” Sermas asked.
Khollo slung his bow over his shoulder, securing it. Then, he drew the two halves of his Sen-teel and twisted them together. “We search the main tower,” he replied calmly. “Come on. I want to find out what’s going on here.”
Sermas and Hern readied their own weapons and followed a pace or two behind, eyes and ears open for the first sign of danger. Khollo led the way to the large front door of the main building, which stood slightly ajar. He hesitated on the threshold, then slipped through the gap and into the grim building.
The room inside was dark, with only a few torches sputtering in brackets on the walls. Once Khollo’s eyes had adjusted, he realized that they were not alone. A cluster of maybe half a dozen vertaga were sitting at the far end of the hall around a fire. He could see the light gleaming on their horns. The monsters had their backs to the entrance, and had not noticed Khollo and the others yet.
“Do we attack?” Sermas whispered.
Khollo took another look around the hall. There was a staircase leading down to the left. He shook his head in reply to Sermas’ question, and pointed to the stairs. Sermas shrugged in reply.
Guess that means he agrees, Khollo thought. He took one last look at the vertaga clustered around the fire, then led the way silently to the stairs.
The hall had been dark, but the stairwell was even darker. The torches were fewer and farther apart. A few seconds in, Khollo slipped on an uneven step and nearly fell. Swearing under his breath, he snatched the next torch out of its bracket and took it with him, holding it aloft.
As they descended further underground, Khollo became aware of a horrible smell. It conjured thoughts of carnage, disease, and death in his mind. Then, he recognized it from his dreams as the smell of rotting flesh. But there was another smell, subtly different. This smell had a charred quality to it, a strong smell of fire and ash. The base of the stairwell came into sight and Khollo held his breath.
They were in a roughly circular chamber, with only two entrances, the stairwell and a tall, arched doorway to the right. The portal was easily large enough for two vertaga to walk abreast. Khollo held his torch higher, and the circle of light expanded until it touched a body lying in the doorway.
Khollo jumped back, readying his Sen-teel for combat. The body on the floor was a vertag, contorted strangely and lying still. Khollo waited, then shuffled forward warily and jabbed at it
