The Castle of the Winds Read online

  ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said Kunrad. ‘Not with all those gauds of yours.’

  The corsair looked nonplussed, and then decided he could laugh off the insolence. ‘Well, a leader must needs appear impressive, Mastersmith!’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ said Kunrad, ‘from another. Anyhow, that’s just a temporary hilt there – don’t want it cracking on you, do you? The sword’ll be ready by the time I said. You can see I have matters in hand.’

  ‘Seems you do. Well, you’ve proved yourself thus far, smith.’

  ‘I’ve yet to do so, I think.’

  The corsair shrugged, and put down the blade. ‘Go ahead, then. Have you all you need?’

  ‘I think so. But we could use some better food, to keep our strength up. Some more of it, anyway.’

  The corsair grimaced. ‘Couldn’t we all? So much has to be brought in from outside. Not all that runs or swims around here is fit to eat. But you’re earning your keep, I’ll give you that, you and your lads. Very well! But you must cook for yourselves, from now on, and save us the labour. An extra sack of biscuit, a side of smoke-meat, some salt-fish, some wine – see he has it, Frasten! Come along, all, time for the noon inspections!’

  When he heard the bolts shoot home, Kunrad leaned over the workbench and breathed hard. It was only then the others saw how nervous he had been. ‘You see why I don’t want to spill my words at every move?’ he demanded quietly. ‘Suppose they’d been listening?’ He pulled the bellows, and the half-open door of the furnace below the hearth roared like a dragon, sucking away the smoke. ‘That’ll baulk any unfriendly ears for a moment. And do you see why I put up with these things?’ He clanked his manacles. ‘When we’re dealing with the kind of mind that assumes iron fetters will hold a smith, best we don’t disabuse them. Or they might start thinking what else we might be capable of, beyond the ordinary. I’d rather they found out for themselves. Wouldn’t you?’

  Neither prentice could answer. Kunrad grinned evilly. He nodded at the duergar. ‘I got the idea from them. They had no way to make the corsairs trust them. So they became as dull and dirty as they were expected to be – and just useful enough. There’s no better security for a slave than meeting a master’s expectations – just! They couldn’t do more. But that strutting peacock handed me a way to win some trust, up to a point, anyhow. The food was the missing ingredient. Not enough, I expect, but as good as we’ll get. So be ready now – what for?’ Kunrad grinned. ‘Anything! I’m going to keep my promises. All of them!’

  Nothing woke Kunrad that night; for he never slept.

  In the early hours, as the sounds of the citadel faded, he shook Gille, and together they managed to rouse Olvar. That took time, but when his eyes finally opened they flew wide. The duergar were watching them, eyes wider yet in the darkness of the forge; and Kunrad realised how such eyes might serve them, in ways beneath the stone. But there was more; for these were no longer hunched and crabbed creatures, dull and stooping. They stood straight-backed and alert, with the deadly stillness of snakes.

  Kunrad nodded calmly. ‘All right, lads. And here, don’t forget those swords!’

  ‘The trial pieces?’ blinked Gille sleepily. ‘Why?’

  Kunrad passed them across, but lastly he reached for the beautiful one, hefted it, and slid the scabbard into his belt. ‘Well, I and our bejewelled host are much of a size. So what I tailor to myself feels well enough to him – better than aught else he’s handled, anyhow. But me it fits! And I thought you two might appreciate a decent blade or two, instead of that tinker’s stuff you’ve been patching up. If we were thinking of escaping, that is.’

  ‘You mean – now?’ demanded Olvar in a sleepy whisper.

  ‘Find me a better time! Master Peacock’s going to want his sword soon, and he may start wondering just what’s become of the leftover materials. So wake now – and come here!’

  From the anvil he picked up one of the great hammers he had wielded, with beside it a heavy chisel muffled in rags. ‘Now, if you’ll just swing your legs up here, Gille my lad …’

  There was a gentle touch on his arm. It was the duergar woman, staying his blow. She reached past him, clasped Gille’s ankles, and seemed to be sliding something. Then the fetters collapsed to the floor with a gentle clunking sound, and Gille stumbled free. The three smiths stared at them, the metal that had felt so solid split open along bevels of bright metal that had lain concealed below the corroded surface. Kunrad became aware of delicate fingers around his own ankles, and a sudden lightness. Olvar was tugging at his and swearing softly, but only when the woman touched them did the cuffs fall free. He noticed as if in a dream that her own manacles had gone, and the man’s; and though their countenances could still be carven out of rough bark, something lurked there as potent as any laughter.

  ‘Well,’ said Gille, in the ensuing silence. ‘I see some legends are true, anyhow. I’m not sure I’d be able to make anything like those!’

  ‘I know damn well I couldn’t!’ said Kunrad grimly. ‘I’ve been just as dense as the corsairs, it seems. Legends? Lad, you haven’t seen the half of it yet! But first we have to pack – quietly! Take only what you must, leave all the room you can for food. Gille, portion out the biscuit, cut up the meat and fish into lots, as much as we can carry. Five lots! Olvar, pick us each a crossbow out of the repaired stock, and a good store of bolts! Tie ’em well, we’ve a climb ahead!’

  Gille hesitated. ‘A climb? Where—’ He stared disbelievingly at the narrow crevices, and then slowly followed Kunrad’s gaze. His mouth sagged. Kunrad nodded. ‘But how did you know, master?’ hissed Gille. ‘Did they tell you, the Mountainfolk?’

  Kunrad chuckled. ‘Not them! They wouldn’t tell their left hand what the right was doing. No, it was our jibing hosts themselves who set me on the track. Letting slip that a smith had escaped from here already! And that they either didn’t know how, or wanted to conceal it. Cardinal error. It started me looking around; and with a smith’s eye. You should have noticed, too. What happened in this hole every time somebody opens that bloody door.’

  ‘Well … it set the forge smoking,’ said Olvar, rummaging among the arrows.

  Gille slapped his brow with annoyance. ‘Hella’s curlies! Of course!’

  ‘Indeed,’ nodded Kunrad. ‘It changed the weight of the air in here, ruined the flow, and sucked out all the smoke. Not even a sothran smith would build a chimney that stupidly! It means the flue’s bigger than it ought to be, at the mouth especially, and too exposed. And consider – this whole place has been freshly carved out of the rock, with clefts for light and air. So would the corsairs have bothered to cut a whole long chimney, or simply chosen another cleft? Well, when you take the trouble to look, it’s obvious. Down here it’s a channel of stone, but you can see masonry further up. They just stopped up the cleft till the flow was right. So, a man might climb up and chip away at it. A fairly skinny human might find it easier than duergar. Only when it was all ready, he started to think of the risk they were running, and finding himself alone in the Marsh with the strange creatures, and how he could just slip away on his own—’

  ‘Taking the wire they’d made for a rope!’ exploded Gille. ‘The bastard!’ The duergar swung around suddenly, and looked at him.

  ‘That’s it!’ said Kunrad quietly. ‘But there’s more! Now, go pack, and swiftly!’

  The corsairs had left them little enough; but though Kunrad had said nothing for or against, each prentice still carried a roll of their most precious tools. He had not had the heart to forbid it, for he carried his own also. A Northern smith might sooner lose the odd finger than the implements shaped by his hand and spirit. It sent a slight shock down his spine, nonetheless, to see that the duergar also carried them, man and woman both.

  ‘Then we’re ready?’ he said quietly. ‘Well, Gille, you guessed about the chimney – but how did you think we were to climb it?’

  ‘I’d been trying my best not to! The wire for climbing down, of course. But I s
ee no footholds …’

  Kunrad unhooked a small grapnel from the thick coil he carried, visibly cannibalised from bent spearheads and swords. ‘Then see instead what the craft of the Mountain-folk can achieve!’

  Springing up on the stones of the hearth, he peered up the chimney into the smoky dark. ‘Shouldn’t we put the fire out?’ suggested Olvar.

  ‘No!’ said Kunrad, and his voice echoed eerily into the blackness. ‘If my eyes would only answer …’

  The male duergh’s hard fingers plucked the grapnel out of his hand and hurled it, all in one fluid motion. Kunrad barely managed to pay out the knotted wire fast enough, as it went whistling up into the dark. A clank, a thud, and the line went slack. Hastily Kunrad jerked it tight, and leaned his weight on it. It held. Kunrad was uneasily aware that he had expected to try several times. The duergh’s accuracy was unnerving.

  ‘Well shot!’ exclaimed Gille. ‘But it sounds like a hard climb!’

  ‘Wait and see!’ said Kunrad, and he prodded the bar at his end of the line into the hearthfire.

  ‘What, you mean you think we’ll climb faster with our fingers singeing?’

  Kunrad looked at the duergh, the duergh at him. He shrugged, seized his rolled pack, and caught hold of the wire above two convenient knots. It felt warm already, but he did not expect it to get too hot; the heat had other things to do. Something was happening already. He felt it under his hands, just as in the sample that had writhed so shockingly in his grippers.

  Abruptly he was jerked off his feet, hard. He had read once of snakes in the far southern forests that dropped their coils around you and whisked you, choking, off among the branches. He was sorry he had.

  Then he was hurling upwards towards the edge of a great steel axe-blade.

  He shut his eyes tight and tried not to scream. There was an impact, but not a hard one, save where his elbows scraped the rock. He opened his eyes, and found himself sliding back down out of the wedge of grey light. It was a cleft, and he was heading back out into the void. He jammed his elbows and knees painfully against the rock, and clutched at the writhing tangle of wire beneath him, knitted up into a contracting mass. Somewhere below the bar bounced and clanked, losing heat rapidly, relaxing the wire. He began to scrabble up towards the grapnel, caught in the notch of light at the summit.

  He hesitated. It was the first free sky he had seen for a fortnight, but there was nothing in it except heavy cloud turned to pearl here and there by a dying moon. Nor could he make out anything below except flatness and greyness, an ocean without movement, an awful hazy shadow on which the mind could shine its shapeless fears. He glanced quickly around. There were the hammer and chisel marks, where the cleft had been carefully widened, probably over many nights. He understood the other smith all too well, up here. So easy to just haul up that strange wire and go sliding down towards freedom, forgetting everything behind you. There would be dangers enough in these marshes without encumbering yourself with those strange beings, who seemed part and parcel of the unnatural life you were escaping from …

  But Kunrad was not the other smith. The wire was relaxing behind him as it cooled, and he paid it off down into the sooty blackness, jamming the grapnel more firmly with his boot. After a few minutes the wire went taut. There was a slithering from below, and a startled oath as Gille’s dishevelled head popped up in the cleft. ‘What is this stuff? It’s bloody well alive!’

  ‘Quiet! You’ll have to ask the duergar about that,’ said Kunrad,. as he hauled Gille up into the face of the rock. ‘There was the outline of it in the smith’s book, though he didn’t understand all they told him. I don’t either, but it seems to work like the strings of our sinews, expanding and contracting like all metals when it’s heated or cooled. And yet with this tremendous force! Keep your head in, damn it! There’re probably sentries on the wall up there!’

  Next came the duergh woman, and the face that appeared was grinning widely, as if she had enjoyed the ride. When Gille hauled her up, by whatever handholds he could find, she gave him a light and sooty tap across the face, a playful gesture wholly unlike the grim, bestial appearance these people had assumed. The man was still dour when he emerged, but as he sniffed the air he gave a wry twist of his mouth which was wholly human. The wire was extending more slowly now, and Kunrad began to wonder if they should have sent Olvar up earlier. It would not carry him all the way; but the duergar, without hesitation, seized the wire and hauled the hefty young man in with no more effort than one might a trout.

  Now they and their baggage were all crammed into the narrow space, making it hard to coil up the wire. They bided their time, nonetheless, looking out over the marsh, listening for footsteps, voices, anything that would give away the presence of watchers. Finally Kunrad inched out a small mirror from his kit, mounted on a thin stalk, used for looking into complex work. It showed him the wall with its torches still blowing, but no sign of any watchers; and he remembered about the people who had mysteriously vanished. Perhaps the sentries kept well back from the rampart in the darkest hours, lest they be tempted or ensnared. The thought made him shudder, but better such risks than linger here. Below them was a jetty, where also nothing stirred. He looked to the male duergh, and nodded.

  The grapnel was made fast against the stone now, but they could not simply pay out the wire. It would rattle against the rock face, and betray them. Kunrad braced his boots against the bar, took tight hold with one hand and, trusting in duergar strength, swung himself out into the night.

  For a moment he thought the creature had let go, so fast did he fall, and very nearly cried out. But it was simply the confidence of inhuman strength, and hands too hard for even the wire to cut. Fending off the rock face with his left hand and his hip, Kunrad plummeted easily towards the jetty, and fetched up smoothly a few inches short of the boards. Quickly he stepped off, and tugged the wire taut and fast around an outcrop. Down came Gille, almost too quickly as his boots slipped over the knots. The woman next, with swift ease, carrying Gille’s pack as well as her own.

  Never fails! thought Kunrad sourly.

  Olvar was next, clumsily. In one heart-stopping moment his boots left the wire completely, and he dangled by his hands high overhead; but he kept his wits, and regained his footing. The duergh came after them with an apelike grasp, hand over hand, hardly using his feet at all. He touched down lightly, though, and immediately cut the wire free with a gripper from his tool-roll. The earlier smith had had enough wire to double over, and pull after him; this they would have to leave. Kunrad touched one of the jetty torches to the end. In that cool flame, its potency nearly ended, the wire contracted only slowly. Without the bar it made hardly a sound as it crept up the rock, winding around crevices. Nobody down here would notice it – at least until it cooled again.

  And it took that long to dawn on Kunrad that for now, at least, he was free.

  ‘Too easy!’ whispered Gille, glancing anxiously about. ‘It can’t be this easy!’

  ‘Remember the chieftain? They’re scared, stone-blind scared.’

  ‘And we aren’t?’

  ‘You can always slip back up. They’ll be glad to have you.’

  ‘Save it. But what are we going to do?’

  Kunrad grinned. He was feeling a lot better. ‘Trust to luck, and cold iron. That’s more of a defence than you might think, iron, and silver too. But they say the human spirit’s better than all else together. And leaving philosophy for a moment, we’re going to find out if they leave sentries on these ships.’

  Down through the misty shadows to the jetties they slunk, stopping for an instant as the duergar spotted helms and pikes patrolling above. They stood like stone, feeling horribly exposed; but movement would be more visible still. But the sentries did not linger. After a moment the pikes bobbed quickly away.

  ‘Looks like you were right!’ whispered Gille.

  The craft were moored in twos and threes alongside the jetty, so rich was the corsair harvest, little smacks and coasters
alongside the high-curved bows of huge warships. The dark stains and scars that still streaked their planking told a nightmarish tale that lent an extra unease to the clammy night air and the faint creaking of the hulls.

  ‘Like a sort of echo,’ said Olvar unhappily. The whites of his eyes showed in the shadow of the rock wall.

  ‘Stop it!’ said Kunrad sharply. ‘Any ghosts around here ought to be on our side, right? And I for one can use all the help I can get. What we need is something small and fast—’

  ‘How about that?’ whispered Gille. He was pointing out a small narrow craft moored below the stern of the largest warship, low, black and sleek like the corsair longboats.

  ‘A mast!’ said Kunrad anxiously. ‘Can you handle it, Olvar?’

  ‘With help, maybe. But the wind’s westward, by my reckoning. Inland. And you can’t tack properly on these narrow channels.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Any way, as long as it’s away from here.’

  Still watching the ramparts, they scuttled swiftly aboard the nearest craft, a fat-bellied merchantman, and across its deck into the looming shadow of the warship, the biggest craft Kunrad had ever seen, with its dragon-head gaping impotently at the moon. If the corsairs could dispose of something like this, no wonder they dominated the sea. The corsair chieftain was probably some kind of renegade sothran ship-captain, but even so, how could he have managed not only to achieve such things, but to find a purpose for them? It made Kunrad horribly uneasy. He wished he could kindle fire among these ships; but there were too many, too far apart, and it would only call the corsairs down on him.

  The warship, like the merchantman, was deserted, its hatches and every other opening battened and bolted shut with iron, presumably so nothing off the Marshes could creep into the bilges. There was no one to challenge the little group as they swung down the stern chains into the little craft behind.

  It ducked and wallowed under their weight, but settled easily enough. Kunrad, at the bow chain, reached for a saw, but the duergar woman simply took a hammer from her pack, rang one iron link gently, chose a point carefully and hit it. With a dull clank the welded ends opened, and were easily levered free. Olvar found a pair of oars padlocked to the thwart, and Gille picked the lock with ease. ‘I’ll take them!’ said Kunrad. ‘You ready the sail for when we’re clear of here. Gille, take the tiller!’