the ancient gate at the top of the ramp.
With the deft moves of a master of his craft, Magnus countered each spell quickly, allowing the soldiers from Erik’s command to approach on silent feet. If there was a lookout above he would have been hard pressed to notice the darting grey figures hunched over, moving along the edges of the roadway in the night’s gloom. Small moon didn’t rise for another hour and its light was faint even on clear nights. Tonight was overcast.
With hand signals, the officer in charge motioned for his men to make ready. An ancient drawbridge had once covered a gap between the top of the roadway-ramp and the keep’s gate. Now it hung by a single chain, dangling uselessly on the other side of the gap, an open space too wide for any man to leap. Signals were passed and from the rear two pairs of men ran forward, carrying scaling ladders that would serve as bridges across the chasm. Magnus used his skills to elevate himself and float above the breach.
He watched the men calmly walking on the ladder rungs, heedless of the yawning space below their feet. A misstep would send a man tumbling to his death. Magnus admired their discipline.
Now Magnus cast his senses forward, attempting to seek out more magic entanglements or lures, and found none. The warder of this keep had been content to trust to the snares left along the roadway to alert the residents of the keep to any unwelcome company. He strode forward, unmindful of any physical danger, for he sensed something in the distance that caused the hair on his arms and neck to stand up.
He held up his hand and a faint light shone from the palm, illuminating the killing ground between the now-fallen outer gate, where once a drawbridge and a portcullis had provided the first barrier, and the inner doors, which were shut and, Magnus supposed, barred from within. The soldiers behind him assembled silently. In the eerie mystical illumination Magnus’s pale hair and height gave him an almost supernatural appearance, but whatever discomfort the soldiers might have felt being given over to the command of a wizard was not in evidence as they waited for his instructions.
Magnus closed his eyes to better aid his concentration and envision the large wooden doors. He reached out with his senses and ran mental fingers over the surface of the wood, then pressed slowly through until he could feel the other side. As he did so a picture as clear as if he were using his eyes appeared in his mind, and he saw the large wooden bar set in two wooden brackets. He inspected every inch with his mental touch, then opened his eyes and stepped back. ‘There’s a trap,’ he said softly to the officer who stood to his right.
‘What do you suggest?’ the young knight-lieutenant asked.
Magnus said, ‘Find a way through that door without lifting the bar.’
He extended his hand and a faint humming could be heard by those standing closest to him. Suddenly, there was a hole in the bottom of the gate, large enough for a man to pass through on hands and knees. ‘One at a time,’ said Magnus, ‘and have no man touch the gate or the walls on either side.’
The officer passed the word and quickly each man in turn made his way through. Magnus got ready to control the magic that would be unleashed should any man falter, but the preparation proved needless. Each man did exactly as he was instructed.
Then it was Magnus’s turn and he crawled through awkwardly, finding his robe an unexpected impediment. Halfway through the hole he was forced to lift first one knee, then the other, pulling the fabric ahead of him, so he could get through without falling on his face.
Chuckling as he stood, he said, ‘There are times, and this is one of them, when I feel the need to question my father as to why magicians are expected to wear robes.’
The lieutenant revealed himself to be a man of little humour as he asked, ‘Milord?’
Magnus sighed. ‘Never mind.’ He faced the soldiers. ‘Stay behind me unless I tell you to move forward, for there are forces here that are more than the bravest man can face without my arts.
‘Any man you see who is not Ralan Bek or one of your own, kill on sight.’
Then he turned and walked forward into the darkness, the light from his hand bobbing like a swinging lantern’s.
Bek walked as if strolling down a street, mindless of the darkness. There was light coming from several distant rooms at the ends of tunnels which crossed the one he had chosen, but he ignored them, and kept going straight ahead. He didn’t know how he knew, but he sensed that he needed to move straight from the secret entrance at the rear of the keep to the innermost chamber, which was probably some ancient great hall or throne room.
He felt positively buoyant in anticipation of the coming fight. He liked some of the things Nakor made him do, but he hadn’t been in any sort of combat for far too long. He’d bashed a few skulls in a tavern or two, but there had been no serious bloodletting since he’d killed that emperor for Nakor the year before. That had been fun. He almost laughed aloud thinking of the stunned expressions on the faces of everyone looking up at where he stood, his sword thrust straight though the old man’s back.
A man wearing black armour but no helm walked around a corner and before he stopped moving, Ralan Bek had run his sword point into the man’s throat, which was exposed above the cuirass. The man dropped with a fairly loud noise, but Bek didn’t care. Less than a hundred feet ahead light beckoned and he was anxious to bring havoc.
He strode down the last length of shadowy hall into a high-ceilinged chamber. It was an old-style keep hall, where in the dead of winter the family and close retainers of the original ruler of Cavell Keep would sleep during winter’s coldest nights. Once magnificent, the great hall had fallen into drab disrepair.
The vaulted roof was still supported by massive wooden beams so ancient they were as hard as steel, but the once whitewashed walls were now dark grey and high in the darkness above Bek could hear bats fluttering. No tapestries hung on the walls to shield the inhabitants against winter’s chill in the stones, nor were there rugs on the floor. But a fire burned in the massive fireplace to the left of the door through which he entered. Sword drawn and with a maniac’s grin in place, he surveyed the two dozen men resting before the fire.
In the centre of this group sat two men, both in large chairs made in an older style – a ‘u’ of wood set on top of another to make the legs, with a wooden back nailed across the upper half, stuffed with cushions or furs. The rest sat on camp stools or on black cloaks spread on the floor. All were dressed in black armour, the hallmark of the Nighthawks, except for the two men in the centre. One wore a tunic of finely woven linen and trousers and boots worthy of a high-born noble, though his clothes hung loosely on this frame, as if he had lost a great deal of weight lately; the other wore the black robes of a cleric or magician. The man in the tunic wore a heavy amulet of gold around his neck, identical to the black amulet Bek had been shown by Nakor. The robed man wore no jewellery whatsoever. He was thin and there wasn’t a hair on his face or head.
A moment after Bek appeared the eighteen seated men were scrambling, two blowing bone whistles that sent a shrieking alarm throughout the keep.
The man with the gold around his neck looked harried, and his eyes were wide as he pointed at Bek screaming, ‘Kill him!’
As the first swordsman raised his sword, Bek gripped his own weapon with two hands, his eyes narrow slits, focusing with keen anticipation on the coming slaughter. But the robed man shouted, ‘No! Halt!’ His eyes locked onto Bek’s in wonder.
Everyone, including Bek, froze as the man wove between the swordsmen. He passed the man closest to Ralan Bek, and came straight towards the young warrior. Bek sensed some strange power in this man, and his lucky feeling told him something unusual was about to happen. He hesitated, then began to swing at the man in the robe.
The man held up his hand, not in defence, but in supplication. ‘Wait,’ he said as Bek hesitated again. He reached out slowly, almost gently, and put his hand on Bek’s chest, and said again, ‘Wait.’
Then slowly the robed man went to his knees and in a voice that was little more than a whisper, he said, ‘What does our master bid us?’
The man with