Gaheris rang with the sound of stone on stone, and the air was thick with dust and destruction. Slaves linked together in long lines broke their fingers and bruised their arms as noble and serf alike tore apart the walls of the castle and carted them, stone by stone, through the gates and across the meadowlands. There they tossed them in unsightly heaps down to the riverbank below.
Leta, her mourning gown tattered, her hair straggling down to her waist, worked with the others. Her body had long since stopped shrinking at the crack of goblin whips, so often did she hear them, followed by the cries of men and women. Keeping her head down, she gathered into a rough-woven sack the broken stones men tossed down from the walls and hauled it over her shoulder to the river drop.
Two days ago she had wondered: Why? Why would they do this? Why would they tear apart Gaheris?
She no longer wondered. Her mind was too dulled with dust, with lack of food or water. Her muscles screamed; her bones strained. It was the third day, and all her questions had vanished. There was nothing but stone, dirt, grit, and the aches of slavery hitherto unknown.
Sometimes she heard the goblins talking among themselves.
“The Murderer misled our captain. He misled our queen.”
“If that’s true, we’re not the ones to tell them. Drive the mortals and keep your mouth shut!”
“They’ll never find the House of Lights in this place. Maybe it never existed?”
“Do you want Corgar to send your head rolling?”
Corgar.
The name was enough to make Leta’s blood run cold. Sometimes she saw him, the dreadful goblin leader, standing on the walls above and looking down. She remembered all too clearly the close proximity of his ugly face, the cold of his blade against her neck. She hoped those searching eyes of his did not fall upon her. If once they did, he might remember his vow to the Chronicler, his vow to take her life when he was ready.
And she wondered: Does the Chronicler live?
Winter’s iron-gray sky loomed above Gaheris, and chill winds blew in from the distant sea. The goblins with their thick hides did not seem to notice it. But Leta trembled, and her fingers were so numb she could scarcely feel the bite of the sharp stones as she gathered them into her sack. She looked about sometimes for her father in the crowd. Once or twice she glimpsed him and was pleased, though she could hardly say why, to know that he was not dead.
Lady Mintha, mute and bedraggled as any scullery drudge, worked in chains not four feet from Leta herself.
Sometimes that great lady wept and cursed as she worked; her back was scored by several lashes of goblin whips. Leta tried to be sorry for her. But she remembered the look on Mintha’s face when, standing over Ferox’s deathbed, she had given the command, “Bring the dwarf to me.”
When she thought of that, all sympathy fled Leta’s heart.
But now, on the third day, she hadn’t the strength left for resentment or pity. Indeed, Leta began to wonder if she would ever feel anything again.
“Where is it?”
The voice rumbled above her head. Leta looked up. On top of the wall under which she worked, mortal men cowered, their tools of destruction clutched close as Corgar strode through their midst, his face a dreadful sight to behold.
“Where is it?” he growled, his voice louder this time. Others around Leta stopped their work, staring up at that towering form. He paced like a caged animal, his knife in his hand.
He turned suddenly to the nearest goblin, snatching the brute by the throat and dragging him up to his own face. “Where is it?” he bellowed.
“We’re driving the beasts as fast as we can!” the goblin cried. “We’ll find it, captain, I swear, if it can be found!”
“It must be found!” With a snarl, Corgar threw the goblin from him. The poor creature scrambled on the edge of the wall and nearly plummeted down to Hanna, flowing far below. Even that fall might not have hurt his stone hide, but he clutched the balustrade, his eyes so wide they might have dropped from his head as he turned to his ranting master.
“It must be found!” Corgar repeated, slashing the air with his knife. “Do you realize what will happen if it is not? If Queen Vartera does not receive her prize? Do you think I am going to take the fall for this failure? Eh?”
The luckless goblin had no answer. Corgar tore a piece of the wall out with his bare hands and hurled it into the inner courtyard. It smashed on the rock below, and shards struck the nearest slaves. Their pathetic wails seemed to calm him a little. He was, after all, still master here.