by Riley Keene
“Oh, I’ll be sure to tell Katchen that,” one of the guards in padded armor shouted over the clanking of the other guards’ armor. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that nothing was done to the side of her head.”
Ermolt made a weak sobbing noise. He closed his eyes and let himself be dragged along. Giving a name to the corpse likely drained all of the fight from him.
Elise struggled a moment longer, but a third guard joined the two flanking her, and together they lifted her off the ground, denying her the leverage to fight effectively.
Athala just shrugged her shoulders up around her ears, trying to appear small as she was led down a side passage. They were dragged through another door back into the more familiar administrative hallways.
It wasn’t long before they arrived at a set of doors that Elise remembered from the map Athala had drawn in the dirt. The exit that wasn’t really an exit.
Elise looked to Athala. The wizard’s eyes were wide and once more her skin was glossy and pallid.
Elise felt the color drain from her own cheeks as they were guided into the door Ermolt had told them was likely where the chopping block was. Her eyes filled with useless tears as she realized they were going to be put to death.
“W-wait,” Athala stammered. Elise heard the hitch of her breath and realized she was trying to hold back from crying as well. “We haven’t, um, been sentenced or anything! You can’t just—”
“Shut up, prisoner,” a guard said, his tone quick and biting. “We don’t need a magistrate to tell us what to do with murderers.”
“We—that is, we’re—” Elise tried to both shrink back and rally her confidence at the same time, failing at either.
“It was me,” Ermolt said, his voice nearly breaking. “Leave them out of this.”
“Yeah, yeah.” One of the guards behind Ermolt shoved him on roughly. “We’ll let the boss decide if he cares enough to try and figure out who did and didn’t do anything.”
The guards stopped about halfway down the hall and separated the three of them into cells so tiny they were barely half again as wide as Ermolt’s shoulders.
This area seemed like an entirely different prison. And it was run like one too. Like clockwork, a clerk came along and jotted down notes about the new arrivals. The guards who brought them in left but there was a regular patrol that walked the halls. These guards were fully armed and armored with splint mail, swords, and shields.
After about half a bell of silence, Elise concluded that the guards were done with them for a while. The situation was bleak, but they had to plan their next move.
“They can’t just execute us,” Elise finally said, testing her reasoning out loud. “Even if it was just for the guard, they’d need to put us in front of a magistrate. We could argue our case pretty well for it being an accident. Yes, maybe we won’t get instantly released but I don’t think they’d sentence us to death. You didn’t mean it, Ermolt.”
“Technically,” Athala said as she approached the narrow barred window in her door and peeking out. “Yes, technically we could use desperation as a defense, especially since we were imprisoned without justification or documentation. If the magistrate is merciful, he might be convinced that our escape attempt was the most reasonable course of action. Magistrates don’t like defenses that depend on a long explanation of what happened.”
“Listen,” Ermolt said, his voice a low rumble from somewhere around the floor of the cell next to Elise’s. “If we get in front of a magistrate, I’ll take the fall. I did it. I deserve whatever I get, even if it’s—” he trailed off, letting the silence hang as the three of them considered the possibility.
“You can’t talk like that. We’ll get out of this fine,” Elise said, lying through her teeth. Her words sounded hollow to her ears, but she hoped the distance and stone would help hide her lies. “All three of us. Even if it takes us breaking out of here, too.”
“How?” Ermolt asked. “Just break through the locked doors, deal with the armed—not to mention armored—guards with our bare hands, and find our way to an exit that might not exist?”
“What other options do we have?” Elise snapped. “We can’t stay here. We were already in a rush to get out, and that situation hasn’t changed.”
“I think it has,” Athala said. Her voice was quiet, and the tone nearly broke Elise’s heart. She was giving up. “If we try to escape from here without being properly prepared, we won’t be recaptured and thrown back in. We’ll be killed on the spot. And even if we aren’t, it won’t look good for us when someone looks at our case and sees that we immediately attempted to escape again. Magistrates will see attempts to flee as an admission of guilt.”
“So we can’t stop him,” Elise growled. “Ingmar is going to get everything he wants and just walk away.” She punched the door to her cell, rattling it on its hinges.
“I would dispute the idea that I got everything I want,” came a smug voice from outside the cells. “But now that you mention it, I can’t think of anything else I could have reasonably asked for.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“To be perfectly honest,” Ingmar continued. “I am a little upset about having lost most of my hair and part of one ear burned off. But that was yesterday. I got everything I could have asked for today, and I believe in focusing on the bright side of things. Let’s see—”
Ermolt pulled himself up off the ground and slowly walked to the barred window of his cell. Anger grew, a flame rising to burn away his guilt, causing the hairs on the back of his head to stand up.
Ingmar was counting off on his fingers, and Ermolt wanted to break every one of them. “I got to torture Athala in retribution for her lies, I got the secret of the spell—maybe from the barbarian instead of torturing it out of Athala, but I got it just the same—and my employer already expressed such gratitude for my service. There’s even a purse on my desk with enough coin in it to keep my daughter’s illness at bay for the next ten years.
“And now, the delicious cherry on top of the fluffy, creamy pastry of this wonderful day, here you are. Under impenetrable lock and overwhelming guard. By tomorrow morning, you will be cleaned up without half the fuss I expected.”
“Cleaned up?” Ermolt snarled, wrapping his fingers around the bars in between him and Ingmar. “What do you mean?”
“Try not to be so naive.” Ingmar waved a hand at him dismissively. “I was going to try to have you all killed as soon as I had the missing runes in hand. It’s going to be much easier now.” He shrugged. “There is a slightly greater risk now, since I have you scheduled for a morning execution. If the barbarian lied, you three will take the secret to your graves. But I will then have all the time in the world to figure out the mystery. And this escape attempt has me pretty convinced that you did not lie.”
“The whole reason I told you—” Ermolt began.
“Of course I lied,” Ingmar interrupted, rolling his eyes.
Ermolt roared with a mixture of frustration and anger. He had been played. The conniving little merchant, a man too much of a coward to fight fair or head on had played him, Ermolt, the well-oiled barbarian fiddle. He roared again and pounded on the door to his cell.
Ingmar backed away from Ermolt’s metal cage, but otherwise looked unaffected. Ermolt vowed to make him regret that smug smile. One way or another.
“But really, why would I leave you alive? Even if your situation renders you unable to stop us from succeeding today, we have more to accomplish than just this. You three need to be dealt with just because you know the dragon exists. The fact that you can muscle your way through twelve guards in under a minute makes you too much of a threat to consider any course besides execution.”
“You’re a monster,” Elise snarled at him through the barred window in her door.
“I would have liked for this to go differently.” Ingmar gave Elise the most fake apologetic frown Ermolt had ever seen. “If we had more time, we could have talked about this like adults. Give
n enough time, I like to think I could have made you see reason and join with us instead of being forced to resort to threats, torture, and execution.”
“That’s unlikely,” Athala said. Ermolt was surprised to see anger on her face as well, distorting her usually calm features. “I’m pretty sure you would have used any possible excuse to use torture. You enjoy it too much to let an opportunity pass.”
“It’s probably the only thing he’s good at,” Ermolt added, giving Ingmar a sneer through the barred window. “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If you were halfway competent at magic, you could have figured out the spell on your own. You would never have needed to put your employer at risk or even show your face. But the only tool you have is torture. You’re the one who turned this into a mess to be cleaned up.”
Ingmar’s face twisted into a sneer for a moment before he smoothed his features. “You may be right. But, regardless, time was a not luxury I could afford. Word of the discovery of the dragon had already reached my employer. If he was forced to wait for me to reason with you, I would have appeared weak. And if he thought I was too weak to do what needed to be done, he wouldn’t have given me what I need to help my daughter.”
“Why are you even still acting like this is about her?” Athala asked. “If it was, you could have offered to let me take the spell to leave the dragon to your boss. You just want power. Either you want the spell for your own gain, or you want it in the service of your employer.” She pressed her face against the barred window, trying to make eye contact with Ingmar. “Either way, you’re making a stupid mistake. That spell is too powerful.”
“And it’s not too powerful for you?” Ingmar smirked before turning to her side of the hallway. “You haven’t told me why you even want the spell. I dare you to tell me it’s anything but hunger for power. Do you even have a greater cause? Are you going to use it in the service of making a better tomorrow? Having known you for barely two days, I might believe it was pure curiosity, but then you would be the one willing to give the spell up to me in exchange for information. Maybe I would have let you help with untangling it? You have a brilliant mind and you might have been an asset. You would have had nothing to lose but control of the spell itself.”
“Don’t lie to her,” Elise said, her tone cold. “You always intended to kill us. Don’t act like there’s any possible outcome of this situation where you don’t plan for our deaths.”
Ingmar seemed to think about it for a moment and then he shrugged. “If it comforts you, this whole escape debacle has been an excellent distraction. Scrambling my men to block your escape threw my whole operation for a loop. I need to get back to the Sanctum to get those inscriptions together so I can begin the spell ritual.” He fixed Elise with a glare. “Regardless of what my plans were, your own actions were what made your deaths the only possible outcome.”
Ingmar did not wait for a response. He just simply walked away. Ermolt could hear his footsteps marching back down the hall, but the man himself quickly passed out of sight of the narrow windows.
After a few moments of silence that seemed to stretch for bells, the guard patrol marched past. Ermolt backed away from his door as the sound of shuffling, clanking armor rose as the guard approached, and then faded after they passed.
“Well, that isn’t very encouraging,” Elise said once the guard was out of earshot.
“I agree,” Athala said, returning to the window. “If we’re scheduled to be executed in the morning, we’re never going to see a magistrate. The only logical course of action is escape.”
“But how?” Ermolt shook his head, even though he knew Elise and Athala couldn’t see him. “This place is nothing like Auernheim proper. It’s like it’s run by guards who actually know how to keep things in order.” He shrugged. “Where do we even begin?”
“Well, we have to start with the doors,” Elise said. “Do you think you could break them down, Ermolt?”
“Given time.” Ermolt moved back over to the door to examine it more closely. “But that would only be a good idea if we were all in the same cell. If I waited for the patrol to pass and then smashed against the door, even if I did break it down before the guard came back around, I would have to do it two more times for you and Athala.”
“Alright,” Elise said, “so we could get the guards to open the cell doors and then overpower them.”
“How?” Athala asked. “They aren’t going to just open the doors for us. Look at the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. They aren’t even going to open the doors to feed us.”
“We could pretend to be sick,” Elise said, the desperation in her voice becoming more apparent. “Make ourselves vomit, call for help?”
“You’re assuming they’d care enough to help.” Ermolt sighed and backed away from the door again. He lowered himself to the mat pressed up against the corner of the room. “They’re just going to kill us tomorrow. They don’t need us to be in great shape for that.”
“We could pick a fight?” Elise said, banging on her door for emphasis. “Shout insults at the guard until he comes in here to shut us up!”
“Won’t work. Watch the next time the guard walks by,” Athala said. Her voice grew quieter and Ermolt could imagine her slumping to the mat on the floor as well. “The guards don’t have the keys. He’d probably figure out that we were trying to rile him up in the time it took him to go and get them.”
“And if we actually said something bad enough to get him to follow through on it, he’d probably have the chance to bring friends back with him.” Ermolt leaned his head back against the wall. The stone of the cell continued for quite a ways up, making the cell feel like a vault. “I’d be surprised if we didn’t get exactly the ass-kicking we deserved.”
Elise was quiet for a moment. “Well, I’d pray to Ydia, but seeing how well that did for our escape, I don’t think she’s paying attention today.” Ermolt heard shuffling as Elise stepped back from the door. “I guess we just give it our best shot in the morning when they come to get us.”
“Slow down there,” Ermolt said flatly, trying to lighten the mood. “That’s a pretty complicated plan. Maybe back up and break it down for us barbarians.”
There was no laugh in response. “We just—we just do what we can,” Elise said. She sighed loud enough for Ermolt to hear. “I’ll make as much trouble as I can and when they’re paying attention to me, you see if you can take a few of them down. If we can overpower them, we’ll have an easier time once their numbers are a little thinned out.”
“I’m sure they won’t be expecting prisoners scheduled for death to put up a fight,” Ermolt said. His anger was still burning, and it felt good. At least, it felt better than the sorrow that boiled deep within, waiting for a quiet moment to burst forward and remind him of his terrible deed.
“It’s not much of a plan,” Athala chimed in.
“I know,” Elise said with another heavy sigh. “But it’s that, or we just let ourselves be put to death.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Athala slept fitfully.
It wasn’t just that she unable to get comfortable in the stone box of her cell, although that was a contributing factor.
Innocently enough, it was the rattle of armor from the passing patrol. The sound would rip her attentions from the calming caress of sleep to the very real idea that she was to be executed in the morning.
As she lay awake, Athala tried to keep track of the bells she never heard. Without natural lighting it was incredibly difficult, but eventually she realized the guards passed on every quarter bell. From there it was a matter of counting.
In between the cacophonous passing of the patrol, Athala listened for signs of her companions sleeping. Since their cells were across the hall she had to strain.
From the vicinity of Elise’s cell, Athala heard a mixture of even breathing and sobbing throughout the night. Athala wondered if Elise was crying in her sleep, was frustrated by the patro
l, or was just trying to meditate and pray her way to freedom.
From directly across the hall, Athala could hear Ermolt pace. He paced for most of the night—at least during her own waking hours—but every once in a while he would throw himself down onto the mat with a heavy sigh. It wouldn’t last long. He would just return to pacing.
It was because of this mixture of counting the bells and listening to her companions that Athala was awake when the guards came for them.
The approaching guards filled the hallway with a confusing clamor of metal armor and shouted orders. Athala rose to her door and watched them advance through the tiny spaces between the bars.
Seven of the guards wore the splint mail they had seen on the guards in this area, and one of them wore the more familiar padded armor.
The ninth was a giant of a man. He was Ermolt’s size, and shared his same complexion and dark wavy hair.
“It’s time,” barked the guard in the padded armor. He rattled his baton against the bars of the windows in their doors. When he passed Athala’s door he refused to look her in the eye. It gave her some small amount of satisfaction. “Get them out and down to the block.”
Keys rattled in locks and the doors opened, showing the futility of the plan Elise had tried to outline the night before.
That didn’t stop the Conscript from trying, however.
Athala listened as Elise backed up against the far edge of her cell but Athala knew she had nothing to defend herself with besides an empty bucket. From the sound of things, Elise still swung the bucket around by its rope handle and even landed a blow. It must have had no effect because no grunt of pain came. Instead the bucket quickly clattered out of the open cell door and into the hallway, coming to rest against the door of the cell next to Athala. Elise thrashed and kicked as they pulled her out into the hallway, but they just grew rougher with her until one eventually punched her across the jaw, bloodying her lip and stunning her long enough for them to close manacles over her wrists.