Quest's End: The Broken Key #3

by Brian S. Pratt

  “As far away from Hylith as we can get,” replied Chyfe. He turned toward Riyan to forestall the question he knew he was about to ask. “He’s on his own now,” he quickly stated. “If he makes it out alive, he can use the ring to locate us.”

  Riyan was grim. He hated the thought of leaving Bart alone in a now hostile, foreign city. But what else was there to do? They certainly couldn’t take on the entire city guard and hope to prevail.

  They were currently on the road that ran along the river southeast out of Hylith. They kept as fast a pace as they dared with only minimal stops. Pursuit would be coming after them soon if it hadn’t already.

  The plan was to initially stay on the road and keep as hard a pace as they could until darkness came. There was no sense in leaving the road before then, for the other travelers would surely inform any pursuit where to start looking for them. If there was any hope a group their size had of throwing off pursuit, it was under the cover of night. So with Riyan and Chyfe riding point, they flew down the road.

  Chapter Seventeen

  __________________________

  Night was rapidly approaching as Bart stared out from the barred window of a long forgotten storeroom. He had come across this place a couple hours ago. From its lone window, he had a commanding view of the gates leading from the castle area.

  He watched the guards moving to and fro along the walls, twice as many as there had been before. The gates were shut and though he couldn’t see the other side, figured there had to be additional guards stationed there as well. It definitely didn’t look as if they were giving up the search for him.

  How they discovered him continued to plague him. Every hallway and room he had explored leading up to the magic user appearing, were areas of common usage. Somehow, he had alerted them to his presence. Something had set him apart.

  It wasn’t until the fact that he had been wearing the Cloak of Concealment crossed his mind that it all started making sense. In a castle such as the one he found himself in, wards detecting the presence of magic would have to be in place. There would always be the risk of assassins or spies walking at will in places where they shouldn’t, cloaked or hidden by means similar to his Cloak. And as soon as the wards were tripped, the magic user set out to find him.

  Once he had come to that conclusion, he removed the ring used to contact Kevik and placed it securely in his pouch. If they could track him when he used magic, then the last thing he wanted was for Kevik to contact him and alert the magic user to his whereabouts. He was dying to find out how his friends fared, but didn’t dare risk it until he was out of the castle.

  Casting one more glance out the window at the growing darkness, he figured it was time. The storeroom in which he stood was part of a network of secret passages that crisscrossed their way from one side of the castle to another.

  It was a winding network of short passages, stairs, and in one spot a five foot vertical drop to where the passage continued. During his search, he hadn’t come across any passages that showed signs of usage. The thought that the powers that be weren’t aware of such a network within their own walls was amazing. He wouldn’t have thought it possible if he hadn’t seen the evidence with his own eyes; passage after passage, each with a layer of dust that hadn’t been disturbed in decades, maybe longer.

  Before leaving the storeroom, he lit one of his two remaining candles and set it within the tube lantern. Not far from the storeroom was a narrow stairwell of sixteen steep steps that wound steeply down. At the bottom was a passage moving to the left and right. He turned to the right.

  At first glance, every passage looked the same. But during his earlier exploration, he had discovered that placed at various intersections and along passages were markers. Or at least that’s how he thought of them. Little things that would help those using the passages to know where they were.

  For instance, at the bottom of the stairwell leading to the storeroom, there had been three small circular holes carved into the wall. Other places held other markers: an engraving of a horse, a torch sconce turned upside down, as well as other series of holes, each containing a different number. He would pass two such before reaching where he planned to make his escape.

  First he came to an engraved skull at a convergence of three passages. There he turned and followed the one branching to his left. This passage was the longest unbroken stretch he had yet come across. Following it, he came to another junction. First there were steps leading down, and then three feet further on, another passage branched off to the right. Passing by the stairwell, he followed the passage to the right.

  This passage only went ten feet before turning ninety degrees to the right. After the turn, the passage went another five feet before coming to an abrupt end. There on the left side of the passage was the second marker. It was a raised relief of a small dagger.

  When he had first encountered this dead end, he had thought it strange for it to be here. Figuring there to be more to it than just a plain wall, he searched for a hidden catch. He discovered that pressing on the raised relief of the dagger caused the wall at the end of the passage to slide open to the left.

  On the other side of the wall were more of the secret passages. Why someone felt the need to put in a semi-hidden trigger in such a place didn’t make any sense to Bart. During his earlier exploration of the passages on the other side of the secret door, he had found them to be the same as all the others he’d gone through. Thoughts of finding a hidden cache of treasure or something special had crossed his mind from time to time, but he didn’t have such luck.

  Moving to his right, he followed the passage beyond the secret door past the backsides of two secret exits. One led into a storeroom which was currently being utilized, and the other opened behind a drapery hanging in an alcove. After the alcove exit, the passage made several sharp turns before the third exit came into view.

  Beyond this one was a small servant’s room, one of two belonging to a larger suite of rooms. When he explored it earlier, he found it to be unoccupied. The central room of the suite had two windows looking out on the parade grounds between the castle and the walls. Two reasons made this the ideal place for him to leave the labyrinth of secret passages. One was the fact that the windows were situated far from the main entrance and thus his egress from them was unlikely to be noticed. And two, they were directly across from the stables. He needed a long piece of rope to make it over the wall to the other side, and the stables were the most likely place where he would be able to find one.

  Coming up to the exit, he placed his ear against the door and listened. When all he heard was silence, he lifted the latch and slowly opened the door. The doorway itself was quite narrow, barely two feet in width. Once he had it opened a crack, he peered through and saw that the room remained dark and empty. Pushing the door open wider, he passed through to the other side and then closed it behind him.

  Bart moved from the servant’s room to the main, central room where those who were using this suite would meet and visit with guests. He entered and immediately went to the fireplace. Though it had been cleaned after the last occupant, there was still enough soot attached to the sides and up inside the flue for what he planned to do.

  Using a cloth from his pack, he rubbed it along the inner sides of the fireplace. Then once the cloth was darkened with soot, he began rubbing it onto his exposed skin. This way, light wouldn’t be reflected off of his pale skin and give him away.

  Once he had applied the soot to face, neck, arms, and hands, he returned the cloth back to his pack and crossed over to the window. A cool breeze blew through the cracks of the shutter. Bart swung open the shutter and looked down. It was far enough to the ground below that he risked a broken leg if he were to simply freefall the distance.

  But he had planned for that. Moving away from the window, he crossed over to the main bedroom of the suite. There, the bed was still covered in sheets and quilts. Bart put his pack on a bedside table and then commenced pulling the covers off
. The quilts he tossed aside.

  He took the one sheet and began ripping it into long strips, each about six inches wide. Once he had eighteen identical strips, he started braiding them together into strands of three. When he was done, he had six, seven foot long braided sections lying before him on the bed. He tied their ends together until he had a makeshift rope, roughly twenty feet in length. Not nearly long enough to reach to the ground, he set the rope aside and commenced on the bottom sheet. Together they wouldn’t reach all the way to the ground, but at least it should bring him close enough so he could drop the rest of the way without injury.

  Once he had the second rope completed and tied to the first, he coiled the entire length of makeshift rope and brought it out to the central room. There he tossed it onto a chair before returning back into the bedroom. Against one wall was a heavy dresser. He dragged the dresser out into the central room and placed it beneath the window. Once it was against the wall, he retrieved the rope and secured it to the dresser. When he was sure the rope was tied well and unlikely to come undone, he climbed up onto the dresser and looked outside.

  Three guards were currently standing in the courtyard below. Two were off to the right, and another to the left. The two to the right were talking to each other, and the one to the left was currently looking the other way. Atop the outer wall across from where he looked from the window, walked a lone archer. It was difficult to determine which way he was facing. After a moment’s scrutiny, Bart figured he was looking out into the city. Now was his chance.

  With a quick glance to the left and right to make sure the guards hadn’t changed position, he dropped the rope out the window. He gave it a few firm tugs to make sure it would hold his weight. Then going feet first, he was out the window and descending quickly down the rope.

  He moved as fast as he could as it was only a matter of time, minutes or even seconds, before he and his makeshift rope would be discovered. Upon reaching the end of his rope, he glanced to the three guards to see if he’d been discovered. All three still hadn’t realized what he was doing.

  Then bracing himself for the fall, he let go of the rope.

  “I can’t believe we haven’t found him yet!” stated the River Man in anger. For hours his men have scoured every hall, room, and nook all to no avail. It was as if the man had vanished.

  “There’s no way he could have escaped my lord,” his sub-captain assured him. With the Captain of the River Man’s guards still in pursuit of the group who had fled earlier that day, he was now in charge of the guards. When the River Man turned angry eyes to his sub-captain, the man added, “Every avenue of escape is being watched. We have men stationed at both ends of the waterway beneath the castle. Guards are in every hallway and every possible exit is being watched.”

  “He may be waiting for us to grow lax before trying to escape,” Lord Hurrin suggested. Lord Hurrin was one of the River Man’s most devoted followers. In fact, if it wasn’t for Lord Hurrin, the River Man would never have been named Warlord after his father and brother had been killed.

  “Perhaps,” stated the Warlord of the Orack Tribe. Turning to the magic user, he demanded, and not for the first time, “Can’t you find him?”

  “You know as well as I do that I can’t simply find someone whom I have never met,” he replied. “Magic doesn’t work that way.”

  The River Man glowered at the three of them.

  “But when I do,” the magic user stated, “rest assured that he won’t get away again.”

  The River Man glared at the magic user. “He never should have gotten away the first time,” he said. He and the magic user had never been fond of one another. Having been his father’s magic user before him, Geffen had been around to see him grow up. He tended to think of him more as a boy than his lord. And that attitude rankled the Warlord of the Orack Tribe.

  The magic user turned a deaf ear to the lord and instead, concentrated on the purplish ball resting upon his palm. Not a hint of magic did it detect.

  “I trust this won’t interfere with our plans?” Lord Hurrin asked.

  The River Man shook his hands. “It shouldn’t,” he replied. “Whatever mischief this intruder had been up to, I think we discovered him in time.”

  “Excellent,” the lord said with a nod.

  Just then one of the River Man’s servants entered the room. Giving a deep bow, the servant then came forward and held forth a scroll. “A messenger just arrived my lord,” said the servant. The River Man nodded to Lord Hurrin who took the scroll and opened it. As he read the missive, the servant turned about and quickly left the room.

  “Good news,” he said with a grin.

  “Is it the Basni?” asked the River Man.

  Lord Hurrin nodded. “Yes. They’ll be at the rendezvous with five hundred men.”

  The River Man moved to the window and looked northward. “Are our men assembled?” he asked.

  “There are still a hundred from South Shadow that have yet to arrive,” replied Lord Hurrin. “I expect them any day.”

  “Keep me posted,” the Warlord of the Orack Tribe said as he continued to gaze northward toward Byrdlon.

  Hitting the ground, Bart rolled then came to a stop. Moving back against the wall, he glanced again to the guards. When he saw they remained oblivious to his presence, he dashed across the open area to the stable.

  The stables were dark, with only the occasional equine noises coming from within. Bart raced for the door and reached it while still remaining unnoticed. He was surprised that he had made it this far without being seen. Praying to the gods that his luck would hold out for a little longer, he opened the stable door and entered.

  Two big brown eyes greeted him as he passed inside. The horse in the nearest stall snorted and watched as Bart closed the door behind him. “Easy boy,” whispered Bart, at which the horse gave off with another snort.

  Leaving the doorway, Bart gave the horse a reassuring pat on the side of its head and then moved to the rear storage room. There he hoped to find sufficient rope to reach from the top of the defensive wall to the ground on the other side.

  As he made his way toward the back, a rather loud snore broke the stillness. Bart paused where he was and stared at the dark doorway leading to the storage room. The snore had come from there. When another snore followed the first, he cautiously resumed moving and quickly reached the doorway. Once there, he peered through and saw the form of what had to be a lad of about fourteen years sleeping on a cot boxed in by a stack of saddle blankets on one side, and barrels of feed on the other.

  Bart couldn’t afford to have the boy awaken and sound the alarm. Pulling his knife, he made his way forward. Before he reached the cot, some noise must have disturbed the lad for his eyes suddenly snapped open. Moving quickly, Bart lunged forward just as the lad realized a man with a knife was coming for him.

  Exploding in a flurry of motion, the lad scooted backward on the cot but was closed in by the blankets and feed. Knocking aside the lad’s poor attempt at defending himself, Bart grabbed the front of his shirt and whispered, “Quiet and I won’t hurt you.” Gazing into the boy’s eyes, he gradually rotated his knife back and forth so what little light there was would reflect off of it.

  Terrified and thinking his life was about to end, the boy stared at the knife, nodded, and grew still. Eyes moving from the knife held before him to Bart, he started to tremble.

  On one of the shelves in the storage room were coils of rope of varying lengths. Taking two of the smaller ones, Bart tied the lad’s hands and legs together. Taking hold of one of the horse blankets, he used his knife to cut off a corner then stuffed it into the boy’s mouth. When he was done, he said, “I’ll be but a minute.” The lad stared back at him with terror filled eyes. “You give me any grief and I’ll kill you. Understand?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Alright then,” Bart grunted. Replacing his knife in its sheath, he began searching through the coils of rope for those having the longest lengths. Once
he found several that suited his needs, he began tying their ends together. As he worked, Bart kept casting glances over to the boy. In the almost pitch blackness of the storage room he saw the lad’s eyes watching his every move.

  After the last knot was cinched tight, he picked up the coil of rope. He no sooner started to leave the storage room than the outer door of the stable was thrust open and a guard entered with sword drawn. From outside, Bart could hear the sound of shouting and running feet. Apparently, the makeshift rope he left dangling on the side of the castle had been discovered.

  Another guard entered after the first. “Jacob!” he hollered. When no answer was forthcoming, he said to the first guard, “He might still be sleeping. Go check it out.”

  “Yes sir,” replied the guard. With sword in hand, the guard began moving toward the storeroom. While he went to see about the boy, the other began checking inside each of the stalls.

  “Wake up, Jacob!” the guard hollered toward the storage room.

  Bart glanced to the boy lying on the cot and shook his head. The boy nodded and remained still. His fear of Bart outweighed his desire to alert the guards. As the guard neared the storage room, Bart set the coil of rope gently to the ground. Then he pulled out his knife again and waited.

  “I don’t think he’s here,” Bart heard the guard say as he came to the doorway. As the guard pushed the door open a little further and stuck his head in, Bart lashed out with the butt of his knife. The blow to the back of the guard’s head knocked him out. Catching the unconscious guard before he could hit the floor, Bart quickly dragged him away from the doorway.

  “Is he there?” asked the other guard. Pausing in his search of the stalls, he turned toward the darkness at the rear of the stable. “Kell?”