Read Blood and Steel (The Cor Chronicles Volume I) Page 49

It was not much further to the Loszians’ end of the pass, only about another hour on foot. Clearly, Wrelk had been watching Cor and waited until he was certain Cor would actually make it that far. The Loszians had their own wall and fort, theirs made of a curious black stone that shined purple with reflected light. Walls and buildings were always made of limestone, granite and sandstone, perhaps even marble, and this black stone was unlike them all. He vaguely recalled the Chronicler mentioning in his writings the black and purple towers of Losz on several occasions, and Cor remembered those he saw in the distance while briefly moored in Katan’Nosh. The stone wall was roughly the same height as Fort Haldon’s wooden stockade with battlements and four large square towers, all made from the same black rock. A black iron gate with portcullis was set in the center.

  “Halt,” a voice called from above when they grew near. “Wrelk, you have found the Westerner for which your master sent you?”

  “Yes Lord,” Wrelk replied, shouting to make his voice heard above.

  “You left with four men. What happened to the other two?”

  “I’m afraid they met an unfortunate and unexpected end. You see, a large boulder simply fell down the mountain and crushed them.” Wrelk lied with ease; the tone of his voice was light and reasonable, as if no other occurrence could have possible happened.

  “A most unfortunate end, indeed. Perhaps they should have been more careful.”

  Cor could hear the mirth in the voice from above, and he suspected the speaker knew Wrelk’s words were untrue but would make no issue of it. He wondered why they even bothered with the pretense at all; surely, it would be easier to simply tell the truth. The voice shouted for the gate to be opened, and the iron portcullis began to lift with the sound of scraping metal and heavy chains. The group advanced, passing through the gate to the other side of the wall.

  The Loszian fort looked very little different from Fort Haldon, with a mass of buildings for the assembled troops, though these were all made of basalt instead of timber. However, the Loszians did have one large square building at the center of the others to which the group was led. Forced to leave Kelli outside, and with a warning of violence should anything happen to her, Cor and Wrelk were ushered into this building through a heavy oaken door.

  Inside was a single room, the length and width of which were the same dimension, roughly forty feet by Cor’s eye. In the far right corner sat a massive plush bed, on which sat two stark naked women chained by the throat to the headboard itself. The back wall was adorned with a giant map of the area, apparently showing a span of about five hundred miles in every direction from the center of the mountain pass, and a huge round mahogany table sat in the center of the room. Gold and loot of all kinds lay in a massive heap in the other rear corner. Smoky torches burned in sconces at even intervals around the room, and several others were placed in iron stands around the table.

  At the table, his back to the map sat a man writing on parchment with a charcoal pencil. Though sitting, Cor could tell that the man was at least a foot taller than he, and he was impossibly narrow of frame. His fingers, each six inches or more long, reminded Cor of the enormous spider he fought and slew to the south. This man was a true Loszian, and he was even more alien than the first Cor had encountered. His head and neck alone made up two feet of his height, longer than his shoulders were wide.

  “Approach Wrelk,” the Loszian said in an oddly deep voice. “I assume you have found the Westerner.”

  Wrelk did not answer right away and shot Cor a meaningful look, which Cor took to mean he was expected to approach as well. He walked alongside the man, stopping a few feet short of the table’s end, about ten feet from the Loszian. This close Cor could see the Loszian had extremely pale skin, quite unlike his own pallor, and blue veins spidered their way across his hands and face. He wore black and blood red robes of silk adorned with various symbols Cor could only assume were magical in nature, and something warned him against touching this Loszian.

  “Yes lord, and my lord thanks you for your consideration,” Wrelk said.

  “To the abyss with his thanks Wrelk; I have his gold, and that is what matters.” The Loszian stopped his scribblings and looked up at the two men, staring at Cor intently. For just a moment, a subtle squint came over his visage and his eyes glinted in the torchlight.

  “If this man is a Westerner, then he is a walking corpse as he looks as if he comes from the grave. But no, I see his chest rise and fall, and I can see the rhythm of a strong heart. Wrelk, I know not what your master plans, but his gold is not enough for me to hold my tongue. Inform him that he owes me a great boon for allowing this abomination to pass.”