provided the vague outline of the door to the upper corridor. The guards posted there were mere shadows, occasionally clinking a bit of armour to prove they had not turned to stone. There would be more guards stationed farther along the corridor, and at every junction of the honeycomb of storerooms and ale cellars that comprised the vast underbelly of the castle keep. A second flight of stairs led up through more guards and emptied into the square, ivy-drenched courtyard where Servanne had first been struck with the enormity of Bloodmoor Keep. From there, one climbed an enclosed pentice to gain entry to the great hall, or passed through low, well-patrolled laneways which led to the kitchens, pantries, and gardens.
The Wolf could see it all with remarkable clarity. Indeed, his knees and shins could recall better than his mind’s eye every stair and endless mile of winding black corridors he had been hauled along during his descent into the lowest level of the labyrinth.
What he could not envision, as he gave up on his unidentified sound and lay back in his cell, was the solemn group of figures dressed in gray robes who were making their way through the upper alleyways into the courtyard.
The sentries were in the process of explaining to the lost monks where they had erred in making a turn, when the clanking footsteps of a small patrol approached the court from the direction of the barracks. The captain of the patrol was ill-tempered, declaring he had been interrupted in his evening meal to comply with new orders to double the sentries posted around the main keep. He then demanded to know, in his best Draconian mien, why the guards had left their post and why the court was swarming with a nest of scurvy, lice-ridden acolytes.
The first two sentries should have looked more closely at the face behind the steel nasal, for by the time it occurred to them to question why the captain’s voice sounded odd, there were blades slashing through the darkness, ending their curiosity for all time.
Sir Roger de Chesnai quickly ordered his handful of men to hide the bodies and assume the posts of the dead guards. The “monks” hastened forward, spilling across the courtyard and shedding the cowls that would hamper them in the close confines below. All but one were dressed in leather armour and blue surcoats borrowed from the guards’ barracks on an enterprising raid conducted earlier in the evening.
“That was too easy,” Alaric worried, his neck craned back, his head swiveling to scan the sheer stone walls rising above them. The only windows were high up on the third storey, and on the twin towers that rose above the turreted roofline. Most of the guests would be in the great hall, where the Dragon was undoubtedly reveling in his triumph, but there were guards everywhere and every shadow was suspect.
“Come,” De Chesnai said urgently. “Give me your hands so I can bind them.”
“Loosely, damn you,” Friar muttered, thrusting out his wrists and watching as a length of twine tied them together.
“There must be hundreds of chambers below the keep,” Gil protested in an angry whisper. “How can we possibly search them all?”
“One at a time, if we have to,” De Chesnai grunted. “And a fat lot of good that will do”—he glanced wryly at the longbow she carried slung over her shoulder—“in a place where the longest corridor is half a turn more than the shortest.”
Gil opened her mouth to offer a retort, but staunched it on a warning glare from Alaric. She did not completely trust the knight, nor did she like the idea of using Alaric as bait. It was the only logical way they could hope to gain entry to the cells below, yet it caused a quickening in the blood and a pounding in her heart to see Alaric without sword or armour.
“Christ’s ribs,” spat a disgruntled Robert the Welshman. He had squeezed his broad frame into one of the confiscated surcoats and looked like an overstuffed pasty about to burst its seams.
“Your own fault for swelling to the size of a bullock,” Sparrow hissed from the seat of the makeshift sling suspended from the Welshman’s broad shoulders. A dwarf would have been difficult to explain to an alert sentry regardless of his disguise. Dressed in his own forest clothes and riding Robert’s back, Sparrow could pass for just another bulge of muscle … providing he stopped squirming for better balance in the sling.