by Riley Keene
“So we go in hard,” Ermolt said, nodding. “We hit my place, get some serious arms and armor, and overpower whatever forces they have there.”
“And Ingmar will be there.” Athala tapped her nail to her front teeth. “You know, I really wouldn’t mind seeing a bunch of metal spikes jammed into his torso. See how he likes it.” She smiled. It was supposed to be playful, but from the look on her companion’s faces, it might have been a little more predatory than playful.
“Easy.” Elise put a hand on Athala’s, slowly sliding her thumb away from her mouth. “The problem is that we’re still in here. We don’t have a way to escape.”
“Well, we have the start of a plan,” Ermolt said, drawing their attention. He motioned towards Elise’s bed where her findings were hiding. “We have weapons. The details are a little fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure we just need to make our move.”
“That’s—” Elise paused, rubbing at her temples. “That’s not a plan. That’s just charging blindly and hoping for the best.”
“We don’t exactly have a lot of time.” Ermolt shrugged. “Either we go now, or we don’t go at all.”
“I hate to say it, but he’s right.” Athala looked down at her hands, mapping the faint outline of the lingering scar where Ingmar stabbed her. The wound was completely healed, but still the mark lingered. How many other marks would she have? “The only way we could form a better plan is by gathering information, and we don’t have the time to creep around and monitor guard movements. We have a day, maybe two at the most, and then he’ll have the spell and the dragon.”
“And we’ll still need enough time to get home, get some gear together, and run through the catacombs all over again.” Elise shook her head. “Alright,” she said finally with a sigh. “Let’s do whatever this is.”
“Making it up as we go along,” Ermolt said, fixing Elise with a grin. “Always my best move.”
“I want to say that I don’t know how I feel about this.” Elise shook her head and dug under the mattress of her bed. She pulled out the daggers and bracers she had stolen from the armory. “But I know exactly how I feel about it.”
“I can’t come up with anything better,” Athala said as she accepted one of the daggers as Elise handed it over. She didn’t really have a place to put it, so she just held it loosely in one hand.
“Well, I have a good feeling about this.” Ermolt fastened the bracers on and pulled the leather gauntlets over them. He let the bottoms overlap over the metal of the gauntlets. When he crossed his arms, it was obvious he could hide most of the metal.
Elise fastened the belt around herself, pulling the dagger sheaths along to sit against either hip. She tugged her tunic down low enough to cover them. “Although, one moment before we go.”
Ermolt and Athala stepped back, waiting quietly while Elise knelt on the floor. She murmured under her breath, but loud enough that Athala could hear.
She prayed to Ydia, beseeching the God of Life for the strength, speed, and luck to escape their unjust imprisonment. She asked for Ydia to watch for them, for if they failed their task they were likely to need guidance to the Beyond. A helping hand.
Athala was always concerned when Elise looked to Ydia for help. The Conscript's faith was tentative at best. Lip service rather than blind devotion. It was what made Athala realize she and Elise could work together, even though she was a Conscript. Elise was more aware and more critical than most Conscripts and Priests. She knew that the Gods were too busy with their own thing to pay attention to humanity.
So the fact that Elise was trying for favor now meant she was desperate. Which really, Athala could appreciate.
At the end of the prayer, Athala felt no response. There was no glow—as she sometimes saw on High Priests after service—and Athala didn’t feel better. But as Elise stood, she looked a little better. More centered, at least.
And so Athala let herself hope. Maybe this time Ydia would favor them. Maybe this time the God of Life would see their struggle and just lend the smallest bit of help. They weren’t asking for a miracle, just a breath of fate in their direction. Athala didn’t feel much better about their chances, but maybe it was enough.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Elise made her way out into the yard. The others followed, roughly flanking her on the right and left sides. From the rough plan Elise could concoct so quickly, they needed to use where they first entered Auernheim as an exit. It was the only place they could confidently say led to the outside.
The yard was empty, as most of the prisoners were in their cells, so they moved along the wall to avoid being noticed. It would only matter if anyone happened to look out a non-existent window, but it made Elise feel slightly better. The entrance was unguarded from the outside as expected, but Elise knew there would be guards on the other side.
“Alright,” Ermolt whispered as they approached the door, “what do we do from here?”
“We could stage a fight,” Athala said, keeping her voice down as well. “There will probably be too many guards to take on all at once time. So we can draw a couple out at a time. Maybe we’ll split their numbers. We can take on whoever comes out to break up the fight and then charge in and deal with the rest.”
“That makes sense,” Elise said.
“So you yell at the door,” Ermolt said to Athala, “and Elise and I will pretend to fight. Then as soon as the door closes behind them we turn on them.” The wizard nodded, and Elise felt a short burst of pride. Had this been as little as a bell ago, Athala would have argued or added some new fact about the doors or how prisons worked or something. She was learning the difference between appropriate and inappropriate times. Or she was incredibly nervous. After a moment, Elise decided it was likely that second part.
“Ready?” Elise asked, squaring her shoulders to Ermolt.
“Ready.” Ermolt turned to face her, bending at the knees to prepare for her attack.
Elise thought they looked fairly ridiculous, but if this worked it wouldn’t matter.
“Guards!” Athala yelled at the door. Elise hoped her voice wouldn’t echo and carry across the yard. “Help! Guards! Fight!”
Athala backed away. After a moment, a guard opened the door, looking out cautiously.
Elise immediately launched herself at Ermolt. She battered his chest with her fists, driving him back with the wild flurry of her strikes. Ermolt grunted at the impact. Elise had to make this look good, so she wasn’t holding back.
Ermolt tried to grab her wrists, but she wrenched away from his grasp. He took a ponderous swing at her head, and she easily ducked under the blow.
While she could go all-out without harming Ermolt, he had to be more careful. His unarmed combat training and strength made his own punches potentially dangerous, even to someone as tough as she was.
Elise grabbed a hold of Ermolt’s arm as his latest punch flew over her head, and she used it as leverage to leap up onto him. She was hanging from his shoulder as though trying to drag him down. Ermolt only set his feet and held her up. He grabbed at her with his free arm, but she clambered around onto his back, grabbing a fistful of his hair.
Ermolt yelled and reaching up behind his shoulders with both hands, trying to pull her away. Elise shimmied and twisted, keeping him from getting a solid grip.
The guard finally turned and barked something Elise couldn’t quite hear. But two more guards joined him at the door and the three of them rushed over as a group. A fourth guard came out as well and headed towards Athala. The door closed behind him.
“What are you three doing out here?” the fourth guard asked Athala, scowling. “The yard is supposed to be empty for another hour.”
“Well, uh, I just, I mean, we just—” Athala trailed off, looking down at the ground, avoiding the guard’s gaze. “I’m sorry, we, uh, we’re still new. We don’t know the, um, the schedule.”
“Stop that! Get off of him!” one of the guards barked at Elise as the three reached the fight. “What’s going on h
ere?”
“She’s unhinged!” Ermolt yelled, grabbing onto Elise’s hand and trying to use his meaty fingers to pry free her grip on his hair. “I didn’t do anything! I just wanted to know what she was doing out here with her friend!”
“You pig!” Elise clawed at his grip with her free hand, putting more of her own weight on the hand that was gripping his hair. Ermolt immediately flinched and reached back and grabbed Elise’s shoulder, supporting some of her weight to keep her from ripping a chunk out of his scalp. “I’ll kill you!”
“Get down off of him and calm down!” the guard said, pulling out his baton. The other two began to circle around, surrounding the struggling pair.
“Let’s do this!” Elise whispered in Ermolt’s ear.
Ermolt planted his feet and flung Elise with both arms at the guard directly in front of him. She let go of Ermolt and flipped in the air, planting both of her feet on the guard’s chest and kicking out. The man hit the ground hard as Elise landed next to him. His head thumping against the dirt, rattling his helmet. As soon as he came to rest, he coughed hard and curled up around himself.
The other two guards rushed towards Elise, running past Ermolt. He moved forward to intercept them, swinging his arm in a wide arc. Elise winced as the metal bracer on his right wrist slammed into the back of the helmet of the guard on the left. The woman’s legs turned to jelly and she stumbled one more step before crumpling to the ground.
While the guard on the right continued rushing towards Elise, having not seen what happened to the other, the guard standing next to Athala saw the whole exchange. Before he could draw breath to shout a warning, Athala fumbled with the dagger Elise had given her and slammed it, sheath and all, into the side of the man’s head.
Elise tried to keep from laughing. In fact, she tried to focus on the guard that was rushing her, but Athala smashed the dagger against his helmet again. The guard stumbled and dropped to one knee. He managed to get a hand up to try and protect his head from the next strike, but she just smashed his fingers against the helmet with the pommel of her weapon.
Before Elise could shout anything encouraging, the final guard descended on her. Elise reached under her tunic and pulled out one of the dagger she’d hidden there. The guard expressed confusion and anger with a wordless cry. Elise lunged, swiping at him with the blade, making him flinch back.
His flinch put him right into Ermolt’s reach.
Ermolt grabbed him by the shoulder and flipped him bodily over his hip, slamming the man head-first into the dirt. The guard rolled over and put both hands to his face. He groaned in pain. Ermolt drove his foot into the guard’s gut, causing the man to double over and retch, clutching his stomach.
Behind Ermolt and Elise, the two guards they’d struck at first were both struggling to get back to their feet. The first had managed to push himself up on his hands and knees but he was still coughing. The second was sitting down, one hand on the side of her helmet as if trying to get the world to resolve into one single image instead of two.
Elise took a running leap at the female guard, tackling her onto her back. The force rattled her still-recovering wits in her helmet when it hit the ground. Elise straddled her chest and pinned the guard’s arms over her head with one hand. The other was used to repeatedly punch the woman in the face where the open helm didn’t protect.
The woman stilled. She was conscious and aware, but too badly dazed to offer further resistance.
Elise looked up to find Ermolt kicking the other guard in the ribs, sending him back to the ground. He followed the rolling heap of a man, kicking him again, this time in the lower back. The guard cried out and Elise winced. His padded armor would only help so much against Ermolt’s strong legs. The man gave up on trying to stand up and curled in on himself, groaning in pain.
Ermolt caught Elise’ eye and nodded as if he were satisfied that the guards were dealt with. But Elise looked to Athala, who was still beating the fourth guard around the head with her sheathed dagger, and ran to help. Ermolt let out a small shout when he finally realized there was another guard at all.
Athala had managed to force the guard back against the wall and was still swinging wildly with her sheathed dagger. The occasional cracks to the helmet kept the guard too distracted to think clearly. He had his arms up defensively as he tried to swat away her attacks to give himself a moment’s breathing room to even just draw his weapon.
Elise ran up and slammed her shoulder into the guard’s gut, flattening him against the wall. Athala backed away quickly, breathing hard. The guard tried to draw his baton. Elise brought her dagger across quickly, slashing a hole in the man’s sleeve. She left a red line in the flesh below. The guard yelped and dropped the weapon.
Before he could recover, Elise drove her fist into his gut, doubling him over. She took a step back, and threw a high kick at his head. The impact was good and she felt it all the way up her leg. Her heel rung off his helmet and his head swung back up into the wall.
“Alright,” Ermolt said as the guard slumped down to the floor. “Anyone hurt?”
“N-no,” Athala stammered. Her whole body was trembling with a level of adrenaline she was likely unaccustomed to.
“You did great.” Elise sheathed her dagger and quickly pulled Athala in for a hug. “Just breathe and calm down. You’re alright.”
Athala took a few deep breaths, leaning into Elise as she began to calm. “Thank you.”
Elise continued to comfort Athala as Ermolt bent over the nearest guard. He tugged the padded armor shirt off the man before putting it on himself. It looked like a tight fit but Ermolt tensed his shoulders, and Elise heard the ripping of seams parting in a few places. He also fumbled underneath the guard’s chin, unstrapping the helmet and fitting it over his own head. For such a hard-headed barbarian, the helmet seemed to fit better than the armor. The guard groaned and Ermolt pushed him over, laying him down horizontally instead of leaving him seated up against the wall. He grabbed the guard’s baton, hefting the light weapon for a moment before shrugging.
“We ready to go?” he asked, turning to face them. He looked ridiculous, but Elise said nothing. She smiled her best sweet smile and nodded to him. Athala had mostly caught her breath so she shakily followed suit.
They headed towards the exit door the guards had come through. Luckily, no one had decided to investigate the sounds of the scuffle. Either no one was close enough to the door to overhear, or they had already expected some amount of a struggle after being told the guards were going to break up a fight. Ermolt took two long steps towards the door and threw the momentum into a kick, planting his foot in the dead center. The door flew open hard, apparently having been left unlocked for the guards to return when they had dealt with the fight.
Ermolt didn’t hesitate and rushed head first in at the surprised guards stationed inside. There were only two of them that Elise could see, but one of them managed to yell for help before Ermolt was upon him. A backhand swing with the baton sent the guard spinning a full circle before he stumbled back and collapsed.
Elise charged the other guard, letting out a shout as she drove her shoulder into him. She shoved him back against the wall and he hit it hard. He quickly took a swing at Elise’s head as she stepped back to draw her daggers. The attack forced her back, allowing the guard to regain his footing.
It only lasted a moment.
Elise came in hard and fast with both daggers, opening rips in his padded armor. She forced him back to the wall as he tried to ward her away with another swipe of his baton. Elise instead leaned into it, stepping inside his reach and driving one blade through his armor and into his shoulder. It was only about a rhen of the blade but it caused enough pain that he dropped his baton and grabbed at her wrist to pull the dagger out. Elise reacted by bringing her other hand across and pounding the pommel of her other dagger into the guard’s cheek, barely past the left edge of the helmet. His eyes crossed and he sprawled against the wall, arms going loose as he flailed
his way to the floor.
“Go!” Elise yelled over her shoulder as she danced away from the flailing man, but Ermolt was already moving with Athala right behind him. Elise took up the rear and they made their way through the guard post, heading towards the next room. This is where they had been taken through to change into the prisoner outfit of cheap, easily recognizable sackcloth clothes.
It was one more step on the path of backtracking their entrance to freedom.
Chapter Thirty
The room was empty, save for crates of the cheap prisoner’s clothes. The periodic oil lantern, strung up just out of reach, illuminated the stone walls and floor just barely enough to see. Ermolt was fairly surprised—so far Auernheim hadn’t seemed like the place that worried about wasting resources. All of the money from outside influence seemed to keep this place running just beyond efficiency, but someone was obviously unimpressed with this tiny room’s function.
Ermolt could hear the thumping boots of charging guards coming from behind them, drawn from whatever rooms were around the guard post by the shouts and sounds of the brief combat. He had little desire to stay and fight, so he urged Elise and Athala forward as quietly as possible. If there was one thing to say about Auernheim, it had a lot of guards. Likely a byproduct of its corruption. But Ermolt didn’t think of the guards themselves as bad. The guards were just regular folks trying to work to provide for their family. How many of them could really know what evils happened deep in the halls of Auernheim?
An alarm bell started ringing furiously behind them. It was loud, even though the sound had to travel through wooden doors and stone walls. The noise caused Elise to startle, and Athala uttered a single curse under her breath. The three of them pushed forward into the hallway beyond the storage room, but Ermolt could sense the fear and confusion coming from his companions. Things were starting to look impossible.