Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

still sat upon the throne.
    After what seemed an age, Udecht announced himself ready with a command for Kimbolt to lead the way.  Outside the Bishop’s quarters the Captain waited while Udecht pulled the door closed and then made to move off. “You aren’t locking the door, your reverence?”
    Udecht looked at him squarely.  “I would like, to think, Captain that with a garrison of a thousand of the King’s finest in the strongest fortress not just in the realm but probably in history, that the locking of my door would be a little superfluous.  Now, given my nephew’s desire for ha ste, perhaps we should move on, or is there anything else you wish to pass comment on?”
    “No, your reverence,” Kimbolt dipped his head in a subdued bow and the two men hurried off down the corridor.  Behind them, the door to the ch ambers creaked fractionally ajar and a slender hand threaded through the opening.
    The fortress of Sturmcairn was built into the side of the mountain. On its Northern flank its walls melded into the side of Silvertop whose sheer sides rose to the highest peak in the Gramorc range.  The fortress’s southern wall skirted some four hundred yards along and thirty feet above the narrow ledge that was the Silver pass, one of only three routes through the Gramorc mountains.  The ledge ranged from ten to thirty foot wide.  Its other side was a vertical drop into the tumbling churning waters of the young Nevers river which was just beginning its long journey across the Salved Kingdom.  Any creature passing east or west through the mountains had to pass under the walls of Sturmcairn at point blank range for the skilled archers and spearsmen within. 
    For good measure a gatehouse had been built, jutting out of the southern curtain wall, to straddle the pass at its widest point – so that anybody skulking unseen along the pass would still find their way blocked by the forbidding structure and unopening gate of the finest and oldest fortress in this or any other kingdom.  The gatehouse had three exits, each barred by a steel portcullis and a thrice timbered, iron bound wooden gate. 
    The eastern exit opened on the pass leading back down into Morsalve the home province of the Salved Kingdom.  In regular use, supplies, relief troops and messengers passed through the East gate in both directions.  Also, those condemned to exile would pass through this gateway just the once, en route to the enforcement of their sentence.
    The western gate opened onto the pass into the forsaken lan d beyond the barrier, where dark things dwelt and exiles were sent. It was opened less frequently, either for a weekly patrol, or, once a month for the troop that would escort the latest band of condemned exiles to Eadran’s folly, where they would be abandoned to their fate.
    The northern gate opened on a stairway cut into the rock that led up into the fortress of Sturmcairn itself.  Ha lfway up the stairway passageways to either side led off to the holding cells for the condemned exiles. It was not considered fit for such people to be accommodated in the main castle.
    It was down this northern stairway that Kimbolt now led the royal uncle.  All three portcullises were down and Thren was pacing angrily back and forth at the foot of the stairs. In the square space beyond a score of cold returning soldiers waited in obedient bafflement.
    “What kept you?” Thren demanded, leaping up two pairs of st eps to confront the tardy bishop.
    “ A bishop of the Goddess cannot rise at will to every soldier’s whim, nephew, not even one so exalted as the castellan of Sturmcairn.” Udecht’s attempt at a tone of avuncular reproach inflamed more than calmed Thren’s ire.
    “A b ishop in a fortress is under military orders, my orders.  Uncle or not, Udecht, in this place and time you call me sire!”
    “ Er… yes, er… sire.”  Udecht rattled more by Thren’s anxiety than his intemperance.  “What is it that vexes you so, sire? is