“Andris!” a voice called out as I turned a corner only to discover it was a dead end. Fuck. I snatched the torch from the wall and threw it into an empty cell. The bedding and straw were gobbled up quickly by the hungry flames, filling the hall with a thick, acrid smoke. “Fuck me! She killed ’im! Sound the alarm! The witch has escaped! Don’t look directly at her or she’ll bewitch you! Tha’s ’ow one got me wife ta leave meh last winta’.” With an exasperated sigh, I ripped off another length of linen from my shift and tied it around my mouth and nose to keep from choking on the thick smoke. “Burnin’s too good for the whore, ya see tha’ bitch, run ’er through.”
Clutching the knife, white-knuckled, I waited in the warmth of the flames, flattening my back to the wall in a corner once more. I didn’t know if it would work again, but I was far more willing to die trying to escape than I was to roast slowly on a pyre of wet wood.
“Stand on the other side of the arch,” a nearby voice whispered in a soft elven accent. I heeded the advice, pressing myself to the wall again in wait.
“Fire! The bitch’s castin’ spells!” a jailor yelled as he approached my hiding spot. Like before, I lunged and caught him off guard as I sank the blade into his eye socket. I was smarter this time. Grunting, I caught the man. My muscles strained as I slowly lowered the dead guard down into a corner.
“Thank you,” I whispered as I started ransacking the corpse’s pockets.
“Don’t thank me…let me out. They’re hanging me in the morning, and I think I know a way out,” the elf pleaded as I tied the guard’s small pouch of gold around my waist. I looked at the sword lying limply in the dead man’s hand.
“Are you good with a sword?”
“I was a Redcap scout before they captured me.”
“Okay then.” I walked over to the cell and, after a handful of attempts, unlocked it.
“Would you let me die if I wasn’t?” Muted laughter escaped my lips at his words, as I pointed to the bare sword on the ground.
“Yes. It’s nothing personal or racial. I promised myself I’m not fucking dying here, and dead weight is dead weight.”
“That seems a bold promise to make—and speaking of promises, my daughter’s being held as well. A third would only increase our chances.” I stared at the elf for a moment. He had dark hair and a slightly aquiline nose. His ears were prominent and stuck out from his head at almost a ninety-degree angle. The torn, ragged, rough cloth he wore was bloodied in several places, and he was missing fingernails on one hand and a few fingers on the hand not clutching the sword looked like the result of a bad break that wasn’t set. Poor bastard.
“Fine,” I grumbled softly as the dark-haired elf took the dead guard’s scabbard and buckled it around his hips.
We walked slowly through the corridors, and along the way, the elf insisted on releasing a handful of others. Whereas I wouldn’t have freed so many, they made quick work of any guard we passed before any noise could escape them. The elves totaled six by the time we came to the daughter’s cell. She was slumped in the corner. Her dark hair was the same color as her father’s and her irises the same shade of blue. Though she looked up and forced a smile across chapped lips, she didn’t stand. They had racked her until her joints gave. To me, it seemed almost impossible that she was still alive. It would have been more merciful to slit her throat or let the headsman have her. She croaked some pitiful sentiment in the elvish tongue and the elf I initially freed started frantically working the lock. Emotions got the better of him, and he kept dropping the keys. Every time that metal clinked on the stones at our feet I wanted to strangle him. I kept my mouth shut, but I’m sure my displeasure read on my face.
“Pwyll’s love of his daughter’s going to get us caught,” a large, burly elf groused to me. He was much larger than I thought an elf capable of being. He had that regal height they all did, but he was thicker—not fat, but a veritable mass of muscle. I knew the rumors about elf warriors who were so thick with muscle they were described as moving mountains, but to actually see it was almost baffling. If I saw him coming at me I probably would just give up. He looked like if he made a fist and hit someone on the head he could pound them into the ground like a tent stake. “She’s likely to die from those wounds before we get out—if we get out.”
“Maybe not. Surviving the pain is the hardest part. She’ll make it out… I might even be able to help her some. I am…I was the Cunning Woman for Laeth.”
“Grwn, come help her,” Pwyll—the first elf I freed—whispered as he opened the cell door, that mountain of flesh, rolled his eyes and followed, scooping the woman up into his arms. She cried out, the noise ringing down the hall. Great, because that won’t draw attention.
Still, we started down the hall, and I paused as we passed an archway with an almost inconspicuous V and M intertwined on the keystone. That one stone that seemed extraordinarily new compared to those around it told me exactly where I was. Cackling under my breath earned me strange looks from the elves. We were in the dungeons of the small Castle of Heves, the castle I lived in while still married to the lesser lordling. The initials on the tile were mine and his, put there on the one-year anniversary of our wedding some six years prior. It was tempting to take a torch and climb the stairs to set the place ablaze, but I suppressed the urge.
“I know how to get out,” I commented idly as I turned a corner. “I also know how many guards they have on duty…unless they’ve changed things, which I highly doubt.”
“Been a prisoner here before?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at me.
“Yeah…something like that.” I offered him a small smile and did a quick count of the number of guards we killed. “We’ve killed six. Which means there should be twenty more in the entire castle. There can’t be more than two left down here, and one has to tend to the fire I set.” Sighing, I thought for a few moments, lagging behind the others as we walked through the maze of empty cells. “We have to go down to the lower levels where the old river entrance is. The lord had it boarded up a few years ago because he didn’t have the coin to keep it guarded.”
“I guess villager gossip is paying off for a change.” Pwyll snorted as we wound our way through the labyrinthine dungeon. After what felt like hours we reached the stairs that led to the lower levels. We didn’t see any more guards, and the air grew stale. Someone in the back fetched a torch from the room above and returned to light our way. It was clear no one thought anyone would ever go this way. The cells were all rusty, and the scent of decaying iron was almost overpoweringly strong.
The big wooden doors that led to the river entrance were simply boarded up with three thick planks of wood. That was it. I blinked at the door. Was it a trap or was the new lord as stupid as my dead ex-husband? I sighed and scratched the top of my head as Grwn set the wounded woman down and literally pulled a rusty bar from the door of a cell. Using the bar to pry the wood far enough away from the door to get a grip on it, he set the bar to the side and simply yanked the boards off one by one as though they were nothing. Then again, to Grwn it probably was nothing. He looked like he could have ripped a horse in half, but he did strain to lift the door’s massive bar. He grunted the entire time and growled once it was in its upright position. I wondered how many normal people it would have taken to lift the thick, reinforced bar.
On the other side of the door were a dark cave and the sound of rushing water. In the distance dawn crested and the rays of the sun streamed through the rotting portcullis, casting divine patterns on the cave wall.
“That was easy. All we have to do is swim to the other side of the river.” One of the elves laughed as he jumped into the water. I didn’t stop him, and perhaps that was cold. Instead I squinted and followed his form in the water, down through the cave, out through the portcullis, and then…as he was riddled with arrows the moment he left the shadow of the cave. Fantastic, now they know we came out this way. Grwn set Pwyll’s daughter down again and jumped into the water, diving to the bot
tom. He resurfaced with the corner of what looked to be a small rowboat in his hand. Climbing out of the water, he slowly flipped the boat over so the keel was on top.
“Here.” He reached down, and, before I could protest, ripped another length of linen from my shift. The thin gown now barely covered my knees. He jumped back into the water and started tying the linen to where the oars had once rested. “I’m going to tie Ysbail to your back, all you’ll have to do is keep your heads under the boat but above the water and let the current take you away from the castle and the range of the arbalests.” I glared at him. There was nothing I hated nothing more than being treated like I was stupid.
“We’ll meet you on the other side,” Pwyll called before jumping into the water. I remained passive as Grwn pulled away the scraps of my shift I had wrapped around my mouth and proceeded to rip them into strips that he used to tie Ysbail to my back. My knees shook with her weight; the slight elf weighed a lot more than she looked. Grwn helped me into the water and made sure we got under the rotting boat okay, and then we were left on our own. I more or less went limp and let the current do its worst. It was strange to feel the river pull the boat out of the hole in the portcullis and suck us along.
We weren’t in the river for long. It seemed only a handful of moments before Pwyll popped his head up in front of me and helped lead the boat to shore. In the distance the sounds of the midsummer festival could be heard, which made the experience of collapsing on the bank of the river almost surreal. Grwn untied Ysbail from my back, and the elves left me there without a word.
The sand was warm, and the sun was welcome after however long I had spent in the dark. I wasn’t sure how long I had been out of it, maybe no more than two days as I didn’t seem starved or dehydrated. I was hungry, of course, but the need for food hadn’t reached ravenous proportions. It was then, on the bank a safe distance from the dungeon, that I entertained the thought that Aneurin might have come to rescue me. I broke down for a handful of moments, screaming, crying, and raging on the shore like a madwoman. Thoughts that hardly made any sense flitted through my mind as I lay in the warm, wet sand. I could only focus on how much I missed Aneurin.
After recovering from my tantrum, I stood and counted the coin in the pouches I had snatched from the corpses of the guards. The coin was decent. It would be enough to buy some clothes, a few meals at a tavern, and maybe a night or two’s stay at an inn. Walking for about an hour or two, I followed the curve of the river back toward the town. Heves was a two days’ ride from Laeth. No one would recognize me, though I had lived there for a handful of years—no one looked at nobles no matter how low they were.
By the time I reached the town the festival was in full swing and the hot summer sun was beating hard overhead. Elves and humans walked the streets together, and I stared at them. They seemed to be oblivious that the happy peace they had with their neighbors was utterly tenuous. Still, one building stood, a burned-out skeleton in the middle of a row of small shops with tiny, dirty glass windows. Tacked to the remainder of the doorway was a notice.
LET IT BE KNOWN THE VILLAGE OF HEVES DOES NOT TOLERATE ANY ACTS OF SEDITION, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WITCHCRAFT AND HARBORING KNOWN ELVEN FUTITIVES. FOR THESE CRIMES, THE WITCH YGRIT WAS PUT TO THE STAKE MIDSUMMER EVE 1356.
—SIR ESKARD JESKIER, LORD OF HEVES
With a swallow, I let my gaze trail toward the square where everyone was gathered, laughing, drinking heavily, and making merry…with the smoldering remains of Ygrit, the Cunning Woman, still smoking and bound to the pyre behind them. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was the only so-called witch that had slipped through their fingers. It was pretty clear the Temple of the Dawn had organized an attempt to wipe out all supposed witches around Heves within a handful of days. I balled my small hand into a fist, and, with a breath to compose myself, I walked into the nearby tailor’s shop. Oh, the dirty looks they gave me, but I didn’t care. I was willing to overpay if it meant putting on real clothes that weren’t covered in blood, mud, and slime from the river.
An hour after entering the tailor shop, I found myself in a room at the inn, soaking in a hot bath. I took my time bathing, and I made plans—for revenge. Admittedly, there was only so much I could do. I was only one woman and a rather small one at that. However, what I lacked in size I made up for in attitude…and knowledge of herbs. There was one tidbit of information that I couldn’t shake as I stared at the surface of the water. Beeswax, olive oil, and animal fat burned at amazing temperatures, and with a good-sized jug heated to the right temperature, you could set an entire building on fire in moments. As I dried myself and looked out the window at the city beyond, I had the sudden urge to visit the local temple of the Dawn, and show them how warm my embrace was.
It felt odd to wear pants. That was all I could think of once I pulled the leather over my hips and fastened it with a thick leather belt. The soft trousers of well-oiled dark leather fit me like a second skin and didn’t squeak like I thought they would. Then I pulled on the soft short natural-weave chemise and tucked my black hood into it. I glared at the waist cincher laid out on the bed for a time before I wrapped it around my midriff and snapped it together. Staring down at the fabric for a handful of moments, I tilted my head to the side. I had thought it was black, but it wasn’t. The waist cincher was a deep shade of violet with piping of a green so dark it was almost black over the stays. The hood was the same. Once I noticed the color I wasn’t as upset about the price I had paid for it. After pulling on my boots, I slung the leather pack over my shoulder and headed to the market.
The sounds and sights of the festival were still going on. Fire-eaters danced around the pyre that still contained those charred remains, and people clapped and danced as musicians played and a trobairitz sang about love lost. I bought everything I needed and returned to the inn, their revelry having made me sick to my stomach. That nausea lingered as I knelt in front of the hearth in my room and poured the olive oil, animal fat, and beeswax into the large ceramic jug and set it in front of the fire with its lid corked.
Waiting was the worst part. The sun seemed to crawl across the sky as I sat at the window, kicking my foot against the wall. Every time I saw an elf with dark hair pass in the street my heart skipped a beat, and every time they glanced up or turned around I was disappointed.
When the concoction was ready, I placed the jug in my pack and walked back out into the street. I meandered through the drunken revelry until I came to the Temple of the Dawn. I took out the jug and uncorked it, dipping the corner of my ripped and ruined shift in the mixture, and I proceeded to write on the stone wall with it. Once my message was barely visible, I corked the jug and threw it into the open temple. The thick ceramic shattered against the floor, splattering everything with the blend of various oils. And then, after checking my hands and making sure they were dry, I took a candle out of my bag and lit it on one of the large nearby braziers. I lit the writing on the wall, then tossed the candle into the temple and closed the door as the fire spread with an almost silent whoosh. I didn’t stay to admire my handiwork. Instead, I walked straight to the gate. I was outside the walls before the fire bell rang. Good luck putting it out, sheepfuckers. Whistling a happy tune, I walked into the trees toward the torchlight that twinkled in the distance.
* * * *
The bandit camp wasn’t what I expected. I was prepared for something along the lines of the hunters’ camp I’d poisoned. I wasn’t expecting the sort of open revelry I found, but then again, it was midsummer’s day. From my understanding, the sacred day was theirs long before it was ours. The first thing that caught my attention was an elf I at first thought was Grwn because surely only one person could have such a massive build. I was wrong. He had long, dark hair and seated on his lap was a blonde pixie giggling with delight. Pixies were beautiful creatures. They came up to roughly the average elf’s midchest and had slender waists, full bosoms, and rounded bottoms. What better way to lure men to the middle of lakes for sacrifice?
Beside them, a slender, red-haired, female elven healer tended to warrior’s wounds, sharing in the pixie’s delight.
Around another fire sat a pair of female warriors, drinking wine from a bottle while they played cards at an old crate. Each had a dragon tattoo that climbed her arm and wrapped around a delicate scarred hand. Beautiful nude human males danced in front of the fire for their amusement, occasionally stopping to kiss or grope one another. An elven female in trader’s garb joined them, and I noticed she too had a similar tattoo on her hand. She showed a finely crafted sword to them, but their attention was soon diverted by those males in front of the fire, as one attempted to mount another who squealed when their hips married. One of the females at the crate picked up a half-eaten apple and said something that made the other two laugh as they observed their entertainments.
At the edge of camp, seated away from the revelry, were four who seemed oblivious to the world around them. At first glance you could tell they were couples. One elf was sallow, with a bald head and irises that seemed red in the firelight. He held a wineglass to the full lips of a woman from the southern empire of Danir. Her black hair fell to her shoulders in tight ringlets, and her skin was smooth, dark, and ageless. The sallow elf whispered to her, his almost crimson eyes glinting. Near to them was another couple. The male was a pretty elf with delicate features and a mess of copper-colored locks pulled into a sloppy bun. His eyes were a true shade of blue even in darkness, and straddling his lap was a heavily-painted Vanotta. Her long loose auburn curls tickled the elf’s thighs as she rode him. Not seeming to care in the slightest that they were far from alone.
Noticing one similarity that all the non-elves in the camp had in common made me uneasy. Wrapped around their throats were slender bands of leather—they were all slaves. I continued to survey the drunken camp as I walked along its border. Aneurin and Islwyn were seated close to one another at the largest fire outside the largest tent. I watched in confusion as Aneurin gently stroked the blond elf’s cheek and Islwyn grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in for a fierce kiss.
Heart of the Forest (Arwn's Gift Book 1) Page 8