Escana (26 page)

Gooseman
nodded. 'I have done everything in my power to prevent this from
coming to be, old friend, however there are limits to even my
influence.'

He
felt like he was going to be sick, few knew better than him what this
recall would portend. Instead of mending the ravaged armour that was
sent to him he would now be encased in a suit of one. It would be a
quick death, if not a merciful one. Sah'kel was an unforgiving
wasteland full of blood and treachery, but he could not escape the
likes of El-Vador no matter where he ran.

No,
he would not run. His death was imminent but he had been given twenty
years of life that he had no right to ask for.

'I'm
sorry, Garth,' Gooseman said, only making the smith realise how long
he had been standing there in silence.

'It's
not your fault, Harold. This is something that needs to be done. May
you remember me as a man of duty when the story-tellers ask of me.'

'That
is already a given.'

Without
further word, Garth left the inn and marched back into the centre of
Escana. He had preparations to make for the ending of all things.

T
he
cell they were led to was dank and inhospitable, they weren't
expecting anything better after Jakob's plan to gain them entrance
had gone horribly astray.

The
guards had briskly shoved them both to the floor without grace and
the door shut with a resounding clang. Their eyes had grown
accustomed to the surrounding darkness but they had no idea how long
the silence between them had lasted.

Jimmy
gathered himself into a sitting position and offered Jakob a pointed
glare. 'Why did you try such a stupid lie with the guard? We could
have waited for admission in one of the hamlets.'

Jakob
had propped himself up against one of the corners of the room and
didn't deign to look back at him. 'We were being pursued, there was
no time for half measures and there seemed no other alternative.
Besides, you were right about it being legal in Daelovia. I didn't
know Urial frowned on such things.'

He
couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'You were actually going to
hand her over to those guards for entrance to the port?'

'Of
course not,' he replied briskly, the irritation creeping into his
voice. 'I wanted them to think that, nothing more.'

Jimmy
eventually sighed in resignation. 'Alright, I believe you. What were
we going to do then? Run from the law a second time?'

'If
needs be,' he replied matter of factly.

'Don't
you see that even if we did escape them you'd be defeating the whole
purpose of coming here? That in a way you'd just be further proving
your guilt in the eyes of everyone else?'

Jakob
shot him a glance at that. 'Even you?'

'What?
No! I didn't mean it that way, I just.. forget it.'

He
shrugged. 'There's little point in forgetting it if we're going to be
stuck here together for any length of time.'

'Fine
by me,' Jimmy said. As infuriated as he was, this was the last place
he wanted to have an argument. 'So what's your plan for getting out
of this?'

'Well
firstly we need to find out where they're keeping Ella and fast. Then
we need to arm ourselves and either avoid detection or cut our way
out.'

Jimmy
let out a desperate laugh. 'Sure, we'll just waltz out of here and
rescue the girl and everything will be just fine. You're in a prison
Jakob, there's a locked cell door in our way and a labyrinth of
tunnels to negotiate, no doubt populated by guards.'

Jakob
stood up and set his hands to the door, running them up against the
bars as if searching for something. He jerked them back and the door
flew off its hinges.

'There
is no longer a locked cell door, we won't be in a prison for long,
I've memorised the pattern of the tunnels and the guards don't care
about the lower depths.'

Jimmy
looked at him aghast. 'How did you just do that?'

Jakob
smiled. 'We needed an exit.'

He
made his way out into the corridor, letting the door settle quietly
on the adjacent wall, Jimmy followed him with some wariness, not
entirely sure what to make of their unlikely escape. Jakob seemed
reluctant to speak any further on the matter now that they were out
in the open, engrossed in retracing his steps.

The
prison was largely silent. Occasionally their passing a cell would
elicit silent weeping or chattering but otherwise the lower levels
seemed abandoned. The stone walls were entirely dark initially and
they had to rely solely upon Jakob's memory to guide their flight.

Gradually
as they headed upward through many turns and roughly hewn stairs
there was the occasional smouldering torch that offered a faint glow.
Jimmy had considered taking one of these but Jakob had slapped his
hand away, whispering that the oncoming light would alert any guard
instantly of their arrival. Jimmy had no idea what had brought about
this odd change in his companion, and whilst it was proving useful it
remained deeply unsettling.

The
torches became more abundant but still they had no sign of life
beyond the increasing number of prison cells. They had walked past
these on the lower levels without much concern for detection as the
occupants were in no fit state to observe the outside. The upper
levels presented an increasing challenge as the prisoners were aware
of a presence and started begging for release upon sight of them,
many seemed to think they were part of a rescue operation for some
reason.

Their
luck finally ran out when Jakob started rounding a corner and Jimmy
nearly ran into him.

'There's
a guard on the other side of the corridor,' Jakob hissed, pulling
Jimmy up against the face of the wall. 'We need to disable him
somehow.'

'I'm
guessing you can't tear him to pieces like the hinges of that door
then?' Jimmy whispered, stifling a nervous laugh. 'Aside from
tackling him straight on I see no alternatives.'

'Then
that's exactly what we'll do, except we use this corner to our
advantage.'

Jimmy
looked at him, puzzled. 'What will tackling him around this corner
achieve that our rushing him wouldn't? He's armed, we're not.'

'The
very fact that he's armed means that if we do rush him he'll draw his
sword and make short work of us. The corner gives us an element of
surprise at least. It's risky but there's little else we can do.'

A
shout from below broke off their stratagem, a large number of booted
feet were heading up the stairs toward their level.

'Looks
like we don't have time to coax him into an ambush. It's now or
never, run at him.'

They
launched themselves around the corner and head first into the guard
who had come rushing out upon hearing the disturbance.

They
went down in a tangle of arms and legs, each of them trying to
extricate themselves in the panic. Jimmy fell backward as he heard
the rasp of the man's blade finally being drawn clear.

He
watched Jakob duck under the initial swipe of the guard, then lunge
for the man's sword in desperation. As they wrestled each other to
the floor Jimmy spotted a company of well armed reinforcements
running down the stairs from the barracks. A bell was tolling
furiously in the distance, muffled by the struggles before him and
the clank of armour mingled with the thud of feet from both sides.

He
turned when a shout came from around the corner, a hooded figure led
a charge of unarmed prisoners directly toward the oncoming guards.
They were a furious sight to behold and the hunger for release in
their eyes seemed to have an effect on the guards, who quickly
marched back up the stairs to a more defensible position.

He
lost sight of Jakob as the crowd buffeted him, lifting him off his
feet and threatening to trample him into the ground. The first guard
let out a shriek as his body was torn apart in front of Jimmy's eyes.
A heavy-set prisoner took up the man's sword and charged on, his
faced caked in blood and a look of frenzy in his eyes.

The
initial rush of escapees had passed them by when Jimmy located Jakob
sprawled on the floor. Fear struck him still as he noticed no
movement from his friend's body beyond a shallow breathing
occasionally stirring his chest. Crawling over toward him at an
agonising pace, he vaguely realised that his leg had been trampled
upon after a failed attempt to stand.

'Jakob,
speak to me!'

Jakob's
body stirred at this, any faint relief Jimmy felt at this disappeared
when he noticed the blood pooling around him, he came closer to him
at a faint beckoning from Jakob's hand.

'The
guard ran me through with his sword in the confusion, got me pretty
good.'

Jimmy
let out a sob when he heard the cracked voice, as if in a dream he
noticed aged figures drifting past him. He cried out to them,
beseeching them for help but none turned a head toward him, all
seemed entirely intent on reaching the stairs at the end of the
hallway.

'Jimmy,'
he heard a voice call.

There
was a faint tugging on his shirt and he looked back down at Jakob.

'There's
nothing you can do. Go now, find Ella. Escape this place together.'

Tears
welled up in his eyes as he heard what he knew to be a dying command.
He closed his friend's eyes and forced himself to his feet, oblivious
to the searing pain in his leg.
Ella.
They
had
planned
to
free
her
from
the
barracks,
what
a
foolish
thought.

Yet
something inside him rejected this, he didn't much care for his own
survival right now but he had another friend in peril and he wasn't
going to give up on her, however stupid the idea of rescue was.

He
staggered forward, keeping his eyes fixed on the stairs ahead and
refusing to look back.

A
hand grabbed his shoulder, he found himself turning and facing a man
with a patch over his right eye. Everything was happening too
quickly.

Two
men behind him were lifting Jakob. Jimmy started forward with a cry
and was restrained by the man.

'We
don't leave anybody behind,' the man's gravelly voice told him. 'Come
with me, we're leaving this place.'

Dazed,
he hobbled forward while leaning heavily on the man and watched as
the others carried Jakob onward up the stairs.

'Ella,'
he murmured to himself. 'We can't leave Ella behind.'

The
stranger nodded in recognition of this. 'We've had this happen
before, a number of our lads will head up to the tower chamber and
get them back, don't worry.'

The
atmosphere ahead of them had sunk back into a tense nothingness, they
appeared to be the last of the rescue party to come through this
chamber. The apparent desertion caused an eerie silence to settle
upon Jimmy, who would have otherwise been happy to relinquish his
worries in light of the calm compassion shown by this stranger.

'Why
aren't we going up the stairs?' he asked.

The
man smiled bitterly at Jimmy. 'We made that mistake once before. I
was the only survivor that day.' He stopped talking for what seemed
like a long time then, searching the floor ahead of him for something
before speaking further. 'They hunt you down like animals, a beast
with more than one scent can confuse the hounds.'

Jimmy
nodded wordlessly, all meaning completely lost to him.

His
confusing saviour finally located what he was searching for in a
series of metal bars to the left side of the floor. Tugging briskly
at the bars he managed to dislodge two, sending them clanging
downward into what appeared to be a sewer below.

'I'll
let you have the honour of going first, put your legs over the side
of the hole and I'll lower you down so that the fall doesn't knock
you out.'

In
spite of his bleary state, Jimmy couldn't help but catch the tone of
urgency in the man's voice and thoughts of falling into an endless
black hole loomed large. He nodded his assent and swung his legs over
the edge to show him that he understood. Part of him realised through
the muggy haze that he was probably taking a very big risk following
a complete stranger but at this point he couldn't see any other way
out.

He
felt the man's arms clamp on to his own and ease him over the edge
into the darkness.

E
lla
stared up at the ceiling, the faint fear gripping her that one of the
guards had dared take her home with him under the guise of some
common whore.
Not
that
he'd
be
far
off
.

A
creak of the floorboards indicated a matronly woman to her far left
approaching her.

'Where
am I?' she ventured.

She
stayed perfectly still as the woman came closer, a sympathetic smile
playing upon her face. 'You are on the second floor of the House of
Falarus. You have been recovered by our missionaries and were thought
a lost cause dearie, such was the state you were in. I knew better
when I laid my eyes on you.'