She looked but didn’t see anything. “What am I looking for?”
“What you’re not seeing, which is good. We don’t want the Trolls to see it, either. We’ve rigged pins linked to ropes on either side that hold back several tons of rock. If they are pulled, we create an avalanche that will bury anyone caught in the pass on the wrong side of the wall. A last resort, if the walls should be taken. The Trolls will be crowding forward, hundreds deep. There won’t be time or space to run. Most will die where they stand.”
She nodded. “So you don’t think they will see the trap you’ve set?”
Tenerife shrugged. “You didn’t. Are their eyes any sharper than yours?”
“They might have more experience with these things than I do.”
“They might be too busy trying to stay alive if they get this far to make a careful study of outcroppings several hundred feet up.”
She nodded. It made sense. “Who designed all this?”
Tasha cocked an eyebrow at her. “Ronan Caer. Remember him?”
She shook her head. “But the name sounds familiar.”
“It should. He broke your arm when you were five. You were playing with staves, pretending to fight each other. He pretended too hard or you pretended too little, and the result was your left arm in a splint for nine weeks. Do you remember now?”
She did, although she hadn’t thought of the incident in years, and she didn’t think she had seen Ronan Caer in almost that long. He had moved away from Arborlon when she was still little. “He designed all this?”
“It seems he wasn’t wasting his time while he was away. He was studying architecture, particularly as it relates to creating defensive positions. He was exploring, as well. Knew the pass as well as we did. He set the positions right away. Haren knew his talent from before and called him up as soon as we arrived. Made things much easier.”
Haren Crayel, captain of the Home Guard. A good man, one her father trusted implicitly. She hadn’t known he was up here, but it made sense that he would be placed in command.
“Enough of ancient history,” Tasha declared, taking her arm. “We’ve got something else to show you besides the fortifications, something that isn’t quite so reassuring.”
They left the staging areas and the defensive wall behind and proceeded through the pass. Soon even the noise of the construction had disappeared in a baffle of twists and turns that first distorted and then deadened the sound of the noise altogether. They wound deeper into the cut, approaching the wide opening where they had stumbled upon the dragon the last time she was up here.
“Any sign of that …?”
“Dragon?” Tenerife finished for her. “Haven’t seen it. Maybe it moved on to less crowded quarters. Maybe there wasn’t enough for it to eat in these mountains and it went in search of better feeding grounds.”
“Maybe it’s waiting for you to get careless,” she suggested.
“Maybe,” he agreed. “I’ve been known to do that, but not where dragons are concerned.”
They crossed the broad opening, Phryne glancing skyward more than once, caught between wanting on the one hand to be safe and on the other to encounter the beast again. She could not forget the mix of exhilaration and fear she had felt on seeing it for the first time. But the dragon did not appear, and soon enough they were past the widening and back inside the narrows, moving ahead once more toward the far opening of the pass. It took them only a short time after that, and as they neared their destination she caught sight of a handful of Elven Hunters gathered just inside the cut. Sentries warding the mouth of the pass, she realized.
“Any change?” Tasha asked as they came up to the group, glancing from face to face.
“Nothing,” one replied. “Take a look for yourselves.”
Wordlessly, the Orullians led Phryne forward the last few steps to where the pass opened out onto the foothills and plains beyond. As they neared the opening, Tasha looked over at her. “Look down on the plains, but don’t show yourself. Stay in the shadow of the cliff sides.”
He motioned for her to go ahead of him, and she did so. When she reached the edge of the light, she stopped and stared out at the broad sweep of the landscape beyond. There were mountains all around, but in the distance, below a ragged clutch of scrub-littered foothills, were plains turned as barren and brown as the rock of their passageway, rolling off to the northwest until they disappeared in the haze of the distant horizon. She scanned from mountains to plains and back again. Nothing.
“I don’t see anything,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the Orullians. “Where should I look?”
Bearers of the Black Staff
Terry Brooks's books
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- City of Ruins
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)
- The Council of Mirrors
- Born of Ice
- Born of Fire
- Born of Defiance
- Gates of Paradise (a Blue Bloods Novel)
- A Very Levet Christmas (Guardians of Eternity)
- Darkness Eternal (Guardians of Eternity)
- City of Fae
- The Invasion of the Tearling
- The Book of Speculation: A Novel