The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 24b - Castle Break, or Of Doves, Locks, and Magic

As they neared the head of the valley, its sides grew steeper and rockier and closer together, until it became a high mountain canyon with steep ridges on either side. The road wound in and out of the outcrops and promontories, sometimes bridging gulfs with crude timber trestles. In the red light of the Mad Moon, the crags of the opposite side of the valley seemed an impassable wilderness of rockfalls and timber. As their road neared the head of the valley, the rush of the river rose louder from the narrow channel below. Harric heard the roar of a sizable waterfall beyond the nearest bend. Its mist rose in the distance, a bloody veil wafting in the moonlight.

When they reached the last outcrop of rock in the bend, Brolli stopped. He jerked his head in the direction of the falls. "From here you see the pass at the end of the valley. Make a long look at the gatehouse."

Harric peered around the outcrop. A half mile hence, the valley ended in a V-shaped pass between mountains. A stone fort squatted in the notch of the pass. From the base of its wall, a white waterfall emerged from a frowning water gate, like the tongue from the mouth of a hanged man. Through the gap of the pass beyond, Harric saw open sky, suggesting a wide valley.

The road ended in a wide roundabout before the walls of the fort, on the brink of its boulder-filled moat. The only way across the moat was over now-closed drawbridge flanked by cone-topped archer towers.

"Ten to one that waterfall is called Horsetail or Maidenhair Falls," Harric whispered. "Half the falls in the north have that name. Timbermen have no imagination."

"How many guards do you guess in that rock?"

Harric frowned. "A fortification that strong wouldn't require many. But half the queen's income comes from resin sales, so she's pretty careful with the fire-cone ranges." Harric studied the walls and drawbridge. He could see another roofline behind the wall that might belong to a living quarters or a stable. "I'd expect about ten men there," he said. "Looks like they might keep black pigeons in that cote above the tower. See the roosts? If there's trouble, they'll release a pigeon and lock themselves in."

"Ten, then?"

Harric nodded.

"What is this pigeon you say? A bird you eat, yes?"

"Not blackhearts. Blackhearts deliver messages over long distances."

"Messages? You train them to speak?" Brolli dug out his journal.

"No, no. They're dumb as plugs. But they carry tiny written messages, and they always return to their nest." Brolli's wide golden eyes fixed quizzically on Harric. "You raise the birds in one nest," Harric explained. "Then you take them to some other nest far away. When you want to send a message back to their original home, you tie a note on their leg and release them. They fly home, and someone who takes care of the other nest retrieves the message."

Brolli smiled. "Your people so brilliant. No magic, and look what they make." He scribbled in his diary, and Harric glimpsed the characters, which were unlike any he'd seen. "You think these guards fly messages straight to your queen?"

The implications dawned on Harric. "Yes! Or, to one of her ministers. If we sent a distress message to her from this gatehouse, she'd send pigeons to a northern earl who'd dispatch a company to investigate. We have to do it!"

Brolli's thick canines flashed in the bloody light. "You have to do it. I take care of guards. You send pigeons."

"What do you plan to do to the guards?"

Brolli's gold eyes sparkled with mischief. "I do not hurt them. They must not know we passed. So I make them sleep deep. I already make the watchman sleep."