Unwilling to Acquiesce – Part 19

By sundown Adamant and his companions reach the borders of the De’Arnise family lands. The region is so familiar to Nalia that she is able to guide them onward, in spite of the falling night. By starlight and the rising moon she leads them through the hills and, following a shallow stream hung with weeping willows, right up to her families castle. The granite fortress stands atop the highest hill for miles in all directions, a three storey keep surrounded by a stout curtain wall. In all, the keep is eminently defensible.

To the south of the castle there is a wooden stockade, with a stout guard tower facing the castle. No torches are lit on the battlements of the castle, but in the light from the stockade, human figures in armour can be seen walking about. To the casual observer, it seems as if the keep is abandoned and the stockade is the only habitation for on the open moor.

“I can see the invaders,” says Yoshimo from his vantage point in a tree some five hundred yards from the keep. “But there’s no sign of any defenders on the walls of the keep. Dangerous business walking patrol on a rampart at night with no light.” He shakes his head at the prospect.

“Oh no,” comes Nalia’s exclamation from a slightly lower branch. “I think I recognise one of the men in the stockade.”

“A prisoner perhaps?” offers Anomen as Yoshi and Nalia shinny down the tree trunk and rejoin the others.

“No,” says Adamant, before Nalia can answer. His eyes are scanning the keep and the stockade intensely. “The stockade is manned by De’Arnise soldiers. The keep has fallen.”

“How can you know that?”

“Nalia told us.”

“What?” asks Anomen and Yoshimo at once. In the moonlight it is apparent from the look on her face that even Jaheira is puzzled by Adamant’s claim.

“In the Copper Coronet,” Adamant explains. “Nalia told us that she fled the keep during an assault, but that she never saw who was attacking.”

“Yes,” confirms Nalia. “That’s what happened.”

“There’s no signs of damage to the wall, and the gate is likewise unmolested.” The party peers towards the castle, wondering how it is that Adamant can see these things so clearly in the darkness, even with the moonlight. “That means that the castle was attacked in an assault, probably by a small force which managed to sneak into the castle in a single night.”

“There are no signs that a large forced has marched here in recent months,” agrees Jaheira.

“Now we see a tiny force of men camped outside the walls and no obvious watches on the battlement. If the stockade was built by the bandits why have the castle forces not seen them off? Because the castle is held by the foe; a foe that needs no torchlight to see at night and which is not of the mortal races.”

“Not of the mortal races?” asks Anomen.

“That’s right.” Adamant turns to Nalia, though each ones’ face is shrouded in shadow. “The time has come for complete honesty, Nalia De’Arnise. Tell us what attacked your family’s castle.”

In the dark shadows beneath the tree, Nalia’s voice seems very small and vulnerable. “Trolls,” she answers softly. “Trolls and those awful snake men – yuanti they are called.”

Yoshimo sucks in his breath with a whistle and Anomen shakes his head, the leather straps of his armour creaking in the night’s quiet.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Jaheira asks.

“I thought you wouldn’t help me,” explains Nalia, nervousness making the words flow out almost to fast to be understood. “So many people I told about the trolls refused to help. Some of them told me to count myself lucky that I escaped and one of them even laughed at my plight.” Her words are choked off by the sound of tears.

“Do not cry, Nalia,” says Anomen, comfortingly. It surprises both Adamant and Jaheira to hear him so quick with understanding and forgiveness. “It was an understandable deception; and a forgivable one, would you not agree Adamant.”

“Yes, I agree.”

“Of course he agrees,” chimes in Yoshimo, somewhat chagrined to be beaten to the fair damsel’s aid. “Any of us might have done the same with strangers we had just met.” In the darkness he moves to put his arm around Nalia’s shoulders to comfort her, only to find Anomen’s mailed limb already there. The darkness well hides the look of annoyance on his face.

“The question now is how do we gain access to your family’s keep?” says Adamant, returning the conversation to the current problem. “A frontal assault would almost certainly be suicide.”

“Oh that’s alright,” offers Nalia, brightening quickly. She shrugs out from under Anomen’s arm and explains herself. “There’s a secret passage in the servants quarters. I’ve known about it for years. I used to use it to get out of the keep without my aunt knowing, you know, go adventuring in the village or over the moors.”

“Who else knows about this secret entrance?”

“Oh, some of the servants and some guards, I think. It’s really old and auntie and my father don’t know about it.”

Adamant thinks for a moment. “It’s possible that the trolls and their allies already know about the entrance then.”

“Only if someone told them,” says Nalia.

“If the guards knew of this entrance, would they not have tried to retake the keep?” asks Anomen.

“They may be too badly hurt by the invasion,” offers Yoshimo. “Perhaps too few survived.”

“Best we go find out.”

The company heads off towards the stockade. In the darkness, Jaheira draws alongside Adamant. Quietly she asks him, “How in the world did you deduce that Nalia was lying about not knowing that trolls had invaded?”

“She panicked in the slaver’s ship,” answers Adamant. “It was the troll and the yuanti that set her off, not the battle.”

“But that’s hardly conclusive proof.”

“True, but sometimes, when building a bridge to a conclusion there are gaps in your reasoning. Generally you can wait for evidence to fill those gaps. Sometimes you just have to jump the gap and guess.”

“Jump the gap? Guess?”

“Yes,” Adamant says.

“You are an astonishing man, sometimes,” Jaheira says. Although he cannot see her face clearly in the shadows, he knows she is smiling.