Five miles along the road the peddlers met a straggle of peasant folk, some with horses or donkeys, others driving farm carts loaded with household possessions, others going afoot, with infants and children: refugees, so they identified themselves, driven from their steadings by the Ska. One great black army, so they stated, had already stormed across South Ulfland, obliterating resistance, enslaving able men and women, burning the keeps and castles of the Ulfish barons.
Again the peddlers, now in distress, took counsel, and once again decided to proceed at least as far as Tintzin Fyral. "But no farther until safety is assured!" declared the most sagacious of the group. "Remember: one step into the Vale and we must pay the Duke's tolls!"
"On then!" said another. "To Tintzin Fyral, and we shall see how the land lies."
The group continued along the road, only in short order to meet another band of refugees, who brought news of the most startling sort: the Ska army had reached Tintzin Fyral and even now had placed it under attack.
There was no more question of going forward; the peddlers turned in their tracks and returned south far more briskly than they had come.
Aillas remained alone on the road. Tintzin Fyral lay yet another five miles ahead. He had no choice but to attempt to discover a route to detour Tintzin Fyral: one which climbed into the mountains, over, then descended once more to the Trompada.
At a small steep ravine choked with scrub-oak and stunted cedar, Aillas dismounted and led his horse up the faintest of trails toward the skyline. Harsh vegetation blocked the way; loose rocks rolled underfoot and the hammer-headed gray horse had no taste for mountain climbing. During the first hour Aillas progressed only a mile. After another hour he arrived at the ridge of a spur which splayed out from the central crag. The route became easier and led in a direction parallel to the road below, but always climbing, up toward that flat-topped mountain known as Tac Tor: the highest point within range of vision.
Tintzin Fyral could not be far away. Stopping to catch his breath, Aillas thought to hear far faint shouts. Thoughtfully he continued, keeping as much to cover as possible. Tintzin Fyral, he calculated, stood across Vale Evander, immediately beyond Tac Tor.
He was approaching the scene of siege far closer than he had intended.
Sunset found him a hundred yards below the summit, in a little dell beside a covert of mountain larches. Aillas cut himself a bed of boughs, tied his horse on a long tether near a rivulet seeping from a spring. Forgoing the comfort of a fire, he ate bread and cheese from his saddlebag. From his pouch he brought Never-fail and watched as the tooth swung to the northeast, with perhaps a trifle more easting than before.
He tucked Never-fail into his pouch, shoved pouch and saddle-bags deep under a laurel bush and went out on the ridge to look around the landscape. Afterglow had not yet left the sky and a full moon of enormous dimensions rose from the black loom of Forest Tantrevalles. Nowhere could be seen gleam of candle or lamp, nor the flicker of fire.
Aillas considered the flat summit, only a hundred yards above. In the half-light he noticed a trail; others had fared this way before, though not by the route he had come.
Aillas followed the path to the summit to find a flat area of three or four acres, with a stone altar and five dolmens at the center, standing stark and quiet in the moonlight.
Giving wide berth to the altar Aillas crossed the flat summit, to where the opposite brink dropped away in a cliff. Tintzin Fyral seemed so close that he might have flung a stone across and down to the roof of the highest tower. The castle was illuminated as if for a gala, windows aglow with golden light. Along the ridge behind the castle hundreds of small fires flickered red and orange; among them moved a company of tall somber warriors, to a number Aillas could not estimate. At their back, dim in the firelight, stood the gaunt frames of four large siege engines.
Clearly here was no chance or capricious escapade.
The chasm at Aillas' feet dropped sheer to the floor of Vale Evander. Below the castle torches lit a parade-ground, now unoccupied; other torches, in parallel rows, marked the parapets of a wall across the narrow neck of the Vale: like the paradeground devoid of defenders.
A mile to the west, along the ridge, another spatter of camp-fires indicated a second encampment, presumably Ska.
The scene was one of weird grandeur which affected Aillas with awe. He watched for a period, then turned away and descended through the moonlight to his own camp.
The night was unseasonably cool. Aillas lay on his bed of boughs, shivering under cloak and saddleblanket. Presently he slept, but only fitfully, waking from time to time to watch the progress of the moon across the sky. Once, with the moon halfway down in the west he heard a far contralto cry of misery: something between a howl and a moan, which brought up the hairs at the the back of his neck. He huddled deep into his bed. Minutes passed; the call was not repeated. At last he fell into a torpor which kept him asleep somewhat longer than he had intended, and he awoke only when rays from the rising sun shone into his face.
He rose lethargically, washed his face in the stream and considered how best to proceed. The trail to the summit might well lead down to join the Trompada: a convenient route, if it avoided the Ska. He decided to return to the summit the better to spy out the lay of the land. Taking a crust of bread and a knob of cheese to eat along the way, he climbed to the top. The mountains below and behind fell away in humping spurs, gulches and wallowing folds almost to the verge of the forest. As best he could determine the trail descended to the Trompada and so would serve him well.
On this clear sunny morning the air smelled sweet of mountain herbs: heather, gorse, rosemary, cedar. Aillas crossed the summit to see how went the siege of Tintzin Fyral. It was, he reflected, an episode of great significance; if the Ska commanded both Poelitetz and Tintzin Fyral, they effectively controlled the Ulflands.
Approaching the brink he dropped to his hands and knees to avoid impinging his silhouette on the skyline; nearing the brink he went flat and crawled, and at last peered out across the gorge. Almost below Tintzin Fyral reared high on its tall crag: close, but not so close as it had seemed the night before, when he thought he could fling a stone across the chasm to the roof. Now it was clear that the castle lay beyond all but the strongest arrow-flight. The uppermost tower culminated in a terrace guarded by parapets. A swayback saddle, or ridge joined the castle to the heights beyond, where the closest vantage area, reinforced from below by a retaining wall of stone blocks, overlooked the castle well within bowshot range. Remarkable, thought Aillas, the foolish arrogance of Faude Carfilhiot, to allow so convenient a platform to remain unguarded. The area now swarmed with Ska troops. They wore steel caps, and long-sleeved black surcoats; they moved with a grim and agile purpose, which suggested an army of black killer-ants. If King Casmir had hoped to create an alliance, or at the very least a truce with the Ska, his hopes now were blasted, since by the attack the Ska had declared themselves his adversaries.
Both the castle and Vale Evander seemed lethargic this bright morning. No peasant tilled his field nor walked the road, nor were Carfilhiot's troops anywhere visible. By dint of great exertion the Ska had transported four large catapults across the moors, up the mountainside and along the ridge which commanded Tintzin Fyral. As Aillas watched they dragged the engines forward. They were, so he saw, heavily built devices capable of tossing a hundred-pound boulder the distance to Tintzin Fyral, to knock down a merlon, break open an embrasure, rupture a wall, and eventually, after repeated blows, to demolish the high tower itself. Worked by competent engineers, and with uniform missiles, their accuracy could be almost exact.