Blades of the Banished - Robert Ryan Page 0,14

was grim. “The way is blocked to us.” She hesitated. “Yet I saw something else in my vision. I did not speak of it for fear. Now, I know that there is no other chance.”

5. The Roots of the Mountain

Lanrik saw lines of worry and doubt on Erlissa’s face. Whatever this other way was, he would like it no more than she. Yet Aranloth needed help, and so he knew before she said any more that he would undertake the risk, no matter what.

“Tell me of this other choice,” he said.

Erlissa held her staff close. She closed her eyes and spoke, though whence her knowledge came he could not tell. It seemed in part something that she had learned as a lòhren, in part something that she had intuited during her vision.

“This is an ancient land,” she began. “Once, it was home to Assurah. It was far more populous then. But now, few villages remain, and no elùgroths dwell here.”

Lanrik pointed to the tower. “There are plenty enough down there.”

“Yes, but they aren’t from here. The tower is abandoned. Those elùgroths tracked Aranloth as he wandered the Graèglin Dennath. I think they set upon him here by surprise. They do not know this land.”

“Neither do we,” Lanrik said.

“No. Not you. Not them. Not Aranloth. But I’m a seeker. I find things, and my vision of Aranloth showed me a way. But you will not like it…”

“Tell me anyway,” he answered.

She opened her eyes. “The tower is built upon a foundation of rock. Ùhrengai supports and infuses it, as is common with such places – even Lòrenta. Before the tower was built, it was long a place of worship and sorcery. Aranloth would have sensed as much. But he would not know what lies beneath. I, however, saw that with my seeker vision. There are pits, tunnels and caves. Some are natural, some formed by hand from a time before Alithoras knew either lòhrens or Halathrin.”

She hesitated, looking down at the tower grimly before she started again.

“It was once a place of human sacrifice. Some paths beneath the earth lead to fire and death. Some to never-ending blackness. One way, and one alone, leads to the base of the tower. Assurah knew it. Right below the tower’s foundations lies a great pit: unexplored and shunned long ago by the villagers of this land. But it provides a way in for us, and a way out for Aranloth.”

“If there’s known to be a pit there, why haven’t the elùgroths gone in that way to attack Aranloth?”

“They know the pit is there. They also know that something lives within it, some dark remnant of Assurah’s sorcery. But they do not know that a passage connects it to the outside world.”

“What of this thing that lives in the pit? Tell me more about it.”

“I’m not sure what it is. Something evil, that much I sense. And it is not alone.”

“And there’s no other way in?”

“No. There is not.”

Lanrik thought about this new information. Erlissa was right. He did not like it. But he had no other plan, and no prospect of thinking of one. The way forward was clear.

“Then we’ll just have to attempt it. There’s nothing else to try.”

Erlissa looked at him gravely and did not answer.

They waited through a long day. It was hot once more, and toward its end they gave the horses much of the precious water that they carried.

The sun set. It grew cold more swiftly than Lanrik would have believed before he had come to this land.

Below, a strange noise rose. It was an eerie chanting, full of harsh sounds and repeated words. It rolled over shattered rocks, echoing and re-echoing without beginning or end, and even the craggy peak of the mountain leaning over the valley seemed to whisper it back.

Erlissa stirred. “The elùgroths work a new kind of sorcery.”

White light flared from the tower top, and the chanting grew erratic and lost momentum.

“Aranloth answers them,” Lanrik said.

They listened in the dark a while longer. The chanting ceased, and no further light sprang to life. Lanrik wondered how Aranloth, alone and unaided, had held off so many attackers for so long. That the lòhren was powerful, he knew. Though so too was Elù-Randùr. Which of them was more mighty, he did not know. But Elù-Randùr at least had help, even if the other elùgroths had not reached his mastery.

“It’s time to go,” Erlissa said. “This will be a long night, and a longer day will follow on