Master of Chains - Jess Lebow [96]
* * * * *
"All right, listen up," said Captain Phinneous. He had his entire unit assembled in the common room of the barracks inside Zerith Hold. "I have volunteered all of you for late-night guard duty tonight."
This brought a few moans and groans from the men.
Under other circumstances, Phinneous might have been angry. But not today. Today he was going to get a little revenge. Nothing could spoil his good mood.
"All right, quiet down," he said. "I know none of you like that too much, but I have a little surprise for you."
The men quieted down.
"I have word that Ryder of Duhlnarim has found his way back to Ahlarkham."
"I thought he'd been shipped off to Westgate," shouted a soldier.
"Aye, lad," said Captain Phinneous. "Somehow the bastard has earned his freedom, and he's come back to finish what he started."
Phinneous looked at each of the men, making sure his words sank in. "I have it on good authority that he's going to try to infiltrate Zerith Hold tonight."
"Ah," shouted the same guard. "And we're going to be there to catch him." He slapped the guard next to him on the arm in celebration. "We'll all be heroes."
The men let out a huzzah!
Captain Phinneous shook his head. "No, lads," he said. "I've got an even better idea." The men grew quiet again as Phinneous leaned in, talking just above a whisper. "We're gonna let the man in and let him get all the way to the baron's sitting room."
"Why would we do that?"
Captain Phinneous smiled a huge bucktoothed grin. "Because, boys, we'll have a surprise waiting for our guest when he arrives. Stay sharp tonight. I've got hunch we'll be in for a spectacular show."
* * * * *
It was the darkest part of the night. The moon had yet to rise over the Deepwash as Ryder and Curtis inched their way closer to Zerith Hold.
There were only two ways into the fortress. The most accessible was the same way Ryder had been taken out-through the stables and barracks in the back where all of Purdun's elite guardsmen lived and slept. Even with Curtis's illusions, Ryder doubted there was much of a chance of his making it in through there undetected.
The other way was through the front gate. Though it, too, was heavily watched, there were far fewer guardsmen around and not nearly as much traffic. The back of the Hold was where all the real business-the comings and goings of merchants and soldiers-took place. The front was more for diplomatic purposes, and it didn't see as much use.
That night, Ryder was going to be a visiting foreign dignitary-an uninvited ambassador from Fairhaven.
Though the portcullis and double doors that blocked entry to Zerith Hold were down and closed, the drawbridge had not been raised. A person so inclined could walk right up to the front door of Zerith Hold and knock on the heavy wood. That wouldn't be the way Ryder chose to enter.
The huge chains that lifted the bridge back up against the doors of the Hold hung slack from the top of the wall. They attached to the wooden drawbridge by two large cast-iron hooks that were forged directly into the bridge. The links of the chain rose into the air, sagging as they climbed toward the top of the wall and through two large holes in the stone. Ryder had never seen the other side of the door, but he assumed the rest of the chains were connected to a wheel or a pulley, some mechanism that allowed a handful of guardsmen to open and close the drawbridge as the need arose.
Ryder watched the guards on top of the wall. From what he could tell, there were only a handful of them up there. They were paired off, and they marched from one end of the wall on a strict rotation. In the time it took Ryder to count to three hundred, one patrol had covered the entire length of the wall and had moved out of sight.
As they patrolled, the guards hardly even turned their attention away from their conversations. Only once did Ryder see a soldier actually look out off the wall through the crenellations. They really weren't paying any attention