There was precious little sound except the wind in the eaves, trickling of the main water fountains, and the murmurs of the guards as they talked amongst themselves. At least this way Riana had a clear notion of where most of the guards were. Still, this low amount of noise bothered her. She was used to the ambient noises of a forest at night. Being smack in the middle of a city was not an experience she cared for. Even Estole was not as cut off from nature as this.
Being the expert at sneaking, Riana led the way, moving lightly on her feet and with both ears strained to the max. She’d hear something long before she could see it. Her eyes were good, but it would take the eyes of a cat to see in this poor lighting. She peered around three corners, leading them along the back of the buildings, only mostly sure she knew where she was going. It looked more than a little different in the dark compared to her daytime tour.
“I think we’re almost there,” Ash breathed to her, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
Riana nodded agreement, then realized he likely couldn’t see that movement, so paused long enough to put her mouth next to his ear. “If I’m right, it’s three more buildings down, then two over.”
Ash gave a grunt of acknowledgement. “Lead on, partner.”
Smiling, she did so, praying this went right. She had a gut feeling it wouldn’t. While they could fight their way out, Riana would really, truly prefer not to.
They eased down three more buildings, then stopped at the back edge to get a good look. From this angle, they had more moonlight pouring out over the area, and there were three lanterns lit along each side of their targeted building. Those lanterns shed plenty of light for Riana to see by.
For the dozen guards stationed all along the perimeter of the building as well.
Swearing softly, Ash propped his head to rest directly on top of hers, his chest pressed along her back in a familiar and comfortable manner. In a flash, Riana realized that this was what she missed, working with Woelfel: these casual little touches between her and Ash. It just wasn’t the same working with the other man. She missed Ash too much in the process.
Pressing a kiss against her temple, Ash breathed into her hair, “Missed you too, dearheart, but focus.”
“You started it,” she breathed back, accusingly.
Ash snorted, but didn’t deny it. Instead, he pulled out a pair of magical glasses from his shirt pocket and gave the situation a close study. “Me thinks…breaking in is not possible.”
Riana could have told him that without the glasses. “The watch is much tighter here than anywhere else on the grounds.”
“Likely the royal family’s chambers are just as tightly guarded. But I grant you the point. Something about this tells me that they’ve had people try to break into here before.”
Or they were worried someone would try it. Riana had seen signs that Zelman would drain his people dry for funds in order to meet his own ambitions. The elaborate parties he threw on a weekly basis despite being at war was a clear indication of where his priorities lay. If you drove someone hard enough into a corner, they’d eventually fight back, no matter the odds.
“We’re not going to be able to do this with just the two of us.” Ash eased back, encouraging her with a hand on her arm to follow him out. “Let’s leave before we’re caught.”
Riana was all for that. In truth, she wasn’t really that disappointed. No one really thought that breaking into the treasury would work. They had done it more just to test the theory if it could be done or not. Well, that and to shut Edvard up.
They retraced their steps carefully back the way they had come. Riana was hyper aware of the time, and of the horizon, as she did not want dawn to break while they were still inside. They had spent at least a half hour getting to this point, the large clock on the main tower having chimed out the time as they moved. That left them a maximum of two hours before daybreak. As long as nothing went wrong, that was enough for them to make it all the way back to Woelfel’s.
Of course, that very thought invited trouble.
Almost within sight of the side gate they had used to get in, Riana saw a shadow detach itself from the wall. Swearing, she grabbed Ash and flattened him to the wall, making their silhouettes as narrow as possible. It left them pressed tightly together, almost indecently so.
Ash, in a strangely jovial mood, whispered, “Now is hardly the time, dearheart.”
Riana leveled a Look on him. “You have been hanging about Woelfel far too long.”
“Can’t argue that. What are you seeing that I don’t?”
“A guard on the side gate.”
Now it was his turn to swear. “Is he staying?”
“He doesn’t look ready to leave anytime soon.” Other than that, she didn’t know.
In one accord, they turned and went the other direction, toward a different part of the back wall. Better to debate what to do next without a possible audience ready to chime in. Only when they were four buildings away, with the gate well out of sight, did Riana dare to even breathe. “Now what?”
“We find a low part of the wall to hop,” Ash answered promptly. “Either that, or we find a place where we can get enough of a leg up to get over.”
Riana eyed the fifteen foot wall looming above their heads. “That be quite the hurtle to jump. Even if we find a place inside, what’s to break our fall on the outside?”
“I can manage it once we’re over,” Ash promised. “I just don’t dare use magic in here. There’s too many alarms that’ll go off.”
He had the eyes to detect things like that, not her. Riana trusted his judgment on this. “Then let’s scout around and see if we can find something.”
If they had been on the outside, trying to get in, Riana would have written finding something to climb on as a complete impossibility. The guards were completely paranoid about people hopping over the wall, and there was a hundred foot clearance on all sides to make it as difficult as possible. However, they didn’t appear to take the same care with the inside. It stood to reason, right? Why try to prevent thieves from making their escape, when odds were they couldn’t get in to begin with?
Riana blessed their shortsightedness. Or perhaps it was their laziness. She found a collection of crates tossed carelessly about behind one of the buildings. Judging from the smell, and the compartments inside the crate, this was the wine cellar for the palace. The building itself didn’t stand very tall, suggesting it had a deeper basement, but the crates caught her full interest. Stacked up, they should give her plenty of height to get over, assuming that the weight and balance of them remained sturdy enough to climb.
The crates were roughly two feet by two feet, a perfect cube. In perfect unison, Riana and Ash started stacking them up like a staircase. One, then two stacked, then three, and so forth. They kept them flush against the wall to offer some stability and of course to give them easy access to the top. There was a slight hitch in that there wasn’t enough of the crates to actually reach the top with this method. Ash went back down one, stealing from the bottom “steps” to help build up the top, but even still they were one short.
Ash lent her a knee and shoulder to boost her up and over to the top. Riana landed flat on her belly and stayed there, peering in all directions. It looked safe enough for him to come up.
However, Ash shook his head when she offered a hand. “Better knock some of the crates loose, make it less obvious what we did,” he whispered to her.
Good point. No sense in advertising that someone had come and left again clandestinely. It would just heighten security and make their jobs harder later. So she stayed in a semi-crouch and kept a lookout as he went down and carefully scattered the crates about again. It made a little noise, but not much, as he set them down as gently as possible.
He was running out of room to maneuver in climbing back up, which made Riana nervous. She popped her head up a little farther, looking beyond the immediate area.
And that’s when she saw them.
Two
bored guards, not chatting, just strolling silently along on their patrol route. Riana’s heart flipped into her throat and she waved at Ash frantically, trying to silently get his attention. They had fifteen, perhaps twenty seconds until those guards were on top of them.
Ash’s back was to her, he didn’t see her, and Riana couldn’t call out a warning without giving the whole game away. In desperation, she tried the only thing she could: she screamed at him through their bond, an emotional sense of DANGER.
Perhaps he heard her. Perhaps he felt her panic. Either way, battle instincts had him off the crates in a flash, taking one of them from the top with him, so that he landed on the ground in a crouch. Without a second’s hesitation, he flipped the crate over the top of his head, angled so that it looked like it was just leaning against the stack, but hiding him from sight.
Riana flattened herself to the top of the wall and didn’t even breathe.
The guards went right up to the crates and stopped dead. “Again?” one of them asked his compatriot, tone more resigned than aggravated. “We’ve told them over and over, don’t stack crates back here.”
“Like they listen to us.”
“But seriously, this is a huge security breach. What if someone used these to get over the wall?”
“They’d have to get inside first.”
“Alright, point, but what if they accidentally caught fire? It’s a dry winter down here so far; one careless match or lantern, poof!”
“That I see happening before thieves use them to sneak out. In fact, we had a small fire outside the kitchens last week.”
“I heard about that one. Should we try to move these things?”
Riana mentally started swearing. If they did that, Ash would be exposed in a second. She readied her throwing daggers and got a knee up under her. If they went for him, she’d jump down and take them out. It would likely alert any guard within hearing, but she couldn’t just stand idly by and let Ash take them both on. He was not an expert at hand to hand combat like she was.
::Riana. Don’t move.::
The thought came so clearly from Ash that she blinked, almost forgetting the situation they were in. Granted, they had been working on telepathic communication for weeks, but they had never actually gone through. Had…had their bond finally connected at a high enough level that they now truly were telepathic?
::Celebrate that later, dearheart,:: Ash scolded warmly.
::I’m a woman, I can multi-task,:: she shot back.
To this, he drawled, ::Do you really want to make me laugh with guards hovering above my head?::
Oh. Right. Good point. Riana clamped her mouth and mind shut.
Fortunately for all, the first guard disagreed after a moment of thought, “Can’t do it right this second, we’ll miss our check-in at the next spot, and you-know-who is paranoid enough as it is. I’m not having him send people over to check on us. I’ll skip that lecture, thanks.”
“Well, alright, but let’s at least make note of this and try to get back later?”
“Sure, I’d hate to have another fire to deal with. That last one was a pain.”
Riana heard them move off, then pause.
“Wait, should we get a quick count of how many crates there are first? You know he’s going to ask that.”
“Oh. Hmm. That’s probably a good idea. I don’t want to answer ‘lots,’ he hates it when we do that. Let’s both count, see if end up with the same number.”
The guards went over the area twice, counting aloud and pointing at the crates. Riana didn’t even dare peep over the edge of the wall, as motion attracted attention faster than anything else. Her bright red hair was only semi-covered in a hat right now as well, as it had been knocked askew when she had scrambled up.
Fortunately, they were satisfied with their count and left within minutes, heading along their patrol route, discussing what their boss would do when he learned about this. Riana continued to breathe shallowly until they were nearly out of hearing range and only then did she dare to lift her head. ::Safe to move?::
::Give them another minute. They’re almost completely out of sight. See anyone else?::
Panning the area, she took a good, hard look and strained her hearing. ::No.::
::Time for me to move, then.:: Ash shifted the crates back quickly, maximizing speed over silence, and made it to the top of the wall in record time. Even then, Riana felt sure that time was their enemy and every movement he made took far too long.
As soon as he gained the top, Ash threw a magical line over the outer edge of the wall, giving them a rope to climb down with. Riana scampered down and didn’t breathe easily until they were on the opposite street of the palace road, well away from the watchmen. Only then did she feel like her nerves weren’t going to snap from stress.
They paused on a side street, only shadows cloaking them, so they were hardly in the clear yet. Riana started to suggest hiring a night carriage when Ash blew out a breath and whirled, hugging her tight to him. He was overflowing with elation and relief, adrenaline still spiking. “I can’t believe we just did that.”
“Broke in and out of the palace grounds or transcended into telepathy?” she asked, hugging him back just as hard. “Both are the stuff of legends.”
“Both. Either.” Laughing, he pulled back a few inches and then kissed her soundly on the lips.
Riana blinked. Granted, the kiss was nice, but…. “Now you kiss me?”
“Blame it on the adrenaline.” Leaning in, he kissed her again, more thoroughly this time, lips lingering.
Since her mouth was rather occupied, she had to scold him mentally. ::Your romantic timing is off, darling.::
::I can stop, if you wish?::
::Do and die.:: Now that he had finally made a move, Riana would skewer him if he tried to go back to being merely wizard-partners. She would have elaborated on this, but the kiss was a very nice one indeed and demanded her full attention. Winding her arms around his neck, Riana settled into a moment of pure enjoyment.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Edvard took the news of Maddox and his northern approach with a bellow, some cursing, and tossing several reports into the air. He looked ready to flip a few tables as well, but Tierone and Bria were seated there, and he did not dare cross either sibling. “A thousand soldiers! Maddox is up there with a thousand soldiers?! What are we going to do?”
The mini caller sitting on the table lit up with Ashlynn’s voice. “There’s only one thing to do. We have to put in a mobile barrier like we have for the southern border.”
Broden saw sense as soon as she said it. There was no other way to protect both areas without running their wizards ragged. They were nearly exhausted as it was, trying to maintain a traditional barrier around Ganforth day and night. Granted, the academy had its own barrier locked onto the building, so they could evacuate into it if they needed to, but it would be a very tight squeeze. It would not be something they could do long term.
Bracing himself against the table top, Edvard asked, “Can you get it up quickly?”
“Actually, Master started building this in between the other three things he’s juggling. He has part of it up already. If I can steal three people and do something makeshift, I think we can pull it off in a day. It’s not as big of an area as the southern border—we don’t need as much time to build it. Assuming that Lorcan and Kirsty can keep the wall up and functioning as they have been, of course.”
Everyone let out a breath of relief.
“That’s good,” Tierone agreed, “but what about the channel? We can’t close that off completely, that’s where most of our food is coming from these days. Also, the barrier that you erect, will it rest on top of the water? Or does it penetrate below it?”
“Here’s the bad part. It will recognize the water’s surface as something ‘solid’ and will stop there. So someone could theoretically swim under the barrier. If they figure out that weakness.”
Knowing their luck, someone eventually wo
uld. “But for now, lass, can we erect a wall that will cover the distance over the channel, something that can be popped up and taken down again at will?”
“Yes, I think so. It’ll have to be sphere shaped, as angles will make it complicated, and it’ll take more than a little redesigning and some finagling, but it can be done. That part will take more time, but still, not more than two days. Broden, did our pirate messenger give us a timeline?”
“The lad no’ be much further ahead than the army, lass. He be on foot after all. He can move faster than a marching army, but no’ by much.”
“Curse Lugh’s hands. So we’ll have to maintain the barrier we have up right now and work to put the new one in place at the same time. That will be a severe magical drain.”
“Work in shifts,” Catriona urged. “Take breaks as you need them. We can’t afford for anyone to collapse right now.”
“Oh trust me, we all know it. And we’re taking precautions. We’re also letting the students do as much of the magical grunt work as possible to offset the burden. Still, this is going to be close in more than one sense. Edvard, Tierone, if you have any fighting men that can come over here and look menacing, I’d appreciate it.”
“We’ll send what we can, of course,” Tierone promised her. “But there’s not many to send at the moment.”
“I know.”
They all did, and there was no need for anyone to elaborate or explain further.
Thinking frantically, Broden tried to come up with something else they could do. Only one thought sprang to mind: “Can we no’ try and sabotage the supplies?”
The whole room stopped and then looked at him appraisingly.
“That’s true,” Tierone approved, nodding his head slowly, a grin taking over his face. “They’re out there with no support or backup of any sort. Their lifeline is those supply ships. Perhaps some guerilla warfare is in order. Let’s see if we can sabotage those supplies. Who should go?”
“Not Broden,” Ashlynn stated firmly.
In a stage whisper, Catriona told her brothers, “You really need to stop sending him out without Ashlynn. She absolutely hates it.”
Arrows of Revolution (Kingmakers Book 3) Page 19