This was the second inn I had patronized in the last month. The third identity I had taken, and the fourth time I had made a small step toward freeing Iolarathe from the bowels of the prison built to hold Elven captives. The preparations were almost in place, and if I could execute them perfectly, she would be free in two nights.
Then we would be together.
Shlara's Rest was the largest city within a thousand miles. From the stories told to me by the locals, Malek, along with Shlara's commanders, had carried her burnt body here after I killed her. They had laid her into the ground on a site overlooking the nearby river. Ironically, the spot where her bronze and stone memorial stood was almost exactly the same place where we had once sat together, discussing our future before sparring with each other.
That had been fourteen years ago. I had almost killed her then.
Even though my army had been victorious in eliminating the Elven threat, there was still work to be done. There were Elven settlements throughout the world that must be sought and eliminated. It would take an organized effort to comb the continent and eradicate the remainder of them.
There was also the issue of leadership. The O'Baarni's leader had deserted them and killed one of his generals. The people in the army were promised freedom from the oppressors, and that had now come true. What came next? Who would lead them in this new life of freedom?
From what I had gleaned from listening to the locals in the taverns, a small group comprised of my generals and their commanders had gone to the river to wash after Shlara was laid to rest. They planned their next steps and tried to come to terms with the loss. While they sat on the banks of the river, one of them noticed gold flakes amongst the silt. Gold had never been valuable to us during the war, but the Elvens used it for currency. The idea of mining the metal sprang into their minds and a center of trade and industry sprung up around the new mine. Thus, the city of Shlara’s Rest was born.
I guessed that my lover was searching for an Ovule. It was a round globe, about the size of a skull and filled with a soft yellow light that matched the spider web-like lines of the inside of a Radicle. The Elven elder had told me that Iolarathe traveled with a girl to his Radicle, and that the girl had used the last of the Ovule's power and somehow left this world. The ancient Elven had not been able to tell me much more. He called the world by a number, said Iolarathe was looking for another Ovule, and told me that the girl was my daughter.
I guessed he was lying.
But I couldn't beat the truth out of him. A trio of Alexia's hunters, led by one of my former bodyguards, Lemarti, had been chasing me for years and finally caught up to me in the Radicle. Lemarti possessed martial skill beyond even my best soldiers and I had been lucky to defeat them. Unfortunately, the old Elven died before giving me the information that I needed about Iolarathe, the child he said looked like me, and how the Radicle worked.
Iolarathe's trail had been surprisingly easy to follow after I almost found her at the strange shrine. There were four large human settlements between the Radicle and Shlara's Rest. The Elven woman had visited each one, skirted the edges of the towns for a few days, and then moved on to the next. I didn't understand how she planned on even finding an Ovule, let alone getting inside one of the cities to steal one of the globes. Maybe she had gotten desperate and decided to risk capture.
Whatever her reasoning was, Iolarathe's luck had run out in the city appropriately named after the woman who almost killed her.
I stopped at an intersection a mile from the inn. The street was paved in river rocks and clay, pounded flat by a decade of horses, wagon wheels and footsteps. In this poorer part of the city, the roofs were crafted of steep, graying thatch that would burn easily. I expanded my hearing to take in the sounds of hundreds of sleeping people resting comfortably in their homes. I heard a soft footstep a few streets over, but it was moving away. Once I was satisfied that no one was following me, I turned toward the largest structure in the city: the barracks.
When I first came to Shlara's Rest, I dyed my hair gray with limestone mineral extracts I had gathered a few thousand miles away. It was scentless and made me look older, even if my face was still frozen in youth. To further accentuate the disguise, I walked the last stretch of my journey to the town with a sharpened rock in my boot to get myself used to treading off camber on one leg and then carried the hobble with me.
Once in the city, I found the local tavern the wardens visited when they were not patrolling. Some of the faces I recognized, but none of the warriors who lived in Shlara's Rest suspected that the gray-haired man limping from table to table to collect their soiled tableware was Kaiyer.
The wardens talked, and I could listen to the entire room with my heightened sense, even while in the back washing the dishes. Within a few days I knew that they had captured Iolarathe, but they had not guessed her identity. I also got a rough idea of their shifts and patrol routes. I continued my work at the tavern until one of the soldiers mentioned that the stables in the city's barracks needed another worker.
Within an hour the gray was washed out of my hair, the limp was gone, and I was mucking out the massive forty horse stable in the same barracks that held Iolarathe's prison. The two other stable boys were thankful for the help. They didn't ask more than the usual questions about where I was born, what my parents did, what role they played in the war, and if I knew any girls that they could fuck. The horse master of the barracks had been one of Gorbanni's lower lieutenants and didn't recognize me nor question my sudden appearance.
Now I had a more detailed view of the workings in the barracks. I could see exactly when everyone was coming and going and what their duties were. While I didn't have access to the underground dungeon where they kept Iolarathe, I knew where it was and could observe the shift changes of the guards. I began to piece together a plan for freeing her. But there were still too many variables I had not mastered.
Once I had memorized the pattern of the stable work and the barrack traffic I decided to make my move. Between lunch and supper, the support staff busied themselves with cleaning and the trained soldiers left the barracks to go on patrol. The stable boys normally napped as the addition of my hands had considerably lightened their workload.
This gave me the perfect window. I made a habit of taking some dessert and wine from the kitchen, walking to the dungeon, and delivering the offering to whichever guard was working that day. The sentries were O’Baarni, but I made sure they saw me as nothing but an overeager stable boy looking for a promotion.
After a week of hobnobbing with the guards I managed to get a tour of the dungeon. It was specifically built to hold Elven prisoners or O'Baarni who had violated the non-violence laws in Shlara's Rest. The bars of each cell were made of three-inch-thick solid steel driven five feet into the floor and ceiling. There were twenty Elvens in the cells and four O'Baarni. I didn't see Iolarathe, but at the end of the tour the proud guardsman showed me their solitary confinement cell. It was set down two levels of stairs at the end of a long hallway. The door was crafted of the gray metal we used to forge our armor and weapons. I asked the sentry who was inside and he confirmed that it was an Elven woman with hair the color of blood. I could have killed the guard there, taken his keys, and released Iolarathe then, but I hadn't finished planning our escape from the city.
A creaking sound from a nearby roof tore me from my recollection of the plan. I stopped my walk and focused my attention on the origin of the noise a few dozen yards away. A tabby cat hung from the gutter of a bakery and eyed me suspiciously. I took a slow breath to steady my nerves and continued my stroll down the road toward the barracks.
It was a large three tower structure wrapped with a jigsaw wall of timber and massive stone blocks that seemed to push against the nearby houses like an angry child. The fortress was capable of housing a few hundred soldiers, training them within the inner courtyard, and defending against attacks. It was much larger than anything I had ever seen an Elven tribe build, but they o
ften trained their warriors in the open fields surrounding their estates and the warriors dwelled with their own small families. Elvens had little use for jails; if someone was discovered violating their laws, they dealt swift justice with an axe blade.
After a few more minutes of walking the empty streets I came within a hundred yards of the plaid walls. It was the middle of fall, but Shlara's Rest sat close enough to the river and ocean to make the temperatures mild. Still, some of the wardens that stood watch on the eighty-foot-high walls were not O'Baarni, and they needed braziers of fire to keep warm. I was thankful for their light because it revealed spots in the defense where I might sneak in and out should my plan not work as expected.
I continued meandering around the perimeter of the wall, going slower than was natural to remain inconspicuous. Most of the homes and stores butted up within touching distance of the barrier, but I still took my time to walk slow and silent, listening to the sounds of the sleeping inhabitants, the wind and the idle chatter of the watchmen on the walls. I had always been cautious in my battle plans, and now, with so much at stake, was no time to be careless and lax in my preparation. This had to work. In two nights, the small sailing vessel, Sea Dog, would leave the harbor heading downriver three miles, and then into the deep sea to begin a month long voyage to the Juniper Isles. It was the fastest ship I knew of and the captain had already accepted my payment; the small crew didn’t ask any questions.
If they did, the tiny sleek ship could be managed by two people.
I had been thinking of a way for Iolarathe and me to escape quickly, with little trace, in a way that would be hard for my expertly trained soldiers to track. I knew a little about sailing, but nearly all of my life had been spent on land or horseback. As was true of most of my soldiers, the sea was intimidating, chaotic and unpredictable and easily able to foil the magic that kept us immortal. We could hold our breath for much longer than a normal human, but if the ship sunk into deep waters, our magic could not save us from death.
It was the third job I had taken after my stint as a stable boy. To find a suitable escape vessel, I'd wandered the harbor and helped the half dozen ships unload their cargo. I chatted with their crews and made friends with their captains. As fate would have it, Sea Dog was one of the first boats I approached, and the first mate asked if I would be available to crew when they left port. After a discussion over a bitter ale, I'd worked out the terms of my brief employment and both the captain and first mate agreed to take my wife as a passenger.
"Fuck it's cold," a voice said from the wall above me on the south side of the barracks.
"Eh. But at least you're off at dawn," another voice whispered.
"I might stick around and watch them chop that Elven bitch into pieces," the first voice said.
I stopped.
"Huh?"
"The one they had in that special cell. They are executing her at dawn." I recognized the voice of Tillian. One of the more experienced wall sentries.
"You don't say? I thought they were going to keep her in there forever. Was it true that she killed three of our wardens when they caught her?" the second voice asked. I didn't recognize his voice, but I hadn't been able to speak with all of the guards that worked in the barracks.
"I wasn't there. Heard that she broke into Malek's estate and attacked his students."
I moved closer to the wall and assessed the surface for climbing. I had heard a few rumors of her capture but this sounded closest to the truth. She must have thought that the Ovule was being kept in Malek's home and she was probably correct. Malek had come to collect several trophies and interesting artwork from the Elvens.
"I know that she bit Commander Grillp's nose off yesterday when he questioned her." From my memory, Grillp was one of Malek's captains. I recalled Malek giving him logistic detail instead of active combat duty. I was just thankful that someone from Shlara or Alexia's army had not been assigned to interrogate Iolarathe. Their methods were effectively brutal on our enemy.
"It couldn't have happened to a bigger asshole." They both chuckled.
"He ordered it. Might even wield the axe."
"Do you think any of the generals will be there?"
"Naw. They don't give a fuck about the Elvens anymore. If Malek was in the city, he might show up, but he's been gone for the last year," Tillian said.
"Too bad. I've never seen one."
"I saw Thayer a few years ago. He was as scary as they say he is. Looked like the kind of man that eats raw iron for breakfast."
Their conversation devolved into a debate about which general would win in a battle, but my mind had already flown into action. I knew they had been questioning Iolarathe, but no one seemed to think of her as more than a particularly aggressive prisoner of war. It was also possible that this was a trap, but I couldn’t imagine a low ranked guard being privy to such a ruse. And it was true that none of the generals were supposed to be in the city at the moment. My old friends were not involved in her capture or sentence of execution. I was just being paranoid.
But paranoia had kept me from being captured by countless O'Baarni hunters for the last twelve years.
The ship would leave in two days, but I had to move now. Iolarathe would be dead in the morning and I needed to take the risk. Fortunately, I had anticipated the possibility that I would have to free her before the Sea Dog left and had scouted out a few spots where we could wait. One of which was the inn where I currently stayed. It wasn't the safest strategy, but we would have to make it work. If not for the loud drunkards outside my room, I would have still been asleep and missed this conversation and my love would have been executed.
I walked around the walls of the barracks and toward the front gate of the complex. My heart beat faster than normal so I forced it to calm. There was a mixture of O'Baarni and normal humans here; if an O'Baarni thought I looked suspicious, I didn't want to give them an additional reason to question me. As expected, there were two guards at the gate, bunched together over a small fire pit.
"Good evening, Decar." I didn't know the other guard, but Decar gave me a friendly smile. I walked past the two of them and into the courtyard. They didn't bother to stop me and probably thought I was running a stable boy errand or out chasing girls.
The courtyard was empty and I met no opposition on my short walk to the stables. Once inside, I crept silently past the sleeping horses and up to the hay loft where the stable boys slept. The loft was big enough for each of the young men to get a good-sized corner to himself, and the night concealed my movements. I climbed to the top rafter above my corner and ran my hands through the darkness. My fingers brushed the strap of my leather pack and I carefully pulled the bag from its hiding place. Inside was a weapon belt that sheathed a short sword and dagger, two hooded cloaks, a large jug of very spiced wine, lock picking tools, and a dozen throwing darts loaded in a leather satchel that firmly attached to my belt.
Once armed, I crept out of the stables and sneaked toward the dungeon entrance. I heard the various guards conversing on the walls in their usual manner. In fact, the environment matched every night I had observed during my stint as a stable worker, so my hopes raised that this part of my plan might be completed without complication. It was a few hundred yards to the prison, but I had become well versed in the arts of stealth by now. Shadows made more noise than I did and were probably more visible in the night than my sneaking form.
The outside door to the jail was thick wood, with stout iron rails that wrapped around it like a cross. The hinges once screeched when moved, but I had applied a liberal coat of grease to them late one night and the door swung with little more than a whisper. Of course, that only helped if anyone were to be listening outside of the dungeon. The guard inside would sense the change in air pressure and wonder who approached.
If he was paying attention.
"Who goes there?" a call rang from deep within the torch lit tunnel. The voice was Fenzan, one of the dungeon guards with whom I had the best relationshi
p. He had first given me a tour of the cells and would be the happiest to see me. My luck was indeed good tonight.
"Andset, sir. I can't sleep and thought you might want to play a game of dice."
"Does a bear shit in the woods? I'm fucking bored as hell down here." I walked the stone tunnel and then down the short flight of steps to the guard table.
When I first introduced myself to Fenzan, I had remarked at how odd it was that there was just one guard down here. He agreed that it was boring, but apparently the watch commander had found the two previous guards drunk and asleep one night. He then decided that the shift only needed one sentry moving forward, one that was an O'Baarni. It worked out well for Fenzan, since he took the position and both salaries.
The promotion would not end well for him tonight.
I had thought of a dozen different ways to get past the guard without murder. I could have used poison, some sort of distraction, maybe talked my way through. I even thought about sneaking by, but the stone corridor was too narrow, well lit, and the only guards stationed here were unlikely to be asleep. Even if one of the less violent methods worked, they would know my face, the fake name I used, and once my generals put the pieces together they would increase the resources hunting for me.
"Couldn't sleep huh?" he asked when I stepped toward him; he sat on one of the stout oak chairs with his booted feet upon the table.
"Naw. Too cold and those assholes snore." I reached my right hand out to pass him the dice and then grabbed his wrist. I stepped to the side of the table, to his left, and yanked his arm while I drew my dagger. Even for an O'Baarni, I was fast and strong. Fenzan thought I was only a human and his face didn't have a chance to register surprise before my blade sunk into his temple and ended his life.
The Destroyer Book 3 Page 37