The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [151]
“It doesn't look like much,” she said.
Seated on his mule, All-master Oragien smiled at her. “Gravenfist Keep is nearly a thousand years old, Your Majesty. We should be glad it's standing at all.”
While the main force of the army snaked its way slowly up the valley, Grace rode ahead with the ones who had become her most trusted companions: Durge and Tarus, Aldeth and Samatha, Commander Paladus, Master Graedin and All-master Oragien, and the witches Senrael and Lursa. With them beside her, Grace felt she could face anything.
Well, almost anything.
“We are so incredibly doomed,” she murmured as they brought their horses to a halt, then winced, glancing at the others. “Sorry. I meant to just think that.”
“Don't apologize, Your Majesty,” Tarus said, a pained look on his face. “I think you may be right.”
They dismounted and picked their way across the stony ground toward the keep. Tira ran alongside them, flitting from rock to rock on bare feet.
Gravenfist sat at the highest point of the valley, where the cliff walls drew down until they were little more than a hundred paces apart. Grace was no military genius, but she could see this was a highly defensible spot. The cliffs were sheer and unscalable, and the narrow valley would squeeze an attacking force like a stony hand; no doubt that was how the keep had gotten its name. Even a small force such as her own could hold this fortress indefinitely if it was in good repair.
It wasn't. Given the looks of it, the curtain wall that stretched between the two cliffs had once been about thirty feet high. Now in most places it was no more than ten. The wall was cracked and rusty with lichen, heaps of fallen stones piled at its base.
The main keep, which stood behind the wall, was in little better shape. There was a large, square tower from which low barracks reached out to either side, then angled back around to form a courtyard. The barracks looked large enough to house a thousand soldiers, but they were largely roofless, and their doors and shutters had long ago rotted to splinters. The tower, which stood five stories high, appeared solid enough, though its parapets were crumbling like the wall, and no doubt it was as roofless as the barracks.
Grace gazed at the keep, but the tower's narrow windows only stared back at her like bleary eyes. This place had been slumbering for seven hundred years. How could she hope to wake it to war?
“Don't worry, Your Majesty,” Durge said. “It's nothing a little elbow grease won't fix.”
Grace didn't think there were that many elbows in the world. Besides, even if they could prevent the fortress from falling down, there certainly wasn't time to build the wall back up to its full height. A thirty-foot barrier might be defended. But one that stood ten feet? The Pale King's minions would scale it in seconds. Grace started to tell the others it was hopeless, that they might as well turn around and march back to Calavere.
“Your Majesty!” Master Graedin called out. “I believe you should come look at this.” The young runespeaker had scrambled up a pile of stones and now stood atop one of the lowest points along the wall.
The rest of them hurried to the wall, and Aldeth and Samatha nimbly ascended it. There was plenty of room for them to stand alongside Graedin; the wall was a good ten feet thick.
“Oh,” Aldeth said.
Samatha laughed, her gray eyes shining. “Well this changes everything.”
“I told you so,” Graedin said.
All of this suspense was quickly making Grace cross. “Durge, since no one sees fit to tell me what they're seeing, I'll have to look for myself. Help me up there.”
Durge knelt and made a stirrup of his hands, boosting Grace up. Aldeth and Samatha caught her, pulling her to the top of the wall. She swayed as the wind struck her.
“Careful, Your Majesty,” Master Graedin said, steadying her. “You don't wish to fall that way.”
“No,” Grace