The Starfollowers of Coramonde (36 page)

The
caravaners had been taken through a tunnel under the Demon’s Breastwork. What
had been a passageway ages ago was now known as the Gauntlet of Ibn-al-Yed,
because Yardiff Bey’s mask-slave had converted it into a death trap. The
travelers had been blindfolded and taken through the Gauntlet by two guides,
each of whom knew only half the way. Guidance must be heeded exactly; the
passageway was filled with lethal pitfalls, snares and other deadly tricks.
Each guide had gone blindfolded in that part of the tunnel that wasn’t his to
know. Once the caravan was through, the guides had gone back the way they’d
come, to the fortress called Condor’s Roost, beyond the mountains.

Hightower
maintained, “Going straightway under those cliffs saved them a week and more.
Can we not do the same, guides or no?”

Gabrielle,
unperspiring, fanned herself slowly. “The traps were engineered by Ibn-al-Yed.
What that son of the Scorpion has worked, I can unwork.”

“Failure
would earn us graves under the mountains,” reminded the Warlord.

“Time’s
unsparing,” Springbuck argued. “The days of the Trailingsword are half spent. A
shortcut is worth any dare.”

The
Ku-Mor-Mai
never ceased to marvel at how problems could come up, and amaze him, in
retrospect, because he hadn’t foreseen them.

His most
immediate difficulty was keeping his prisoners alive. His soldiers had met the
Yalloroon and heard their sad story. Now, they wanted nothing more than to rip
into some Southwastelanders in retribution; some even cried “Havoc!” in
defiance of Springbuck’s command. It took shouted explanations, and more than
one man stretched out by the flat of Hightower’s sword, to quell the uproar. To
forestall mass murder, Springbuck disarmed and released all the desert men
except the caravan leader, appropriating their horses, but leaving them their
dromedaries and camels. That word of his landing would go abroad mattered
little; before southern troops could come down on his track, he intended to be
beyond pursuit, closing up this Gauntlet behind him.

They were up
at first light. Rows of horsemen moved through the dawn, honed lanceheads
playing reflective games with the intense southern sunlight. Bits jingled and
snorting horses registered impatience with tosses of their heads and quick digs
of their flashing hooves. The men of Matloo, under Drakemirth, had spent part
of the night fitting their dray-wheels with extenders, broadening them, to make
travel over the sandy stretches easier.

The Yalloroon
had used all their available silks to make coverings for their deliverers’
armor and sweating horses. Springbuck wondered how taxing the climate would be
under combat. Worse than Coramonde in its hottest months, he knew. His best
scouts, prowler-cavalrymen, led the army through winding ravines. The way was
worn with the use it had seen since the war’s outset; the prowlers would have
found it even without the southerner to show them. Faster than a caravan, they
arrived by late afternoon.

The army came
to what seemed a cul-de-sac, but its end, hidden to the side, was the mouth of
Ibn-al-Yed’s Gauntlet. Gabrielle made them all draw back and went alone into
the darkness. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
and his Warlord both had reasons for
objections, but suppressed them.

An hour
passed, while the sun sank lower and occasional bursts of the sorceress’s magic
lit the end of the ravine. One by one she felt out the snares and traps, extending
her perception and control over them. She systematically took over the
Gauntlet, bringing all its perils under her own command, holding them in
abeyance with spells and words of Enforcement.

Afterward,
she walked back to them, the strain bracketing her eyes. “The way is safe, and
I will hold it so. Yet, do not linger; Ibn-al-Yed’s devices are many.”
Hightower gave orders; torches and lamps were kindled, and Gabrielle’s horse
brought. The Warlord lifted her up, his big hands encircling her waist.

Springbuck
detailed Balagon and his One Hundred to insure that no one stopped or faltered.
Brodur-Scabbardless was given charge over the rearguard. Total silence, except
for relaying instructions, was the inflexible rule. With Springbuck on one side
and Hightower on the other, the sorceress entered the Gauntlet.

The
passageway was cool and dank after the desert, but filled with a sickening
stench. They’d expected to see bats or crawling things, but no living creature
would dwell in the Gauntlet. Hoofbeats echoed hollowly on rock, and red
torchlight wavered across it. “I like not this burrow,” whispered Hightower
against his own orders.

The way wound
on, partly through natural chambers in the mountain, but more often tunneled.
Horses snorted and were nervous, hating it here. The Gauntlet seemed to go on
endlessly. But at last, a breath of air reached them, wriggling the torch
flames. Gabrielle, reining in, halted them. “This is more than midway,” she
declared. “I will stay here and put forth my influence in both directions. Make
all haste.”

Hightower
took the van. Springbuck, loathing it, knew he must stay in the Gauntlet until
all his troops were through. The ranks moved on, horses sometimes tossing their
heads and fighting the bit. Men’s eyes, in the shadows of their helmets, darted
constantly. The son of Surehand peered continuously for Brodur, but knew the
rearguard would be a long time coming. In the damp coolness, he sweated worse
than he had on the desert. The mass of the mountains hovered over him.

The clans of
Teebra clopped past. He was distracting himself by trying to recall where they
were in the order of march when Gabrielle screamed. Her cry, as if she’d been
injured or more, bounced back and forth in the passageway. Frightened horses
fought their riders, and men yelled in alarm. Springbuck roared for silence.
The sorceress swayed, a hand to her forehead, then slumped sideways. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
caught her, hearing the rock around him grinding against itself.

In a moment she
came to, her breathing unsteady. Her hand gripped weakly at him. “Springbuck,
some calamity is come. There was a great disturbance in the magic of the
deCourteneys, and now an abyss. I fear my mother is slain!”

Springbuck
ignored everything but immediate danger. He shook her. “Can you maintain the
Gauntlet?”

“I—I think it
so. But there is…” Her voice trailed away; he felt convulsions threaten her. He
commanded the march to continue, full speed. His every nerve shrieked; his
entire army was in danger of being cut in two, or entombed. Gabrielle
reasserted herself to gasp, “My energies are failing, they flow away. Andre!
Andre throws the whole of our magic at some enemy, more than he has ever used
before. I can barely withhold any.”

Springbuck’s
flesh crawled as he heard the ponderous shifting of stone. There was a crash,
splintering wood, the death cries of men and horses. Fireheel half-reared under
him, the whites of the stallion’s eyes showing.

The
Ku-Mor-Mai
called for all to be silent, hold ranks, but the terrors of cave-in were there.
Men and their mounts bolted forward while Gabrielle’s face showed the
contortions of effort, holding back the mantraps. Springbuck pulled her back
out of the way, sheltering her and her horse with himself and Fireheel. He swept
out Bar; it caught the light of passing torches and even in stampede, men were
wise enough to give it wide berth.

The
sorceress’ features were crosshatched with pain. “Can you hold, Gabrielle?
Can
you hold?”

Her lower lip
was bleeding, where she’d bitten it in the throes of her struggle. She nodded
weakly. “For the moment.” He took hold of the hilt of her brother’s sword,
hanging from her saddle, where Calundronius was kept, thinking the gemstone
might help. “No!” She batted at his hand feebly. “It would only dissipate all
magic in here, mine included.”

One man
blundered into him, and Springbuck seized him and held Bar at his belly,
demanding to know what had happened.

“I had been
near a wain bearing barrels of water, but when I looked, it was there no
longer; the stone had dropped away beneath it, and it had fallen into the
breach. We never heard it hit, nor could we see any bottom to the gulf. The gap
was from wall to wall, too long for any horse to hurdle.”

Springbuck,
numb, let him go; the rest had escaped already. Gabrielle’s face, usually pale,
was bloodless now, her hair clinging in damp scarlet ringlets to her sweating
cheeks and brow. Her eyes were screwed shut in effort, lip again clenched in
her teeth.

He started
back, to see if there was some way to bridge the pitfall. Fireheel was unruly,
unwilling. Gabrielle’s eyes snapped open. “Springbuck, no! There is no way
back.”

He stopped.
Hightower appeared, torch held aloft. Seeing the sorceress, he called her name.
Her gaze went to him; the Gauntlet’s hidden machinery could be heard.

Fireheel
reacted. The gray’s gathered muscles uncoiled; tons of stone crashed down where
he’d been. Gabrielle, attuned to Ibn-al-Yed’s ancient devices, flung her hand
out, crying “Hold!”

He reined in
brutally, and Fireheel’s hooves struck sparks from the tunnel floor, skidding
to a halt. A long metal shaft shot from a concealed hole, its point digging
deep into the rock wall opposite. It just missed him, blocking his way. He
backed the horse, to see how he might get around or over it, and a second shaft
sprang from the floor, burying its head in the ceiling. Now two poles,
perpendicular, stood in his way.

Thinking he
detected a pattern, he started to back again, afraid the next spike would spit
him where he sat. Gabrielle wailed his name again. “Come forward, forward!”
Breath failed her. He rushed up to the crossed shafts and two more, obliques,
intersected where he’d have been without her warning.

Hightower
rode up, greatsword in hand. It shone wetly in the dimness; he’d thought there
was betrayal, and killed the luckless caravan leader. Putting all his weight
behind it, he sheared one pole in half, the pieces falling away. Springbuck
took his best swing with Bar, the sword called Never Blunted. He cleaved the
second shaft. Behind him, the sides of the tunnel collapsed. Debris and
fragments ricocheted.

Gabrielle
exerted her will over the Gauntlet again; most of the powers of the
deCourteneys had been exhausted in the last few minutes as, hundreds of miles
away on the Isle of Keys, Andre launched a near-successful assault on the Hand
of Salamá. Unknowingly, he had wrought disaster upon the army of Coramonde as
well.

“I hold the
Gauntlet,” she panted, “but it cannot be for long. Too many triggers have been
sprung, trip wires broken, counterweights activated. The ultimate deadfall, the
mountain itself, will crash down when I let go.”

“Release your
hold on those behind us as we go,” Springbuck said, “and thus, conserve
yourself.” Those who’d been caught on the other side of the first pitfall, if
they’d been able to do so, must have gotten clear by now; she’d held out long
enough for that. He sheathed Bar with a clash and leaned low to take up a
dropped torch.

He and the
Warlord slipped their shields onto their arms. Again, they took places at her
sides.

They galloped
off, taking with them their circle of light and the tattoo of hooves. As they
went, Gabrielle loosened her hold on the traps they’d passed. Steel darts
whizzed in clouds, ceilings and walls collapsed, floors dropped away, smoking
acid showered down, and boiled into the pitfalls. Deadly fumes curled up, too
late, in their wake, and impaling-stakes sprung. Burning fluid lapped across
the rock floors, and poisoned arrows whistled. Ten thousand murders were
aborted.

The three
burst from the southern mouth of the Gauntlet. The Trailingsword hung brighter,
nearer in the night. Gabrielle, at the end of her enormous strength, lolled and
swayed. Lynchpins, keystones, counterweights and latches, freed from her will,
brought down their last trap. The mountain collapsed with a rumble. Men and
horses lost balance as the earth shook. Dust, gas, smoke belched from the
tunnel’s mouth.

Springbuck,
face blackened, dismounted to stare back at it. “Is the area secure?” he asked
an officer offhandedly.

“Yes,
Ku-Mor-Mai.
We found no sentinels.” Indicating the Gauntlet, he explained. “They thought
they needed none.”

“My Lord
Hightower, what do you think they’ll do there, on the other side?”

The Warlord,
looking up from tending Gabrielle, tugged his beard and thought. “There is old
Drakemirth back there, and Balagon, and not least of all is
Brodur-Scabbardless. They will take the long way, or perhaps even essay the
shorter way through Amon’s Cauldron, but they will come, doubt it not. With
them will come the far greater measure of our manpower.”

“How fares
Gabrielle?”

“She is
spent, yet she will recover.”

Springbuck
stared at the Trailingsword, blurry to him. “Then, our route-sign beckons.”

A wide,
mountain-flanked valley guarded the way south. Flat and scorched a lifeless
yellow, it reminded the crouching
Ku-Mor-Mai
of nothing so much as a
brass skillet. At its far end, just short of the pass that gave access toward
Salamá, stood the fortress at which the caravan had gathered, among its rearing
ochre escarps, salients and battlements, Condor’s Roost.

All told,
Springbuck had less than two thousand souls in his separated element. Only five
water wagons had come through the Gauntlet, and almost none of his lighter
cavalry; he’d brought his heaviest chivalry through first, to resist any attack
that might have sought to throw him back. There were none of the regular
infantry he brought along on horseback, no pikemen, and too few archers. Still,
it had seemed likely the collapse of the Gauntlet would draw investigation, and
so he’d moved away from it. His scouts had left subtle signs for their
counterparts with the rest of the army.