Prince Thief

by David Tallerman

  When I drew near to Estrada, she glanced back and said, “When you were making all that noise, Damasco, you said someone was coming. Did you mean the Palace Guard?”

  Amidst the horror of realising I was caught up in another of Estrada’s hare-brained schemes, I’d almost forgotten the far more immediate danger. “I gave them the slip,” I lied, “but it won’t take them much effort to pick up my trail.”

  “And Lunto and his men?”

  “I don’t know.” Not quite a lie this time, though I had a fair idea. The likelihood of them fighting their way free from a palace full of highly trained soldiers was remote, to say the least. Still, I wasn’t quite ready to admit that – not to Estrada, not even to myself. “I’m sure they’re fine. You know Alvantes.”

  “So what went wrong?” she asked.

  Yet again, my brain automatically resisted the honest answer; it was the suspicion in her voice that changed my mind. Just because she was right, it didn’t make her assumption that it was my fault any less insulting. “A misunderstanding,” I said. “To do with a few of the Prince’s personal effects finding their way into my possession. I could have explained it easily enough if anyone had cared to listen, and if Alvantes hadn’t started swinging his sword around.”

  “Oh Damasco, you didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?” I snapped. “Commit a victimless... I won’t even use the word crime. A redistribution of no-longer-required wealth.”

  “I thought you were past all that,” Estrada said, sounding more sad than angry.

  A part of me wanted to explain my motives in precise and comprehensive detail, to point out how her meddling had done nothing but bring the Castoval to the edge of ruin, to propound my new understanding that so-called heroism brought nothing but trouble for all concerned. But even if she listened, what good would it do? “It seems you were wrong,” I replied sullenly.

  Estrada shook her head – and the disappointment in that gesture cut me more than I’d have imagined it could. Then, as if she’d already dismissed me from her thoughts, she called to the next figure in line, who happened to be one of Alvantes’s buccaneers, “We need to hurry. We have company down here.”

  He made some sullen reply, grunted to the man before him. It barely passed for language, but it had the desired effect. Seconds later, as whatever message he’d passed forward reached the end of the line, the entire column picked up pace. Estrada matched her speed to the man ahead and I did my best to keep up.

  It didn’t take us long to reach the junction. I’d almost expected to see our assailants closing from the direction of the palace, or at least the distant glow of their torches; but the only lights were those of Estrada’s party, melting the blackness of the branch to our left into wavering pools of honey and amber. Given how straight the passage ran, the lack of any sign of pursuit meant we had a respectable lead – or that the palace guardsmen had given up altogether.

  If I’d assumed that might be enough to make Estrada slacken our pace, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Whether she was erring on the side of caution or whether, as I came to suspect, she was simply punishing me, she let our column keep up its unreasonable speed. Soon my sides were burning once again and my breath coming in shudders; but the guardsmen showed no signs of flagging, Mounteban’s buccaneers seemed unconcerned, and Estrada herself wasn’t so much as short of breath. Of course, none of them had endured the travails I’d already been through that day. I had every right to be exhausted, and it was only stubbornness that kept me from pleading with her.

  As it happened, however, it wasn’t me who eventually brought us to a halt. Estrada glanced over her shoulder for the first time since we’d left the junction, perhaps beginning to doubt whether our pursuers existed outside of my imagination. “Wait,” she called. “Everyone, wait!”

  Relieved as I was, I couldn’t imagine what could possibly warrant a full stop – until I turned and saw that Saltlick wasn’t behind us.

  For one strange moment, it seemed as if he’d vanished altogether. It was only when I concentrated that I realised a patch of the distant darkness was lumbering towards us. As Saltlick drew closer, as the lanterns illuminated his hulking form, it became more and more clear why he’d been lagging. He was bent double by the low ceiling, almost crawling on hands and knees. He looked miserably uncomfortable, and the rough walls and ceiling had lashed scratches across his arms and head.

  “Oh, Saltlick! Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t keep up?” Estrada asked him.

  His look of horror at the very prospect was all the answer she needed. Saltlick was always the dependable one; it was against his nature to be the cause of problems, however small. Now here he was, placing us all in jeopardy and not able to do a thing about it.

  “It’s all right,” Estrada told him. “It’s not your fault. We’ll just have to let you set the pace.”

  If she meant it to sound comforting, it hardly came out that way. Anyway, it was easier said than done. How exactly did twenty people match their speed to the giant crawling along behind them? Suddenly, Estrada’s insistence on bringing Saltlick was looking ludicrous indeed, and I could hear the rumblings of discontent from further up the line. The loyalty of the men supplied by Mounteban was doubtful enough already and this surely wasn’t helping.

  The night wore on – or so I assumed. It was frightening how quickly even the memory of daylight, of a sky above, had vanished in favour of the conviction that this subterranean channel was all the world there was. After a while – minutes perhaps, a couple of hours, a day for all I knew – I muttered to Estrada’s back, “How far can it possibly be?”

  “All the way beneath the western mountains,” she replied, without looking back.

  “Which is...?”

  “A long way.”

  At least, thanks to Saltlick, I’d been able to recover my strength a little, and the added light of so many lanterns meant an opportunity to properly examine my surroundings. Alone, I’d thought the passage was blank-walled, little more than a mineshaft. Now I could see it was far more than that. The vertical supports were all of stone, and every one was patterned, in curious swirls and designs I could make no sense of.

  I couldn’t believe that Pasaedan royalty had fashioned this sunless way, however desperate they might have been for an escape route. It was clear, though, from the clumsier workmanship, that the ceiling had been extended a good way upwards at some point. Had it not been, we would all have had to duck, and Saltlick couldn’t have moved at all.

  The passage brought to mind the ancient tunnels behind Muena Palaiya where I’d first met Estrada – and I remembered the strange stories I’d heard over the years about those fathomless warrens. The deeper we travelled, the warmer the air became, and the more my nerves began to torment me. The final straw came when exits began to appear to either side, their arches too low for human traffic. What had Mounteban got us into?

  “How do we even know which is the right way?” I asked Estrada, my voice a little tremulous.

  Estrada showed me what she held in her hand, a map much like the designs of the palace I’d studied. This one, however, looked more like an abstract representation of a spider’s web. I assumed the dotted line running more or less straight across its middle was our route. Given how many opportunities to go wrong it offered the careless navigator, I couldn’t take much comfort from it.

  I soon realised, though, that all we really needed to do was keep to the main tunnel, readily identified by its heightened ceiling. The answer to the side passages was simply to ignore them – even when odd shambling sounds seemed to drift from their mouths, or the splash of dripping water, or unidentifiable, musky odours. I tried to tell myself that with guardsmen and buccaneers in front of me and a giant behind, I was probably as safe as I could be anywhere.

  As it turned out, however, it might have been better had our route been a little more intricate. Had that been the case, we might have stood a chance of losing the palace soldiers.

 
I was never sure what tipped Estrada off; whether it was some noise I’d missed or just a lucky guess. But out of nowhere she called another stop, and when the line had shuffled to a halt, sent word for the lanterns to be masked. It took me an effort of will not to protest. The thought of absolute darkness was almost more than I could bear. Only knowing how Estrada would ridicule me kept my mouth shut. Still, my heart sped up with every light that went suddenly black, until by the time there was only one distant glow left, it was hammering a tattoo in my ears. I held my breath, trying and failing to ready myself for that last plunge into total obscurity.

  It took me the seconds my eyes needed to adjust to appreciate that total obscurity wasn’t what I was surrounded by. Deep gloom, certainly, but I could make out Estrada’s silhouette before me, and trace the border of my own outstretched hand. I turned and – seeing only the outline of Saltlick’s bulk – knelt down. Just visible between his legs, far back in the passage, was a dim glow, like a glint in the pupil of a mammoth eye. I couldn’t see movement, but that didn’t mean much; the slightest turn in the passage would be enough to hide our pursuers from view.

  “They’re close,” I said, “and gaining.” I was surprised by how calm I sounded.

  “We just need to keep our lead a little longer,” Estrada said. “I’m sure we’re nearly there. They can’t possibly follow us over open water.” Then, to the group at large she called, “All right... unmask the lanterns. Pick up the pace. They’ve found us.”

  Pick up the pace – as if it were that easy. Saltlick had been travelling as fast as he could since the beginning, and I wasn’t about to let him fall behind again. What made it all the more excruciating was that, with our lanterns relit, there was no way to judge whether the palace troops were closing on us. Likely we’d only know when arrows or sword blows started raining upon Saltlick’s back – and given his resistance to complaining, perhaps not even then.

  “Can’t you go a little faster?” Estrada asked him, though it was obvious he couldn’t.

  Saltlick’s expression was pained beyond measure. He shook his head, and even that slight gesture brought dust shivering from the ceiling.

  Estrada considered only briefly. Then she bellowed up the line, “Run, all of you! Prepare the boat... we’ll catch you up!”

  We? Was Estrada’s plan that hacking their way through Saltlick and me would keep the palace guards occupied long enough for her and the others to make their escape? Right then, I’d have put nothing past her.

  Soon the nearest lantern was only a distant glow, leaving us travelling in thick darkness. I was briefly amused, and then horrified, by the thought that if the next man in line got too far ahead we’d have to depend on our pursuers for light. However, even as the glimmer shrunk to nothing, I realised we were past the point of needing to rely on it. The walls were charcoal now, not black, and lightened ahead. Somewhere in that direction was natural light.

  When the passage opened, finally, it was both sudden and dramatic: one moment the dark around us was the closeness of stone-chiselled walls, the next a cavernous space, the outlines of which I could barely distinguish. We’d come out in a huge cave, its domed ceiling descending to a distant line ahead, where it gave way to the faded blue of an early morning sky. We’d travelled through the entire night.

  The shale beneath our feet ran down to a wooden jetty, and from that a wide pier extended towards the cavern’s distant mouth. The rest of the party were already upon the pier, and nearing its far end – where the means of our deliverance lay, chopping slightly in the creased grey water.

  To call it a disappointment was an understatement. I’d feared that the boat might be absent, or left to rack and ruin beyond any hope of saving us.

  It had never even crossed my mind to worry that there might be two of them.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  How had it not occurred to anyone? Of course there would be two boats. This was the Ans Pasaedan royal family. There was no way Panchetto could have fled a revolution with anything less than a boatload of servants; what would he have done if he needed his nails trimmed three days into the voyage and the Head Nail Trimmer wasn’t there to do it? Now that the evidence was before me, I was amazed he’d stopped at anything shy of a flotilla.

  Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t cursing his name. One boat for us, one for our pursuers, and no hope of escape. Unless...

  “Saltlick, could you sink that second boat? Punch a hole in its side or...”

  But there was no point even finishing. Saltlick, dragging himself from the passage mouth like a cork popped from a bottle, could hardly even stand upright.

  In any case, Mounteban’s thugs were already busy at work on the second craft. Both vessels were moored at bow and stern and gang planks had been left on the jetty, which the party had already hurried to set in place. Now, the city guardsmen were dashing to ready the boat to my right, preparing the sails and fitting oars into oarlocks, while a half dozen of the buccaneers worked with wicked-looking knives on the cables holding the other. Even as I watched, one of the aft ropes split and coiled away.

  By then, I was nearing the end of the jetty, with Estrada just ahead of me. It occurred to me that a flung oil lamp would make short work of the second boat; but the men had already extinguished their lanterns, I was hardly about to take the time to relight one, and knowing my luck there was a real chance I’d miss anyway.

  Instead, I spared a moment to glance behind me. Saltlick was now halfway between the tunnel mouth and me, struggling to close the gap between us. Then, even as I watched, the first of the palace soldiers stole into the light. He blinked hard, struggling to make sense of the scene before him. Then he raised his crossbow and fired. The bolt missed Saltlick’s left foot by the slightest of margins and hammered into the pier.

  Another soldier stepped from the darkness. He too carried a crossbow, he too was briefly dazzled, took the measure of his surroundings, set his bow and fired... and the only difference was that his aim was considerably better.

  Saltlick went down on one knee, with such a shock that the planks seemed to ripple and buck. I couldn’t even tell where he’d been hit at first, until he tried to stand and I saw the bloodied shaft protruding through his shin. He took a step, nearly toppled sideways, and I could see him realise just as I did that this injury was something worse than the many hurts he’d shrugged off in recent weeks. I had to fight the urge to rush to him, to try to support him – because there was no possible way I could.

  “Come on!” I roared, instead. “Damn it, Saltlick, get your lazy giant hide over here!”

  Both soldiers were struggling to reload their weapons, even as their colleagues spilled from the tunnel mouth, drew swords and began to narrow the distance between us. Meanwhile, Saltlick hobbled closer – but each step pumped blood onto the salt-stained timbers, with every second or third he’d stumble, almost fall.

  “Done!” bellowed one of the buccaneers from behind me, and as I looked the last rope quivered and coiled, like a snake drowning on the chopping water. The boat was already beginning to drift; the men on board simply flung themselves overboard, as though swimming were no less troublesome than walking. A few swift strokes brought them back to the pier.

  When I turned back, Saltlick was almost up to us – and the palace soldiers weren’t far behind. The buccaneers were hurrying past me and up the gangplank of our boat, Estrada had led the way, and it occurred to me that apart from Saltlick and the men hurrying to kill us, I was the only one left on the jetty. I darted across the plank, hardly noticing how it shivered beneath me, and flung myself aboard.

  As soon as I had my feet back I was at the boat’s side, ready to cajole Saltlick some more. But he’d already caught up, and was poised at the end of the pier, wavering as he struggled to balance on his good leg. He eyed the gangplank nervously – for as long as it took another crossbow bolt to whistle past his eyes. Then he took one stride out onto it, another... and the plank split in two.

  The s
plash was titanic, a column of brine that geysered above my head and opened like a flower, crashing water into the boat. The point where Saltlick had gone under was hidden from my view by the angle of the boat’s side. I’d once seen giants wade through a river almost as deep as they were tall, but could they swim? Given that their mountain home was landlocked, I doubted it.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” I shouted at two guardsmen hacking the last of our tethers to the pier. They looked at me in confusion, and only hesitated when they registered the utter panic on my face. I glanced round, hoping against hope for some miracle to materialise. I could almost feel Saltlick sinking into the chill waters, as though he were a stone tied round my waist.

  “There! The net!” It was bundled neatly on the starboard side, perhaps an emergency measure for if the Prince ate all the food on board. When no one seemed to understand, I dashed over and tried to drag it myself. It was heavier than I could have guessed, and all I managed was to tumble backwards, with a cry of frustration.

  By then, all eyes were on me. Those who hadn’t seen what had happened were giving me the kind of looks normally reserved for people who gibbered to themselves in public. But there were those who had seen, and Navare was among them. In an instant he was at my side and calmly unfurling the net, signalling his men to help us. I steadied myself with a vast effort and put my back into the work. Still, it all seemed to be taking so long – and through every moment, I couldn’t escape that sense of Saltlick sinking like a leaden weight into the depths.

  “Get it overboard!” I bawled.

  But my guidance was no longer necessary. Navare was directing, with short gestures and brief, snapped commands. In a moment the net was shaken loose and dashed over the boat’s side, with Navare, ten guardsmen and myself straining to weigh down our edge.

  For all that, the shock when Saltlick caught hold threatened to wrench my arms out of their sockets. I’d been so certain he was at the bottom of the sea that I’d hardly thought to prepare myself. Even if I had, I could never have anticipated how damned heavy he was. With a dozen of us straining in a knot of arms and legs against the boat’s side, it still seemed certain we’d be dragged overboard – as if we were fishermen who’d snared some prodigious monster from the deeps. It was impossible to imagine we could hang on; already, the craft was tipping alarmingly.