“So what happened with the guard and the package?”
Hunlok shrugged. “He thought it was a funny idea, so we left it on the doorstep of the guard house and came out here to investigate the noise.”
“So the package is on the doorstep?” Another tug on the rope and they started pulling again.
“I guess so.”
“That’s not good!” Liden started pulling frantically on the rope and Knell sailed up out of the ground, bouncing as she came up into sight and jumped down onto the ground. He waved across the road, beckoning them to run.
“What’s going on?” Hunlok asked.
Before he could give an explanation, the field filled with soldiers who had crossbows on their shoulders all trained on Sarta, Knell and Debir. They froze in place. As they took in the scene, some of the soldiers turned their attention to the two boys on the other end of the rope. Liden raised his hands in surrender and Hunlok followed suit. There was no getting out of this now.
The soldiers grabbed them and roughly threw them down into the dungeon. Liden hit the ground and rolled to the side, twisting his ankle, Debir thudded on the ground next, followed by Knell, Sarta, and Hunlok. From below they heard the large iron grate slide back into place with a solid thud. “Looks like we’ll be having a couple more volunteers for the show tomorrow,” one guard called down to the group.
Liden sat down on the muddy floor, sure he was sitting in a pile of rotten food, spit, and worse, but he didn’t care. His plan had been so close to working, and it all fell apart. “I’m so sorry,” he eventually was able to say, though he knew those words were not strong enough to convey how much he blamed himself for their current state.
“It’s not your fault,” Sarta said, standing next to him and patting him on the back. He didn’t know if it was harder to have them forgive him, or if he would rather have them hate and blame him the way he blamed himself.
“I blame the guards,” Debir said resolutely. “Their random patrols threw something at us we couldn’t get around.”
“It’s definitely my fault,” Hunlok cut in. “I missed the delivery, and I actually brought a guard back with me.”
“If you knuckleheads had left us here, it would just be the two of us,” Knell argued. “This whole stupid thing is my fault.”
“I agree. Knell’s to blame,” Sarta said, pointing her finger at her sister.
“What?” Knell protested.
“If you’d just grabbed the rope with me, we’d have gotten out quicker. I know Hunlok could have pulled us both up at the same time.” Knell playfully slapped Sarta. “Ouch!”
Liden stood up and looked around the dark room at his friends. “Let’s not do this,” he said, cutting them off. “I led us into this, this is my doing. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wish I was a little more like Wren,” he said, shaking his head.
“He might still come back for us,” Debir said hopefully. “We’ve probably cost him another mission, so he’d have us in servitude for life.” He cracked an empty smile.
“We all know that’s not happening,” Hunlok replied. “When he left us in the house, knowing we’d failed the mission, he was furious! He’s definitely not coming back.”
“Hey!” a guard shouted from above them. “Your final meal!” he dumped out a box that spilled diced onions on them.
Liden’s eyes started to water and he couldn’t help but laugh as the onion fumes forced him to blink away the pain.
“What’s so funny?” Knell asked as she sniffed an onion and actually took a bite of it.
“That was our package,” Liden said through onion-induced tears.
Knell looked around the small dungeon hole as if she could find the answers in the walls. Finally she pressed her fingers to her head. “What… okay… wait… I can’t think of any reason why you’d deliver them a box of chopped onions.”
Trying to explain his reasoning now seemed very lame. “I thought it would be distracting. You know, they open a box of onions and start crying. Nobody knows where they came from. Then they’d take it to another group of guards as a joke. Everyone would be confused, laughing but also crying. Even if they wanted to come out into the night to find who left the box, they couldn’t see through their tear-filled eyes.” After he finished talking, he found that his lips had curled up into a smile. He couldn’t help but feel a little better as he pictured the soldiers all gathered around the box, crying over his ‘gift’. To his complete surprise, Sarta started laughing out loud. Her light laugh was quickly contagious and soon they were all joining. Liden didn’t know if it was the stress of the situation, the ridiculousness of his plan, or just relief to be back with his friends, but he really didn’t care. It felt good to laugh with his friends like they used to back in Ryr.
A slamming on the cage above them and a wad of spittle hitting him in the face stopped their temporary amusement and brought his thoughts back to their current predicament. They were not just caught stealing a tart from Knell’s grandma back in Ryr. “Quiet down, or we’ve found a new latrine!”
All five youth shut their mouths and stood looking at each other. Although he couldn’t read their minds, he saw in their eyes the same thing that was in his heart. He’d started this journey with them and now it was coming to an end. While he would much rather be back, safe in their small mining community of Ryr, deep in the southern reaches of Kresthin, if he was going to die in a foreign land, he couldn’t ask for better friends than these four who would stick together rather than let any other suffer alone.
Before too long, seven guards came down to the cell, carrying shackles and weapons in their hands.
“Looks like your lucky day,” one of the guards said. “You’re all being transferred.”
*****
Wren hitched his horse to a tree outside of Dreshire. If Gorban was right and the kids had been taken to Driscal, then he was wasting precious time, but on the off chance they were still in Dreshire, he had to stop and check. He hid his backpack under a patch of thick briars and then walked toward the edge of the tree line, holding the blue bottle in his left hand. He didn’t see any patrols. The last one had passed several minutes ago, and it would be at least fifteen minutes before the next patrol would come into view.
Wren would be invisible long before that.
He uncorked the vial of liquid Ashlyn had given him and promptly covered himself, his weapons, and his clothes with several drops each. There was a shimmering, silvery light that seemed to eat away at each item, but in reality it was only the magic spreading, making him and his belongings invisible. He moved quickly, knowing that the potion would only last for one hour. He jogged to the wall, clambered over, and then slowed to a silent walk as he approached the prison. He saw two guards standing at the front door, each holding a spear in one hand and a bugle in the other.
The assassin could tell by their vigilant stance that they had been told to watch out for him. That was good news. It meant that instead of killing the teenagers, they had allowed them to live.
With a useless left arm, he would have to time his strike perfectly. He knew the potion would work, but that didn’t stop his heart from jumping as he came close. He quietly drew his sword and walked three paces in front of the guards, moving as slowly as possible to avoid making any sound. The guards continued to scan the shadows ahead of him.
Wren positioned himself between the guards and held his sword out to his left, blade leveled at the first guard’s throat. With a single twirl he slashed his sword through both guards’ necks and dropped them without a sound. He then stabbed the second guard through the chest, leaving his sword upright so he would know where to find it. Sheathing the sword while his clothes were invisible would take longer than he wanted, and he had to hide the bodies before anyone else came around.
Wren dragged the bodies close to the prison and rested them against the outer wall, then he poured a few drops of invisibility potion on them and watched with a smile as their bodies disappeared from
sight. The assassin then reached out with his hand, struggling to find the hilt of his now invisible sword. After a moment he felt the handle and pulled the weapon free. His left hand painfully groped around his belt until he found his sheath, and then he put his sword away.
He moved to the door and picked the lock, which proved a bit more complicated when the tools were invisible. After a minute, he heard the tumblers click into place and pushed the door open.
A single guard seated behind a desk and reading by candle light stood up, setting the book down on the desk. “Marston, is that you?” The guard’s hand went down for a bugle, but Wren stepped in and throat-punched the guard, silencing him in an instant. Wren then drew the guard’s own sword and buried it in the man’s chest. The assassin turned and closed the front door, bolting it from the inside and placing the desk and chair in front of it for good measure.
He picked the lock on the next door and slipped inside the main cell block. A guard stood beside an empty cell, lighting a pipe with his back to Wren. The assassin drew his dagger and stuck it into the guard’s neck and then slipped the guard’s arms through the bars so that the body wouldn’t fall.
“You all right Manny?” a guard shouted from the other end of the dark corridor.
Wren made a coughing noise and then said, “Fine, just choking on the pipe.”
The guard at the end of the corridor laughed. “I told you not to try and smoke that stuff. Mr. Harris’ tobacco is much better than the garbage you get from Jeller’s farm.”
Wren quickly made his way down the dark corridor while the other guard remained seated at the end, taking a bite out of a hunk of cheddar cheese and blocking the doorway that led to the lower levels of the dungeon. Wren quietly stepped behind the guard and picked up a large crossbow that was propped against the wall behind the guard. Just as he levelled the crossbow at the seated guard, the first guard’s body slipped free from the cell door and crumpled to the floor.
“Manny?” the seated guard asked. He started to lean forward as if to get up, but Wren fired the crossbow and the guard fell to the floor dead. Wren dropped the crossbow and then bent down and took the keys from the second guard. He opened the door and went down the stairs.
The lower level had a couple of sconces lit, but only a single guard stood watch over the cells.
More confusing than that was the fact that the cells were empty.
Had Liden finally done something right?
No. That wasn’t very likely.
Wren quietly moved to the single guard and socked the man in the face. The guard cried out and reached for his sword, but Wren had already circled behind the man.
“What the—who’s there?” the guard shouted.
With the guard’s back to him, Wren kicked the man square in the tailbone, snapping it and sending the guard crashing to the floor.
“GYAH!”
Wren pounced on him, pressing the guard into the stone floor. “The teenagers, where are they?”
The guard squeaked and tried to shake his head.
The invisible assassin pressed his knee down into the broken tailbone, eliciting a blood-curdling scream from the guard. “Where are they?!”
“They’re gone!” the guard shrieked. “Transferred.”
“Transferred where?” Wren bellowed, pressing the guard harder into the stone.
“Wiltys Plateau, that’s all I know.”
Wren snarled and struck the guard in the back of the head once more. The guard’s body went limp as the man lost consciousness. The assassin then used the keys to open a nearby cell and throw the unresponsive guard inside for good measure. After locking the cell door he threw the ring of keys into a nearby locked cell and then left the prison.
He raced back to his horse, gathered his backpack from under the brush, and then mounted the animal, pausing to quiet the steed when it pulled at its reins and twitched its ears side to side.
“It’s all right,” Wren said as he patted the animal on the neck. “Come on, we have work to do.” He urged the animal eastward, keeping up a grueling pace for a couple hours until the animal began wheezing and was too exhausted to do anything more than walk, dragging its hooves along the forest floor.
Knowing that the horse was likely beyond recovery, and that it would take several days at best for the animal to recoup, Wren slid off, removed the saddle and set the horse free. He then began jogging through the woods at a pace he knew he could maintain for another two hours before he too would need to stop.
He darted through trees and along trails, keeping away from any roads so as to avoid possible patrols. If the teens had been officially transferred, they were likely inside a wagon guarded by several soldiers. If the soldiers were smart, they would expect Wren to follow after them, and they might designate a few of the guards to set an ambush.
The first hour was uneventful, though jogging did aggravate the wound in Wren’s arm and create an annoying ache that throbbed up through his shoulder, which in turn made it more difficult to keep his mind on the task of running. After only ninety minutes, he had to stop and adjust his backpack so he could stretch his shoulders and try to work the ache out of his arm. A few minutes later, the ache was reduced to a bearable amount of pain and he resumed jogging once more, but this time he only went two more miles through the woods before he spotted firelight on the top of a small hillock in the forest.
Where there was a fire, there was a camp, and where soldiers camped, there would be lookouts on the watch. Wren thought of using more invisibility potion, but now that he knew the teens were on their way to Master Driscal’s tower, he decided against it, knowing he might need to use some of it on them in order to get them out unharmed.
Wren dropped to his knees and quietly removed his backpack. His eyes scanned the darkened trees around him while his hands foraged around for his mini-crossbow. Once he had the object in hand, he slid his backpack between two close-growing cedars and moved off into the night to find his first victim. The assassin used up precious time circling wide around the camp, but if he was right, he would be rewarded with at least one more horse, not to mention he would have the pleasure of killing Driscal’s helpers.
As he came around the northern side of the camp, he could hear rustling on the ground. Steps. They weren’t heavy enough to be an animal. These were soft and deliberate. Wren knelt next to a tree and waited as the steps came closer. The moon dipped behind a cloud above the forest canopy, making it nearly impossible to see, but Wren didn’t need the moonlight. The sounds were closer to the camp than he was, so he needed only wait for the lookout to pass between him and the campfire.
A shadow blocked the light of the fire for just over a second as the footsteps continued. Wren smiled and raised his weapon. Now that he had caught the movement in the darkness, it was much easier to aim at the man. Just as Wren placed his finger to the trigger, the moon came out from behind the clouds and cast just enough silvery light down through the trees that Wren could easily make out the soldier’s glistening helmet. Wren aimed his shot for the guard’s neck and fired.
Tha-bunk!
“Oolk!” the guard moaned as he collapsed to the ground.
Wren loaded a second bolt and quickly moved to the fallen mark. Wren pulled the guard’s own dagger and used it to end the man’s life. Then he moved toward the camp. The assassin’s feet fell upon the ground no harder than if his boots had been made of air. He stalked up the hillock, using the large trees to keep out of sight as he approached the two soldiers sitting near the fire.
“Ever been to Wiltys before?” one of them asked the other.
“Twice, but I’ve never taken anyone back there with me.”
“Yeah, it’s strange,” the first said. “Lady Ashlyn will be visiting Wiltys soon. I would have thought Driscal wouldn’t want any additional company there.”
The second leaned forward and poured some sort of drink. “At least the coffee is good,” he said. “Near the front the coffee was little better than brown
water that tasted of dirt.”
“It was dirt,” the first said. He yawned and then stood up. “I have to see a man about a horse,” he said. “Pour me a bit of coffee for when I get back.”
Wren looked beyond the two and saw three horses tied off nearby. A smile crossed his face. He raised the mini-crossbow and waited until the first guard had moved off a ways. Then, just as the second guard leaned forward, he fired.
The second guard caught the bolt in his forehead, but as he had been leaning forward, his body stayed upright, albeit a bit slumped. Wren then loaded his next bolt and waited. The first guard returned about a minute later and walked up to the other.
“Hey, you sleeping already?” he said with a soft kick to his comrade’s back.
Wren fired.
The bolt hit the standing guard in the stomach, doubling the man over as he stumbled backward and fell to the ground.
“Friederick!” he shouted.
Wren loaded a fourth bolt and walked toward the squirming man. “No one else here but me,” he said coldly.
The guard pushed up to his knees, struggling to pull his sword. Wren shook his head and fired again. The bolt pinned the guard’s sword-hand to the hilt and the guard cried out again in pain.
“ARGH!”
“How many more guards are there?” Wren asked.
“The shadows take you,” the guard spat.
Wren closed the distance with three quick steps and then kicked the guard in the chest, knocking him back to the ground. The guard writhed and snarled in pain as blood began to leak from his stomach.
“Nothing to be done for you now,” Wren said. “The bolt in your stomach was fixed with a barbed head. It’s a nasty bit of work. The more you move, the worse it cuts up your insides.”
The guard grit his teeth and sucked in each breath as though it were filled with fire. His eyes bulged a bit, and his free hand trembled.
“How many more guards?”
“Why should I tell you?”
Wren smiled and loaded one final bolt. “You are going to die either way. Tell me what I want to know and I will end your suffering quick.”
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