Erin was already working with the rope, using his dagger to cut it into lengths. He made a halter for both the Éimhin and Dinner, then tied the burlap sacks to Dinner’ back. The leads he tied to the horn of the new horse. When he turned around, Bethany had washed her face, dampened her hair, and re-plaited the matted mass into a simple braid. Surprisingly, the rope shaped mats in her hair made the braid look intricate rather than messy.
“Perfect,” he said. “Now put this on.”
He flung the cloak over her shoulders and helped her pull the hood up. Bethany arranged her long plait over her shoulder.
“It’s too long,” she said, looking down at the excess of fabric.
“That’s good. It’s a riding cloak. It’s meant to cover the horse as well. Now, up you go.”
Erin grabbed her by the waist, preparing to lift her into the saddle when she stopped him.
“Your arm, Erin.” She paused. “Are you sure about this?”
“We have to get you out of here,” he responded.
Bethany grabbed the collar of his soiled tunic and gave it a jerk.
“You’re getting out too, right? This isn’t some noble, self-sacrificing bullshit?”
“Language,” he said, in mock surprise.
“Erin?” she growled.
“I will get out. I promise. Just get through the gatehouse and follow the road back to the bridge. At the turn off for the bridge, go into the forest, toward the south. Which way’s south?”
She pointed, proving that she had learned the lessons he had taught her.
“Good. I may be a few hours behind you, but I will come,” he added, emphasizing each word.
“You better,” she said, sadness settling into her heart as she thought of the alternative.
“I will. Now get up there,” he added, pulling himself out of her grasp.
Bethany obeyed and climbed up into the saddle. It wasn’t graceful, especially with the excess of fabric, but she made it in the end. Erin helped her arrange the fabric so that it covered the man’s saddle and her grimy, road-stained clothing. When it was all done she smiled down at him.
“I don’t feel too confident on this beast. I wish you’d let me ride Éimhin.”
“This horse is smaller. It won’t look quite as odd for a lady to be riding it. Just be confident in your direction. I’ve seen you ride. You know what you’re doing.”
She gave him a sad smile. “See you on the other side.”
He gave her a firm nod. “If I don’t find you by morning, head north without me. You can make it to Dothan on your own if you have to.”
“Not on your life.”
“You promised to obey me.”
Bethany shook her head. “Not this time.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cal watched Bethany from the alleyway until she passed the gatehouse and was beyond his sight. Now all he had to do was find his own way out. He never would have told Bethany this, but he had no idea how he was going to escape this city. Still, she was safe and that’s what mattered.
The knight turned back into the alleyway and walked along its dark length until he reached the next intersection. He needed to find something to cover his face. Walking quickly and with his head down, Cal crossed the intersection to the next alley. As he walked he noticed a line of washing hanging from a second story window. On the line hung one of the hood-scarf combination popular in these desert parts. Men and women wore them to protect their faces from the sudden and fierce sandstorms that occasionally washed over the city.
Cal glanced around the dim alleyway. He was alone. Even the second-story windows were shuttered. Using a sturdy crate, he climbed up high enough to reach the garment and pulled it from the line. Not waiting to be caught, he marched away while throwing it around his neck and pulling the hood up. Cal began to sweat instantly, but a little sweat was better than a length of rope around his neck. The only problem was that Cal was still dressed like a southerner. It could draw attention.
As he walked, he tore the sleeves and collar off his soiled tunic. It wasn’t perfect, but at least he wouldn’t stand out so much, plus it helped cool his flushed body.
At the next intersection, Cal wandered into the mass of bodies heading in the direction of the city walls. A main thoroughfare wound around the edge of the city. The enormous walls were lined on the inside by tall shops, making the street feel even more claustrophobic than necessary. The almost continual traffic didn’t help either. Cal held his injured arm against his body to keep it from being knocked about as he weaved through the crowd, occasionally gazing up at the roofs of the building.
Two hours later he had circled the entire city and found only four buildings tall enough for him to scale the remaining distance to the top of the wall. Two of those buildings he rejected, being too visible to the guard towers and their occupants. One of the rooftops looked too weak to hold his weight, but the fourth was covered in a home garden and he suspected the large potted plants would make great cover.
Sadly, when he reached his starting point in the circle, he was just about as far away from the selected building as he could be. Cal began to worry about Bethany. Would she wait for him as he instructed?
Of course she will! he told himself sternly.
He picked up his pace as he retraced his steps back to the chosen building. By the time he reached it, the sun was fading into the distant horizon. Though he hated the delay his selection had caused, it had worked in his favor. Chances were the guards would have difficulty seeing in the dusk lighting.
Cal took the exterior stairs up to the flat roof of the house and ducked under the nearest potted plants. Had he been standing, many of the enormous pots would have come up to his waist. The plants growing out of these pots created a jungle of greenery, dotted by the beginning of spring blossoms. Cal made his way through the dense growth of the home garden until he reached the towering city wall.
He parted the ferns and looked up at the top of the wall. One guard was making his way toward the spot Cal would eventually arrive at, his eyes gazing out toward the desert beyond the city. As a precaution, Cal let the ferns fall back to their natural resting place and waited. He waited a few minutes before peering up at the wall again; the guard was just making his turn back toward his tower.
Once the guard was passed Cal’s hiding spot, he stood up and reached up for the nearest hand hold. Cal put his toe in a notch and pulled himself up. Without thinking, he reached for the next handhold with his injured arm. He pulled, let out a cry of pain, and fell back into the jungle of plant life. Cal rolled himself up against the wall, grasping his injured arm to his side. What had he been thinking? Had he really forgotten just how badly he had hurt his arm?
What now? he wondered.
Bethany. He had to get to Bethany. He would just have to find a new way past the walls, and he’d have to do it before morning. Cal leaned against the wall, gulping down air as he willed the pain away. It gave the guards time to lose interest in the sudden cry they had heard.
When he could move again, he peeked out from behind the ferns and saw the guards treading their usual path. He crawled one-handed through the jungle until he reached the stairs. Cal tried to walk normally, but the damage his recent exercise had done to his already injured arm had left the shoulder joint throbbing.
Was the damage permanent? Cal asked himself. Bethany would know.
But now wasn’t the time to worry about his arm. He had to figure out how to get out of the city. Cal merged back into the flow of bodies, most of them heading home at the end of the day. Soon the crowds would decrease and he would become more noticeable. He wandered, trying to give himself time to come up with a new plan. If he stood still he might stand out.
The light of the day was nearly gone when he felt a splash of smelly liquid pelt his shoulder from above. It didn’t take him long to realize someone from an upper story had thrown out the chamber pot and his shoulder had attracted the worst of it. Cal shook his arm, trying to flin
g the excrement from his skin. He watched the liquid flow from the street into a narrow trench running between the road and the building.
How did the filth leave the city? Cal wondered.
He glanced up to be sure the woman who chucked the urine wasn’t still in the window, then began to follow the flow. He tried his best to look as though he was just walking beside the gutter. What would someone think if they realized he was keeping a close eye on the path of the city’s sewage?
A few blocks down the street, the sewage dropped through a tiny drain and out of sight. That wouldn’t work, but was there another entrance into the sewage. Eventually it had to reach the inlet, right? Perhaps he could find a larger pipe closer to the river.
Cal ducked down an alleyway and trotted toward the next main thoroughfare. It hurt his shoulder, but he was growing more and more concerned about the time, especially since the longer he remained in the city, the more likely the guard would begin a search for him and Bethany. In fact, he was surprised no alarm had been sounded yet.
After another half hour of weaving through the evening crowd, Cal neared the gatehouse leading to the city docks. They were not within the walls, and therefore he couldn’t simply jump into the inlet and swim to safety. Cal stared at the gatehouse, oblivious to all else until someone bumped into him.
If he had had anything of worth on him, he would have worried about a pickpocket. Instead, he stared at the man garbed in flowing linen pants that nearly looked like a skirt. His chest was bare, and he carried a drying cloth over his shoulder.
Cal waited until a few people had passed him before turning to follow the bare-chested man. He followed him for a few blocks until he turned into a public bathing house. It sat a number of blocks away from the inlet, closer to the more affluent homes. Cal ducked inside and tried to look as though he fit in. The truth was, he couldn’t have stood out more. Most men were wearing little to no clothing as they chose one of the large bathing pools.
Cal had never liked the Bumi’s habit of bathing together, even when he lived in the city, but it would serve his purpose today. He went to one of the back rooms where a long trough ran across the back wall, a wooden board with holes cut in it acted as seats. Cal did his best to ignore the fat man sitting and grunting at one end. He pulled down his own trousers and took a seat, doing his best to look like he was actually trying to relieve himself.
Finally, when he was about to give up and try something else, the fat man finished and left, leaving Cal alone in the public necessary. Cal exhaled a gusty sigh of relief and tried not to breathe back in as he pulled his trousers up. Glancing out the door to make sure no one was about to enter, Cal pushed the board up and poked his head into the tough. The smell was nearly enough to make him vomit. He tried to close his nose and look around. Sure enough, he saw a sewage tunnel leading away from the trough. It was large enough for him to crawl through, but it would be snug.
Worrying that someone might come in, Cal scrambled into the trough and lowered the seat over himself. He crawled through the most recent offering and made it into the tunnel just before he heard a man grunt as he sat down on one of the holes. To his astonishment, Cal found the smell in the narrow tunnel even worse. Before he could stop himself, he vomited into the filth. Thankfully it happened just as the man grunted, masking the sound.
A moment later the man pulled the rope to release a flow of water. This was both good and bad. It washed away some of the mire, but also washed some of it right into Cal’s legs.
Why couldn’t I just use the dead cart, Cal thought as he forced himself to crawl forward.
About thirty feet beyond the trough, the tunnel turned. If his internal map of the city was correct, the tunnel was heading toward the inlet. Cal hoped with all his might that it would not be a long crawl.
The tunnel remained small, occasionally connecting with another tunnel. Cal followed the flow of excrement, throwing up three more times before his tunnel dropped into a large bowl. Cal hadn’t been prepared for it and ended up dropping head first. He barely made it back to the surface before he began to gag and dry heave.
Looking around, Cal realized the basin was acting as a filter. The heavier grime sunk to the bottom while the lighter stuff floated toward the exit. Once Cal had stopped gagging, he followed the flow to a large tunnel at the other end of the bowl. In this tunnel the run off was not as notably clouded by human waste, and Cal began to hope he was nearing the exit.
His hope was as far from the truth as it was possible to be.
By the time he dropped into the Bumi Inlet, he had crawled through five more narrow tunnels, swam through three filtering basins, and been directly pooped on once. Cal used his good arm to swim away from the sewage outlet before he took stock of his surroundings: The tunnel had dumped him in the inlet, just west of the docks.
Though not directly next to the city, he was still noticeable by the small fishing vessels heading out for a night trawl. He tried his best to swim near the shore, but his feet kept getting tangled in the reeds and he began to fear being pulled under.
Swimming one handed was tiring, and his injured shoulder burned with the battering it had taken in the tunnel. Despite his best efforts, at times he had been forced to use the arm. Finally, when he thought he was going to have to climb up the bank and collapse, he snagged a log to support his aching body.
What a night, he thought as he kicked quietly up the inlet.
He paddled for another hour or so before crawling up the steep bank of the inlet. Cal knew he needed to hurry; Bethany would be alone and frantic with worry. He pressed his injured arm against his side and set off in a steady jog that he knew, despite his earlier efforts, he could keep up for hours.
He would get to her as fast as he could, no matter how much it hurt.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Pelor sauntered into the barracks, feeling buoyant for the first time in months. It had been a long chase, but he had finally captured his prey and, with their sailing booked, he felt confident of an easy journey back to Tolad. When he did make it back, who knew what Wolfric would do for him as a reward? It could be as little as giving him a position at court, or it could be as large as offering him an estate in Tolad. He was still dreaming of the great fortunes that would rain down on him when the barrack’s commander intercepted his trek through the barracks.
“Did you get a passage booked?” asked the pudgy man.
“Yes. Three booked to sail. Sadly, the earliest I could get is two days from now. I’m afraid I must trespass on your hospitality a while longer.”
The commander nodded slowly. Pelor knew the older man was resenting his continued presence, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He gave the commander a quick nod before making his way to the room assigned him and his captives. To his disgust, the commander followed him.
Pelor pushed the door open, a grin already on his face as he thought of the awkward position in which he had left his captives. The smirk slipped from his face as he looked on the empty bed, the cut ropes dangling to the floor. The commander stood behind him, his wet mouth gaping open as he looked around the empty room.
He didn’t know how long they stood there. It felt like a mere second before footsteps interrupted their staring.
“You there,” snapped the commander. “Close the gates to the barracks. No one is to go in or out.”
The wide-eyed man nodded once before racing toward the front gates. It didn’t take them long to search the entire barracks and confirm that Sir Caldry and the princess had indeed escaped.
“We need to close down the city gatehouses.”
“Absolutely not,” grumbled the commander. “This is your mistake. I will not have you disrupting the efficient running of my city because you screwed up. I will conduct a search of the city, and inform the guards to watch for a scarred man, but you will remain here, under guard. You there, take him and lock him up.”
“What!” demanded Pelor. “You can’t be serious!”
�
��I most certainly am! I will contact Wolfric and discern what he wishes me to do with you. Until then, you are to remain locked up and under guard.”
Pelor jerked his arm out of the soldier’s grasp.
“You have no right to hold me. I am of equal rank as you!” Pelor cried, trying his best to sound authoritative. He was certain the aging commander would give in under the right pressure.
The commander squared his slumped shoulders and peered up at Pelor. “Your rank is meaningless, and we both know it. Wolfric gave you that insignia to scare the locals. I’ve been in the army all my life, and I know a bounty hunter when I see one. Take him away!”
“At least let me help find them!” offered Pelor, trying his best to sound reasonable.
“And how in the world would you contribute. You’ve never been to Topaq. You don’t know your way around the city, or how the locals work. What good would you do? Get him out of here.”
Pelor struggled against the hands pulling at his arms, but in the end, he was knocked off his feet and dragged down the passageway. They tossed him in a small cell, chained his hands and feet, and locked the door. Through the tiny window he watched two guards take up positions outside the door.
How had this happened? his mind cried out as he looked at the manacles. Pelor peered around the cell, dug in the straw on the floor, and examined the stool—there was nothing there for him to use to pick the locks, nor anything he could use as a weapon against his guards. He was truly in trouble.
Bethany turned to pace back across her little clearing. After leaving the city without any problems, Bethany had traveled down the long road to the Cascina Bridge. By the time she pulled off the road and began her trek into the thin forest, the sun was setting. She had been forced to search a large swath of the forest to find a grove thick enough to hide her and the horses. The trees in this part of the world were vastly different from those in Tolad or Dothan. The trunks were narrow and the pine needles often didn’t start until much higher up in the tree than she was accustomed to. Half of the growth in the “forest” weren’t trees at all but tall stumps of green flesh, covered in prickly pins. Bethany had quickly learned not to touch those plants.
The Dothan Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy Page 50