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Alenburga sat back and ran forefinger and thumb along the side of his jaw, tugging slightly at his beard for a moment. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘You’re recruited every able-bodied man for three hundred miles in any direction, General. I’ve ridden through two cities, a half-dozen towns and a score of villages on my way here. There are only men over forty years of age and boys under fifteen left. Every potential fighting man is already in your service.
‘I can see you are digging in to the south; you expect a counterattack from there; but if Okanala has anything left to speak of, he’ll punch through on your left, roll you up, and put your back to the stream. Your best bet is to fall back to the town and dig in there.
‘General, this is your frontier for the next five years, at least, ten more likely. Time to end this war.’
The General nodded. ‘But our Maharajah has a vision, and he wishes to push south until we are close enough to the City of the Serpent River that we can claim all the Eastlands are pacified.’
‘I think your ambitious young lord even imagines some day he might take the city and add it to Muboya,’ Kaspar suggested.
‘Perhaps,’ said Alenburga. ‘But you’re right on all other counts. My scouts tell me Okanala is digging in, as well. We’re both played out.’
Kaspar said, ‘I know nothing of the politics here, but there are times when an armistice is a face-saving gesture and times when it is a necessity, the only alternative to utter ruin. Victory has fled, and defeat awaits on every hand. Have your Maharajah marry one of his relatives off to one of the King’s and call it a day.’
The General stood up and offered his hand. ‘If you find your friends and get them home, Kaspar of Olasko, you’re welcome in my tent any time. If you come back, I’ll make a general out of you and when the time comes we’ll push down to the sea together.’
‘Make me a general?’ said Kaspar with a grin.
‘Ah, yes, I was the commander of a brigade when last we met,’ said the General, returning Kaspar’s grin. ‘Now I command the army. My cousin appreciates success.’
‘Ah,’ said Kasper shaking his hand. ‘If ambition grips me, I know where to find you.’
‘Good fortune, Kaspar of Olasko.’
‘Good fortune, General.’
Kaspar left the pavilion and mounted his horse. He walked the gelding down the side of the hill towards a distant dell through which wandered a good-sized stream.
He felt a rising disquiet as he approached the luggage wagons, for he could see signs of battle all around. The traditions of war forbade attacking the luggage-boys or the women who followed the army, but there were times when such niceties were ignored or the ebb and flow of the conflict simply washed over the non-combatants.
Several of the boys he saw bore wounds, some minor, some serious, and many were bandaged. A few lay on pallets beneath the wagons and slept, their injuries rendering them unfit for any work. Kaspar rode to where a stout man in a blood-covered tunic sat on a wagon, weeping. A recently-removed metal cuirass lay on the seat next to him, as did a helm with a plume, and he stared off into the distance. ‘Are you the Master of the Luggage?’ asked Kaspar.
The man merely nodded, tears slowly coursing down his cheeks.
‘I’m looking for a boy, by the name of Jorgen.’
The man’s jaw tightened and he dismounted slowly. When he was standing before Kaspar he said, ‘Come with me.’
He led Kaspar over a small rise to where a company of soldiers were digging a massive trench, while boys were carrying wood and buckets of what Kaspar assume was oil. There would be no individual pyres for the dead; this would be a mass immolation.
The dead were lined up on the other side of the trench, ready to be carried and placed atop the wood before the oil was thrown over it and the torches tossed in. A third of the way down the line the man stopped. Kaspar looked down and saw three bodies lying close together.
‘He was such a good boy,’ the Master of Luggage said, his voice hoarse from shouting orders, from the battle dust, the day’s heat, and strangled emotions. Jorgen lay next to Jojanna, and next to her lay a man in soldier’s garb. It could only be Bandamin, for his features were similar to the boy’s.
‘He came looking for his father almost a year ago, and … his mother soon after. He worked hard, without complaint, and his mother looked after all the boys as if they were her own. When their father could, he would join them and they were a joy to know. In the midst of all this—’ he waved his hand in an encompassing gesture, ‘—they found happiness in just being together. When …’ He stopped and his eyes welled up with tears. ‘I asked for the … father to be detailed with the luggage. I thought I was doing them all a favour. I never thought the battle would spill over to the luggage-train. It’s against the compact of war! They killed the boys and the women! It’s against every rule of war!’
Kaspar took a moment to look down at the three of them, reunited by fate and fated to die together, a long way from home. Bandamin had been struck a crushing blow in the chest, from a mace perhaps, but his face was unmarked. He wore a tabard in the blue and yellow of Muboya. It was faded and dirty and slightly torn. Kaspar saw the man Jorgen would have become in his father’s face. He had an honest man’s face, a hard-working face. Kaspar thought Bandamin had been a man who had once laughed a lot. He lay with eyes closed, sleeping. Jojanna appeared unmarked, so Kaspar suspected that an arrow or spear point had taken her in the back, perhaps as she ran to protect the boys. Jorgen’s hair was matted with blood and his head rested at an odd angle. Kaspar felt a tiny sense of relief that it must have been a sudden death, perhaps with no pain. He felt an odd, unexpected ache; the boy was still so young.
He stared at the three of them, looking like nothing so much as a family sleeping side-by-side. He knew the world spun on, and no one but he, and perhaps one or two people in the distant north, would note the passing of Bandamin and his family. Jorgen, the last scion of some obscure family tree was dead, and with him that line had ended forever.
The luggage-master looked at Kaspar as if he expected him to say something. Kaspar looked down on the three bodies for another moment, then put heels to his horse’s sides, turned the gelding and began his long ride northward.
As he cantered from the battlefield, Kaspar felt something inside him turn cold and hard. It would be easy enough to hate Okanala for violating the strictures of ‘civilized’ warfare. It would be easy to hate Muboya for taking a man from his family. It would be easy to hate anyone and everyone. But Kaspar knew that over the years he had issued certain orders, and because of those orders hundreds of Bandamins had been taken from their homes, and hundreds of Jojannas and Jorgens had endured hardships, even death.
With a sigh that felt as if came from deep within his soul, Kaspar wondered if there was any happy purpose to existence, anything beyond suffering and, at the end, death. For if there was, at this moment in his life he was sorely pressed to say what it might be.
• CHAPTER FOUR •
Nighthawks
THE SOLDIERS MOVED QUICKLY.
Eric von Darkmoor, Duke of Krondor, Knight-Marshall of the King’s Army in the West, and Warden of the Western Marches stood behind a large outcropping of rocks, observing his men moving slowly into position. Silent silhouettes against rocks bathed in deep shadows cast by the setting sun, they were a special unit of the Prince’s Household Guards. Erik personally had designed their training as he ascended through the ranks of the army, first as a captain in the Prince’s army, then as Commander of the Garrison at Krondor, then Knight-Marshall.
The men were once part of the Royal Krondorian Pathfinders, a company of trackers and scouts, descendants of the legendary Imperial Keshian Guides, but now this smaller elite company was called simply the ‘Prince’s Own’, soldiers whom Erik called upon in special circumstances, such as the one that confronted them this night. Their uniforms were distinctive: dark grey short tabards bearing the blazon of Krondor – an eagle soaring over a peak, rendered in muted colours – and black trousers with a red stripe down the side tucked into heavy boots, suitable for marching, riding, or as they were employed now, climbing rocky faces. Each man wore a simple, dark, open-faced helm, and carried short weapons – a sword barely long enough to deserve the name, and an estoc, a long dagger. Each man was trained in a specific set of skills, and right now Erik’s two best rock-climbers were leading the assault.
Erik let his gaze move up to the top of the cliffs opposite his position.
High above them sat the ancient Cavell Keep, looking down upon a path that diverged from the main draw, a path known as Cavell Run. A small waterfall graced the rockface near the keep, landing in a pool in an outcrop halfway up the cliff, then falling again to the stream that had originally formed the run. As such things are wont to do, the course of the stream had changed over the years, and some event, geological or manmade, had forced the stream bed down the other side of the draw, leaving the original creek bed dry and dusty. That pool was their destination, for if the intelligence Erik possessed from nearly a hundred years ago was valid, behind that pool existed a secret entrance, the keep’s original bolt-hole.
Erik had brought his soldiers into Cavell Town before dawn, quickly hiding them as best he could, a difficult task in a town so small, but by noon the townspeople were about their business as best they could be with armed men hiding in every other building. Erik was unconcerned about Nighthawk spies in the town, for no one was allowed to leave Cavell that day; his only concern was for someone observing from up high, in the hills above the town, and he was convinced he had taken every precaution possible.
Magnus had aided the effort with an illusion spell, and unless any observer was a highly trained magic-user, the few minutes it took to get a hundred men into the town would have passed uneventfully. At sundown, Magnus had again cast his enchantment and the men quickly broke up into two companies, one heading to the main entrance up Cavell Run, and the other under Erik’s personal supervision heading to the rear of the keep.
The old soldier stood motionless, his attention focused on the deployment of his men. He was nearly eighty-five years of age, yet thanks to a potion given him by Nakor, he resembled a man thirty years younger. Satisfied that things were as they should be, he turned to his companions, Nakor and Magnus, who stood nearby, while the Knight-Marshall’s personal bodyguard stood uneasily to one side; they were not entirely comfortable with their commander ordering them to stand away, as it was their personal mission to protect him at all costs.
‘Now?’ asked Nakor.
‘We wait,’ said Eric. ‘If they have any concerns about this approach to their citadel, they should have seen us coming, and if so, they’ll either do something inhospitable or they’ll attempt to flee through the other escape route.’
‘Your best guess?’ asked Magnus.
Erik sighed. ‘I’d hunker down and pretend there was no one at home. If that didn’t work, I’d have a very nasty reception in mind for anyone attempting to enter the keep.’ He waved absently with his hand as he said, ‘We have old records, which even then were not entirely accurate, but what we do know is that Cavell Keep is a warren, and there are many places to lie in ambush or leave behind some nasty traps. It’s going to be no walk through the meadow going in there.’
Nakor shrugged. ‘You have good men.’
‘The best,’ said Erik. ‘Hand-picked and trained for this sort of business, but I still hate to put them at risk needlessly.’
Nakor said softly, ‘There is need, Erik.’
‘I’m convinced of that, Nakor,’ said the old soldier. ‘Or I would not be here.’
‘How does that sit with the Duke of Salador?’ asked Nakor.
‘He doesn’t know I’m here.’ Erik looked at Nakor. ‘You picked a hell of a time to give me this to worry about, old friend.’
Nakor shrugged. ‘We never get to pick our moments, do we?’
‘There have been times when I think that I might have been better off if Bobby de Longville and Calis had hanged me that cold, bitter morning, so long ago.’ His eyes looked off into the distance, as the sun disappeared behind the rocks there. He turned to Nakor. ‘Then there are times that I don’t. When this is over, I’ll know better what sort of time this is.’ The old man smiled. ‘Let’s go back and wait a while.’
He led Magnus and Nakor down a narrow path between high rockfaces, passing lines of soldiers quietly waiting to assault the keep on the rocks above. At the rear lackeys stood ready with the horses, and behind them waited wagons with supplies. Erik waved to his personal squire, who had stayed behind with the boys in the luggage.
The squire produced a pair of cups and filled them with wine from a skin. Nakor took one, eyebrow raised. ‘Serving wine before a battle?’
‘Why not?’ said the Duke, drinking deeply. He wiped his mouth with the back of his gauntlet. ‘As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, you send me off halfway across the Kingdom to dig out murderers.’
Nakor shrugged. ‘Someone has to do it, Erik.’
The old warrior shook his head. ‘I’ve lived a long life, Nakor, and one more interesting than most. I’d be a liar if I told you I would welcome death, but I would certainly be glad to be free of my burdens.’ He fixed Nakor with a narrow gaze. ‘I thought I was until you appeared that night.’
‘We need you,’ said the Isalani.
‘My King needs me,’ said Erik.
‘The world needs you,’ said Nakor, lowering his voice so that those nearby would not overhear. ‘You are the only man of rank in the Kingdom Pug still trusts.’
Erik nodded. ‘I understand why he chose to separate himself from the Crown.’ He took another drink of wine, and handed the empty cup to his squire. When the lad made to fill it again, Erik waved him away. ‘But did he have to embarrass the royal personage of the Prince of Krondor in doing so? Publicly? In front of the army of Great Kesh?’
‘Old business, Erik.’
‘I wish it were so,’ said Erik. He lowered his voice further. ‘You will know this if you don’t already. Prince Robert has been recalled.’
‘This is bad,’ said Nakor, nodding.
‘We’ve had three princes in Krondor since I gained rank, and I am only Duke because King Ryan took Lord James with him to Rillanon. My temporary position has lasted nine years, and if I live long enough, will probably last another nine.’
‘Why was Robert recalled?’
‘You have a better chance of uncovering the truth than me,’ said Erik. After a long moment of silence during which he watched the evening sky darken, the Duke said, ‘Politics. Robert was never a popular man with the Congress of Lords. Lord James is a western noble, which rankles with many of those who wished to be first among the King’s advisors; James is a shrewd man, almost as shrewd as his grandfather.’ He glanced at Nakor. ‘There was a name to conjure with, Lord James of Krondor.’
Nakor grinned. ‘Jimmy was a handful before he became a duke. I know.’ He glanced up at the soldiers who were now ready, waiting for his signal to begin the climb. ‘Still, we tend to remember the greatness and forget the flaws; and Jimmy made his share of mistakes. If Robert will not serve, then who?’
‘There are other cousins to the King more able …’ He looked at Nakor and his expression was sad. ‘It may come to civil war if the King’s not careful. He’s directly descended from King Borric, but he has no sons of his own, and there are many cousins, most of them with a valid claim to the throne if he does not produce an heir.’
Nakor shrugged. ‘I’ve lived a long time, Erik. I’ve seen kings come and go in different lands. The nation will survive.’
‘But at what price, old friend?’
‘Who is to be the new Prince of Krondor?’
‘That is the question, isn’t it?’ said the Duke, standing up and signalling to his men to make ready. The sky was sufficiently dark: it was time to begin the assault on the keep. ‘Prince Edward is well-liked, intelligent, a good soldier, and someone who could forge consensus in the Congress.’
‘So the King will name someone else,’ said Nakor with a chuckle as Erik started forward along the draw.
Erik said nothing, but gestured once and two men hurried out from behind rocks below the keep, both with loops of cord around their shoulders. They started to climb the rockface, using only their hands and feet.
Nakor watched closely as the two men disappeared into the gloom above. They moved silently like spiders crawling up a wall. Nakor knew how dangerous it was to make that ascent, but he also knew that it was the only way to get a rope down for the soldiers below.
Turning to Nakor, Erik said, ‘I’m thinking Prince Henry will get the nod, for he can be easily enough replaced if Queen Anne bears a boy. If Edward sits in Krondor for any length of time, the King may not be able to replace him with a son in … a … few years …’ His voice trailed off as he watched the men reach the lip of the pool.
Nakor said, ‘Odd place for a bolt-hole, over a hundred feet above ground, isn’t it?’
‘I imagine the Nighthawks did some work around here some years back. My men report tool marks on the rockface. There was probably a path down to the floor of the run that was demolished.’ He sighed. ‘It’s time. Where’s your man?’
Nakor nodded behind them. ‘Sleeping, under the wagon.’
‘Get him, then,’ said Erik von Darkmoor.
Nakor hurried back to the luggage wagon, where the two boys responsible for looking after the stores from the town waited. They spoke in hushed tones, understanding how dangerous this mission was; even so, they were only boys and the waiting was making them restless. Underneath the wagon lay a solitary figure, who roused quickly when Nakor kicked lightly at his boots.
Ralan Bek wiggled out from under the wagon, then unfolded himself to tower over Nakor. The youth was six inches over six feet in height, and he loomed over the diminutive gambler. Nakor knew he was possessed by some aspect of the God of Evil, a tiny ‘sliver’ as Nakor thought of it; an infinitesimal portion of the god himself, and that made Bek extraordinarily dangerous. The only advantage Nakor possessed was years of experience and what he thought of as his ‘tricks’.
‘Time?’
Nakor nodded. ‘They’ll be up there in a moment. You know what to do.’
Bek nodded. He reached down and picked up his hat, a hat he had claimed as a prize from a man he had killed before Nakor’s eyes, and he wore it like a badge of honour. The broad-brimmed black felt hat, with its single long eagle’s feather hanging down from the hatband, gave the youth an almost rakish air, but Nakor knew that beneath the young man’s convivial exterior seethed a potential for harm, as well as preternatural strength and speed.
Bek trotted over to the face of the cliff, and waited. A coil of line was dropped quietly from above, followed a moment later by another. Soldiers quickly tied heavier rope to the lines, and this was pulled up. When the first rope was made secure, Ralan Bek unbuckled his scabbard belt and tied it over one shoulder, so that his sword now rested on his back. With powerful ease he pulled himself up the rope, feet firmly on the rockface, as if he had been climbing this way all his life. Other soldiers followed, but Bek’s speed up the rope was unmatchable.
Erik watched him ascend into the darkness. ‘Why are you so insistent he goes first, Nakor?’
‘He may not be invulnerable, Erik, but he’s a lot harder to kill than any of your men. Magnus will look out for those guarding the main entrance to the keep, but if there’s magic on this back door, Bek has the best chance of survival.’
‘Time was I would be the first one up the rope.’
Nakor gripped his friend’s arm. ‘I’m glad to see you’ve got smarter over the years, Erik.’
‘I notice you’re not volunteering to be up there, either.’
Nakor just grinned.
Bek waited, running his fingers over the door’s outline. It was a rock, like the others, and in the darkness he couldn’t see the crack his fingertips told him marked the edge of the entrance to the bolt-hole. He let his senses drift, for he had discovered early in life that sometimes he could anticipate things – an attack, an unexpected turn of the trail, the mood of a horse, or the fall of the dice. He thought of it as his ‘lucky feeling’.
Yes, he thought. There was something just beyond this door, something very interesting. Ralan Bek did not know what fear was. As Nakor had suggested to him, there was something very different, even alien, about the young man from Novindus. Glancing down to where the little man waited with the old soldier, he found he could barely make them out in the dark. ‘Lantern,’ he whispered, and a soldier behind him handed him a specially constructed, small, shuttered lantern. He pointed it at Nakor and Erik and opened it and shut it again quickly. That was the agreed-upon signal to proceed cautiously.
Not that Ralan truly understand caution. It was as alien to his thoughts as fear. He tried to understand a lot of things Nakor talked to him about, but sometimes he just nodded and pretended to understand the strange little man in order to keep him from repeating himself endlessly.
Ralan continued to run his fingers along the seam until he determined that the door was designed to be opened only from the inside. He shrugged. ‘Bar,’ he demanded, and a soldier stepped past him and inserted the crowbar where he pointed. The soldier struggled for a moment, until Bek said, ‘Let me.’
With preternatural power, he forced open a crack, and the door swung suddenly wide with a protesting sound of twisting metal as an iron bar was ripped from its restraining mechanism. With a loud clank it hit the stones and instantly Bek had his sword out and was through the opening. Unconcerned about the noise, Bek turned towards the soldiers and held up a restraining hand. ‘Wait!’ he said in low tones, and then he entered.
The soldiers knew their orders. Bek would enter first and they would only follow when he gave the order or ten minutes after, whichever came first. One soldier turned over an hourglass bearing markings, red lines drawn to indicate demarcations of ten minutes. Erik’s hand-picked men hunkered down before the entrance, along the edge of the pool, listening to the sound of the waterfall in the darkness.
Bek moved cautiously, ignoring his lack of sight. He stepped lightly as he progressed, not putting his full weight down until he knew he wasn’t stepping into a pit, or triggering some sort of trap. He knew he could take a lot of damage – he’d been wounded several times in his short life – but he had no more appetite for injury than the next man. Besides, if what Nakor said was true, there should be some fun ahead.
Thinking of the little man caused Bek to pause a moment. Bek didn’t like him; but then again Bek didn’t like anyone; he didn’t dislike anyone either. His feelings towards other people were fairly predictable: they were either allies or opponents – or they were inconsequential, like a horse or some other animal, sometimes useful, but mostly not worth the attention. But the little man stirred some strange feelings in Bek, feelings he couldn’t put a name to. He didn’t know if it was familiarity, or enjoyment or what. His pleasures tended to the intense: watching men bleed and scream, or rough coupling with women. He knew he liked fighting. The crashing of steel, the clamour of voices, blood and … death. He liked watching things die, he had decided some time before. It fascinated him to see that one moment an animal or a man might be alive, aware, moving, and the next it was lying there, just so much meat. Not even useful meat if it was a man.
Bek expected to kill some very dangerous men, and looked forward to it.
A faint sound from ahead caused him to forget Nakor and his confusion over things the odd gambler said all the time. Someone was moving at the far end of a tunnel and Bek’s entire body quivered with anticipation.
He was supposed to go back, but he had lost track of time – how long was ten minutes, anyway? The other soldiers would come in after him, and besides, Bek was anxious to be about some slaughter. It had been a very long time since he’d enjoyed a good fight. Nakor had done something to him, and often his head hurt when he tried to think about things. But Nakor had said it was all right for him to kill anyone who was hiding up in this old keep, except for more of the old soldier’s fighters who might be coming in from the other side.
Ralan Bek found his head swimming, so with a grunt he shoved aside all thoughts except finding the author of the noise he had heard in the darkness. He picked up his pace, and almost fell face forward into an open pit. Only his ‘lucky feeling’ caused him to pull back at the last instant.
He took out a small cylinder Nakor had given him, and pulled off the top. Inside was a bundle of sticks, one of which he pulled out. He recapped the cylinder and put it back in his tunic, then waved the stick rapidly in the air, and after a few seconds a tiny flame erupted from the end. As Nakor had promised him, after the total darkness of the tunnels, he’d be surprised at the amount of light the small burning stick could provide.
Bek looked down at a pit that yawned at his feet, and couldn’t see the bottom. He was glad he hadn’t fallen, not because he feared injury, but because he would have had to wait at the bottom until the old soldier’s fighters caught up with him. He didn’t know if they’d even notice until one of them fell in and he didn’t relish the notion of one of them landing on top of him; and he didn’t know if they’d bring enough rope to haul him out.
He took two steps back then with a powerful stride launched himself above the pit and landed easily on the other side, a dozen feet away from his take-off. He dropped the flaming stick to the floor, grinding it under his boot heel.
He paused to see if anyone might have heard his landing, and when he was certain he had gone unnoticed, he continued down the hall. For an instant he wondered if he should have left something to warn the soldiers behind him of the pit. Then he wondered where that thought had come from; why should he worry if one of the old soldier’s men fell into the pit? This was too difficult to consider now: it was something Nakor would understand. He had no time to dwell on it.
Ahead he could hear faint voices, and he knew mayhem awaited.
Magnus studied the sky and judged that it was time to move, so he signalled to two guards to accompany him up the long entryway to the ancient keep. The road appeared to have not been in use for years, but Magnus had secretly inspected it at dawn and saw by tiny signs that the ‘disuse’ had been artfully forged. Someone had been using this road recently, but endeavouring to keep that fact a secret. That as much as anything convinced him that his father’s faith in Joval Delan, the hired mind-reader, had not been misplaced. Some local bandit, smuggler, or gang of errant youths would not have the means or inclination to do so thorough a job.
The soldiers had been creeping up the draw known as Cavell Run, which was the only obvious approach to the ancient keep. Magnus was not the student of things military his father and brother were, but even he could imagine what a lethal prospect attempting to storm this keep would present. Only the rumours of demonic possession and a curse, followed by nearly a century of peace in the region would have kept such an obvious military asset unused.
Still, he had other concerns, the first of which was to ensure that the men with him went undiscovered for as long as possible. Magnus was still young compared to most powerful practitioners’ of magic, and he had inherited certain abilities from his parents. His mother had always possessed a finer instinct for detecting the presence of magic than his father, though Pug was better able to determine the nature of a spell or device once it was uncovered. Magnus had the happy fortune to have inherited both abilities. And so he sensed and understood at least four magical traps located between the floor of the Run and the ancient gate at the top of the ramp.
With the deft moves of a master of his craft, Magnus countered each spell quickly, allowing the soldiers from Erik’s command to approach on silent feet. If there was a lookout above he would have been hard pressed to notice the darting grey figures hunched over, moving along the edges of the roadway in the night’s gloom. Small moon didn’t rise for another hour and its light was faint even on clear nights. Tonight was overcast.
With hand signals, the officer in charge motioned for his men to make ready. An ancient drawbridge had once covered a gap between the top of the roadway-ramp and the keep’s gate. Now it hung by a single chain, dangling uselessly on the other side of the gap, an open space too wide for any man to leap. Signals were passed and from the rear two pairs of men ran forward, carrying scaling ladders that would serve as bridges across the chasm. Magnus used his skills to elevate himself and float above the breach.
He watched the men calmly walking on the ladder rungs, heedless of the yawning space below their feet. A misstep would send a man tumbling to his death. Magnus admired their discipline.
