The Thief's Gamble (Einarinn 1) (49 page)

The Ice-man's Keep, Islands of the Elietimm,

3rd of For-Winter

I returned to our cell rapidly. The others were lying in a close huddle, Shiv's boots and a fold of tunic giving the impression of enough feet and heads for any curious guard. I saw them tense as I opened the lock.

'It's me!' I whispered and Aiten and Ryshad were on their feet at once.

I tossed Aiten his clothes; his initial gratitude dampened slightly when he found them more than a little moist and smelly.

'Where've you been?' Ryshad was dressing fast, ignoring the state of his breeches.

'The drains,' I said succinctly. 'We've got a way out.'

I looked past Ryshad to Shiv who was slowly relacing his boots. 'Are you up to hiding us for a short stretch? We need to get through a gate.'

Shiv looked up and grinned. 'I'm fit enough.'

I was relieved to see his eyes were focusing properly on me but his face still looked unhealthily drawn.

'Come on then.'

Aiten moved out, sword at the ready, and Shiv flexed his fingers in the way I'd come to realise was preparation for working magic as they covered the angle of the corridor while I worked on relocking the door. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of Geris' shrouded body and a sudden pang of grief made the picks slip in my nerveless fingers. What would these bastards do to him now? Bury him in the cold earth for the worms or just dump him in a midden? I wondered miserably. Why could they not use the cleansing of fire like civilised people?

Ryshad's firm hand on my shoulder made me jump.

'That's not Geris, Livak,' he said softly and I looked round into his sympathetic eyes. 'He's escaped already.'

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, then shook myself mentally and led the way into the nearest scullery where I had left the drain cover slightly askew. Once we had all climbed down into the drain, I breathed easier, despite the fetid smells, and concentrated on the job in hand.

Aiten cursed as he slipped, and his voice echoed harshly in the confined space. Ryshad hushed him before I had a chance to and we scrambled awkwardly onwards in comparative silence. I hoped no one was anywhere above to hear the scrapes of boot and sword when Ryshad met a narrow corner but it was too late to worry about that now.

I had to slow down as the others got disoriented in the blackness and for one awful moment became confused myself when I met a junction.

'Make a decision and stick to it, right or wrong,' I told myself silently and, not too many paces later, was rewarded with the sting of scraping my outstretched knuckles on the end wall of the drain. I could see a pale thread in the darkness showing where I had left a root of a plant wedged in the trap door. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I was going to owe Drianon half my next year's profits at this rate.

'Ait? Shiv?' Ryshad's questing hand touched my shoulder and I grabbed at it. Sudden weakness plucked at my knees but his reassuring grip answered the tremor in my fingers and gave me new heart.

We wedged ourselves awkwardly into the cramped stone box.

'What sort of cover do we need and how long for?' Shiv worked his way round to stand next to me and we raised the lid of our drain cautiously together.

I pointed out the gateway and then the wall walk with the desultorily patrolling sentries. Shiv made a careful survey of the entire garden and nodded slowly.

'We'll need to get out one at a time, slowly. Once we're out, we can move faster. How long will the gate take you?'

'How long is a piss? I don't know, Shiv!'

'Sorry, stupid question. Let's wait until our friend in the dressy leathers is at the far end of the parapet then.'

The idle bastard took his own sweet time to move back along the wall but, once he was gone, I was first out, lying under the frost-wilted leaves of some crop still in the ground. The fresh smell of the cold, damp earth cleaned out my nostrils and I welcomed the scent of a little normality. Once we were all out and crouching like rabbits in a salad garden, Shiv drew some silent patterns in the dirt and nodded for us to move. It was a short dash to the shelter of the wall. No warning shout split the night to betray us.

I unslotted the bar and reached eagerly for the bolts but luckily stopped myself just in time. They were stiff with rust and muck and would have screeched like a night owl. I stared at them in impotent fury for a moment then got to work on the lock, my mind working frantically at the problem. I could hear Ryshad and Aiten shuffling impatient feet behind me and I had to quell an urge to swear at them.

'Shiv, these bolts are going to make a stuffing noise. Do something.'

After a moment's incomprehension, he laid quick hands on the top set and, as I reached down to the bottom ones, I felt the air go soggy and dense around them. I looked up, nodded and we drew them in one swift and blessedly silent wrench. We were through the wall and across the killing ground surrounding the keep at the run. I looked up at the slowly paling sky and wondered how long we had before our escape was discovered. Elation at freedom warred inside me with the fear of pursuit and recapture.

'Stuff it,' I told myself. 'He's got to find you first.'

We ran on, habit soon easing us all into a regular pace. I was concerned that we should be moving faster but I was bone tired by now, only fired on by emotion. I looked at Shiv and Aiten with concern as they fell to the rear. Shiv was still unusually pale in the washed-out light of the early dawn and Aiten was clearly suffering from the beating he had taken. Dark stains on his shirt showed where some of the wounds had reopened.

'You have to get clean as soon as we get a chance, Ait,'

I told him firmly. 'Sea water's good for healing, you know that.'

He nodded, eyes tired and mouth set in a thin line that spoke of his discomfort.

Ryshad had taken the lead and was heading for the thicket of tall masts silhouetted against the pale rose sky that heralded the rising sun. He led us off the main path and we went to ground in a thicket of tangled bushes overlooking the harbour. It was an irregular inlet bitten deep into the coast, evidently carrying a deep-water channel from the size of the vessels moored out from the shore. Despite the early hour, figures were already at work on the decks and the harbour side where cargo was being moved and sorted. Splashes carrying clearly in the cold air spoke of rowing-boats that we could not see moving between ship and shore against the blackness of the water. I had no knowledge to tell me what the tide was doing but I guessed it was at an important point in rising or falling or whatever as many of the huts around the harbour had warm yellow lights in their windows.

'I won't give good odds on us getting a boat here,' I remarked dubiously.

A burst of pipe music startled us. We watched with unanimous dismay as a door spilled a group of soldiers out of what was evidently a tavern. We sat in silence as they marched a little way up the track and watched them relieve a second detachment hidden in an otherwise unremarkable hut. I cursed under my breath; if you're trying to get in somewhere, you want to be going for it when the guard is at the end of its shift, tired and bored, not when it's just been changed and they're all as keen as a slaughterhouse dog at the start of the day's business.

Ryshad reached for his spy-glass and cursed briefly when he realised it was now a prize for White-hair, back at the keep.

I had seen enough. 'There's no way we're going to get to a boat there. We'll have to try for a fishing village or something.'

'No, wait,' Aiten said.

I didn't bother turning my head as I surveyed the coastal paths leading away from the harbour. 'We've got to get clear of here. It's going to be dawn sooner than you think.'

'We do need to talk this through,' Ryshad said slowly. 'We need to have a plan.'

I looked round and heaved a mental sigh; one of the few things my mother had been proved right about was her assertion that men will always come up with inappropriate ideas at the most inconvenient times.

'We have to get out of here first. Come on!' I hissed at him.

'And once they find we're gone? We'll have them on our trail in no time and we'll be back where we started,' Shiv countered.

'We're going to need a distraction,' Ryshad said firmly. 'It has to be a good one too.'

'All right, it would help, if we can manage it without digging ourselves any deeper into this shit-hole,' I admitted. 'I was thinking along the lines of a little judicious arson, myself.'

Shiv shook his head. 'Fire's going to be hard for me at the moment. I really should save my strength in case we need another covering illusion.'

I raised a hand to silence him. 'Remember Harna's table? I found Geris' list of little spells — I can do it myself.'

'The aetheric cantrips? What about his notes? The books? What else did you find?' Shiv asked hopefully.

'Later,' Aiten interrupted him. 'We need something more than bonfires. I know what I'm talking about; there are some Lescari tricks we should use. We need to cause trouble and we need to have them think it was their own enemies. You were saying how much strife there seemed to be over borders here. We can make this bastard think the ones in the brown did it.'

'This is too complicated,' I objected. 'We don't have time for anyone to waste proving how clever they are.'

'Just listen, will you?' Aiten's voice was rising so I shut up. I was beginning to regret giving him back his boots. Warm feet were obviously draining the blood from his head.

'When I was fighting for Parnilesse, a group of us were trapped between Triolle's men and a fort held by a contingent from Draximal. We would be cracked like a nut come daylight, so five of the old hands slipped out and found the Triolle camp followers. They butchered the whores and left some Draximal insignia from our booty lying around. So you see, while Triolle's troops were ripping into the Draximals they thought had done it, we were able to get clear.'

'You just want to pay them back in their own coin, Ait. Revenge is a fool's game.' Since Halcarion decided not to strike me down for hypocrisy, I continued, 'I'm not starting some needless slaughter. I'm not into random murder and, anyway, I can't think of a quicker way of rousing the keep, short of finding a hunting horn.'

There was an uncomfortable silence until Ryshad spoke.

'It doesn't have to be a killing, does it?' he mused. 'How about taking a hostage? We could take a woman or a child or, if it looks possible, one of those with the gorgets, an officer.'

I stared at him in disbelief. 'I thought it was Shiv got the knock on the head? Have you any idea how much trouble a hostage can be? One hostage means one of us taken up completely looking after him. There are only four of us and Shiv still hasn't got all his pieces on the board, has he?'

'If we've got a hostage, we've got something to bargain with,' Ryshad insisted. 'If they catch up with us, we might be able to deal our way out.'

'If we do get clear, a hostage could give Planir invaluable information,' Shiv said thoughtfully and I realised with a sinking feeling that he was starting to dance to the same tune.

I pulled the documents out from the breast of my tunic. 'These are aetheric spells.' I brandished the sheet at him. 'I can do them, Rysh, I can set fires from a distance according to Geris' notes. How about I start on those ships over there? Won't that make them think a rival's been busy?'

I was making no impression.

'Let's get out of here first,' I pleaded. 'You've all played Raven, haven't you? You don't take on all the Forest fowl at once, you deal with one flock at a time.'

I could see the sky growing brighter and urgency lent authority to my voice.

'All right. Let's get clear and then we can take on whoever they send after us.' Ryshad's crisp agreement broke the sullen silence and if I were closer, I would have kissed him for it.

A long estuary carried the sea away to our right and a stretch of higher ground rose to hide the shoreline from the keep. We moved rapidly over the close-cropped turf and sandy tracks, my skin crawling as I waited for the shout that would betray us, but Shiv's magic kept any casual glance sliding over us once again. We reached the meagre shelter of a row of hillocks and dunes and crouched down as we paused to reorient ourselves.

'This way. We'll have more chance of finding a boat.'

I have no idea what made Aiten so confident, but he was the man from the coast so we followed his lead. As the curve of the shore and the height of the dunes rose, we headed down for the beach where we could make better speed across the firmer sands.

'Wait a moment. I need to get my breath.' I turned and was shocked to see how far back Shiv had fallen. His colour was still grey while the rest of us were now rosy-cheeked in the brisk breeze.

'Are you still keeping the illusion up?' Ryshad asked abruptly and I cursed myself for not realising how much the magic was draining him.

'We'll have to risk moving without it,' he said decisively as Shiv nodded tiredly. The air around us crackled briefly as Shiv dropped the spell. I felt uncomfortably exposed.

'Let's get closer to the dunes.' I led us back to the boot-catching sands above the tide line and we ploughed on. Shiv was still lagging behind and I saw he was caught in a no-win game; slogging through the sand was going to tire him as thoroughly as working magic.

'Dast's teeth, you're stuffed, aren't you?' Aiten caught Shiv under one arm and Ryshad moved to support him from the other side and looked over at me with a grimace of frustration.

'Scout ahead a bit, Livak. Find out what we're heading for.'

I nodded and put some distance between me and the three of them, climbing a little higher into the tussocks of spiny grass to get some vantage on the terrain around us.

We made better speed this way but the reverse of the runes was the worrying inability of the others to react fast if someone came upon us. My eyes were going like a frog's in all directions as I tried to keep watch everywhere at once. I might as well have saved myself the effort since it was my nose that alerted me to potential danger ahead when I caught the sickly-sweet smell of dung fires on the fitful breeze. I stopped and waited for the others to draw level with me at the base of the dunes.