The Cyber Chronicles VII - Sabre (12 page)

"There are
three people in the gardens and four near the stables," Sabre
informed Tassin, who stood beside him, studying the mansion.

She frowned,
uncertain. "I don't know if it's wise to just go up and knock on
her door. What if she's in league with Torrian?"

"If she is,
why did she give Dena a home?"

"If she's not,
why does she entertain him?"

"Perhaps
she's... ambitious? He's a king, after all."

Tassin
snorted. "Countess De'vorice is eighty if she's a day. I don't
think she stands much of a chance."

"Does she have
a granddaughter?"

"No."

Sabre let the
branch swing back. "Okay, we need to reconnoitre the place then.
I'll sneak in there tonight and have a look around, listen in on
some conversations, see what I can find out."

"Or we could
just go in there and find Dena."

"Some of the
servants might recognise you, and the countess definitely will,
since she's met you. The last thing we want is for Torrian to know
you're back. We don't want to be on the run from him again. Last
time he was persistent, and a nuisance."

"Why don't we
send a message to Dena, and ask her to meet us somewhere?" Tarl
suggested.

Sabre nodded.
"Not a bad idea. One of us will have to find a servant and get him
to deliver it."

"No one knows
me. I could pretend to be a messenger."

"You could,"
Sabre agreed, "if we had a pen and paper."

"So you'll
have to sneak in there and find some."

"I guess
so."

She turned to
him. "We'll wrap a cloth around your head, and if anyone sees you,
just run. They'll think you're a thief."

"No one will
see me. But while I'm in there, why don't I just find Dena and
bring her out?"

"That would
also work."

"Great. I'll
do it after dark, when everyone's asleep."

Tassin sighed,
glancing at the mid-afternoon sun. "That means we've got a long
wait."

"Then we can
get some more sleep. That damned rooster woke me up at dawn."

She smiled,
remembering. "And you almost jumped out of your skin."

"Hey, strange
noise, strange place."

"Trained
reflexes," Tarl added.

Sabre gave him
a shove that sent him staggering. "Cut that out."

Tassin giggled
and turned away. "Well, we'd better find comfortable spot
then."

Sabre paused
in a doorway and consulted the scanners again, puzzled. After
checking every room in the mansion, he had found only seven snoring
servants, four dogs, six cats, numberless rats and one very fat
countess. A distinct smell of rot pervaded the manor, whose décor
was depressingly drab and furniture old. Rising damp stained the
base of the walls, some of which were crumbling from age and
neglect. Fusty carpets added to the general air of decay, and he
wondered why a countess would choose to live in such squalor. He
was also starting to wonder if Merry and Aerik had been wrong about
Dena. He had not yet checked the mansion's cellar, however, and a
nasty suspicion had taken hold. If Dena was here, that was the only
place she could be.

Leaving the
doorway, he made his way down the stairs that led to the ground
floor. Moonlight shone in through the windows in slanted beams that
appeared as white areas in his night vision, being too bright for
the brow band’s sensitive pickups. The structural scanners provided
a detailed blueprint of the manor's rather haphazard construction
in the areas he had explored. The region ahead was added to the
blueprint as the scanners mapped it. A rusty padlock secured the
basement door, and it took several minutes of twisting to break it
with metal fatigue.

A flight of
narrow stone steps led down into pitch darkness, and, as he
descended, a human life sign appeared on the scanners. A stack of
barrels stood against the wall across from him and a wine-rack
filled with dusty bottles covered the one on his right. The life
sign was in the far corner, and he approached a ragged form lying
on a thin straw mattress. The scanners told him it was a woman, and
his concern grew. A chain hung from a ring on the wall beside it,
vanishing under a tatty blanket.

Arriving
silently beside the prisoner, he squatted and reached out to brush
aside the matted brown hair that covered her face, his touch
feather light.

The girl
jerked back with a gasp, her eyes opening wide, and gave a piercing
scream. Sabre's hands flashed out to grip the back of her head and
cover her mouth. She fought like a wildcat, slapped and clawed him,
raked sharp nails down his cheek and neck and kicked him hard
enough to make him grunt. Her ferocity amazed him, and she growled
like a crazed animal. Sliding his hand down to her neck, he
positioned his fingers in the correct places and squeezed.

The girl went
limp, and he released her with a muttered curse, wiping blood off
his neck. Leaning over her, he pushed aside her filthy hair and
studied her elven features, large eyes and pointed chin, his heart
growing heavy.

"Dena," he
whispered.

Lines of grime
streaked her cheeks, made by tears wept months ago, judging by the
stench of her rags. The ragged dress might once have been a court
gown, and her ribs were visible through the tears in it. A manacle
encircled her ankle, attached to the ring in the wall by the heavy
chain he had noticed earlier. He stroked her cheek, remembering the
happy, laughing girl he had known, now a pretty young woman despite
her patchy hair and hunched back.

Moving around
her, he examined the shackle, then the chain, then the ring in the
wall, all of them strong and relatively new. He had nothing to pick
the lock with, and he could not break the shackle without hurting
her, or the chain without making a noise, which left only the ring.
It was cemented into the wall, but fairly easy for him to pull out.
Unfortunately, it meant he would have to take the chain with
him.

Gripping it,
he set his foot on the wall beside it and leant back, hauling on
it. The cement cracked, and the ring ripped out with a soft grating
and clink of steel. He set it down and considered whether he should
carry Dena out while she was unconscious, or wait for her to wake
up. If she woke up while he was carrying her through the mansion,
or even in the garden, she might raise the alarm with her screams,
so he settled down to wait.

Almost ten
minutes passed before she sighed and shifted, starting to come
around. He wondered if he should prevent her from crying out by
force, but was unwilling to get into another scratching fight with
her. Dena gasped and sat up, her eyes wide. She looked around in
alarm, but for her the darkness was complete, and she could not see
him sitting nearby.

"Dena," he
murmured. "Don't scream. I'm here to help you."

She swung
around, drawing in a sharp breath. "Who are you?"

"It's
Sabre."

Her face
twisted, and she shook her head. "It can't be."

"It is."

"I can't see
you."

"I don't have
a light, but..." Sabre removed the cloth that hid the cyber band.
"Do you remember this?"

Dena stared at
the tiny lights that he knew flashed in familiar patterns. Her
breath caught in a sob. "I'm dreaming."

"No, you're
not. I've come to take you away. Tassin has returned. She's waiting
in the woods."

She gulped,
and her voice grew husky. "If you're not a dream, come closer."

Sabre rose and
squatted beside her, and she stared at the brow band. She reached
for it with a thin hand, and he bowed his head so she could touch
it. Her fingers slid along the smooth, warm metal, tracing its
shape, then crossed the narrow gap to touch his brow. Her breath
quickened, and she rose to her knees to run her hands over his hair
and down his neck, then onto his face to finger his features.

"If this is a
dream, it's a cruel one indeed."

"It's not a
dream."

Her hands slid
down his chest, explored his arms and fell to his thighs, where
they encountered his lasers. She gave a sob. "Sabre?"

"Yes, little
one."

Dena flung
herself against him, wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged
his head with surprising strength, clinging to him as if he was a
lifeline in a storm. Great gasping sobs tore through her, and he
held her, stroked her matted hair and patted her back.

"I wish I
could see you," she wept.

"You will. I'm
going to take you out of here."

"Don't let
this be a dream. Oh god, please don't leave me here."

"Hush. It's
okay. You're safe now. I'm not going to let anything happen to you,
I promise."

Dena shook
with a combination of cold, starvation, shock, and the force of her
weeping. Sabre held her as tightly as he dared, trying his best to
comfort her. She seemed more fragile than a china doll, but her
chill skin made him long to warm her. Picking up the filthy
blanket, he draped it over her back, wrapping it around the chain
to muffle it. Sliding his arms under her, he rose to his feet and
carried her up the steps, hardly noticing her slight weight. In the
corridor her soft sobs seemed loud, and he looked down at her.

"Hush. There
are dogs."

Dena buried
her face in his chest, stifled her sobs and shivered. Her cold
hands crept under his vest and pressed against his skin. Sabre
moved swiftly through the manor to the window where he had entered,
which he climbed through without putting her down. Outside,
moonlight silvered the manicured gardens, and he trotted between
the hedgerows, heading for the woods. Dena raised her head to gaze
up at him.

"You're real.
You came back."

"Yeah, I am,
and I did."

"Tassin freed
you. Is she all right?"

"She's fine.
You'll see her soon."

Fresh sobs
racked her. "Why did it take her so long?"

"There was
nothing she could do about that. We came back as soon as we
could."

"Four
years!"

"Hush
now."

Dena buried
her face in his chest again and snuggled close to him. Sabre
entered the woods and headed for the clearing where Tassin and Tarl
waited. Tassin jumped up when he stepped out of the darkness,
frowning at the ragged bundle he carried. He knelt beside the fire
and tried to put Dena down, but she clung to him.

"Dena, it's
okay. We're safe."

She raised her
head, and Tassin gasped. "Dena?"

"Tassin!"

Dena released
Sabre and turned to Tassin, who embraced her adopted sister, her
expression horrified and grief stricken. Sabre moved away, quite
glad to be free of her smelly embrace. Dena clung to Tassin and
wept hysterically while the Queen held her and murmured soothing
words. Sabre sat beside Tarl, who glanced at him, looking grim.

"I take it
Countess De'vorice was not a Good Samaritan after all."

"Try
jailer."

"Why did it
take you so long?" Dena wailed. "I waited and waited! I thought you
were dead!"

"I'm sorry.
Time passed more slowly for me," Tassin said. "It's only been a few
months. I came back as soon as I could."

"Thank you,
oh, god, thank you."

Tassin shook
her head. "This is all my fault."

"No, you
didn't know what would happen. You found Sabre." Dena glanced at
him. "I thought he was a dream. It's really him, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Then it was
all worth it. I'd do it again."

"No, don't say
that." Tassin held her tight. "You didn't deserve to suffer like
this."

"I'm so sorry.
I couldn't stop Niam and Dellon. I did my best, but they had the
support of all the nobles."

"I know, hush
now, don't upset yourself. The main thing is you're all right, and
we've got to get you fed and cleaned up. Now that I'm back, we're
going to put things right."

Sabre dug in
Tarl's pack and took out the loaf of bread and flask of mead Merry
had given them. He tore off a hunk of bread and offered it to Dena,
who snatched from him with a choked cry and tried to stuff it all
into her mouth at once. Tassin intervened, pulled most of it out
and fed it to her in pieces, between sips of mead. Dena wept, wiped
her runny nose on the filthy blanket and rocked, while Tassin
stroked her hair and gave her food.

Tarl leant
closer to Sabre. "I've seen a few cases of trauma, but that girl's
extreme."

"She was kept
locked in a dungeon for three years in complete darkness and
starved. What would you expect?"

"I think she's
had worse done to her than that."

"Like
what?"

Tarl shook his
head. "I don't want to speculate, but I'll bet I'm right."

"You always
are. It's a thing with you."

"If you
weren't such a damned innocent, you'd see it too."

Sabre frowned
at him. "I'm not even going to try to figure out what you mean by
that."

"Probably just
as well."

While Dena
ate, Tassin pulled off the filthy blanket and replaced it with a
clean one, reducing the smell. Her meaningful glance made Sabre
rise and take the dirty blanket away to dispose of downwind. When
he returned, Dena had finished the food and huddled close to the
fire. Tassin sat beside her, stroking her back while she continued
to rock. Sabre found a hairpin in Tassin’s pack and approached
Dena, who looked up at him with wide, wary eyes. Her distrustful
look made him hesitate, torn between his desire to remove the
shackle and a strong aversion to upsetting her.

Tassin looked
puzzled. "What's that for?"

"The shackle.
I thought she'd like it taken off."

"She
would."

He knelt
beside Dena, meeting her eyes, which filled with remorse.

"Sorry," she
whispered.

Sabre nodded
and pushed aside the blanket to reveal the shackle on her thin
ankle, inserting the hairpin into the lock. The scanners revealed
its inner workings, and a few minutes of fiddling produced a click.
After he removed it, Dena rubbed her ankle, fresh tears coursing
through the dirt on her cheeks. Tassin tried to comb aside her
matted her, and Dena pushed her away.