Chapter 789: Back The Way We Left
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"Relight the watch fires! Bring torches..."
While Captain Ipiktok led the assault on the gate with his fellow Tuscans and the defenders rallied to repel them, two figures moved unobtrusively and unnoticed through the tall grass leading to the sally gate more than a hundred paces from the main gate.
"You have to teach me how you did that," Virve said in tones of genuine admiration when they reached the small side gate without so much as a stray arrow fired in their direction. "That isn’t any kind of witchcraft that Lady Ashlynn has shared."
"It isn’t witchcraft exactly," Ollie confessed as he inspected the gate that he and Ashlynn had escaped through just half a year ago. "The Heartwood clan are masters of concealing themselves in nature. They wear nets that catch branches and leaves to help blend in with their surroundings. For most of them, that’s all there is too it, but a few of them learn a sort of sorcery that lets them move without attracting attention."
"I was curious, so Old Nan taught me," Ollie said with a smile. "This is just that, but blending with the power of the world. To anyone watching, we were just a ripple in the tall grass."
"It’s still impressive," Virve said as she turned to look at the sally gate. "And I still want to learn. Right now though, tell me what you know about this gate," Virve said as she inspected the heavy iron-bound wooden doors. "This feels newly made."
"They probably replaced it after Lady Ashlynn and I escaped," Ollie said as he placed a hand on the wood of the door, feeling with senses that no ordinary human possessed to understand how the gate had been built. "The fittings should still be the same though," he muttered.
"Somewhere around my chest height there should be a heavy beam that slots into the stone of the corridor beyond the door and iron braces on the door," Ollie explained. "The doors open inward so they can be opened even if there’s a crowd right outside the gate. There are also iron stops down here," he said as he slid his hands lower. "They fit into the stone floor and help to keep people from battering their way in."