Nalia directed Mazzy and Valygar towards and down a narrow spiraling stone staircase, fashioned from the same cream- and black-speckled granite as the battlements were.
They crept down the steps slowly and silently. Not even the torches on the wall had been disturbed, a sign that the invaders might not have noticed this pathway. Nalia took one from the sconce in the wall, carrying it as they descended further.
Mazzy signaled for them to stop in place, about ten steps from where the stairway ended. "Where are we going?" she whispered.
"Just a cellar," Nalia said. "There's a couple of storerooms ahead, then a hall and altar to Akadi on the left, then some…some old holding cells on the right. We no longer use them."
"So, we're going to a dungeon," Valygar said.
"It's a cellar," Nalia said, stressing the second word through her teeth as she kept her voice low.
Valygar said to Mazzy, "Want me to scout ahead?"
Mazzy nodded.
Valygar hunched over, one hand on his katana, as he silently finished descending downstairs, then came face to face with a door. He teased it open with his fingertips, peering through a small crack to get a better look at what lay ahead.
It only took him a few moments to survey the scene, then ascended.
"There's about three or four trolls in the next room," he whispered.
"I much doubt they can fit through this doorway," Mazzy said. "On my signal, then."
Despite the cramped conditions at the bottom of the steps, Mazzy and Valygar had enough room to fire. With a nod to each other, Valygar kicked open the door.
On the other side, in a small, dark room fashioned from stone and lined wall to barrels, three trolls crouched on the floor, startled awake by the noise.
Before they had much time to react, Mazzy and Valygar let loose a volley of fire arrows, which flared as they made contact and quickly died, muffled by the cold stone floor. Within a few minutes, all three trolls were dead, the spent arrows nestling deep into their long, mottled green bodies.
The victors finally passed through the entrance to inspect the bodies splayed and bleeding green-black ichor onto the floor. In the torchlight, the blood took on the iridescent sheen of naphtha.
"That's all the fire arrows we've got," Valygar said, gently nudging one of the lanky limbs with his foot. Already, the skin was turning from olive green to a pale sage. "Think one of them was TorGal?"
"I doubt it," Mazzy said. "None of these seem unusually large, and the largest and strongest troll typically leads their clan."
Suddenly, Valygar pushed Nalia to the side. Mazzy followed suit, pressing herself flat against the wall next to them.
"Ow!" Nalia said. "What was that for?"
Valygar pressed a finger to his lips, then whispered, "Listen."
When they fell silent, a cacophony of hisses, grunts and clicks floated into the room. A trained ear could pick out five distinct patterns.
Valygar held up his hand in the silent, universal signal for "stay here," then moved forward along the side of the wall, not making a single brush of noise against the stone, nor a single audible footfall.
He made it about five feet from the doorway before retreating the same way he came, quicker and more sure of his steps this time.
"What is it?" Mazzy whispered.
"Umber hulks," he replied. "Big, hulking, armored brutes with an insectlike head, massive mandibles, and claws that can tear apart rock."
He pointed to two destroyed doors on the opposite side of the room, letting them see through a second storeroom into a third.
Sure enough, they noticed a jumble of broad, black, armored bodies shuffling at the end of the series of storerooms. Every now and again, they caught a glimpse of an insect-like head, mandibles dripping with spit.
"Why haven't they noticed us?" Nalia asked.
"They're underground creatures; they mostly find their way around with their feelers and smell," Valygar said. "They're distracted, from the looks of it. Clearly there's something they like in that room but don't know how to find."
"Well," Nalia said, "there's plenty of dried meat in that cellar."
"Where?" Valygar asked.
"In barrels stacked along the far wall, if I remember right."
She need not have said more. Mazzy quietly crept forward, raised her bow, and fired into the dimly lit doorway.
One barrel fell to the floor, bursting open on the stone, releasing a salty, mouth-watering smell that immediately filled the room and floated into the next.
The umber hulks immediately piled onto the barrel, tearing it apart for the meat inside, stuffing the strips between their mandibles into their mouths, greedily lumbering over each other in an effort to get the most, first, their armored, apelike bodies clashing and scraping against each other.
Valygar raised his bow again, whispering, "Aim for the gaps in their plates — below the arms, behind the knees. Don't look them in the eye."
One of the umber hulks fell right away, downed by two arrows, and partially blocked the door.
Its fellows noticed the death, trying to climb over each over in order to get at the intruders. Their efforts were for naught. As soon as they exposed their throats, at least one arrow sank in, causing them to immediately go limp from a severed spine and complicating any further efforts to get into — or through — the second storeroom.
Before long, the last one fell to the top of the heap, facing forward and never reaching the first storeroom. The umber hulk's lower eyes, directly above the big, buglike eyes and arms-length mandibles on its head, intensely focused on Nalia, just as she was preparing to fire her crossbow again.
Almost immediately, her arms fell, the bolts slack in her hand. The umber hulk half climbed, half rolled from above the pile of corpses, lumbering forward —
Two arrows in quick succession went through two of its four eyes, piercing its skull. Immediately it fell to the floor, lifeless.
It still took some time before the dazed look left Nalia's face. She shivered as she returned to herself, as though she were shaking something off.
"Are you all right?" Mazzy asked.
"Something odd just happened," Nalia said. "I…I don't think I remember the last few seconds…"
"Their lower set of eyes can confuse anyone who looks into them," Valygar said.
They entered the storage room and inspected the results of their work. As they stepped around the shattered barrels and massive chitinous corpses, Valygar approached the rows of bottled brandy along the cellar wall, pulling one from its place.
Nalia raised her voice: "Don't — "
He shot her a glare, and she abruptly fell silent.
After a few moments, he asked, "Is it all stone floor, here?"
"Yes," Nalia said, "it is. What are you doing?"
While she talked, Valygar had taken one of the bottles, pulled off the cork, and stuffed a rag into the bottleneck. Then a second, then a third.
"Just improvising," he said.
"A troll can't fit in the holding cells," Nalia said, so there's only one place down here any might be." She pointed to the door.
The three of them shared an unspoken glance, then ran forward, flinging this door open.
This place was the shrine to Akadi Lady of the Winds that Nalia had mentioned. Though it had been dug into the earth, it spread high over their heads, as though the ground itself could not contain the golden-winged goddess soaring at the head of the altar. The wall was lined with niches filled with her image repeated in miniature. And, while the room had been supported with pillars, two lay broken upon the stone ground.
Sprawled against one of the broken stumps was the largest troll any of them had ever seen, a full twelve feet tall with old, gnarled limbs and a mass of wild, hair-like protrusions from the crown of its head.
Next to the troll was a man in a richly embroidered doublet and trousers. One could tell at a glance he was a close relative of Nalia's by the face shape alone, though his closely trimmed hair and beard, though faded with age, had also once been red.
But the man was not free. As the troll stirred from its repose, its yellow beady eyes glowered at the intruders. It issued a series of strangled-sounding gargles from its throat, as though warning Nalia, Mazzy and Valygar not to interfere with its prey.
The troll spoke, its voice unusually high and reedy for such a large creature: "TorGal kill you all, make you food for Rocksmash pack!"
Nalia called out, "Father! I'm here!"
He replied, "Nalia! By the gods, what are you —"
With one hand, the troll's massive green arm swept up Lord De'Arnise, raising him six feet above the ground.
"Don't you dare hurt him!" Nalia called, raising her crossbow for TorGal's face.
"You stupid to come here!" TorGal said, another gargling sound filling his throat.
He violently shook Lord de'Arnise, then said to him: "And if you talk again, stupid mans, TorGal will smash you!"
Lord de'Arnise set his jaw defiantly and fell silent.
"You have stolen and disrupted enough lives today, creature!" Mazzy called out, readying her sword. "Release Lord de'Arnise or face death!"
TorGal snarled, "Foolish gtrank small-fist! None but Stronger tell TorGal what be done!"
"Who is this Stronger, then?" Valygar asked.
"I tell nothing of Stronger! Should have taken Stronger's gold like all other small-head guards!"
Behind the crossbow on her shoulder, Nalia's lower lip quivered slightly. She mouthed, "Father?"
Lord de'Arnise turned in her direction, the corner of his lips turning up slightly, his face suddenly peaceful.
With a loud voice, he called out, "The command word is 'The kestrel hovering by day. Now go!'"
"No deal!" TorGal shouted with another mighty strangling sound in his throat. "You die now!"
Two arrows and a bolt flew across the room. Two of these missed TorGal's long, lean arm, while the third pierced it through.
But none stopped the arm from lowering. Lord de'Arnise smashed upon the stone head first, his body crumpling over it as the blood started spreading upon the stone floor.
Nalia screamed. She would have gone to him regardless of the danger if Mazzy hadn't restrained her.
Then two brandy bottles flew through the air from Valygar's hand, the rag stoppers lit with a swipe towards Nalia's torch.
One bottle shattered at TorGal's feet, the second upon his chest, immediately coating him with alcohol-fueled flames.
TorGal howled in pain, stumbled forward and fell to the ground, writhing as the fire ate away at his flesh.
"Go!" Valygar said. He lit, then threw the last brandy bottle as a parting shot. It exploded on TorGal's head, crowning the troll with flame. The troll gave one more bellow, then died as the tongues of fire consumed him.
They scrambled up the steps, until they were certain that TorGal wasn't following them, then paused to catch their breath. Nalia, in particular, was exhausted, leaning against the stairwell wall as though she might fall asleep right there.
"Nalia, I am so sorry about your father," Mazzy said, resting her hand on the girl's arm. "He used his last words to give you orders. You deserved more."
Nalia lifted her head, a grimly determined look settling over her features. "No," she said, "he gave me the last of my inheritance."
As though a hidden wind were blowing at her back, she started briskly walking, leading Mazzy and Valygar out of the stairwell, through a small anteroom, and into another hall, unlatching and flinging open a pair of wooden double doors.
This room was grey and silent and low to the ground. The floor was arranged into a complicated mosaic, a geometric array of gray shapes. And standing along the edge of the room was a series of eight stone statues.
The statues were all carved in the shape of soldiers ready for battle, in finely fashioned mail, weapons and armor, but they carried no weapons. They were all at least seven feet tall; one stood head and shoulders above the others.
Nalia planted her feet in front of this one, loudly enunciating the command words: "The kestrel hovering by day."
As soon as the sound of her voice died, a low rumble passed through the room. Faint seams started appearing in the statues' limbs, then the scrape of stone against stone as the statues' limbs began to move. One by one, their glowing gold eyes opened.
"Not statues — golems," Mazzy said, awed.
Finally, the tallest — this one carved in the shape of a knight with a pollaxe — spoke, though his mouth didn't move and his voice, low like the growl of a bear, seemed strangely disembodied.
"Mistress Nalia," it said. "What are your orders?"
She thought this through, then said, "Half of you, go through the castle. The other half, go to the courtyard. Destroy any trolls and snake-men that try to fight you, but do not harm anyone or anything else."
"I hear and obey, mistress," the soldier said, the muddy clanging of stone on stone resounding with his salute over his chest. He led the charge, the other golems following him to their duties with alarming alacrity. Before long, low rumbles began echoing throughout the castle.
The golems did their work quickly. They made short work of the snake-men inside the castle, then carried their bodies to the courtyard, where the trolls were still resisting Captain Arat's company.
By sunrise, it was more or less over. While the trolls broke the golems' stone bodies, littering their limbs throughout the courtyard, the golems helped turn the tide for the soldiers loyal to the de'Arnises. Three of the remaining trolls gave up the fight.
For the most part, Captain Arat and the soldiers under his command were content to watch them leave as the trolls fled towards the mountains in the north, confident that with their gold and without their leader, they wouldn't be back.
Almost immediately, Nalia fell to the task of evaluating the damage to the castle. While the tall, pale brown battlements were mostly intact, with only some damage to the parapets, the courtyard and many of the rooms were a complete mess.
She kept this up for at least half an hour, barely acknowledging Mazzy and Valygar. While she was inspecting the broken parapets, Mazzy finally spoke up. "Do you wish to go see your father?"
Nalia stopped what she was doing for a moment and stared towards a nearby wall. When she turned towards Mazzy, she was composed, but her eyes were wet.
"Later, when the dust has settled a bit." Nalia said. "For now…for now, you have done as I asked and I wish you well."
"You wish us to leave…just like that?" Mazzy said, somewhat skeptical. "I doubt our work here is completed."
Nalia instantly lit up. "Could you stay longer? I need —"
But as soon as the words left her mouth, she seemed to remember herself and reconsider. "Forget it. Damn it all, if it's not one thing it's another!"
Mazzy asked, "What is it? Is there any way we can help?"
Valygar said nothing but folded his arms.
"I have some pressing questions about my future that need answering," Nalia said, folding and unfolding her hands into the skirt of her dress. "I'm betrothed to Isaea Roenall, a brat of a man. His family holds themselves above everyone else. Now that my father is gone…"
She swallowed her tears and took a moment to collect herself. "Now that my father is gone, they will surely push the arrangement, and I will be forced into a life of quiet nobility."
"What will you do?" Mazzy asked.
Nalia leaned against the speckled wall of the battlement, then looked towards the eastern northern horizon. The trees, fields and meadows were marked with the early green of springtime, which was slowly revealing itself as the sky lightened. From here, a sharp eye could even see small dark figures moving across the patches of shadow that made up the soil: farmers plowing and sowing in hope of abundance for the coming summer.
"There isn't any rule against it, is there?" Nalia said, half to herself.
She turned to Mazzy. "I propose a partnership, in secret of course, wherein you assume title to this place. You will become the figurehead of the keep, and I will be a ward of sorts," Nalia said.
Mazzy considered this for a moment, running her fingers through her wild red-orange hair. "From what I understand, you're doing this because only a male heir can claim this place. Would the Roenalls stand for this?"
"It wouldn't matter," Nalia said. "It is my right as heir to choose who leads. If the lord of a manor dies, a capable fighter can take his place. I couldn't stand before the Roenalls effectively, but you could."
Mazzy gave a determined nod. "I'm honored you would ask me. Of course I accept."
"Then it's yours, within reason, and Isaea can forget about the blasted betrothal," Nalia said. "The servants will need time to clean up afterwards, but there's much for us to do in the meantime. You're welcome to inspect or order the place as you see fit — though maybe we ought to find a decent place to rest first."
"I doubt there will be any rest for me today," Valygar said. "I can't stay here, not before the Cowled Wizards find out where I am."
"Then let me see what there is to pay you before you go," Nalia said to him. "It won't be anywhere near proper compensation for the trouble you've taken, but there should be enough for you to escape Amn and get a fresh start elsewhere."
Valygar said, "I've little use for gold and no desire to leave, not while I have unfinished business in Athkatla. Truth be told, I'd prefer your help instead, but it could be dangerous — not least because the Cowled Wizards are likely to oppose us."
Nalia gave a small smile. Though her future was secured, at least for now, she clearly still had a taste for adventure — and the thought of being needed may have been too much for her to resist.
"I must see to installing Mazzy as the head of the keep first," she said, "but when that's done, I'll go with you."