Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three

by Shepherd, Joel

  “They will if I’m with you. Everyone knows I’m du’jannah.”

  “Aye, well I know that you’re the reason Rhillian started this mess! If they’ve found out you’re the one who spilled Lady Renine’s plans to Rhillian…”

  Errollyn reached across her, a hand on the wall by her head, his eyes intense and close. Even now, as well as she knew him, those startlingly bright eyes in the gloom gave Sasha an involuntary chill. “Sasha, Alythia’s my friend too. I’m not sorry for what I did, but I am sorry for Alythia. If you think for a moment, you’ll realise that you need me.”

  Need him? Abruptly Sasha recalled their passion in the Tol’rhen store room. She wondered if Errollyn might just take her here in the deserted alley, and did not mind the notion. But looking at his eyes, she realised that he meant his night vision.

  She threw her head back in exasperation. “This is crazy. I don’t know whether to fuck you or hit you.”

  “Can’t you do both?”

  Sasha glared, angry at him for daring to remind her why she loved him.

  “Cover me,” she told him, and slipped beneath his arm, edging toward the near corner.

  Sasha crept about the courtyard, beneath the cover of arches. Errollyn followed, an arrow nocked to his bowstring, searching the darkness. Ahead, leaning against a column, there was a man in a cloak. A smoke stick flared orange, a gleam beneath his hood. Sasha left her blade sheathed…there was no advantage to feudalists in killing her, or taking her hostage now. But to recruit her to their cause…

  “Sashandra,” said the figure. Sasha came closer, and recognised Councillor Dhael.

  “Councillor.” She was surprised. She’d not seen Dhael since their voyage together, though she’d heard him spoken of. He was not a feudalist, nor was he said to have as many ties to them as some. “You are still free.”

  “Indeed,” said Dhael, tapping his smoke. “There are those in Council who stand taller than I. I’ve long found that those who stick out their necks get their heads chopped off.”

  Sasha glanced back at Errollyn, who peered from the shadow of columns, searching the windows above.

  “But you work with the feudalists now?” she pressed Dhael. She was here on Lord Elot’s invitation. She did not want her time to be wasted. “I’d taken you for a friend of Saalshen. An idealist.”

  “A pacifist,” said Dhael, with irony. “I know how you Lenays must dislike the word. Lord Elot asked me to speak to you.”

  “Because you once stood with Saalshen? I still stand with Saalshen. I just want my sister back. The way Rhillian’s replacing high justices, she’ll have the votes to take her head off. Spirits know the people are demanding it.”

  “Ah,” said Dhael. “Well, there are no means here to help merely your sister.”

  “There’s a plan to help them all escape?” Sasha guessed. “A breakout?”

  Dhael regarded her warily. Then he looked at Errollyn. “A serrin working against Saalshen?”

  “I told you,” Sasha said impatiently, “we want Alythia. Nothing more.”

  “Such odd distinctions,” said Dhael. “It is not an easy thing, Sashandra, to work for peace. Peace in this world is hard to find. Sometimes, its trail is confused.”

  “Kill your enemies,” said Sasha. “Peace follows.”

  “Yes,” said Dhael, amused. “Peace has followed you Lenays everywhere.”

  “I didn’t say it would last. But that’s your problem, Councillor, it never does. You seek the impossible; men like you search all their lives and find nothing.”

  “Saalshen, I think, has made a mistake.” Dhael took a long breath of smoke. “Saalshen loves freedom. That is why serrin and Lenays have long enjoyed each other’s company—you each have the love of freedom in common. But we humans…we know not what to do with serrin freedom. Rhillian now strives to preserve the order of freedom, by violence. I think perhaps Lady Renine has the best idea for the human future after all.”

  “Kessligh warned me the pacifists would all side with the tyrants in the end—freedom is always violent, so tyranny must be for peace. I’m not interested in Lady Renine, Dhael, and I’m not interested in her plans to restore the throne of Rhodaan and put her son’s skinny backside on it, and I’m quite certain it won’t lead to a more peaceful world, just a world where the violence is more well controlled, and less inconvenient to the powerful. I only want to make sure that my sister’s head stays attached to her shoulders. Now what is this plan of yours?”

  It was cool underground. In the blackness, even Errollyn needed a lamp. Sasha walked behind, blade sheathed, fingers trailing the tunnel’s stone wall. Behind them, five noblemen. She trusted none of them, and was uncomfortable to have them at her back, but reasoned well enough that if they wished to dispose of her, they’d surely wait until after she’d done them something useful.

  They had entered the tunnel from the wall of a basement, downslope of the Justiciary, and Sasha figured that it would make a straight line for the dungeons. The basement had been part of an unremarkable house, owned by a family who owed allegiance. The tunnel had existed for quite some time, unbeknown to most, the Tracato nobility having long ago foreseen a day when such access to the Justiciary dungeons would prove useful. Certainly it was no rough-cut rabbit hole, its walls smooth stone, its floor paved, its ceiling a flat surface of timber planks.

  After some distance walking hunched, the tunnel turned a bend, and stopped. Errollyn placed his lamp on the floor, handed his bow to Sasha (even in such tight quarters, he insisted on bringing it) and pushed on an overhead stone, uncovered by ceiling planks. The cell above was empty, they’d been told, courtesy of some inside source. That meant that it had been empty at the time the source had walked past it, most likely some time earlier today. A late transference of prisoners, or some newly captured person, would make things interesting.

  The stone scraped as Errollyn heaved, then came free. He pushed it up, reached to set it aside, then heaved himself up on the lip to peer within. After a moment, he hauled up and disappeared, only to reach back down for his bow and lamp. Sasha followed, and rolled up onto a stone cell floor. The first of the nobles pulled himself through, unwrapped some keys from a bundled cloth and moved quietly to the door.

  Sasha crouched beside him, and peered through the bars of the door’s small port, listening intently. She heard nothing but the clacking of the key, then the slow squeal of the lock. The cell door opened, and Errollyn pushed past into the corridor, handing the lamp to Sasha and gesturing for the others to stay back. He moved with catlike grace beyond the lantern’s dim light, past adjoining doors, and vanished in the dark. Sasha stood in the corridor, and could hear only her own breathing.

  After a moment, Errollyn came back. “The first guards are not where they’re supposed to be,” he whispered. “They’ve gone.”

  “Then our way is clear,” replied the senior nobleman—Torase was his name, and he was young, blond and brash. “Let’s go, quickly!”

  Errollyn led the way, Sasha this time bringing the lamp. The corridor turned, briefly right, then left, and then some stairs leading to an arch. That was where the guards would be, they’d been told. Errollyn had been confident that even with their illumination, he’d have been able to approach and disable them without killing, guard duty being dull at the best of times, and in a hole deep underground, even more so. There was no illumination now besides the lamp.

  Errollyn gestured Sasha to stay at the arch, and walked alone to where his eyesight gave him the advantage, without illumination to give away his presence to any guards. He’d barely gone ten paces before he stopped, and cocked his head, listening. Sasha listened also—serrin hearing was no better than humans’.

  There, she heard it. A distant yell, echoing. And another. More yells, a shouted conversation, somewhere up the corridor. A rattle of metal, an armoured man running. Sasha’s hand moved to her blade, then stopped, as she realised the man was running away, sounds growing fainter.

 
She advanced on Errollyn. “An alarm?” Errollyn wondered.

  “Guards won’t leave their post for a mere alarm,” Sasha muttered. “It’s an attack.”

  “Conveniently timed,” Errollyn said darkly.

  Sasha nodded, and swore. The nobleman Torase approached, and Sasha had her blade at his neck before he could blink. “You told us nothing of an attack!”

  Torase stared at her, his companions coming warily up behind, drawing weapons. He opened his mouth to lie, looked again at Sasha, and thought better of it. “It was necessary,” he said. “We needed a diversion.”

  We’re fools, Sasha thought bleakly. Naive fools, to have trusted them. But still, it could work.

  “Dammit,” she said. “Let’s move fast before they suspect something.”

  Torase had the only keys, courtesy again of the inside source. Sasha moved with Errollyn to the head of the corridor, leaving the lamp with the noblemen. The light dimmed then brightened as cell doors were opened along the row behind, one after another, whispered words exchanged, footsteps scampering amid hushed cries and exclamations. Sasha peered up the steps from the dungeon, listening to the distant commotion. Errollyn had an arrow nocked to his bowstring, and he tested the tension.

  Several loud, metallic blows, then, that echoed dangerously between walls. Someone was breaking chains. A hushed exclamation followed, as nearer doors creaked open. Then a fast approaching shuffle of footsteps.

  “Sasha?” It was Alythia, barely visible in the dark. Her eyes were wide from several days without sunlight, her hair bedraggled. She hugged Sasha hard. “I knew you’d come! I knew it!”

  “’Lyth, you have to go with the others,” Sasha begged. “Quickly, I’ll be right behind you.”

  Alythia gave her a final, grateful kiss, and shuffled off, holding her dress up with both hands. Those retreating down the corridor were now carrying extra lamps, Sasha realised. At least the prisoners had not been left entirely without light. This row of cells now emptied, several of the noblemen were in dispute with a pair of newly released prisoners.

  “My master Lord Hainel is not amongst these!” a furious ex-prisoner in dirty, once-expensive clothes whispered harshly, as Sasha retreated toward them. “There are more cells further along, we must empty them also! Hundreds of our noblest languish there!”

  “We have the Lady Renine, and the Princess Alythia,” Torase retorted. “If we try for more we may jeopardise the rescue for them. We do not take risks with the Lady Renine’s freedom…!”

  “And I say that my loyalty lies firstly with the Lord Hainel!” the exprisoner bristled. “I refuse to leave until—”

  “You’ll do as he says,” Sasha told the man, “or we’ll beat you bloody, throw you back in the cell and lock the door.”

  The man glared at her, but did not appear prepared to argue with the blade in her hand. Torase grabbed his arm and thrust him on down the corridor. Sasha and Errollyn followed, Errollyn turning constantly to watch the way behind, as the shadows advanced in their wake.

  It was only when both she and Errollyn were back in the tunnel, and Errollyn was replacing the stone above their heads, that Sasha began daring to think that the entire exercise might actually work. She moved at a fast crouch, Errollyn behind, before meeting a queue as prisoners ahead climbed from the wall opening. Finally it was her turn, a short jump from the hole to the floor, behind shifted barrels of wine. Alythia was waiting for her by one barrel as other prisoners were ushered across the basement, and more men began shifting barrels back into place.

  “Sasha, what now?” her sister asked breathlessly.

  “’Lyth, did they hurt you?”

  “No no,” said Alythia impatiently, “I’m fine. What is the plan, do you have one?”

  “Me? I’m just going along with your friends, ’Lyth. I was a bit rushed, I didn’t have a choice.”

  “And their plan?” Alythia pressed.

  “A boat, I think, for you and Lady Renine. To Larosa, or Elisse.”

  “I would rather stay! Feudalists are the majority in Tracato, we have money and weapons…we can win, Sasha! Why do they think to run away?”

  “’Lyth…what’s this ‘we’?” Alythia frowned at her, not understanding. “I’m not on your side, ’Lyth! Or rather, I am on your side, but only yours!” She spared a fast look around, but those not leaving the basement were unlikely to understand Lenay. “They want me here because they think they can split me off from the Nasi-Keth, but…”

  “Sasha, if the Nasi-Keth are to support hooligans and lawless murderers in taking over Tracato, what good are they for?”

  “That doesn’t make me a friend of feudalists, ’Lyth.”

  “Aren’t you the one always telling me that sometimes, we have to take a side?” Alythia insisted.

  Sasha rolled her eyes. Rhillian, again, had made a mess—she could oppress the feudalists for as long as the Steel were in Tracato, but the Steel were overdue for the western front. Leave the Nasi-Keth and Civid Sein in charge of the city?

  “Sasha, Sasha,” Alythia said soothingly, taking her hands. “It’s all right, I understand. But I still don’t see why they want to run away—we could stay and…”

  “You don’t want to be in a civil war in Tracato,” Sasha said firmly. “The feudalists underestimate the Civid Sein, they’re everywhere, they have sympathisers all across the countryside even amongst those who are not truly declared members. And they’re coming, after today, I promise you that. Safer that you leave.”

  “We have to go,” Errollyn broke in. “That fighting could spread downslope fast.”

  Sasha grabbed Alythia’s arm and hurried her up the stairs…then froze halfway up as yells and shouting broke out above, and the crash of windows breaking. Sasha swore, whipped out her blade and ran to the top of the stairs to peer about. The room was wide, well furnished, and under assault. Noblemen grabbed tables and held them to the windows, piling behind to form barricades, blocking those attempting to enter. Sasha saw the broad shields and ridged helmets of Steel footsoldiers, a thrusting mass of oncoming armour.

  “Up the stairs!” Sasha shouted at Alythia, pointing across the room to the next, upward flight. Alythia ran without question, clutching her skirts, Sasha and Errollyn having enough time to spin about, watching all sides as ex-prisoners ran in panic, and noblemen yelled for assistance, waving swords and gathering furniture to make further obstacles.

  There was pandemonium on the stairs, Alythia stumbled, but Errollyn grabbed her as Sasha tried to clear the way. People were leaning from the windows of the second floor, dropping heavy objects onto the street below. No archers, Sasha had time to notice as Errollyn dragged Alythia around the bend and up the next flight. And none of those leaning out the window were under fire from below, as might usually be expected. It seemed the Steel, having been tipped off, were after prisoners. Had the whole thing been a setup, to recapture all the ex-prisoners along with their rescuers?

  Two more flights, and they emerged into an attic. Set into the sloping roof on two sides were small windows, before which a number of nobility were now clustering, the men jumping onto the adjoining roof across a short gap. Sasha joined one cluster, and was astonished that several noticed Alythia and immediately made way, pulling others aside as they did.

  “Oh dear lords!” Alythia exclaimed as she looked down at the gap. There was light enough from these windows to see the opposing roof clear enough, and the gap itself…but no light from below. Only a seemingly endless drop.

  “’Lyth, let me go first, I’ll guide you from the other side.”

  An arrow hissed and buzzed, and Sasha’s heart nearly stopped. Errollyn pulled an arrow, nocked and drew impossibly fast, and scanned the direction it had come from with night-piercing eyes.

  “We have crossbows in the windows of the adjoining property!” he announced for all to hear. “Time your jumps, and do not tarry!”

  He released, a thump and twang like a heavy drumbeat, and quickly drew again, as Sasha
began her slither down the tiles.

  “Did you get him?” Alythia asked eagerly.

  “Frightened, I think.”

  “But Sasha says you never miss!”

  “Yes, but I meant to frighten him,” said Errollyn, a touch sarcastically. “Not every target is clear.”

  Sasha gathered herself and leaped. An easy jump, for her, and she held enough momentum to scramble up and grab the window frame. Errollyn fired fractionally before a bolt whizzed past, barely an arm’s length from Sasha’s head.

  “That one I hit,” Errollyn announced, drawing again. “Though his helmet saved him.”

  “I’m beginning to think Sasha may have exaggerated,” Alythia remarked. Not finding a target, Errollyn put away the arrow, and drew his sword instead.

  “Hold still,” he commanded, and drew the razor-edged blade quickly about Alythia’s skirts, cutting effortlessly. He sheathed the blade, and knelt before her. “I’ve always wanted to do this to a princess,” he remarked, and yanked at her skirts. With a great tear, they came away, revealing shapely legs in hose.

  “Well, Master Errollyn, I never!” Alythia began positioning herself awkwardly to slither backward, Errollyn clutching her hand.

  “Just slide,” he told her, “I’ve got you.” Another crossbow shot, and someone further along the gap was hit, on the verge of jumping, and toppled into the darkness. A thud from below.

  “Let your foot reach the rim!” Sasha called. “A little lower!” She could hear crashes, armoured clattering and yells from lower windows as the Steel forced their way up the stairs. Alythia’s foot strained, toes searching; Errollyn bore most of her weight one-armed, his bicep straining. Alythia’s toes touched, and she wriggled around to a sitting position, most ridiculous with her bare legs hunched up, looking desperately across the gap.

  Sasha was about to call more instruction when another crossbow shot whizzed by. In sudden panic Alythia stood and leaped, gracelessly, and crashed onto the sloping tiles before Sasha’s secure window ledge. Sasha leaped forward, one hand clutching the window rail, one grasping Alythia’s arm…the leap had dislodged tiles, which clattered down the slope and over the edge. Sasha’s grip slipped, and Alythia slid, and screamed.