Legends from the fields afar
Speak of battles fought
With death our foe and honour our quest
And gold the prize most sought.
Bravery and scars abounding
Our quests are long and cold
With hearts so full yet minds so empty
Our journeys become tall stories told.
Hail the Golden Grail of Freedom
It is to you we sing this dirge
Though our lives are forfeit to the quest
We cannot resist its urge.
A vein of rock to blind our eyes -
A wealth of metal to trade and store
In blood-soaked earth our prize awaits us
Beneath the weeping fields of war.
Hail the Golden Grail of Freedom
Hear our songs of mind and heart
While into myth our journeys fade -
A time when man and gold must part.
They rounded a corner to a long tunnel as Foster finished. He stopped for a moment, smiling. “The hymn of our Mercenary band.” He said aloud, answering the unprompted question. “Me and Boulter used to sing it so loud before we would go out. It always inspired the rest, and now I am all that's left of a once-proud band of mercenaries.”
“It was a good song,” Ju replied, not knowing what else to say.
“It was the best,” Foster agreed, “but it shall be sung no more. Let us go.” Foster led Ju out through the tunnel, and then looked behind him and paused. “Run, boy!” He whispered urgently. “Run, and don't look back!”
Ju did not need telling twice in this dark and forbidding place, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him. He heard the footfalls of Foster behind him, but the malnourished man gradually started to drop back as he weakened. Much further back, a roar of anger erupted from a side tunnel as a knot of the fighters Ju had seen in the hall caught sight of them. Pausing for nothing more than a bizarre-sounding war cry, they gave chase. For all their fighting skills and vocal prowess, they did not run very fast or very well. The simple motion of running did not seem to fit in with the delicate balances they had attained when showing off their skills, and they fell behind even Foster's ragged flight. As he saw this, Foster began to jeer at them and they yelled back. The language may have been different, but the inflections and gestures were the same. Ju bet that the fighters were saying some very unsavoury things about them. One thing this did not serve was to make the fighters run any faster. They simply could not keep up.
“Quick, down here!” Foster whispered, and pulled Ju down a side passage.
Not stopping, Ju looked over at the guard. “I thought that you said the way was straight there?”
“It is, but I would say that we have a better chance of reaching it by another route, would you not agree, boy?”
Ju looked back, down the hallway that was now dark, with only their fleeting torchlight to guide them. The brand began to splutter and Foster simply reached into the darkness and pulled a fresh torch from somewhere. “I think you know best, Foster,” he agreed.
Foster grunted an acknowledgement. “When we reach the end of this tunnel, there is a courtyard of sorts, and the doorway we will exit through will lead outside of the guild. It is as likely to be guarded as the route we would have taken, but we have no choice now. All we have left to us is the hope that they think we are still fleeing down the main passage. When we get outside, cross the courtyard towards the Ducal Palace, and look behind the loosely stacked pile of crates. There is a little rat-hole that a skinny youngster such as yourself should squeeze into easily. I might be a bit more of a problem, but we shall just have to risk it. I might even make it through if your feast hasn't given me my gut back.”
Ju looked up and saw that Foster was smiling. There was still a bit of the kindly mercenary he had once known left there. “What if you can't get through?” he asked, scared to be alone.
“Well, I have been hunting gold all of my life, lad. Maybe it is time I hunted honour as well. My sword has been ever sharp in service, and a guard's duty has not dulled my blade. Quiet yourself now, young Ju, for we are nearly there.”
The two fugitives crept forward silently now, listening for any sign that they were not alone. The tension pressed around them as much as the darkness threatened to, and both were only held back by the light of the torch. They reached a dead end and Foster looked back, maintaining a silent vigil. Eventually he decided that nobody was following them, and turned to Ju. “This is the door to the outside, boy. From here we will need to cross the courtyard and get to the crates on the other side. Walk quickly, but do not run. We may well get away with this yet.”
Foster swung open a door that protested at its use with the shriek of rusty hinges, and Foster cursed. “Bittersweet luck, boy. We are on the wrong side of the guild. Let us pray to those good Gods above that it has helped us more than hindered, for surely it has done both.”
“Be careful out here, Foster,” Ju warned in reply, “there is something nearby that is too wrong for words.” When the mercenary looked at him in puzzlement, he shrugged his shoulders. “I know some things that maybe I should not.”
Foster accepted him at his word and led the way out. They were behind a neatly stacked pile of wood in a side alley. With his finger to his lips, Foster led them out into the street. The party was just getting into full swing as merchants hurried home to dress in their finery, and people wandered already intoxicated through the streets of the guild quarter. They emerged in front of the guild a mere stone's throw from the spot Zya had collapsed at, judging by Lorn's description. Ju spared a thought for the fisherman, and hoped he was safely on board. Listening to the talk, there was nothing about a flotilla of escaping ships so it seemed that everything had gone without a hitch. Ju brought his mind back to the present, and his stomach dropped. He was walking in exactly the same place he had once dreamed of. The people stood to one side were exactly the same, and the merchants arguing up ahead were identical to his dream. An intense feeling of prophecy came over him, as he knew that he was being swept up in events that may yet be beyond his control.
For his part, Foster had noticed the change in the boy's demeanour. He had slowed, and had paled visibly. “Come on, boy. This is not gonna help us.”
Ju came back to himself and nodded, following the mercenary up the street. He dreaded to look back, but as he changed direction and glanced behind him Ju saw the horses and cart, driven by the very same moustached man he had seen before. What made Ju the most scared was that he was in front of the cart, whereas he had been behind in the dream. They walked out into the market square, and Ju looked off to his right. There was a gathering by the side of a market stall that led off down the road. A group of perhaps ten men with swords at their sides stood, blank faces aimed towards the middle of the square. It was from them that the uncomfortable feeling nagged Ju. He looked off to his left, and there was the alleyway. “Foster, this is a trap,” Ju warned quietly.
“What do you mean boy? We are free!”
“No, we are not,” Ju contradicted. “Look around you here. There are men off to the right, and they are about to intercept us. Behind us is a man on a cart, and he is going to try and herd us towards that alleyway off to our left.”
As they continued walking across the square, the men moved as if on cue, controlled by something else. Foster turned around and looked straight at the man in the cart, who instantly assumed a pose of indifference. Foster grinned at the man, and then at the blank-faced mercenaries approaching them from across the square. “Boy, listen very carefully. When I tell you, run straight across the square, and then double back around behind those men.”
Ju looked up at the guard. His face had melted from the excitement of the escape to a calm, almost serene look. He had obviously come to some inner decision as to his fate. “Foster, what are you going to do?”
“Spring your trap, boy. Remember the hole behind the crates lad. Now go!” Foster pushed Ju into a run,
and an instant after yelled out at the top of his voice, “COME GET ME YOU WIZARD SPAWN, YOU SCUM!”
Ju did not look back, but instead did as he was told and sprinted across the square as fast as his feet would take him. Once he reached the obscurity of an alleyway to gather his breath, he looked back. It was his dream, but from a different angle. The man on the cart had indeed angled his team after Foster, abandoning all pretence of being an innocent merchant. The blank-faced mercenaries had broken into a shambling run, some of them attempting to draw swords as they did so. Ju watched in fear as Foster slowed and turned around. He said something quietly, and then shouted it out loud.
“Boulter, what have they done to you?” The words were shouted, but the tone made them sound so quiet that the astonishment in the guard's voice made them sound like a whisper. The mercenaries did not respond with words, but instead increased their run at him. Not for a second did they look towards Ju. Foster did, for just a moment, and his face spoke of an impending battle, one that he might not live through. It was something that Ju could only do one thing about. People around the square were gradually becoming aware that something was going on. A large amount of shouting on a festival night was not unusual, but the present of a troupe of armed mercenaries and a near out of control team of horses and cart in the same place at the same time caused more than a little unrest. People began dodging out of the way of the mercenaries, fleeing the square in all directions. It was exactly what Ju needed. Reaching over his shoulder, Ju grasped his bow with the intention of firing it for the first time in many moons. His quiver slid into view and he notched an arrow without thinking. Just as in his dream he fired at the lead mercenary, who seemed impossibly large as soon as Ju drew a bead on the man. He loosed the arrow, which soared through the air bypassing several fleeing partygoers, who did not even notice the arrow in flight. The arrow arced, and plunged into the back of the lead mercenary. A look of relief passed over Foster's face, and he mouthed the words 'Thank you' at Ju. This served only to give the boy more confidence, and in a moment of inspiration he loosed two more arrows. One hit the man on the cart, causing him to lose control and tip it as the horses tried to bolt. The other hit the front mercenary in the leg causing him to stumble and roll, consequently knocking several of the others down as well. There were only a few mercenaries still running, and Foster led these few into the alleyway with a cry of defiance. Moments later, amidst the screams of confusion and panic throughout the rapidly-emptying square, the clash of sword upon sword rang out from the alley. Ju used this time to make his escape in the direction Foster had indicated. He dodged left and right, running around the fleeing people and using his fast feet to make sure he wasn't pursued. Pretty soon he had rounded the guild, and found himself walking with urgency towards a pile of crates up against a wall. The people around him were either not aware of what had happened back at the square, or had not reached the scene yet so Ju felt fairly safe. Most had fled down other paths, and nobody had noticed a boy dodging in and out of the crowd. He walked around the crates looking for the hole as it had been described, but to his dismay, none was there. Beginning to panic, Ju hurried out and around the crates to the other side. He almost bumped into several people, but by the time they had noticed someone walking a little too close he had made it round there. Again, there was no obvious place for a hole to be concealed. Ju leaned against the wall and reconsidered Foster's words. 'Look behind the loosely packed stack of crates,' the man had said, and he was doing that now. This stack was not loosely piled though; it was just a messy dumping ground for rubbish. Looking askance, he spied another set of crates a bit further down the path. “These must be the wrong ones,” he whispered to nobody but himself, and dodged out into the flow of people. Taking no more than a couple of dozen steps made his feet feel as if they were leaden. It was the longest walk of his life. He was afraid to turn around lest the mercenaries be there, but he made the pile of crates with no mishap. Moving carefully around to the side farthest from the square, he examined the wall. There appeared to be a small gap behind one of them, but it involved moving the crate. The large wooden boxes were cumbersome things, and Ju knew that he would have difficulty moving it. Still, he had no choice but to try, and so he shoved himself against the crate. It groaned in protest, much louder than Ju would have wished for in such a public place, and a few people glanced in his direction. He shoved again, and the crate shrieked as wood and metal ground together.
“Here boy, what do you think you are doing?” A loud voice demanded, and a hand clamped down around the back of his neck.
Ju was unable to turn around, but had a good grip on the crate that was only a whisker away from overbalancing. “I dropped something down the back of these crates. It was a coin for my mother on this special night.” He tried his most innocent voice and attempted to look around at the man who held him as he tried to look convincing with a face of anguish.
The hand that held him did not relent. “Yeah right you dropped your coin. Guards!! We have a dirty little-sneak thief here! We will sort you out, my boy. Here they come now.”
The man turned Ju's head enough so that he could see the guards coming to intercept them. He must have been new to the city; otherwise he would have known that there was a general amnesty on this night of celebration. The 'guards' wore faces with no expression, and marched stiffly towards them. One of them bore an arrow protruding out of his middle, blood seeping down his leg from the wound. There was not even time to panic; the mercenaries would be on them in seconds. Ju did the only thing that he could do. He shifted his weight and toppled the pile of crates. The man holding him released his grip and moved to dive out of the way, and for a split second Ju saw his goal. There was a dark hole low down, at ground level in the wall. He saw his chance and he took it, diving for the hole even as crates began to fall down in every direction. He spared the briefest of moments to peer back at the man who even now was rolling out of the way. The man was dressed in gaudy attire, bright blue finery that was perfectly suited to the festival, but would have been even too much for Darrow. That was all that Ju saw as he dived towards the hole and a temporary freedom. Landing on his front, he slid most of the way along the dirty ground in through the hole. By some miracle his bow did not catch and he made it through easily. Luckily for him the hole was just big enough to allow him to crawl the rest of the way as the rest of the crates toppled and smashed behind him. From the scream of pain, it was obvious that his recent captor had been caught in the collapse. Inside the tunnel there was a faint light, both from the hole he had crawled through, although it was mostly packed with broken wood and metal, and from a source far off to his right where the tunnel seemed to dip. Ju pressed himself up against the far wall, breathing quickly as he sought to calm down after the recent shock. Outside, he could hear the voice of the man in blue.
“Thank the Gods you got here quickly. He was under the pile of wood, a dirty little thief who had stolen my purse. He…” The voice of the man was cut off by a slicing sound, similar to a butcher cleaving meat. A low groaning was all that followed, and then Ju saw blood begin to drip into the hole, flowing with increasing volume. It was all too clear what had happened. The man had sentenced himself to death by naivety. His lack of knowledge had killed him for being a busybody and a liar. Ju did not know whether to feel sorry or feel vindicated. He did know that his time here was limited, and looked toward the other light. As he did so, the rubble that blocked most of the hole began to shift where somebody attempted to move it. Ju started away from the hole, staying to one side of the tunnel where the dirt was dry and packed. The tunnel was relatively clear, with only the occasional scrap of rag decorating the walls. It had been maintained to the point that there had at least been an attempt at cleaning the floor. Brush strokes in the sodden earth gave that away. There was a very narrow path through the dirt, and Ju found himself following this. The roof rounded as the path descended below the level of the streets, and the temperature dropped. Periodically there was a
torch wedged without care in an iron rung, and every one of these was alight. Somebody else was using this tunnel. Far behind him there was a crash as wood fell down, and this reminded Ju what he was actually trying to do. He hurried down the path, and felt the air get colder as he did so. Looking back up the slope, he realised how far down he had come. Ahead of him the tunnel levelled out, and despite the clear path it was considerably messier, with dripping moss sending up fizzes and steam from the torches. In the distance another light bobbed out of sight around a corner. Ju forgot about the problems behind him and concentrated on catching the person in front in the hope of finding a way out. He was forced to keep off of the clear trail in order to mask his footfalls, which sounded unbearably loud. It was not hard for him to sneak up upon the person in front of him. As he reached the corner, he heard a shuffle and the rustle of robes. Risking himself as he peered around the grimy wall, he caught a glimpse of two people caught in a tight embrace. One was a big man, fat and gristly in appearance. The head of the woman in front of him blocked his face, but it was clear who both people were.
“We must hurry, if we are not to be missed,” Duchess Deborah said as she sought to regain her breath. The kiss they had shared seemed to have sucked something from her.
“Patience, Duchess,” replied the vicious O'Bellah, “we will only be missed if my men make it so. I can guarantee that your husband will be having the time of his life, however brief that may be.”
“Are you sure that the poison will work?” The Duchess seemed unsure of herself. Perhaps the step up from running a whorehouse to cold-blooded murder of the most despicable degree was too much for her.
“And they are the type of people trying to take over the world,” Ju whispered aloud in disgust. It just reinforced to him the reason why Zya was so adamant about saving people from these types.
The Path of Dreams (The Tome of Law Book 2) Page 58