by J. C.
The crack of wood made Magiere flinch as Leesil's punching blade sank in sharply. He jerked it back out, and Magiere leaned down to look into the hollow.
The wood had broken away on the outside, leaving a rectangular hole. Leesil crouched and slipped his arm through the hole and nearly up to his shoulder. Magiere heard scraping metal, followed by a click.
Leesil pushed the door open but stood there with a scowl, not stepping out.
"What's wrong?" Magiere asked.
"Nothing… just another obstacle I've removed for Byrd's Anmaglâhk."
"No other choice," she said, and stepped past him.
The cell they exited was one among a row along a double-wide passage. They had been trapped in the last one at the back end. What passed for a lock was a metal slide bar with a pin, just enough to keep a prisoner inside but not requiring a key to the door. The place was silent, but Magiere still opened two of the other cells. Both were empty, and the door handles were thickly grimed by dust and damp air. This place had been left unattended and unused for a long while.
Leesil closed the cell door behind them and sheathed his winged blade. He did his best to press the popped chunk of wood back in place. It didn't stay, and Magiere grimaced as he licked the piece's rough side and smeared grime from the floor on it. He pressed it in again, and it held. No one would notice at a quick glance, unless they opened the door and the piece fell out.
Leesil walked ten paces to the far-end door with a larger barred window. The outer room beyond was dimly lit.
"Locked?" Magiere whispered, growing anxious.
Leesil gently pulled on the latch. The door opened, and Chap slipped by them into the next room, sniffing about with his nose in the air.
"Who taught you… your skills?" Emêl asked.
By his tone Magiere suspected he already guessed the answer.
"Does it matter?" Leesil returned.
Magiere glanced back at the baron. Emêl watched Leesil carefully, but his gaze shifted to her.
Leesil stepped into the outer room and stopped. Magiere saw him roll a shoulder as if fighting a brief spasm of muscle.
"My parents taught me," he finally answered. "Shutter the lanterns and leave them inside the door. We'll want our hands free."
Magiere did as he asked and followed him into the long room.
Crates, barrels, and other goods were piled end to end with narrow paths and small spaces between. The far wall held another door, and more closed portals were along the back wall to the right. The long wall to her left was a series of stone pillars forming archways, and beyond these she saw a parallel passage running north and south. Two braziers in that passage's far wall threw dim light through the arches into the storage area. Magiere stepped through the center arch and looked both ways down the passage.
Both far ends met with stone staircases leading upward, one to the north and the other south. In the center of the passage's wall was a door she hadn't spotted while standing within the storage area. Its dark wood was bound with polished leather strips and iron straps, all mounted with steel studs. The handle and mounting plate were steel as well and didn't show the same signs of age as the brazier mounts. Unlike the slide-bolted cell doors, it had a keyhole. A few paces along the wall to either side were outlines in the stonewall where two more openings had been filled in and closed up.
"Why isn't anyone down here?" Magiere asked as she rejoined Leesil in the storage area. "The cells were empty, so where would Darmouth keep Wynn?"
"There are no prisoners," Emêl said. "Except for your friend and my Hedí. Darmouth beheads traitors immediately. Petty criminals and captives are killed unless they swear fealty. Our forces grow thin, and every able body is pressed into service. His paranoia mounts by the year, and no one stays within the keep unless he has a hold on them. Anyone who does is kept under watch, though there are few men to spare for that."
"Then where is Wynn?" Magiere insisted.
"I am not certain," Emêl said. "Hedí is not officially a prisoner, so she would be given a room above. It is possible your Wynn is up there as well, awaiting questioning or—"
"You let us think she was locked down here." Leesil turned on Emêl. "Why didn't you tell us this back at Byrd's?"
"I did not know if you would still assist me!" Emêl snarled back, but a flicker of guilt passed across his features. "I must get Hedí back, and I needed your help. I used you no more than you have me… but I will find your companion."
A chill ran through Magiere, as if she'd just crawled from the winter lake. She was sick of this land. Amid all the lies, truth was held concealed like a weapon to be used in the right moment. Anger swelled, and though she tried to quell it, her words were spiteful.
"Are you so cowed that your wits have festered? We can't search above without being seen!"
"I can," Emêl answered, though he looked less than certain. "Few in the keep will know I have not been summoned. And fewer still would question a trusted noble in Darmouth's confidence."
"You'll just come up out of the prison?" Leesil asked. "Look around you. The braziers are lit, but there's dust everywhere. Few ever come here, and not without permission."
Emêl fell quiet, as if he hadn't considered this.
Magiere bit back any further viciousness before she spoke. "We'll search this level first. No one goes up until I'm certain Wynn isn't down here somewhere. Maybe we can find another route that…"
She stopped as Leesil spun away. Losing himself in the middle of something this dangerous wasn't like him. He was coldly quick and calculating when necessary, but little he'd done since they'd come to Venjetz was like the Leesil she knew. He stood there with his back turned, and she reached for him.
"Emêl, if you know so much of Darmouth," Leesil blurted out, "what do you know of my parents?"
Magiere stopped before she touched him.
Everything these two said to each other was laced with poorly hidden accusations. Leesil didn't like speaking to Emêl, much less asking anything of the man. Emêl turned his gaze toward the ornate door beyond the archways.
"I knew of them," he said with hesitation. "I saw Lady Nein'a at a few of Darmouth's gatherings. She was often… in the company of some noble or officer."
Magiere stiffened. Emêl's implication brought a low rumble of displeasure from Chap. She wondered if the dog had known of Nein'a's "duties," and she looked back to Leesil. Again, she wanted to touch him, to stop him from asking anything more that might shake what little hold he had on himself.
"The tunnel," Leesil said. "It has to be why they ran for the keep. Do you know if they escaped?"
"I do not," Emêl answered quietly. "I oversaw western fiefs at the time and did not return to Venjetz until your parents were gone. By then, Faris and Ventina already hovered in Darmouth's shadow. Questions concerning Lady Nein'a and her husband were treated as impudence. No one inquired further."
Magiere slowly came up behind Leesil and laid her hand upon his back. It took a moment to speak, but she needed his help… needed him to put his questions aside for the moment.
"Start looking," she said, and felt his back swell with a slow breath.
Leesil pulled away from Magiere's touch without looking at her. There was no time for her to soften his pain. She pointed to the ornate door beyond the arches.
"Where does that door lead?"
Emêl hesitated. "Darmouth's family crypt. He holds private counsels there sometimes… with certain individuals. It is locked, but no one would ever be held there."
Magiere nodded. She took one of the three doors in the long back wall. Leesil took another, and Emêl the last. She found only empty cells and an abandoned room at her passage's end. She returned to the storage area as Leesil came out of his passage and shut its door.
"Some stores tucked in the cells," he said coldly. "Nothing more. The keep is being stocked up more than is normally needed."
She hurt for him every time he spoke.
Emêl returned with a
concerned frown. "Weapons, bundles of quarrels, and a rack of arbalests."
"Maybe Darmouth prepares for a siege," Leesil said.
Emêl's silence was confirmation enough; he'd not known before now. It seemed Darmouth kept even his closest nobles in the dark, not that they couldn't see the turmoil of the province for themselves. And so much the worse if its leader suddenly died.
Magiere went to the door in the storage area's far end. The room hadn't seen use in some time. There was a wooden chair and a table with old quills scattered upon it. A tapestry hung from an iron rod across most of the back wall, so faded and worn. She couldn't make out anything of its image other than the oak leaf pattern along its tattered border. She stepped back out.
"Some kind of office," she said. "No one has used it in a long while. So now what?"
Emêl shook his head. "It is time I bluffed my way onto the main level. We will try the south staircase. I believe Martin and Kerev are on night duty there, sometimes Devid, but they all know me. I can claim to be inspecting stores in lower levels. "
"Except they never saw you come down here in the first place," Leesil said pointedly.
"If asked, I will say I went down the north staircase," Emêl explained. "None will be the wiser, as they will not run into the guards from that position until off duty at sunrise."
"And what about us?" Magiere asked, as she didn't care to leave Wynn's fate in Emêl's hands. "We just wait here?"
"For now. Stay below the landing within hearing… in case my ruse fails."
Magiere followed Emêl with Chap at her side, though she glanced back to be sure Leesil was there. His expression was as cold and emotionless as the first day they entered Venjetz.
They made their way up the south staircase, which was longer than Magiere had expected. The lower levels were deep, "when they reached a landing before a door, Magiere stayed back with Leesil and Chap some five or six steps down the stairs. Emêl reached for the latch, and a frantic female voice rang out on the other side.
"Devid! Are you there?"
"He's at the bridge gatehouse tonight," answered a deep male voice. "Something you need, Julia?"
Emêl froze as the woman's voice grew louder and nearer the door's other side.
"Oh, Martin," she said. "Lady Progae and Korey are missing. So is the woman locked up in the north side. Ventina found young Mikhail out cold in the woman's room, and now Faris is in a fit. He sent word to our lord and Lieutenant Omasta that the keeps been breached and then he went off on his own. He blames Devid, and I came to warn him."
The woman's words came out in a rush. Little made sense to Magiere except for the mention of a prisoner. It had to be Wynn. The voices continued, but Magiere waved Emêl back down the stairs.
"We go back down," she whispered. "If Hedí and Wynn are missing at the same time, they may be together. Hedí's note said she'd try for the lower level. We need to be ready, in case they're followed."
"There's no time," Leesil said softly. "If Faris thinks the keep has been breached, that means…"
Leesil paused so long Magiere became anxious. They couldn't stand about in the stairwell, waiting to be found. He glared down the stairs.
"Byrd," he whispered.
"What of him?" Emêl asked.
Magiere followed Leesil's gaze and saw nothing, but realization followed quickly. She knew what occurred to Leesil. Her voice rose almost too loud.
"That two-faced fat rat used us!"
Byrd had slipped away once they'd discovered the tunnel, but it hadn't been long enough for him to take advantage of his new information. Unless the elves had followed them from the city.
Magiere remembered the strange flashes of light she'd glimpsed as they'd left Venjetz—signals in the dark. And now they'd let the Anmaglâhk in. She didn't see how the elves could pass through without notice, but it wasn't the first time one had managed such a feat, Sgaile, the one who'd come to Bela, had entered the barracks of sages without even Leesil realizing until it was too late.
"Emêl, there are assassins in the keep," Leesil whispered. "Elves."
The baron paled as he too looked down the stairwell.
"Byrd has planned this for a long time," Leesil added. "I thought I could leave a warning and be gone before they made a try for the keep. But if they're already inside… The guards are too busy searching for escaped prisoners to stop assassins, even if they could."
"We cannot let this happen," Emêl insisted. "No one would mourn Darmouth's death, but the raids across our borders are growing. Now he has begun stocking the keep for a siege. If the nobles and officers go into a frenzy, fighting to take his place, the province will be overrun from outside."
Leesil took a stiletto from his wrist sheath. "I know."
Magiere gripped the hilt of the falchion, squeezing it tightly until her hand ached. She hated feeling responsible for the people here. And worse was risking Leesil's life to save the man who'd maimed him in so many ways.
"Get those guards to open that door," she told Emêl. "Don't bother bluffing your way through."
* * * *
Chane had never been inside the keep. Straight ahead was a wide stairway leading up. To either side of its base were passages running north and south, and in the entryway's side walls were arched openings into wide chambers.
And where exactly was he to find Wynn in this place? There were too many options, and Welstiel would not be far behind once he dealt with their escort.
Chane approached the stairs. Voices came from a distance, and he stopped. Someone was in the corridor above on the next level. Two men, one louder than the other and angry. He could not tell if they were headed for the stairs. He slipped around the base of the stairs and into the small alcove at the head of the north corridor. He crouched low against the wall as he opened his senses wide.
A pained whimper and crack came up the corridor behind him.
He glanced up at the stairs, then retreated down the corridor. When he reached a sharp turn in the passage, he paused to spy around the corner with one eye.
At the far end, a woman in a gown was backed against the side wall by a tall soldier. He held a shortsword pointed at her chest, and she stood rigid with a bloodied dagger in her hand. A second fat and unshaven soldier was crumpled in the corner beyond them. The man breathed in quick whimpers while clutching his stomach, and blood seeped between his fingers. None of them looked Chane's way.
Someone else lay on the floor. A woman in a plain muslin dress rolled to her side. Light brown hair toppled from her face, exposing a reddened cheek and jaw below an eye swollen half-shut. A brass candlestick lay just beyond her open hand.
Chane's senses sharpened at the sight of Wynn's beaten face.
There was blood between her lips, and it ran in a thin line of saliva out the corner of her mouth.
He rounded the corner at a run.
Every fragment of life energy he'd stolen welled through his cold flesh. When the tall soldier and the woman heard his footfalls and turned, he'd already closed the distance.
The lanky soldier raised his sword.
Chane grabbed the mans throat with one hand. With the other he snatched the soldier's grip on the sword, closing his fingers over the man's own. Chane squeezed tightly as he drove the soldier to the floor.
He barely heard the muffled pop of cracking bone. He kept squeezing, tighter and tighter, with the image of Wynn's battered face wedged in his mind until it was all he could see. It clouded the guard's reddening, silent face… gaping mouth… swelling tongue.
"Ch… ch…"
Chane froze at the sound of her voice trying to say his name. The soldier's eyes were wide and blank. Blood ran between Chane's fingers, and he felt the split skin of the soldier's throat beneath them.
"Wynn?" he rasped, and turned his head.
She lay with her face toward him, one eye half-open. It closed slowly.
Chane scurried to her on all fours. He reached to grab her, saw his hands soaked red, and shran
k back. He heard Wynn's even breaths, heard her heart beating evenly. She was alive, only slipping into unconsciousness, but he could not tell how badly she was hurt.
A scuffling behind him snapped his head around instinctively, and he lashed out with his boot. It connected with the fat soldier's throat. The mute crackle of the man's windpipe mixed with his choking, and he sagged in the corner, still and silent. Behind that sound Chane caught the soft pad of feet and swung back around.
Rage rose up in Chane on the tail of his fright. For an instant he saw Magiere waiting for him with dark hair and pale features. His muscles tightened.
Her skin was not quite pale enough.
The woman in the gown stiffened, halting her reach for a canvas bag between Wynn's feet. Something squirmed within the bag.
Memory surged in on Chane—a woman behind an inn.
He remembered the taste of her blood and fear… smelled that fear on her now, though there was little of it in her hard expression. This was the one who had been spying in the keep. Chane shifted on all fours, crouching protectively over Wynn.
The woman stepped slowly back, holding out the dagger.
Chane's thoughts began to clear. Wynn had been trying to get below this keep, and this pale woman was with her. He lowered his head like an animal suppressing its urge to spring, and locked his eyes upon the woman's own wary gaze. His voice rasped within the narrow passage.
"Do you still wish to live?"
* * * *
Leesil gripped a stiletto and waited behind Magiere as Emêl pounded on the door.
"Open up. It is Baron Emêl Milea."
"Baron Milea?" a deep voice called, and after a brief jangle of keys, the door opened.
Leesil saw a perplexed soldier standing in the opening with a hauberk of large leather scale. He stared at Emêl and then turned his eyes upon Leesil in the stairway below.
Magiere shoved past Emêl and drove her fist into the soldier's face. The man teetered backward, and a second soldier leaned in from beyond the door to grab the tail of her hair.
Chap rushed in, sinking his teeth into the second man's inner thigh. Before the guard cried out, Emêl smashed the man's face with a fist and shoved his way through the door. The second guard's grip held on Magiere's hair, and she toppled out of Leesil's sight.