As Baylen worked his way up the steep slope of the ramp, Paedrin left him and flew up to the top of the rock cleft. The promontory was a maze of tumbled stone walls and fallen buttresses. There were no surviving structures in place. Paedrin hurried in a full arcing circle around the entire structure, trying to quickly size up the dimensions of the ruins. It was as large as the Arch-Rike’s palace in Kenatos, except there was no city on an island beneath it. Every wall had crumbled to ruin, every bailey and rampant had been tossed down. At the center of the promontory, a dozen or so buttresses still stood, holding up a portion of a roof that had not caved in yet. Streamers of mist from the descending clouds began to smother the cleft, and Paedrin knew the visibility would be hampered shortly. He did not feel safe touching down on the ground yet, not without a chance to search for enemies, so he alighted on the top of the buttresses, on the apex where the stones joined to lend their strength to the roof. He touched it with featherlight weight, testing to see if it would give way, but the stone had survived despite the winds and storms of previous generations and it held him up well.
Mist crept in streamers along the stones, feeding down into the lengths below. How strange it was that mist should appear so suddenly, obscuring things when the day earlier had been . . .
His eyes widened when he realized the mist had been summoned. It had been summoned to blot out the sun, summoned to protect the hide of the Fear Liath. In crushing anguish, he realized that this was the final lair, this was the place most heavily protected. Perhaps not by one Fear Liath but several, and he was violating the sanctuary with his presence. A chill swept down to his toes and he felt the violent urge to fly away and leave Baylen to defend himself. They needed to get off the promontory immediately. The peril increased with each moment.
He scanned the grounds quickly, looking for a place to set down—a place where his memory might be used at some future moment to bring others deep inside the Scourgelands. Was this the right place? Broken walls littered the promontory. Derelict chimneys and skeletal archways still existed, but they protected nothing. In his mind’s eye, Paedrin could imagine a sprawling courtyard, grander than the Paracelsus Towers in Kenatos. A few ragged trees, bereft of all foliage, had grown in seams and cracks in the rubble. The mist swept down as a veil, chilling him.
Low chanting sounded from just below where he was perched. To his surprise, he saw black-robed Rikes ascending from a gaping maw of stone in the floor just beneath him. Many held staves with glowing stones embedded into one end. A few carried smoking brands, reminiscent of the ones carried by the Boeotians to drive away helpful spirits. The Rikes were chanting in some ancient language, words that Paedrin did not understand. They emerged from hidden crypts within the bowels of the ancient fortress. A dozen men . . . then another dozen . . . wave after wave of Rikes emerging into the misty gloom, humming and chanting, some glancing fearfully at the shelves of rock and crumbled walls. The sound of clopping hooves approached and more riders appeared in the debris, their hoods concealing their faces. One raised a crooked arm and pointed, directing the Rikes with sibilant hisses in some ancient language.
Paedrin screwed up his courage, knowing he would need to leave before the Arch-Rike himself arrived. Fear raged inside of him, threatening to spoil his courage forever. The mist was thick and heavy and Paedrin gently inhaled, coming off the roof and floating away from the apex of the buttresses he had perched on like a gray dove.
Baylen was heading into a trap. This was not a battle they could win. The mist would help conceal them if they fled—hopefully. Paedrin quickly explored the ruins, seeing riders throughout the maze. He went around the complete perimeter, looking for a place to land, a small shelf of rock where he could bring others back with him—a place away from the deadly ramp and the deadly guardians there.