At the next landing, there was a hallway that split off to the right closed off by a heavy door, but again the signs of traffic continued on the stairway downward. The walls here, like the level just above, were no longer formed with cut stone, but rather appeared to be natural rock that had been excavated, likely to serve as some of the material used to build the structure above her. The stairs themselves were also of a rougher cut, making Marian even more grateful for her torch light.
At the next landing, the way broadened out, opening to a small room. There was a heavy wooden table on one side, with a couple of broken chairs, and a heavy door in the wall next to it. The door had a massive lock built in, but stood open; the hinges likely rusted in place. Beyond that door Marian found a larger room at the foot of a short flight of stairs that contained several tables and braziers. Her flickering torch light barely reached the far wall, but its light caused dancing shadows there that vaguely illuminated racks of whips, steal hooks and other devices that she did not recognize, as well as an iron maiden and a heavily spiked iron chair. The thought of the torture and agony that these walls must have witnessed was terrifying, and Marian felt her gorge rise. If she had eaten that morning, she surely would have heaved it to the floor that minute. Were the soldiers who now held Carraghlaoch cruel enough to use this room? Had they already? Holding her mouth, Marian proceeded quickly across the torture chamber to another heavy door, also left ajar. Beyond this door, was a long, wide hallway with cell doors off either side.
Afraid to move any further into this hellish spot, Marian called out tremulously, “Is there anyone here?”
She thought that she heard something move in one of the cells to her left, but there was no answer to her call. Swallowing, and trying to work some moisture into her mouth, she called again, this time a little louder. “If there is anyone here, please answer me. I’ve come to help.”
“Marian, is that you?” she heard a muffled voice reply.
“Aaron,” Marian cried with relief. “Yes, it’s me. Where are you?”
“Third cell on the left, I think. Just come to the sound of my voice.” That last was almost completely covered by other voices that suddenly started calling and crying: “Who is it?” “Who’s there?” “Is it a rescue? Please, please let me out.”
Marian ran down the row of cells until she got to the third on the left. The sound of Aaron’s voice was much stronger here. The cell door was secured with a heavy bar hinged at one end, and kept down in its bracket at the other end by a wedge driven into a slot. The door itself had a small opening at the top, covered with a tight grillwork of metal bars, so that a prisoner could get no more than a finger through. Even without the grill, a prisoner would have to be a real contortionist to be able to even touch the locking bar with his finger tips. There is no way that he or she could have lifted the bar and rotated it up out of the way; the wedge seemed wholly unnecessary to Marian.
Marian grabbed hold of the wedge and tried to pull it out. It would not budge. She took it with both hands—it was barely long enough to get more than four fingers on it at a time— and pulled as hard as she could. Her fingers did not have enough strength, and merely slid off of the old worn wood.
“I think they drove it in with a mallet the day they threw us in here,” Aaron said. “Can you see the mallet lying around out there somewhere?”
Marian looked around on the floor. There was no sign of a mallet on the floor of this hall. Her torch was guttering low now, and the light it cast was both dim and unsteady. It caused shadows to move and jump, making the whole scene seem more terrifyingly evil. She began to wonder how long she had been in this keep, and how much time she had before Edith and her guard would show up on their daily tour. Not long, she feared.
“I’ll be right back,” Marian said, as she turned to hurry back into the torture room. With all of the devices in there, there must be a hammer, or something that she could use to remove the wedge holding the bar across the cell door.
At the doorway between the cells and the torture chamber, there was a wall sconce on either side. The torch on the left had obviously been left to burn down to a nub, but the one on the right was still mostly intact. Marian grabbed that one, and used the last moments of her guttering torch to light it. Casting her old one aside, she stepped back into the torture chamber and began the grizzly task of searching among the items of torture for something to use to remove the wedge. There were all manner of clamps and hooks and blades—most rusted beyond usefulness—and she tried desperately not to think of how they may have been used in the past, and what kind of excruciating pain they might have caused. Finally, she found a heavy hammer with a square head, entirely made of iron. She lifted it with difficulty, and carried it back to Aaron’s cell.
With considerable effort, Marian swung the hammer at the side of the wedge, hoping to knock it out of its slot. The wedge broke instead, leaving about a third of it in place, still blocking the rotation of the bar. It took her three more blows to break off enough of the wedge so that she could drop the hammer and raise the bar. The sound of each of her blows echoed in the room, and she knew that if anyone were approaching down the spiral staircase, they could not help but hear her efforts.
With difficulty, Marian managed to lift the heavy cross bar, and help Aaron force the old door open on its rusty hinges. She cringed again at the noise that they made, but there was no help for it.
“Marian, I love you,” Aaron said, falling into her arms. The cell he’d been in was too small for him to fully stand, and after the weeks of inactivity and starvation diet, he found that he could barely walk, he was so weak and stiff. Marian literally had to support him as he came out of his cell, wearing an old, smelly blanket like a moth eaten cloak, blinking at the light.
“You’d better sit down,” Marian told him, “while I free the others. How many of you are there down here?”
“There’s four of us, Brad, Harrel Jenkins, Steve Patterson and me. Where’s your dad? Is Owen with you? Where is everybody?”
“Sorry, it’s just me.”
“Sorry! I’ve never been so glad to see a friendly face in my life. But you can’t be here alone. Who took the fortress from the soldiers? Where are they?”
“The soldiers still hold the fortress. I’m here by myself, and we’ve got to hurry and get out of here. It’s a long story, let me free the others, and once we’re out of the fortress I’ll tell you the whole thing.”
Marian helped Aaron to sit against the wall, where he moved and flexed his legs, then she retrieved the heavy hammer and hurried down the row of cells to the next voice she could hear. It was Harrel Jenkins.
This time, the wooden wedge flew out of its slot when she struck it, and she quickly raised the bar to free Harrel. She helped him out also, then continued down the row. She passed several more cells before she came to one occupied by Brad Stewart. Again, she had no trouble with the wedge and he was quickly freed.
Hearing no more voices begging to be freed, she called out, “Steve, Steve Patterson, where are you?” She thought that she heard a low groan in response, but could not tell where it came from.
“I think that he is two down from where I was,” said Harrel. “They beat him pretty good two days ago when he would not stop screaming.”
Marian rushed back up the row and confirmed Harrel’s direction when she heard groaning coming from that cell. The wedge broke off again like the one at Aaron’s door when she struck it, and it took two more quick blows to splinter it off completely. Her wrists were screaming with the strain from wielding the heavy hammer.
Aaron and Harrell were on their feet now, and helped her force the cell door open. Steve lay in the dirty straw inside, and they had to drag him out into the light, being careful not to cause him any more injury. Marian felt around his body, and quickly determined that his left arm had been broken. He also had a few very tender ribs, likely broken as well, but they did not pierce the skin, and she did not think that they had been forced into
his lungs. She sent Aaron and Harrel with the torch into the next room to find a couple of sticks that they could use for a splint for his arm, while she opened her pack in the darkness and pulled out her spare shirt. She tore it into strips, and carefully began to bind Steve’s chest. Brad was up moving now, and was able to help her by supporting Steve while she wound the cloth around him. When the boys returned with the splints—Aaron was cursing under his breath at what they had seen in that room—Marian straightened Steve’s arm while two of his friends held him in place, then used some short pieces of rope from her pack to tie the splints in place. Steve had screamed then passed out during this procedure.
“How are we going to move him?” Marian asked. “We’ve got to get out of here before the guard shows up.”
“Guard,” said Brad. “You mean that the soldiers are still out there? Where’s my dad? For that matter, where’s everyone else?”
“It’s a long story,” Marian sighed, “and I don’t have time to tell it now. How can we move Steve? I am not going to leave him or anyone else behind.”
“I saw some poles in the next room. We should be able to make a stretcher, but I’m not sure that we can get it up that winding staircase,” volunteered Aaron.
“Good, get them quick. We’re running out of time.”
When Aaron returned with two long poles, apparently used for leverage to operate some arcane stretching device, Marian used the rest of her rope to wind back and forth between them to fashion a stretcher, and they proceeded to carefully transfer Steven onto it. All of the boys were very weak from their time in the cells, and it took two people at each end to manage the stretcher, but they were soon limping out of the room. The stairs were indeed a challenge, but Steven’s heels hung down through the ropes, and that kept him from just sliding off as they raised the front end of the stretcher to fit it up the stairs.
When they got to the next landing, Marian turned toward the closed door leading off at that level.
“Where are we going,” Aaron objected, “the way out is up another level or two.”
“There’s another way,” Marian said. “We can’t go out the front. There is no way that we wouldn’t be spotted by the guards trying to cross that open square. And even if we were exceptionally lucky and made it out, we’d still be trapped in the larger fortress. We need to go this way, and we need to hurry, we are about out of time.”
Marian, with Aaron’s help, managed to open the door that led into another dark narrow hall. Once they were all in, Marian had the boys put down the stretcher and close the door behind them, leaving it open just a little.
“What now,” Aaron asked.
“When I said that I was not going to leave anyone behind, I meant it,” Marian said. “So now we are going to wait for Edith and her guard. I think that if we can catch him by surprise on the stairs, we can overpower him, free Edith and take her with us. One of you stay by that door and warn me when you see the light of their approach. Aaron, you’d better take my knife. I’ve got to find the door for the next leg of our escape.”
With that, Marian handed Aaron her heavy work knife, then turned to examine the wall of the hallway they were in. It was very roughly hewn stone, with many cracks and crevices. It was also damp and slimy just as her brother, Owen, had described. Where, though, was the recess that he told her to look for; there were many likely candidates, some of them too high on the wall for her to reach into.
Marian had just begun her explorations when Aaron hissed, “Someone’s coming.”
Marian quickly smothered her torch against the base of the damp wall, and everything was thrown into total darkness. Gradually, a faint light grew at the crack in the doorway, but that went out as well as Aaron slowly eased the door shut.
Aaron stood just inside the door, listening for the sound of the soldier’s boots to pass on the landing and toward the next section of stairs downward. When he judged that the soldier was just past him, he threw open the door and with a yell lunged at the man with Marian’s knife. He had misjudged his timing, however, and his knife did not strike the soldier until the very end of his extension where most of the power of his thrust was already expended, and the knife skittered harmlessly off of the soldier’s boiled leather cuirass.
The soldier quickly turned to face his foe, while reaching for his sword with one hand and swinging his torch with the other, but Aaron continued his momentum forward ducking under the torch and rammed his shoulder into the soldier’s chest. Brad Stewart was right behind Aaron, and the two of them managed to knock the soldier off of his feet and down the stairs with the soldier on the bottom and the two boys on top of him. Edith, who had been being pushed along in front of the soldier screamed but managed to step out of the way of the tumbling men as they went by.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the soldier managed to throw off the much lighter and weaker young men, and in the guttering light of the torch at his feet, with his back to the stairs, he drew his sword. “Bastards,” he cursed, “I’m going to carve you up good for that.”
Just then, Edith raised the heavy wood bucket she had been carrying high above her head; ignoring the water that cascaded out, she ran down the stairs. Before the soldier could turn, she smashed the bucket as hard as she could down on the soldier’s head. As he crumpled to the floor, his skull already deformed by the heavy blow, Edith jumped on his back and still screaming smashed the bucket over and over and over down on his bloody head.
Aaron stood shocked by the violence of this attack, and it took him a moment to regain his composure. Finally, he stepped forward, grabbed the bucket from Edith’s hands and threw it off to the side. Taking her hands, now drenched in the soldier’s blood, he held them so that she would stop pummeling the body beneath her. “He’s dead, Edith,” he said loud enough for her to hear above her screaming.
Edith seemed to come out of a trance at his words. Her screams were abruptly choked off, and she began to sob. “He hurt me,” she cried. “He hurt me. They all hurt me.”
“I know,” Aaron said softly, dropping to his knees and taking Edith in his arms, “but he can’t hurt you now… not ever again.”
“I killed him,” Edith said in a surprisingly strong voice. “I’ll kill them all.” That last came out in a low growl, so guttural that Aaron could hardly believe that it had really emanated from her slight frame.
Marian had joined them at the bottom of the stairs, and told Aaron, “Let me have her now,” and she helped Edith to her feet. “You killed him, Edith, and you likely saved all of our lives; but we have to go now. Come this way.” Marian led Edith now completely docile back up the stairs, while Edith continued to repeat under her breath: “They hurt me. I’ll kill them all. They hurt me. I’ll kill them all…”
Over her shoulder Marian told Aaron, “Take his clothes and bring the torch, but leave the body. Let his friends find him just the way he is.”
“I’m not taking his clothes,” said Harrel, “that’s just sick.”
“Look,” Marian responded, “it’s a long walk back to South Corner through some difficult country, and winter is coming. His clothes aren’t doing him any good, and you are going to need them. You might want to leave his small clothes, though,” she continued, squinching up her nose, “I think that he’s shat in them.”
Other than the blankets the soldiers had given them when they threw the boys into the cells, they were only wearing what they had worn to bed the night they were taken from the village, and, being boys, that was not much. Marian found it hard not to blush when a blanket flared open, except when it was Aaron; she’d never noticed before just how fit and good looking Aaron was, although he could sure use a few good meals now.
Marian tried to give the soldier’s cloak to Edith, even though it was way too big for her, but she would not take it. She also refused to continue to wear the soldier’s coat that she’d had on when she’d entered the keep, leaving her in just her thin, tattered shift. She was willing to take Marian’s cloa
k however, and just being covered down past her knees after weeks of living in her shift made a tremendous difference to her.
Aaron took the soldier’s sword. He found that the belt for the scabbard was so long on him that he had to tie it in a know around his own much diminished waist.
The group climbed the stairs back to the next landing, gathering the spilled food that Edith had been bringing to the prisoners, and Marian resumed her inspection of the corridor wall, enlisting Aaron’s help to examine the depressions that were too high for her to reach.
“I’ve found something,” Aaron said after several minutes of searching. “It feels like an iron lever of some kind.”
“Good,” Marian said, “that’s it. Can you move it?”
“I don’t know. It’s pretty rusted. I’m trying, but it doesn’t seem to want to budge, and I’m afraid I might break it off.”
“It should pull towards you. At least that’s how Owen explained it to me.”
“Owen’s here? Where is he?”
“It’s a long story. Just keep pulling.”
With a groan from Aaron, there was a click and a creak that they all heard, and a section of the wall they were facing moved. Marian and Aaron put their weight against the stone, and slowly the opening widened until the gap was enough to allow one large man to pass at a time.
Marian picked up the torch that she had discarded earlier, and led the way into the revealed passage. “Bring Steve, and put him down in this tunnel. Edith, you take this torch, she said lighting the second one, “and keep guard over Steven. Aaron, Harrel, Brad, we need to make a false trail on down this hallway for a ways.” Marian then led the boys down the damp, dusty hall, through the door at the other end, then on into the lower regions of the keep. They passed several large store rooms, all of them empty, until they reached another stairway that led up. At that point they headed back to their tunnel, walking backward to confuse any trackers. They closed the door that connected to the landing where all of the action had occurred, then all filed into the tunnel and jammed that stone securely shut.
The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) Page 27