They moved on to the second door.
‘Let’s hope our friends have done their work,’ Herin said, before slowly turning the handle.
Gingerly, Herin pulled the door open. It was dark inside, with no light source. But slowly Soren’s eyes adjusted, and he could make out a small antechamber.
There was another door to the left. Placed at intervals along the outside wall were three chairs—each with a corpse sitting in it.
‘Come on,’ said Herin, ushering Soren into the room.
Soren looked at the nearest body, that of a guard, slumped backwards in the chair. His throat had been cut, and black congealed blood had collected in a pool on the floor. He forced himself to look at the other two victims—two more guards, with similar injuries. It was a disturbing sight, made worse by the silence and darkness of the room.
‘Did they have to kill them?’
Herin shrugged. ‘Probably.’
Herin looked around the room and found an empty sconce on the wall.
‘Shit. No-one mentioned how dark it was in here. We’re not gonna be able to see anything.’
Soren took a length of candle from his inside pocket and cupped both hands around it. He found that they were shaking. He concentrated, gained focus, calling on heat to materialise from his hands onto the wick of the candle. The wick caught flame, and he moved over to the sconce, placing the candle inside.
The small light from the candle created eerie shadows on the walls. Soren had to force himself to ignore the three corpses who shared their confined space, illuminated by the flickering flame. He wasn’t a religious man, but it was hard not to imagine that the spirits of the murdered men were in there with them.
He turned his attention to the door to the treasure room. As described, it had three separate locks on it, each with its own keyhole. He grabbed the handle and gave the door a yank, just in case. It was solidly locked in place.
Kneeling down, Soren flattened his hands against the wood, concentrating, trying to search for the metal mechanism inside.
‘Well?’ said Herin. ‘Can you do it?’
‘I think so. I’ll need a bit of time. Guard the door while I give it my attention.’
‘Fine,’ said Herin. He moved to draw his sword, and then, thinking better of it, pulled out a seax which had been strapped horizontally to his belt.
‘No room to swing a sword in here,’ he said by way of explanation, handling the weapon; in size, it was somewhere between a knife and a sword, with a wickedly sharp edge. Picking his spot, he went down on one knee facing the door. If anyone did bumble into the room, they were going to get a nasty surprise.
Returning to his work, Soren located the highest lock and formed a connection between the metal mechanism and his hands, through the wood of the door. Wriggling his hands up and down, he was able to raise the internal pins while also pulling the bolt to the right. He opened the lock, resulting in a loud click. Herin looked over.
‘One down,’ said Soren.
The next two worked along the same principles, and Soren was able to pull the bolt after a bit of trial and error. Standing up, he pushed open the door. Herin joined him with the candle he had retrieved from the sconce, and they peered in.
They had done it. Three large chests sat along the opposite wall, with various artefacts made of gold, silver, crystal and the like lay scattered on the floor. It was a very rich man’s treasure hoard.
Herin and Soren looked at each other, smiling in jubilation at their success.
Herin rushed in and lifted up the lid of the nearest chest, and Soren peered over his shoulder. It was full, mainly with coins: Cordentine florins, the distinctive wide, thin discs of gold; but also plenty of Imperial thalers, silver Persaleian denarii, and lots more, from all over Dalriya.
‘I knew it,’ said Herin, dipping a hand into the coins. ‘I knew we could do it. This is a massive haul.’
‘I know,’ said Soren, ‘but we’re not done yet. We need to move.’
‘Right,’ agreed Herin, ‘we prioritise. First, we get this chest into Vincente’s room. Then the next two. Anything else really valuable, but otherwise we leave it.’
Herin and Soren grabbed one end of the chest each and carried it out of the treasure room and back into the adjoining chamber, where its three corpse guards still sat in silence. It weighed a tonne, and Soren was glad when Herin signalled to put it down.
Herin peered round the door into the passageway.
‘Clear.’
Hefting it up again, they manhandled it out of the room into the passageway, Herin walking backwards towards the stairs, Soren facing forwards.
There were footsteps on the stairs. Quick footsteps.
Before he could react, Soren saw a face come into view. It was a young man’s face, thin, with a wispy moustache, making his features rat like. Soren recognised him as one of the henchmen who had been sitting on the dais when Belwynn was introduced to Vincente. They were in trouble.
Unless—
‘Herin,’ he murmured, dropping his end of the chest and nodding towards the stairs.
The man had stopped.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded in a loud voice.
Herin turned around. Lightning quick, he pulled the seax from his belt and threw it at the target. But the man was too quick, diving back down the stairs as the weapon clattered harmlessly against the stonework.
‘Shit,’ said Herin.
Soren could hear the man shouting as he descended back down the stairs.
Belwynn, he spoke to his sister, sending his thoughts down to the hall where she was still performing. Belwynn, get out of there! Now!
2
The Smell of Failure
BELWYNN, GET OUT OF THERE! Now!
Belwynn stopped singing immediately. She took a few steps backwards on the dais. She gestured to Clarin for help.
Her audience in the hall murmured, as if slowly awakening from a dream. She could hear shouting outside the hall. Things had stopped going well.
Belwynn looked around, desperately trying to work out where to go. She had no idea. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Clarin was heading towards her, but he was being so slow!
Behind him, a woman marched onto the dais, dressed all in black with black hair pulled back from her face. She walked directly towards Belwynn, who recognised her as the woman who had shouted out when they had entered the hall.
‘I think we need to get out of here,’ said the woman urgently.
The door of the hall crashed open, and one of Vincente’s followers, the teenager with the moustache, tumbled in.
‘They’re stealing the treasure!’ he shouted.
A few moments ago, one could have heard a pin drop. Now, the hall erupted in noise. Men shouted orders at each other. Some rushed out of the hall towards the stairs. Others turned to the dais, pointing fingers at Belwynn and Clarin.
‘Yes, Moneva! Get us out of here,’ said Clarin quickly, speaking to the woman.
The woman Clarin had called Moneva ran past Belwynn towards the back of the dais, where a small set of stairs took her upwards. Clarin gave Belwynn a gentle push to follow on. She must be one of the sellswords Herin had said was working with them, Belwynn surmised. She hadn’t been expecting a woman.
Looking behind her, Belwynn gasped as a group of men approached the dais. Clarin drew his sword, causing them to pause, before he again pushed her towards the back of the dais.
Moneva’s escape route took them up the stairs into a large, dimly-lit, and musty smelling room. It was a storeroom, with a stack of timber in one corner, a harness for a cart and horse lying in another. Big fabric sacks were lined up against all the walls.
An exit way to the room lay ahead and to the right, which was where the little light in the room was coming from. As Belwynn looked in that direction an armed man emerged, perhaps a guard to an alternative exit to the house.
‘What’s going on, Moneva?’ he asked, walking towards them.
�
��Someone’s tried to break into the treasure room.’
The guard’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Who are they?’ he asked, indicating Clarin and Belwynn.
With no warning, Moneva launched a kick in between the man’s legs. It connected home with a crunch and the guard doubled over in agony. Clarin was quickly on to him, bringing his knee up and smashing it under the man’s chin. Belwynn heard an unpleasant crack from the man’s jawbone. Clarin loomed over him, fist raised.
‘Clarin, enough!’ demanded Belwynn.
Clarin looked up and headed towards the exit to the room, but Moneva reached out and grabbed him.
‘No, we’ll get trapped that way. Follow me.’
Moneva drew them instead in the opposite direction, deeper into the storeroom. Taking a right, she took them into a smaller chamber.
The latrines. A bad smell. And a dead end.
‘What—’ began Belwynn.
‘Hush,’ said Moneva.
Voices. Unsurprisingly, a group of men had now followed them up the steps from the dais and into the storeroom. They must have found the injured guard on the floor.
Moneva pointed at the wooden bench of latrines.
‘When I say so,’ she whispered, ‘help me pull off the wooden board. Underneath are holes which go outside. We can lower ourselves down.’
‘Into a dung-heap!’ hissed Belwynn.
Moneva looked at her. ‘You got a better option, princess?’
Belwynn knew the woman was right. If they didn’t get out of here quickly they would be in big trouble. She held her hands up. ‘Fine.’
They positioned themselves along the bench. When Moneva gave the word, they pulled up the whole plank of wood easily, lowering it to the floor, exposing a stone slab with four holes in it. Just big enough to fit through.
‘Who’s there?’ came a voice from the storeroom.
Belwynn looked from Moneva to Clarin. They had seconds to act before they were discovered.
Clarin sheathed his sword, unbuckled his scabbard from his belt, and threw it down one of the holes. He placed each hand on either side of the hole and hoisted himself inside. It was a tight fit for him. He let go, shoving his arms in the air because they wouldn’t fit by his sides, and half-slid, half-fell down the hole. Belwynn was convinced she heard an unpleasant squelch as he landed at the bottom.
‘Get in,’ hissed Moneva.
Belwynn sat on the stone shelf and dangled her feet down the hole. She looked down, and a wave of stench hit her, making her heave.
‘I can’t,’ she began, but she didn’t have a chance to finish the sentence—Moneva grabbed her waist and forced her over the hole before shoving her down.
Belwynn slid down the rough stone work and then into empty space—before she landed in a sea of excrement.
The momentum of the drop pushed her onto her knees, and she tilted forwards, arms outstretched, into the muck. It splattered up her chest and onto her face. Big hands grabbed at her, and she was unceremoniously hauled out of the pit and onto wet grass. Clarin stood next to her, equally caked in filth.
A few seconds later and there was a huge squelch as Moneva landed in the dirt. As Belwynn got to her feet, Clarin helped the other woman out.
They stood there a little while, eyeing each other up and down and wrinkling their noses.
‘We haven’t been introduced,’ said Belwynn, holding out a hand. ‘Belwynn.’
Moneva looked at the proffered hand, caked as it was in other people’s excrement, then looked at her own hand, which wasn’t much better.
‘Moneva,’ she said, clasping hands. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Soren winced at the sound of Herin dragging the chest towards the door of the first room they had passed on the corridor. Herin had described it as Vincente’s private chamber. Soren bent down and grabbed the other side of the chest, and they carried it into the room before letting it fall to the floor.
Soren wasn’t surprised to see that Vincente’s room was richly furnished: decorative rugs lay on the floor and ornate tapestries lined the walls. In the centre of the room was a large bed with a canopy over it. There was an adjoining bathroom where he and his family could wash and make their toilet in private.
Soren was surprised, however, to see people in the room.
In the doorway of the bathroom sat a woman. Her hands were tied behind her back and a cloth gag had been tied over her mouth. Vincente’s wife, perhaps, or maybe a servant who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the far end of the room was an open window. By the window was a Krykker man, pulling at a length of sheet he had dangled out of the window. The other end had been tied to one of the legs of the bed.
Soren recognised him as one of Vincente’s henchmen who had a place on the high table down in the hall.
‘What’s happening?’ said the Krykker by way of greeting, giving his roll of sheets another yank. ‘It’ll hold my weight, so it should hold yours too.’
‘Soren, this is Kaved,’ said Herin quickly.
Soren nodded at Kaved in greeting.
‘They’re onto us,’ continued Herin. ‘We’ve got to get out of here now.’
‘What!?’ said Kaved, clearly disappointed. ‘With only one chest?’
‘Better one chest and our lives than all three and dead,’ said Soren. ‘Is there anything we can use to hold this door shut? The bed’s being used to hold the rope.’
Soren and Herin both heard a noise and turned to each other. It was the sound of many men roaring as they ran up the stairs of the house.
‘Quick! They’re here!’ shouted Herin, the unusual sound of panic in his voice.
‘I’ll hold the door for as long as I can,’ said Soren.
He backed away from the door somewhat, and concentrated on building a barrier around it.
The defence spell was the first one he had ever been taught. His first teacher, Ealdnoth, had made him practise it hour after hour. ‘The first thing a wizard needs to learn,’ Ealdnoth had told him, ‘is to defend himself against the many people who want him dead.’ Soren had learned how to block a punch, then a sword strike. When he had mastered that, Ealdnoth would test his defences against a magical attack. He would probe and attack until Soren didn’t have the energy to hold him off any longer. Eventually, he became so proficient that it was Ealdnoth who had to give up.
While he built his barrier, Herin shoved his weight against the door. Kaved joined them and grabbed the chest.
Soren could hear a crowd out in the passageway. There were lots of them.
‘You go, Kaved,’ shouted Herin.
Just then the door gave a lurch as someone tried to barge their way in. Herin forced it closed.
‘How am I supposed to get down carrying this?’ demanded the Krykker.
An axe head chopped through the door, narrowly missing Herin’s head. He sprang back into the room.
‘Just chuck it out!’ he screamed at Kaved.
The axe was pulled back, and a chunk of the door came with it. Faces peered through the door at them.
‘Kaved!’
It was Vincente’s voice screaming through the door.
‘You treacherous dog! I will gut you for this! What have you done with my wife?’
Soren continued to focus on the doorway, constructing a barrier that was strong enough to hold off Vincente and his men. He heard a grunt from behind him, and then a crash, as Kaved hurled the chest out of the window.
The door swung open, revealing a mass of angry-looking men struggling to get in. Vincente’s giant henchman waved an axe in Soren’s direction.
‘Soren?’ asked Herin, brandishing his sword.
‘I’ve got it. You go.’
Herin rushed to the window and began climbing out, following Kaved.
The men at the door tried to barge into the room, but Soren held them out, an invisible but powerful force blocking the whole door frame. They shoved and pushed at it, hitting it with weapons.
‘A wiz
ard!’ one of them shouted, pointing at Soren. ‘There’s a wizard in there!’
‘Soren!’ shouted Herin from outside the window. ‘Come on!’
Soren turned around and made for the window.
Suddenly he went sprawling forwards. Vincente’s wife had stuck out a leg and tripped him as he went past. His concentration on the door was completely broken, and he heard shouts as the group of men tumbled through it.
Not daring to look back, Soren picked himself up and sprinted for the window as he sensed someone behind him.
He hurled himself out.
He felt a hand grab at the back of his cloak, but his pursuer couldn’t hold on. Instead, Soren was falling head first out of the window. In desperation, he stuck his hands forward and tried to create an upwards force that would cushion his fall.
He landed on the ground, and everything went black.
Moneva led them around the back of Vincente’s house to the side. According to Herin’s plan, this was where the others were supposed to have left the building, with the treasure, via the upstairs window.
It was now completely dark outside and still raining. Belwynn couldn’t see where they were going and felt sure they were going to get caught any second.
Soren? Soren!
No response.
‘He’s not replying!’ she whispered to Clarin for the third time. The warrior held out his hands in a helpless expression.
Moneva gave a shout, drawing a dagger from her belt. Belwynn made out the form of one of Vincente’s men ahead: the Krykker with the smirk.
‘Gods, Kaved! I nearly cut your throat!’ Moneva hissed.
Kaved snorted. ‘You nearly tried.’
So the Krykker was the second of Herin’s insiders.
‘Where’s my brother?’ she demanded of him.
Kaved looked her over and jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder. Looking, Belwynn could see Herin coming their way, her brother’s body slumped over his shoulder.
‘What happened?’ she demanded.
‘He fell out the window,’ Herin said, lifting Soren off and passing him on to Clarin to carry.
The Weapon Takers Saga Box Set Page 3
