Blades of the Banished - Robert Ryan Page 0,8

There are too many elùgroths, and they are beyond my power. If they could be defeated, Aranloth would already have done so. He and I together would have a better chance. But even then, I think not. We must find a way that does not involve direct confrontation.”

Lanrik knew she already had something in mind. There was more to her vision than she had revealed.

“What other way is there?” he asked.

“Oh, there’s at least one other way. But it’s nearly as dangerous, even if they would not expect it. We have to think of something else. The other … possibility is a last resort.”

He did not press her for more details. He sensed once again that she was reluctant to talk about it. That did not bode well for whatever it was, and by the sounds of it, it offered only a marginally better chance than challenging the elùgroths directly. He was not sure that he wanted to know more about such an option.

He changed the subject. “It’s strange to think that the shazrahad sword came from somewhere near here. This land is so different from Esgallien. I feel like I don’t belong here, as if the land itself hates me. I wonder if elugs and Azan feel that way when they come north?”

“I expect so,” Erlissa answered. “But the sword did not just come from somewhere in this area. Assurah forged it here, on the very mountain that we now climb. His presence, and the lingering remnants of his sorcery, are all about us – even after all this time. Truly, the land reeks of him and his works.” She frowned. “And I can sense something familiar too. The sword spent years beyond count in this place. The tower that I described, the dark one, is where he forged it.”

Lanrik considered that “It’s no accident then that Aranloth came here. I wonder if he found out anything about the sword?”

Erlissa grinned at him. “You can ask him, once we break him free.”

Lanrik admired her optimism, or at least her ability to make light of the situation. It was strange, though. When first they met she was not like that at all. She had changed. Or becoming a lòhren had changed her. Or maybe something else. Whatever the cause of it, she was becoming more like him. At least, his old self. But he knew that he was changing too. A man could not go through what he had and remain the same. He was picking up more of her nonchalant attitude. What would be would be. He still planned though. He would always plan. Just like he wanted to think of a strategy now to save Aranloth. He knew it was too early for that though. They still needed more information, and he must see this tower for himself, first.

Dawn came at the end of a long night. Smoke hung in the air. The sky glowered red and fiery. Through all the dark hours they had climbed high, and Lanrik knew they had always headed upward, but he was still surprised.

Galenthern, the last dry and arid fringe of it at any rate, was far below. It was not the Galenthern that he knew though. It was brown rather than green. The swamps were dry forests with creeks, instead of the deep tracts of mud and mosquito infested wetlands that he knew. But it was still Galenthern. And it was vast. And worst of all, home lay on its far side.

“I had no idea how high we’d come,” he said.

“We‘re a long way up, all right,” Erlissa answered.

She pointed with her staff. “See. That’s the peak we want, or more accurately, we seek the tower under its shadow.”

They were not only higher, but also much closer to their destination than Lanrik had reckoned. Before them was now a well-used mountain trail. It wound ahead between ridges, climbing ever higher. But people made such trails, and that made him wary, for wherever people travelled danger followed.

Everywhere he looked were shattered rocks. There were few trees, and those that he did see belonged to some stunted variety of pine that he did not know. He saw why the Halathrin had long ago named the range the Graèglin Dennath: the Ash Mountains. They usually named things truly. And yet this was one of the inhabited parts. It made him wonder about the rest of the land.

He had heard stories that the very air in this region could be poisonous, and that steam rose