by Matthew Berg
His wrists were bound one to each end of a stout wooden board. The same for his ankles. And he was shivering. He looked so uncomfortable!
She didn’t know how to release him. “What do I do?”
“Hold up the torch.”
She did as instructed, and he examined the mechanism on either end of the board at his wrists. “As I thought—and just as the release operates on the stocks at my feet—though the design prevented me from opening them. There is a latch mechanism on each end. Both have to be released at the same time. Do you see right there?” He gestured with his nose, pointing it at a conspicuous metal bump on top of the mechanism.
She saw it and set the torch on the floor in such a way that it still cast a little light where she was working. She tried to push and pull the little metal knob whichever way she could. It hurt to push against the metal. She discovered that the bump would only move one way—away from the center of the stock. But it required mashing her fingertips in the process to apply sufficient force. She bit her lip, and as Kestrel had predicted, when she pushed both bumps outward from the center simultaneously, the manacles on each wrist fell away.
Kestrel rubbed each wrist for some time before releasing his ankles using the same technique, commenting as he did so.
“Clever. They made the stocks for the feet a good three hands farther apart than the ones for the wrists. So there’d be no way you could release the one on your feet yourself: your hands couldn’t possibly work both releases at the same time.
“So how did you find me, anyway?”
“I followed the guards who were bringing you your meal.”
Kestrel frowned. “I don’t know how long I’ve been down here but I haven’t eaten—or had anything to drink. Nobody brought me any food.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” At the moment, Janelle knew she wasn’t fully registering what he was saying, but she was sure that the torch in her hands might not last long enough to see them out of the cellars.
Despite her excitement at having found—and now at least partly rescued—her friend, Janelle’s fear had returned. And she was eager to leave. “So where do we go now?”
He rubbed his wrists again and then urged her forward by placing his hand at the small of her back. “Out the door. And go right. If you’d like, I can take the torch, and we’ll be able to go more quickly.”
As much as Janelle didn’t want to be lost in the dark without a torch, she handed it over immediately.
He spoke to her calmly, as if she was the one who needed to be comforted. “Okay, now hold my hand, and I’ll get us out of here.” She felt Kestrel’s body shudder and realized that he was shivering. He must have been so cold sitting down here on this cruel stone floor for the last few days!
They picked up their pace and were soon moving at a three-quarter run. Despite the running, it seemed Kestrel couldn’t wait to begin asking her questions. “So, what happened when I disappeared? Who knows I’m gone? And how in blazes did you find me down here?” He asked the questions one after another and didn’t slow down to give her the breath to respond.
She tried, stumblingly, to answer as she ran, but the effort was difficult. “The p-p-princess’s minister told everyone you’d been c-called home by your father.”
Kestrel appeared to realize she wouldn’t be able to talk while she ran, and he interjected. “No matter. We’ll have time to talk about it when we get out of here. Just one thing more it would help me to know: is anyone else looking for me?”
“N-no. J-j-just Oskar and me.”
Janelle saw a puzzled look cross her friend’s face, but then he seemed to steel himself, and he picked up their pace.
They wended their way in the darkness for what felt an eternity to Janelle, and in the opposite direction from where she had come. Turn after turn, stairways up and stairways down. The torch held on, guttering more and more fitfully but still providing enough light for them to run. It was the torch that told Janelle they hadn’t been running for as long as it seemed. If as much time had passed as she imagined, the torch would have been out long ago.
And then Janelle saw light ahead. At the top of a narrow staircase, there was a small window. She nearly let go of Kestrel’s hand in her desire to run toward the window, but Kestrel held her hand firmly, and he led her directly toward it anyway.
Outside the window was a thick hedge that blocked the window’s view entirely, but that did allow light to filter through its tightly woven branches. Janelle couldn’t tell where they were, in what part of the castle. But Kestrel continued to move as if he knew the way by heart.
“Not much farther.” Janelle thought his voice sounded frantic. And she wondered if he was just managing to hold himself together. But then, a moment later, they came to a small door unlike any she had seen before. It was banded entirely in iron, with no wood showing. Above the door were two thick chains attached to two large iron rings bolted onto a heavy wooden timber that supported a massive block of stone.
Kestrel caught her examining the mechanism and replied briefly, “You break the timber, or remove it, and the block falls, sealing the entrance against an attacking enemy. Many a castle has been taken by an improperly defended postern door. This castle was obviously built by someone who had learned that lesson.”
And then he was lifting an iron bar and releasing the latch on the door and pushing it outward. Janelle was surprised to see that the door opened up at the rear of the monastery. She assumed they would be exiting at the back of the main keep itself. But then she had been so turned around in the tunnels, she couldn’t have rightly said where they would come out.
Kestrel stood in the doorway a moment and peered out from its shelter to either side, holding himself at the shallowest angle possible to avoid notice. “It’s clear. Follow me. QUICKLY!”
And run she did. She began to outpace Kestrel once she determined that he was heading for one of the small shade gardens the monks maintained. They reached it moments later, and Kestrel immediately crouched down and looked back, scanning all directions to see if anyone had followed. Janelle tried to follow his eyes. Along the roofline. Down the narrow path that ran alongside the monastery. And lastly, over by the barracks, a small corner of which was visible through the dense foliage that formed the shade garden where they had stopped.
“I didn’t see anyone. Hopefully, we made it unobserved. I have to get out of here. Damn, I wish I had time to talk with Cedric. But it’s just too risky. I have to go.”
Janelle was concerned. She’d never seen Kestrel so rattled before. And she didn’t think it was his health or a side effect of his captivity. He looked scared. And she couldn’t imagine what might have scared him so. “What happened, anyway, Kestrel?”
He looked at her, his eyes half-wild and showing an unnatural amount of white. “No. No, you shouldn’t know. If you know, then they’ll come after you as well. No. It’s better I leave and take it with me. You knowing won’t do any good.”
Janelle was a little frightened to hear him talk this way. While he was almost still a boy, he had never demonstrated anything but courage—at least that she had seen. This was a new side of him. And without knowing why he was so frightened, she couldn’t decide what to think about it.
“Maybe we should find Cedric, then, Kestrel? You said yourself you wished you could talk to him. Why not? I could go get him and bring him here.”
He considered for a moment. “No. That won’t work. They’ll just wonder at your calling him away, especially with him so busy and all. And they’ll have him followed. They are probably already having him followed, in fact. He’s a threat to them and their plans.”
Janelle was getting frustrated that she didn’t know what Kestrel knew. “Why won’t you tell me what happened?” She had raised her voice without meaning to, and Kestrel froze, held his finger to his lips, and crouched down next to a weeping ash to scan the surroundings. A branch broke behind them. Kestrel spun about, reaching for a dagger at his hip that wasn�
�t there.
“No weapon and no supplies . . . I’m a walking dead man.” He muttered the words just above hearing.
“And why would that be, young Starkad?” The voice came from the tree above him. Kestrel bolted. But the man in the tree was faster than thought and leapt to the ground to bar Kestrel’s way.
“Calm, Starkad. An honest man has nothing to fear from the castle’s hunt master.”
Kestrel froze again and looked like nothing other than a ferret backed into a corner. His eyes scanned the area around him, and he appeared to be looking for a way to escape.
“Enough!” The hunt master barked the command like a sergeant-at-arms to a green recruit. “You will stop seeking escape, Kestrel Starkad, and you will answer my questions. If you do not, then you will be brought before the master-at-arms, that he may divine your guilt or innocence. Do you understand me? Good. I see that you realize you cannot escape me.” The half-elf’s words were matter-of-fact. There was no false modesty in his claim that Kestrel could not escape. To Janelle, it seemed a statement both the boy and man accepted as simple truth.
Kestrel nodded finally, resigned at last, or so it appeared to Janelle, to his own death.
The hunt master did not relent. “Tell me your story, Starkad. Why were you running from the postern? Who are you running from, and what have you done?”
Janelle could see that Kestrel was struggling to answer. But she couldn’t tell whether he was unwilling or just did not know how to begin. She suspected it was some combination of both.
He began quietly and had to clear his throat several times. The hunt master seemed to realize the acuteness of Kestrel’s condition and threw him a skin of water. Kestrel took a small draught before he began. “Some days ago . . . I’m not sure how many, I’m afraid, but it was after the king’s death, and after his memorial service at the cathedral. I was in the cellars beneath the princess’s tower. I’d been there the day before too, exploring and seeing what there was to see—and, well, in this case, to hear.
“The day before, I had heard just the smallest bit of a conversation, and it had gotten me thinking about things. I didn’t hear enough that I felt comfortable saying anything to anyone about it. As Cedric would say, ‘if you wish to tell a half-heard tale, find yourself a fool.’ So I kept it to myself. But it was bothering me something fierce. So I had to go back to listen again, and see if I couldn’t hear more, to help me understand if I’d heard right the first time.
“Well, that afternoon, I waited a good long time, and in the same place I’d chanced to overhear the conversation the day before. But the wait paid off.”
Janelle could see that Kestrel was having difficulty getting it out. She thought he wanted to build up the story as much as he could to avoid telling the hard part. She recognized this when she saw it, because she knew she was guilty of doing the same herself.
But then Kestrel seemed to tire of carrying the burden of it and just blurted it out. “They’ve killed the king—and worse is coming.” While Janelle gasped and the hunt master’s eyes narrowed, she could see that Kestrel was still holding something back. Even through his shivering and his nervousness, Janelle could see that. Then it came.
“It was Princess Lorelei.”
Janelle’s world finally crashed then. The king’s death and Breeden’s departure had brought her up to the edge. Kestrel’s rescue had begun to bring her back. But even the suspicion that the princess could have been involved in her own father’s death was too much for her to bear. She knew the princess. She knew she was emotional and prone to fits of temper. All of that was true. And she knew that she and her father didn’t always see things the same way. But this?
Janelle ears rang, and darkness crept in from the sides of her vision. She reached out to a nearby sapling to steady herself and only came out of her daze slowly, for a long moment unaware of what was transpiring around her except on the most basic level.
Aelric continued to look Kestrel in the eyes. And it was unclear to Janelle what he might be thinking—whether he was upset, concerned, or indifferent. His elven composure masked any outward emotion. Then he began to ask questions.
“What else did you hear? You said worse is coming. How could anything be worse than killing one’s father?”
Kestrel’s shivers were becoming worse. He was like the last oak leaf of autumn, clinging to a branch and fluttering in the wind. With each brush of its touch, the light wind seemed enough to fill him with ice. His teeth chattered when he answered the half-elven hunter. “They plan to rule all the lands of Erda. An army is coming. And the army bears magics that will allow them to defeat even the elves and the dwarves.”
Aelric’s eyes tightened almost imperceptibly at mention of the elves, but he wasn’t going to let Kestrel off the hook. “What else did you hear, Starkad?”
Kestrel went into a spasm of shaking so intense Janelle feared for his health. Tears swelled in her eyes. The poor boy! And it was clear to her then that he was still a boy. Even if a capable hunter, tactician, and budding diplomat, he was still a boy. And right now he was a boy who had found himself caught up in things that would make grown men blanch. On top of that, he appeared to have picked up a fever from his stay in the dungeons.
As the shaking subsided once again, Kestrel spoke one more time. “They are in league with Mirgul.”
It was almost as if Aelric expected the words, as if he had been waiting for Kestrel to speak them. He did not even nod his head in acknowledgment, but upon hearing Kestrel’s words, he became a blur of efficiency.
“Miss Fuller, do not go home. We must leave in all haste. On the road, you will be able to write your parents a note explaining that you had to leave. For now, stay here with Kestrel, and feed him these leaves.” He had been fishing around in a pouch at his waist and removed a small bag of dried leaves. “They will quell his tremors, and if he has a fever, they will help keep that down as well. Move back among the bushes there.” He gestured with his hand toward a thick copse of rhododendrons. “Beneath the branches, you will find more than enough room to be comfortable. I will be back in no more than one bell. Do not be seen.”
And then he was gone, disappearing into the foliage at the back of the garden and leaving at the opposite end from which they had come. Janelle did as he told her and ushered the rapidly weakening Kestrel into the bushes. They waited for no more than ten minutes before the hunt master returned, bearing three packs and a long bow with two quivers. Janelle noted that he also bore a sword strapped across his back, beneath his high pack.
Kestrel’s condition had improved somewhat in the intervening minutes, and he was able to function again on his own. But Janelle could see that the run from the dungeon had taken its toll on him. She feared he wasn’t up for much more. But with only a “Let’s go!” Aelric gestured for them to follow him—away from the castle proper once again and toward the barracks and the keep’s inner wall.
When they were parallel to the barracks, they reached a pergola where Aelric swiftly shimmied up one of the columns, packs, bow, quivers, and all, as if he were a cat climbing a stair. He reached down to assist Janelle. And Kestrel, reading the situation properly, moved to provide a base for Janelle to stand on so she could reach the hunt master’s outstretched hand. Janelle accepted the help, though she was concerned Kestrel might not be able to follow after her. Fortunately, a strong pull from the hunt master was sufficient to help Kestrel up as well.
In moments, they had all climbed the pergola and jumped the short span to the keep’s inner wall—about the height of two men standing on each other’s shoulders. They were now moving through the city’s southwest quarter, where most of the well-to-do merchants and minor nobles lived.
No one was about in this quarter of the city, and Aelric maintained their pace in a hurried, but not frantic, manner.
There was no exit at the south end of the city, and the outer wall was five times the height of the inner. So they moved east toward the main gate. They could only ho
pe that Kestrel’s absence had not yet been noted.
Janelle knew that it was through this gate that Breeden entered the city proper every morning, and through which he returned every night. She knew also that he was probably well along on a journey about which she didn’t have enough details to judge whether or not he was in danger. Though she had sensed he believed himself to be.
As they approached the gate, a wealthy woman in a dark crimson cloak emerged from the ornately carved wooden door of her city manse, which rose four stories into the dusky sky above the streets. The woman appeared disdainful of the obvious haste Janelle, Aelric, and Kestrel were exhibiting, and she halted in her tracks—many yards away and clearly not in any danger of intersecting their path—to allow them the time and space to continue on their way.
Janelle frowned. How rude! That woman had no idea that Janelle had been, but days before, the chief handmaiden of the woman who would be queen of Hyrde. She wished she had the time to stop and tell her as much. Born a commoner, Janelle would never understand how some people could believe themselves better than one not born into a family of means. But Aelric kept her moving forward, and soon she was through the gate and turning south to move beyond the protection of Ridderzaal’s outer wall.
From there the journey became a blur of introspection for Janelle. She followed Aelric’s lead but ceased even to notice the details of the ground at her feet, or the landscape around her. The leagues passed. Trees and fields. Night fell, and the world became briefly darker. Janelle assumed they would stop soon. But the sky lightened again after dusk. A full moon rose, and the sky became awash with a thick, cloudy band of stars. More leagues passed, and still they trekked through the night, guided by Aelric’s abilities. Hours later Aelric indicated it was past midnight, and they stopped for the night’s rest.