Neversfall - Ed Gentry [38]
As he pushed open the door to the tower, Taennen faced Loraica. "Kill anyone you don't know."
Loraica nodded and drew out her heavy falchion. Taennen crept up the stairs, listening after every few steps for the sounds of anyone moving around at the top of the tower. His pace increased as he continued. They reached the top of the tower to face the door he had seen for the first time earlier that day. The door no longer sparkled with the glow of possibility and mystery. Instead it hung open, dull and uninviting.
"I saw him close it," Taennen said.
Loraica knelt on one knee, examining the door and its jamb. "It doesn't look like it was forced. They must have figured out the passphrase," she said.
Taennen shook his head. "Khatib said one had to know it ahead of time."
"Do you think the invaders tortured the phrase out of the last regiment?" Loraica asked.
"If so, then why not occupy the citadel? Why keep to the woods?"
"They are wildmen, sir," Loraica said. "You saw them fight, Lori. They're no wildmen." She conceded the point. "They did seem too organized, didn't they?"
Taennen nodded.
"What is all this?" she said, motioning around the room.
Taennen smiled, thinking of Khatib's enthusiasm for the crystals. "This is the heart of Neversfall."
"Well, how does it work?"
"It needs a brain."
"It doesn't have one?" she asked.
"He's being buried right now," Taennen said, leaving the room. "There's nothing here to see. Coordinate with Marlke, Lori. I'm going to get a count of our losses."
+ + + + +
Evening was consuming daylight as Adeenya stalked the plains. Even with Neversfall within sight behind her, she felt conspicuous and naked in the open. The Aerilpar was nearby, promising no end of dangers, yet that was where the tracks of the invaders seemed to lead.
She sought not only an end to the attacks and revenge for her dead but answers to a personal mystery that took precedent in her mind. Not long after the battle had ended, Adeenya discovered that her pendant, the magical device she used to communicate with her superiors was missing. The attackers who groped at her were not interested in her body but her pendant.
She remembered their probing hands and wished she could hack them off. How could they have known about the pendant? What did they want with it? True it was magical, but its power was not difficult to come by. Other than her own soldiers and the sly wizard Khatib, no one had known about the pendant. Khatib was dead, which left only her own soldiers under suspicion, and Adeenya did not want to travel that road. She refused to believe that random chance had allowed the attackers to find her pendant. She would be all the more wary until she could figure out for certain how they had known.
"Here, Orir," Corbrinn said, interrupting her thoughts. "Two dozen or more."
"More than two dozen? You're sure?" she asked the halfling, who crouched on the ground before her examining tracks.
Corbrinn stood and nodded before continuing toward the forest. "At least two dozen left the citadel on their own feet," Corbrinn said. "Some of these are deep, too heavy. Those are from the ones carrying fallen comrades on their shoulders."
Adeenya motioned to her squad to follow and prompted the halfling to lead the way. At the edge of the woods, huge, dark trees loomed overhead and seemed to speak to her of the many lifetimes that had passed before their watch.
Violent lifetimes, she thought, keeping an eye out for the Aerilpar's monstrous inhabitants.
Tall undergrowth in every shade of green blocked their way but also showed signs of recent passage, indicating the attackers had fled this way. A few of the soldiers cut a path with their swords, but the going was slow.
Corbrinn seemed frustrated, climbing to the low branches of a tree to look further into the forest, confirming the path they followed. He hopped down and pushed to the head of the line. "Out of my way, boys," Corbrinn said, taking the lead.
The small man seemed to be swallowed by the plants all around him as he plunged forward. Adeenya followed closely behind