Silver Dragon (19 page)

Both guards nodded.

"Then where did she go?" Tristam demanded.

"There's another way out," Namitus said. "Another door down the hall leads to stairs. From there
, she could have gone into the palace or out a side door to the city."

"How'd you find this out?" Tristam demanded.

"I saw it last night. After we were shown our rooms, I waited a bit and then did some exploring."

Tristam grunted. "Didn't see nothing then, did you?"

"No," he replied.

Tristam turned back to Master Victor. "We've got a problem that you need to solve."

"I don't see how your problem is mine to deal with."

"
Baron Mackay promised us secrecy and safety; now she's gone. He put you in charge of us. That makes this your problem."

Master Victor frowned as he considered Tristam's point. He turned to the guards. "Find out who was working the gates or patrolling the city last night. I want them all here as soon as possible."

Tristam shook his head. "Don't bother. We'll go with you."

"What? You said you wanted me to—"

"You're a paper pusher who doesn't know how to get things done," Tristam growled at him. "You stay here and push some papers around. We'll find her and if any harm has come to her, you'd best be ready to head for the mountains and hope the army hiding in them shows you more mercy than I will."

Before the aid
e could respond, Tristam spun away and motioned for the guards to lead them. They followed them out of the palace first and then to the northern gatehouse since that was the closest. The guards spoke to the men operating the gate and explained the situation while the Blades glowered at them. In a matter of minutes, they were allowed in to view the logs kept by the night watch.

Kar poured through the logs while Tristam questioned the morning shift. Kar cried out before Tristam had gotten anything out of them. "A lone rider went into the mountain
s just before midnight," he said.

"Why would she do that?" Mordrim asked. "Leaving us behind? It don't make no sense!"

"It makes plenty of sense," Kar explained. He held up the sheet of paper. "She'd have walked out and called for Winter, not ridden a normal horse. More damning is that the ink is fresh; this wasn't written twelve hours ago."

Tristam turned and stared at the assembled guards. "Somebody best be explaining this or I turn Garrick here loose on you."

"He'll have to wait for me to finish with them first!" Mordrim stepped in front of the barbarian and pulled his hammer free from where it hung at his side. Garrick grunted and pounded his fist into his palm for added effect.

Chapter 12

Alto stared back at the small canyon he'd emerged from. Thork had taken him to the surface
after he'd had a surprisingly restful night of sleep on the rock floor of the cavern and with a chubby green finger pointed to the south suggested, "Go dat way!" Then the troll had retreated back into the cave and pushed a boulder as large as Alto into the entrance to block it. Alto pulled his cloak tightly and did as the troll suggested.

He worked his way along the sparse trails in the mountains, always trying to head south and east. He'd put his mind to figuring out where he'd get the material Thork needed to craft him a sword capable of killing Sarya. The finest steel in the mountains was, as far as he knew, buried under a mountain the troll had helped him bring down. A smith capable of working it meant either the barely skilled monsters he'd buried or finding a dwarf. That meant Mordrim, since the other dwarves were far to the south. Unless Mordrim had gotten tired of
Kelgryn hospitality and had returned as well.

Alto frowned as he walked. Teorfyr had said that Mordrim had stayed on and sent word to the south. Other dwarves would be returning, but they were months away, at the soonest. That left only Mordrim, but was he a smith? He'd shown understanding of weapons and armor, as well as a pride in dwarven metalwork, but did that mean he knew how to run a forge?

Finding a wizard was easy. Alto would get Kar to do it. Or he'd try to get Kar to do it; sometimes the man was stubborn and difficult. The old mage had a soft spot for Alto though, and if need be, Alto was sure he could use it to get the man to do as he asked.

That left only the final ingredient
: Alto's blood. He shuddered at the prospect of the gruesome work that would entail. Not only would he have to endure a lot of pain, or so the troll had promised, but he'd also be forced to drink one or more of those foul concoctions the troll brewed that would keep him alive. Thork's potions were wondrous but they also had the side effect of conjuring up terrifying visions. In his last one, Alto had seen his family butchered. It turned out to be prophetic.

He shook his dark thoughts away and found that he'd drawn his sword. He stared down at it, wondering why Thork kept insisting it wasn't the right weapon for him. He preferred a heavier blade but the sword he'd taken from the evil knight had worked out fine for him. He'd even had to learn to fight with it better, broadening his skills and making him a better warrior. The long sword wasn't as effective at blocking as a broadsword was
, so he'd even learned to make better use of his shield.

Alto sheathed his sword as he walked up a rise and onto the west facing side of a ridge. The trail ran along a shelf of rock heading to the south. To the east
, a cliff plunged less than a hundred feet to a ravine below. The wind gusted through the mountains and tried to push him into the rocks, chilling him.

Alto steadied himself and glanced across the ravine to see a group of
five people riding horses to the north. They were on another ledge that took them around and into the mountain to the west of him. He frowned and started to reach for his bow when he realized he couldn't hit them. The distance and the wind made the shot impossible.

Alto muttered a curse as he watched them. They rode horses, meaning they were probably human. That meant he could talk to them and learn who they were and where they were headed. The messenger had only teased him with knowledge. Alto needed to know more if he was going to find Sarya.

With a grunt of disgust, Alto turned away and continued his trek along the ledge. He moved away from the edge to make sure they wouldn't see him if they happened to look up and to their right. It wasn't the first time the terrain of the mountains had stopped him from attacking, but that didn't make it any easier for him to let them go.

Alto hiked the remainder of the day
without seeing anyone else in the mountains. He found a route that seemed to show promise for taking him out of the mountains but by the time the sun dropped below the mountains to the west, he still hadn't managed to escape them. He searched for a cave or stand of trees to camp in but found nothing suitable. With little choice remaining, he began gathering rocks and building a small hill to use as a windbreak. He kept working at it, warming from the labor, and was about to build up a wall around him to allow him to try to build a sheltered fire when he heard the crack of stone against stone.

He wiped the sweat from his face and rose to listen for more of the strange sounds. His fear of the sweat on his back and chest chilling him in the wind were forgotten when he heard a loud thud and some echoed shouting. Alto stepped away from his incomplete campsite and walked into the shadows of a rocky outcropping.

He rounded the rocks on a small ledge and looked down to see what looked like a path at the bottom of a hillside made up of broken rock. With the sun fully set, he was having a hard time making out details. He could hear the sounds clearer now; they came from the darkness to the south of him. Alto judged the loose rock and frowned. A single missed step could cause him and a lot of mountainside to slide downhill. With the snow and ice covering much of the rocks, the odds were not in his favor.

Alto glanced around and looked up at the skyline of the mountains against the clouds. The stars were hidden but there was still enough light to see the outline of the ridges and mountaintops. He was traveling alone amongst the most unfriendly environment he'd ever seen. The odds had started out against him. With that grim thought in mind
, Alto began to carefully pick his way down the treacherous slope.

By the time he reached the wide path at the bottom of the slope
, Alto guessed close to an hour had passed. He was chilled again and wondering if stumbling into an enemy camp in the middle of the night was a good idea. A squeeze of the hilt at his side reassured him that he could deal with whatever he faced. He had his shield to light the way, after all.

As he approached
, he found that he need not have worried. He saw a glow lighting up the landscape around a bend in the trail ahead. The sound of rocks crashing into one another and thudding onto the ground grew more frequent, as did commands called out in a harsh language that sounded like what the ogres and goblins had used, except one of the speakers had a deep voice that made the guttural words sound almost like the rocks themselves were speaking.

Alto moved up as quietly as he could and tried to stay concealed amongst the large rocks on the western edge of the path. When he rounded the corner
, what he saw took his breath away. A man who looked to be nearly twice as tall as an ogre was barking out orders to the ogres that were struggling to carry and roll rocks and boulders. They were building what looked like a wall across the path, narrowing the path to a choke point. Timbers from trees that had been stripped free of branches were lying in a pile nearby. Others had already been used to start supporting the primitive rock wall.

Alto did a quick count and tallied up eight ogres plus the giant. He'd killed more but never had to face so many at once. Nor had he ever fought a giant. He leaned around a rock and stared at the giant again, marveling at the thickness of the enormous creature. His wrist alone was the size of Alto's chest!

Nine opponents, each of them strong enough to crush him with a single blow. Alto frowned and wondered if this was time he finally moved on. He watched them building the wall, marveling at the simple yet effective techniques. The giant didn't seem much for conversation but he was a skilled stonemason. Alto studied the wall, trying to find areas that looked weak enough for him to exploit if the opportunity arose. After a few moments, he shook his head. Short of using great strength to knock away the supports and then siege weapons to batter the rocks, the wall looked like it was going to become as permanent as the mountains around him.

Alto did notice one thing while studying the wall. As it grew taller
, the ogres had to lift the boulders up. They strained under the weight of them, with many requiring two or even three ogres to lift. Alto grimaced at the thought of what one of those rocks falling on him would do. Then his grimace turned to a smile. Maybe he could even the odds a little.

He ducked behind the rocks and readied his bow. He frowned, seeing that he had only three arrows left in his quiver. With a shrug
, he set them point first into the snow beside him for easy retrieval. Then he waited for the perfect moment. It came sooner than he expected.

Two groups of ogres were working. The first consisted of two ogres securing a log while a three
-man team was readying a stone to lift. A third ogre was rolling a massive stone over to the wall where his partner waited to help him lift it. Alto fit his arrow to his string and pulled it back when the three ogres managed to hoist the rock up. As soon as they shifted and picked it up above their shoulders, one of the ogres had to duck underneath it and brace his shoulders against it while the other two shifted their grip. Alto let his arrow fly.

It struck the middle ogre in the hip just above his thigh. The strike was high but it served its purpose, forcing the ogre to howl and lurch to the side. The sudden movement unbalanced the rock and made them lose their grip. The ogre beneath it crumpled under its weight and softened the blow as it drove him to the ground with the sound of the wet cracking and popping of his bones.

The second team had just begun to lift their rock and the howling ogre distracted them. The rock fell, crushing the foot of one of the ogres and drawing an agonized scream from him. Alto loosed his second arrow at the wounded ogre's partner, hitting him high on the back between his shoulder and spine. The ogre staggered from the impact and turned around even as it raised its hand to try to figure out what had stung it. As it turned, Alto saw the barbed tip of his arrow had emerged from the hollow below and beside the ogre's neck.

The giant roared out a single word and spun around. He looked up the path towards Alto and spotted him before he could duck behind cover. The giant's quick reactions convinced him that while he might be a brute, he was nowhere near as slow
-witted as the ogres were. Alto grabbed his third arrow and pulled it back at the same time the able-bodied ogres were turning and beginning to come after him. He let it fly and saw the giant grunt and jerk his head to the side. He slapped his hand to the side of his head and pulled it away. His palm was covered in blood from where Alto's arrow had grazed his head.

Alto dropped his bow and drew his sword. He leapt out into the open away from the rocks and waited until the first reaching ogre was close,
and then he slammed the mountain on his shield and bathed the ogre in light.