Gunpowder

by G. H. Guzik

- You see, there is still one more thing you need to know about me. I am an aurician.

  Kristoff became silent with shock. Knowing Sparks so far, taught him a far-reaching caution towards her statements, but if the girl was telling the truth, he had to deal with a much more serious person than he had expected. He has never met a real aurician, and yet he was a man of the world, who used to call many places home.

  Aura was obviously omnipresent. Not once, and not twice he has met aura-sensitive people, who were able to seal wounds with the force of their will or increase the power of liquors and healing potions, but he has never known a person having the ability to freely shape the aura. Auric talent manifested itself in only a few of whom only a few again had enough of it to let themselves be educated in the art of controlling the Aura. Most of them lived in the north-east of the Northern Kaesary, Arokania or the edge of The Woods, where Aura was the strongest, but a few auricians resided in every major city of the Herbion continent.

  Anyway, the girl’s skills mattered greatly. Instead of being mere prisoners awaiting the sentence, they became a ticking time bomb inadvertently brought into the enemy headquarters under false pretences. An intelligence agent, even only freshly out of training, was dangerous, an aurician with combat training was deadly. He was not just any hobbledehoy himself. He shot on target, fenced better than decently, and if it was needed of him he could plant a few blows on any snout of men larger and stronger than himself. Before he shook himself out of his reverie, Iskandriel freed herself completely from the shackles and chains and folded her hands on smuggler’s restraints. The manacles heated slightly, but not enough to burn his skin. Moments later bolts dropped out of the holes and the chains fell to the ground.

  - Well, so much for first things first. Now, the door...

  She knelt by the door’s lock, and laid her hands on it. Her face paled, and her forehead shed small beads of sweat. Heavy bolts moved laboriously. Sparks paid almost as much attention to the stealth of her operation, as she did to its effectiveness. The lock opened soundlessly. After a few moments the agent sat down heavily on the stone floor and wiped a drop of thick dark blood hanging from her nose with the back of her hand. She nodded to Kristoff to make him try opening the cell. The door gave way slightly and as silently as the lock. The captain looked surprised at the aurician, his eyes expressing his highest respect. The girl grinned at him, pleased with the impression she made.

  The smuggler opened the cell door and having noticed no reaction from the outside, poked his head into the jail’s corridor. He looked around assessing the situation. They were detained in the cell farthest from the exit, the doors of which were on the wall opposite the guard-post, abandoned at the moment. The captain opened the door wide and took a few steps. The aurician stood up, dusted off and joining him put her hand on his shoulder, to make him understand that she would like to go first. Kristoff did not argue. After what we saw in the last few minutes he was completely convinced that she would cope with possible opponents as well as himself, or probably better.

  The agent stopped at the guard-post, right in front the bend of the corridor. About a dozen feet behind this curve was a staircase leading up to the ground floor of the building. At the top of the stairs the corridor was closed with a solid oak door. The fugitives went up the stairs cautiously. The girl put her hand on the doorknob, and after a moment of concentration made a gesture to let Kristoff know that the door was locked. She crouched beside it and put her eye to the keyhole. Behind the door was a chamber in which the jail clerk officiated. In the centre of the room, at the clerk’s table, a fierce game of dice took place, between the guards from the abandoned guard-post, the interrogation officer and the clerk.

  Iskandriel stood up, closed her mouth to the sailor’s ear and almost soundlessly whispered.

  - Now I will open the lock. Give me a moment to pull myself together, and then kick the door open. Inside, there are four men. I will paralyse one, and you have to charge the remaining three. I will try to help you, but I do not know how much strength I will have left.

  Kristoff nodded. He was not convinced about his ability to defeat three opponents, but was ashamed to show any weakness. Sparks, although trained and dangerous, was quite an attractive girl that he just wanted to impress as a man. The agent was already kneeling at the door talking to the steel mechanism through the aura. She turned to him, giving a sign that she had finished. She was clearly paler and trembled barely noticeably with effort. After a few moments, she raised her hand and her fingers started the countdown. Captain tensed, and when her hand signalled to attack with a lonely extended index finger, he kicked in the door with a vengeance.

  Without hesitation, he moved swiftly towards the men sitting around the table. He pulled the shoulders of the guard sitting with his back facing the door, while the interrogation officer’s eyes widened and he grabbed his own throat making a wheezing sound. The smuggler jumped to the second guard sitting in front of the desk before he managed to realize what was happening around him. Kristoff put his left hand behind his neck and pulled back choking him, simultaneously hitting him in the liver with strong, measured blows of the right hand. At the same time he wondered why the clerk, springing up from behind the desk, gaped trying in vain to scream again and again and to his own surprise had not made even the slightest noise, until his face blushed and he coughed with effort just as soundlessly. Wasting no time, the captain let go of the guard who had already lost consciousness and stopped responding to repeated blows as a result of near-suffocation. The smuggler took two steps to gain some momentum and violently kicked the groin of the guard, who had fallen at the beginning of the battle and was just trying to get back on his feet. Standing over his body rolled up in a foetal position he snatched the poor man’s dagger from his belt and stabbed almost blindly. When he was trying on to land another stab, an overwhelming weight suddenly fell on his neck, knocking him off balance and pushing him to the ground. The dagger fell from his hand.

  The clerk sat astride the slightly bewildered sailor and somewhat awkwardly began to pummel him with his fists. The blows were not staggeringly strong nor very accurate, but still painful and troublesome. The hail of strikes stopped just as suddenly as it had begun. The prison clerk went limp and fell to the floor boards face to face with a smuggler. The captain turned his head and looked up with gratitude at the aurician standing over him, breathing heavily. In her hands she was still holding a solid guard’s truncheon, with which she had stunned their last opponent just moments earlier.

  The smuggler looked around the chamber. One of the guards was lying on his back unconscious, the second was twitching in agony, lying in an expanding pool of blood flowing from a wound in the thigh around the dagger. The jerk of the dagger at the time of the clerk’s attack changed a stab wound into a deed cut causing an unstoppable arterial haemorrhage. He was moaning and snarling softly, which could be heard from the moment the aurician ceased to mute the chamber in order to put out the clerk. The clerk himself was lying motionless with an irregular dent on the side of his skull, where he had been hit with a full swing, two-handed blow. The interrogation officer, or maybe just a simple investigator, as it was difficult to spot the officers' insignia on a twisted silhouette lying in a pool of its own urine, gave no signs of life just like the prison clerk.

  Sparks was standing slightly astride with both hands bracing against the head of a heavy guard’s truncheon, which supported her. Her breath was calming slowly. After a moment of rest she bent with a slight grunt, over a guard strangled by the smuggler and took his dagger and keys. Straightening up, she turned to Kristoff, who was whisking away off his cuff in disgust the blood of the second soldier.

  - Take both daggers. The truncheon will suffice for me. You need to break away to the streets and get on the ship. I will try to find Breiig and either release him or kill him. I do not know how much he knows, but I can not allow for this interrogation to take place.

  - I understand. That's why we escape arm
ed only with two daggers, a truncheon and a few meters of steel chains, in broad daylight, from a jail in the middle of the city centre, every other citizen of which is in the civil defence guard, Another extremely efficient strategy of the intelligence...

  - Stop this bullshit...

  - ...very discreet...

  - ...and do not mock me.

  - ...not to mention the likely effectiveness. No offence, but your plan is a plain suicide. No, wait. Not even a plain one, but an extremely stupid one.

  Iskandriel approached him and looking him straight in the eye, she hissed.

  - If you lack faith in surviving, then you are already dead.

  - Faith has nothing to do with it. Even if by some miracle I would manage to cover more than a hundred yards, this port is impossible to sail out of. If we only go as far as the head of the breakwater, we will be obliterated by their artillery batteries.

  The girl bit her lip and slightly cocked her head in a moment of reverie.

  - You're right. We will have to do something about it. Yes... We'll create a diversion... Actually, I will create a diversion. Your part of the plan does not change. Getting to the ship and preparing to set sail.

  The captain nodded without conviction. They stood in front of a door leading into the depths of the guard’s building. Sparks kissed the sailor on his cheek for luck, then she pulled the door handle. The corridor was surprisingly empty and ran straight to the main hall, in which only a single guard sat behind the counter. Kristoff stunned him before he could raise any alarm. The refugees said goodbye to each other with a casual wave, then Iskandriel moved on to find Breiig, and the smuggler came out the front door into the street as if it was business as usual.

  The agent walked carefully along the wall of the corridor leading to the other side of the jail, trying to step on her toes, not to alert anyone with the clatter of her steel-shod heels. She listened intently to the sounds of the environment, but the jail seemed empty. She went down to the lower level leaving behind the office and the interrogation room to reach her goal. Another disappointment awaited. The arrest was indeed empty. It looked very suspicious. She could delude herself that only one guard in the main hall, was the result of heightened patrols and rotation in the port’s forts, but the lack of anyone in the whole jail wing was impossible to explain. Where was the clerk, the investigator, where were the guards? What happened to the prisoners? Was she to believe that in a crowded port city there was not a single drunk who needed to sober up in a cell?

  Her alertness heightened. Reflecting on the situation, she returned to the main room and tried to rouse the stunned soldier. Unfortunately Kristoff hit him a bit too hard and she failed to get much out of him. After a few spirited cheek slaps he gave a few signs of life, but was babbling incoherently, so it was difficult to call this state consciousness. Sparks gave up and went to the stairs located in the back of the room. She headed to the second floor, where she expected to find a cloakroom, a guards’ lounge guards and the warden's office. The guards’ quarters emitted no noises, but from behind the closed doors of the warden’s office, there came a murmur of a cordial conversation interrupted with bursts of laughter. From this distance she was not able to make out the words, but she was ready to give up her arm if the voice of one of the participants of this conversation did not turn out to be Breiig’s. His hoarse, resounding bass was all too recognizable, resulting in a slight vibration in the windows she passed along the corridor. Many things could be said about Breiig, but his voice was completely un-spy-like.

  She sneaked one step at a time, and after a few moments she could understand the individual words. Inside there were three men sitting and talking about her imprisonment. One of them was Breiig. With horror Iskandriel realized that Breiig was not sitting there as a prisoner. He was not even sitting there as a suspect. He was in there to receive the award for her head. Her training prompted Sparks that she should lurk under the door and eavesdrop on the ongoing conversation inside. The training was, however, left far behind in Daelwynn, and on the spot her rage pushed her to act. Raging and unstoppable.

  The girl took a short run-up and kicked in the door with vigour. It fell straight in with a bang of hinges being dislocated from the door frame and cracking of lock latches being broken. Three heads turned in her direction. In the men’s eyes surprise mingled with fear. Iskandriel ran over to them. With only a length of chain and a truncheon, she started by jerking the high back of the chair in which a man was sitting with his back to the entrance. She leapt up still running, bounced off the crotch of the man flying backwards in his chair and landed on top of the desk where she imposed a fervent kick aimed at the head of the host of the meeting adorned by a familiar short-cropped beard. A disgusting crunch left not much doubt about the chances of a long and happy life of the culprit, whoever he may have been. Breiig jumped up from his chair and with a wild shriek tugged at the desk trying to roll it over together with a girl still standing on its top. He was strong, the scoundrel. He almost succeeded. Sparks slid down the rapidly steeping slope and jumped to the side. She stopped in a squat position just off the previously overturned officer currently struggling awkwardly on all fours. Still looking at Breiig she landed a straight left to the side of the head of the getting up soldier. Again he fell down on a wooden floor as if cut down. At the same time, the desk came crashing upside down right next to them, and Breiig walked toward the girl setting up for a kick not worse than that presented by herself. He did not make it.

  Sparks threw herself at him with a wild shriek. Her voice took on the highest possible pitch and broke into the spy’s ears with a metallic reverberation. Icy needles ran up his spine crystallizing muscles and pouring lead in his joints. Breiig was completely paralysed before the weight of the girl's body fell on him. She charged him shoulder first and toppled, falling along beside him. His face was contorted by a resident terrifying grimace of pain fixed in sudden paralysis. His skin was marked with numerous, smaller and larger haematomas. The aurician sat astride him and frantically pummelled his face, until she realized the futility of her efforts. Breiig was dead. His heart could not withstand the auric shock wave.

  The stillness after the fight calmed her emotions. The agent stood up and putting her hands on her hips she spat at her feet. Her spit landed near the Breiig’s head, whose dead eyes seemed to be staring at her with stubborn attention. On one hand, everything was fine, as Sparks was still standing and her opponents were not. On the other one, the mission did not go well at all. The resident, whom she was to extract, was dead, and she did not know really why she had killed him. Apparently it was obvious at first sight, but cold analysis of the situation awoke unexpected doubts in her. Was Breiig a traitor? Circumstantial evidence indicated that, yes, but there was no hard evidence whatsoever. Did he want to kill her? Apparently so, but evidently she had attacked first.

  There was no time for senseless considerations. She walked over to the unconscious man lying near the door. Judging by the uniform he was the chief guard. She wondered briefly if there was time to interrogate the witness. The screams on the courtyard proved that this was not the case. Apparently her little auric show could be heard outside the guard building and understandably aroused curiosity. Especially among the guards patrolling the neighbourhood. The agent, without losing a beat, grabbed the unconscious officer under the armpits and dragged him to the window, from which she then threw him out. She hoped that the defenestration would stop even the most curious for at least a few moments.

  Herself, she ran along the little corridor and without thinking much she yanked the wall lantern out of its holder. With a flick she lit the wick and threw the flaming projectile under the askew desk. Another encountered lamp was thrown into the guards’ locker room. When she jumped off the last flight of stairs, the top floor of the building was already burning with a merrily roaring fire. At the door she almost collided with the soldiers running inside the building. She turned on her heel and maintaining momentum she jumped throug
h the back window into the inner drill-and-exercise square. She landed softly with a forward roll and without losing velocity got up to run, as soon as her feet touched the ground. With grace she climbed to the roof of the jail wing, and from there to the roof of the adjacent building. Being already a good twenty-five feet above the square, she turned to see the progress of the chase. Some guards came out to the square and taking their weapons off their arms were setting up to shoot her down, but a sergeant started running between them and banging their heads with his hat was raising the barrels of their guns. Iskandriel was a bit surprised, but a moment later she realized that she was standing on a munitions' magazine full of gunpowder barrels, and the sergeant did not believe much in the marksmanship skills of his men. She knelt down and jerked out one of the tar covered wooden shingles covering the roof. Standing up she perked her head and looking with a smile at the terrified soldiers, set the shingle alight with a flick of her fingers. She took one last look at the dense clouds of smoke coming from the windows of the second floor, waved cheerfully to the soldiers, dropped the flaming shingle to the rooftop and jumped off to a side street outside the guards’ building perimeter. Pleased with herself she started running towards the harbour. She came to the waterfront of the harbour followed by a surrounding sound of bells tolling for fright, but was disturbed by no one.

  Running along the wooden pier, Sparks yelled to lose the moors off the quay and put up sails even when she was still a good few dozen meters from the “Thunder Led”. Fortunately, Kristoff was already on board and prepared to set sail in advance, and the experienced smuggling crew performed perfectly. Before the agent came to the ship, the mooring ropes have already been thrown, the sailors stood with long poles ready to push the ship away from the pier, and the gunners loaded the cannons with grapeshot, to prevent, if necessary, a possible pursuit. No one chased her. Behind her, clouds of black smoke were rising up above the city centre, and the first echoes of a powerful explosion, came to the harbour dully rolling through the narrow streets of the city. Apparently the soldiers failed to extinguished the fire before it reached the gunpowder, thus causing the city more important problems than the fleeing girl.