The cold fury in her voice startled the big farmer and
drove him back in surprise. “I meant no disrespect, Miss…
but…. But they’s just orcs!”
***
The soldier shuffled his feet a bit. “I’m not sure I should,
sir. I mean, well….”
“Well, sir, if you know Sir Tonath, well, you know that
he’s not…”
The two men walked into the castle, and Tarn glanced
at the various tapestries and paintings hanging on the
walls. The Barons of Traazon Keep had had many years to
accumulate their collection, and several of them had had
a talent for selecting fine objets d’art. Tarn had no eye for
such things at all; he knew what a painting was he saw it,
and he knew what he liked and what he didn’t like. He did,
for the most part, like these.
The Keep had been built for defense, and so the two men
walked through a near maze of defensive passageways and
trapped corridors before they got to the inhabited part of
the castle. During those minutes, Tarn passed by a truly
amazing selection of artwork and sculptures; not for the
first time Tarn realized how much art the Mournfell clan
had accumulated over the years
The defensive passageways opened up into a large
audience chamber, where liveried guardsmen stood at
attention as Tarn stood quietly, admiring the sheer size of
the room. The ceiling alone was twenty feet high, and the
pillars holding it up were each at least a foot and a half in
diameter. If he remembered correctly, it had taken twenty
years to haul enough block and stone out here to build the
castle. Always intended to be a fortress as well as residence,
the castle was imposing —even if it was small when
compared with the castles and citadels in the heartland
marches.