by Jason Tesar
The orange light of the lantern reappeared a moment later. It was only fifty yards away and it looked like they had already spotted him. Within minutes, the rowboat came swiftly alongside Adair as he floated in the water. The men standing in the center of the boat were holding crossbows, cocked with bolts ready.
“Climb aboard,” came a raspy voice.
Adair knew it was pointless to resist, though his mind still raced to find a way to escape. Against his instincts and years of training, he swam over to the boat and grabbed the extended hand of one of the rowers.
“That’s it. Nice and easy,” the man with the lantern spoke again.
The rower pulled, and Adair slid into the boat, rolling over the side and slumping onto his back with exhaustion. The bottom of the boat had a musty smell, like it hadn’t touched fresh air in years.
The man with the lantern stepped forward and held the lamp over Adair’s limp body. “I already know from your late friends that you are the captain.”
Captain? Adair was relieved that his men hadn’t told the whole truth. Although the position of captain evidently gave him some measure of safety, being a colonel and the governor of Bastul was something that needed to stay hidden.
“Yes, that is true,” he replied, sitting up and wiping the saltwater from his eyes. “What do you—?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Adair caught a sudden movement. He didn’t even have time to flinch before something hard slammed into the back of his skull and everything went black.
CHAPTER 6
Adair was vaguely aware of being dragged across a smooth floor. He felt the sensation of his legs, from the knees down, sliding on a hard surface. He could hear the footsteps of the men that were on either side of him, half carrying him by the shoulders of his tunic. The fabric was cutting into his skin. There was an elapsed period of time between this realization and when he regained his vision. As soon as he opened his eyes, the sight of his own reflection in the black marble, four inches away from his nose, caused a shooting pain in his head. He quickly shut his eyes, but his temples pounded, making it difficult to concentrate on anything else. He tried not to make any sound or movement as he winced. The pain gradually lessened into a dull ache, emanating from the base of his skull, spreading down his neck and into his shoulders. He decided to risk opening his eyes again and found his vision to be blurry. Even through the blur, the sight of the intricate marble passing beneath him was too much. His head began to spin. He shut his eyes and darkness returned—a welcome retreat for his overwhelmed vision.
“Is this the one?”
The voice seemed loud in the surrounding silence. The two men had stopped dragging him and were talking with a third man. There was a pause before the reply, probably for some gesture that Adair couldn’t see.
“He made it close to the outer wall. We almost didn’t know he was there until it was too late.”
Adair was listening intently for any information he could glean from the interaction. He could feel a slight tug on his right shoulder before his captor continued.
“He started to run through the reef, but we got him.”
There was another pause, and Adair wished he could watch this conversation from somewhere other than where he was now. There was much to learn, even from people’s body language.
“Take him to the end, last cell on the left,” said the third man.
Good, only one guard so far. He tucked this information away, knowing that it could be useful at some point.
Without another word, the two soldiers continued to drag Adair down the hall. They were going to put him in a cell, probably to be questioned. There was no other reason to keep him alive. But then my chance to escape will be gone. The thought of trying to get away from these two soldiers and the guard they had just passed made Adair feel queasy. Under normal circumstances, these two men would be no match for him. The presence of the third man, coupled with the probability of blacking out from the exertion, made the situation very dangerous. But he had no other options. As these thoughts were making their way through his sluggish mind, he felt the soldiers drag him around a sharp corner, turning to the left. Once out of sight from the guard behind them, Adair seized the opportunity.
The men were carrying swords at their right sides; the scabbard of the man on the left had been knocking into his arm the whole time. He listened to their steps to get the timing and suddenly reached both arms around the back of the soldiers’ legs.
The two men tripped over their own feet, sprawling onto the floor in front of them and losing their grip on their prisoner.
Adair pulled his feet underneath him and pounced on the back of the soldier to his right, pinning him to the ground. He reached down to the man’s waist and grabbed the hilt of his sword, attempting to rip it from the scabbard. It stuck at first, the awkward angle not allowing it to come free.
The soldier on the left was quicker than Adair had anticipated, already gaining his footing and pulling his own sword free.
Adair somersaulted forward over the soldier beneath him while keeping his grip on the sword. It came free and Adair rolled to his feet on the other side with the sword in his hand.
The other soldier wasted no time and attacked immediately. Lunging forward, he swung his sword at gut level with a backhanded slash.
Adair backstepped the passing blade and drove the point of his sword into the man’s chest.
The soldier dropped immediately to his knees.
Adair wrenched the blade out, spinning around to find the other man still on his hands and knees. Before the soldier could get to his feet, Adair drove his sword between the man’s shoulder blades and the man collapsed on the floor.
Adair’s head was spinning, but he gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the growing nausea. Darting back to the corner of the hallway, he laid in wait for the guard who was sure to have heard all the commotion.
Mere seconds elapsed before the guard came running around the corner.
Adair swung his sword in a level arc and caught the soldier in the face, stopping his upper body momentum while his legs continued forward and swung out from underneath him.
~
Adair dragged the bodies into one of the nearby cells and piled two of them in the corner. He stripped the clothes off the third man and changed into them, using his own to wipe up the mess in the hallway. His head was still spinning a little, but he was feeling better with every breath. The guard had been armed with a spear, but Adair decided to keep his newly acquired sword instead, to complete his disguise. The attire of these soldiers was much different from his own military dress, with leather sandals that crisscrossed up his lower leg, coming almost to his knee. The guard’s tunic had long sleeves and only reached down to Adair’s waist, where a pair of calf-long trousers completed the uniform. The sword was similar to standard Orudan issue but a few inches longer and slightly narrower.
Who are these people?
Everything about them seemed relatively normal. There was nothing foreign or outlandish except their secretive presence on the ocean. They weren’t part of any group that he knew of, but their skin and features suggested they were from this part of the world.
Does the emperor know about them?
As soon as the thought came to him, he dismissed it. The Empire was the most advanced military in the world, and they owed that to two reasons—organization and communication. If the emperor had any operations so near to Bastul, or even knew of something, Adair would be the first one notified. For the meantime, Adair brushed the thoughts aside and concentrated on finding a way out of this place.
Disguised as one of the enemy, he strode confidently down the hallway, turning to the right and heading in the direction from which he had been dragged. As he walked, he tried to take note of any details that might later prove useful. Flames burned in sconces at eye level along both walls, dimly lighting the hallway. The floor was made of a smooth black marble, highly polished, and it reflected what light the torches cast. T
he walls were made of a more ordinary stone, duller than the floor, but still black. Adair couldn’t find any seams where the stones were joined together. It was as if the whole hallway had been carved out of one giant rock.
He found the place where the guard had stood only a moment ago—a low archway at the end of the hall that opened into a wider and taller area with doorways on the left and right. Another low archway was set into the wall on the opposite side, making this chamber a four-way junction. Adair tried to remember from which direction he had been dragged, but couldn’t recall turning around any corners. Then again, he had only just regained consciousness at this point. He decided to go with his instinct and chose the archway across the chamber. It was a hallway, exactly like the one he just left. As he walked, it occurred to him that he must be somewhere inside the walled structure he saw on the ocean.
At the end of the hall was a set of stairs leading up. He climbed carefully with one hand on the hilt of his sword, ready for someone to appear at any moment. The stairs spiraled in a tight radius, and after a few minutes he began to wonder how far the steps would go. With each step, his sense of direction became more confounded. He thought this place to be a building inside the circular wall, but it was far too large. With all of the stairs he had climbed, this building would have reached high into the air, clearly visible above the reflective wall that surrounded this place.
He trudged on for several more minutes before hearing a change in the sound of the stairwell. His footsteps were starting to echo, and he could tell that there was a larger passage up above. He moved cautiously up the spiraled stairs as the passage widened, ending at a doorway. It was a low arch without a door, just like all the others he had seen. But beyond the doorway was what interested him.
Though his view was limited, he could make out a cavern, one hundred feet long, with a low ceiling. He could also see row upon row of barrels and crates lining the left side. A sharp clanking noise drew his attention to the right, but he had to move a few steps forward to get a better view. There, in the soft orange glow of a furnace, were a handful of blacksmiths pounding red-hot metal with hammers. One of the men plunged the metal into a bucket and a hiss of steam rose above his head. He tossed the metal into a box set on wheels and another man pushed the cart away. Adair moved closer to the archway and scanned the cavern. There were dozens of groups like the first, all making what appeared to be weapons.
They’re building an arsenal!
Before he had a chance to dwell on the shocking discovery, his attention was drawn to something glittering on the far side of the cavern. It took him a moment to realize that it was reflected moonlight on the ocean, seen through an enormous doorway on the other side of the cavern. Just outside of the opening were several ships moored to a dock, but it was too dark to make out anything else.
Suddenly, the sound of voices came to him, much closer than the blacksmiths. They were just outside of the doorway to the right, and they were approaching. Adair turned and fled down the stairs, struggling to keep from tripping as he skipped over several steps with each stride. He reached the bottom of the long, winding staircase in just a few minutes and stopped, trying to calm his heartbeat and listen for signs of pursuit. A moment later, the sound of unhurried footsteps drifted to him, and it was apparent that the men were coming down the staircase. He had only an instant to think of what to do before they would reach the bottom. He glanced at the other doorways around him. The one straight ahead would lead him back to the jail cells. He wasn’t sure about the other two passages, but either one might be an escape route.
If I run, the men coming down the stairs will be alarmed by the disappearance of the guard. If I stay and pose as the guard, they might pass by and not notice. But in order to maintain secrecy in a place such as this, all of the soldiers would probably know each other well enough to recognize a stranger. They would never be fooled by his impersonation. The footsteps in the stairwell were getting louder and time was running out. Adair chose the doorway across from him, running down the hall and turning the corner.
Along the left side of the hall were the barred cells where he hid the bodies of the soldiers. He ducked into the first one and hid in the corner where the shadows would conceal him. He hoped that the men wouldn’t even come down this passage. Perhaps they would take one of the other doors. But to his disappointment, he heard them coming. Now all he could do was wait for the men to pass by and sneak out of this passage when they were gone. By the sound of the footsteps, there are four or five of them. Much smarter to run and hide than to fight.
A moment later Adair watched as four men passed by his cell without even a glance in his direction. He waited until they got farther down the hallway before he slipped quietly out of the cell, turning back toward the staircase.
“Get back to your post!” one of the men yelled to him from behind.
Adair raised a hand in acknowledgment without turning and continued around the corner. He heard one of the men laugh and hoped that he wasn’t really alarmed. As Adair neared the guard post, two more soldiers appeared from the bottom of the stairwell in the opposite hallway, apparently following the same route as the first four. Adair immediately stopped in his tracks and stood at attention against the wall. If the soldiers were suspicious, they didn’t let on. Adair’s heart was racing as he prepared himself for conflict, which seemed only an arm’s reach away.
Then it happened.
A yell came from down the hallway where the first four soldiers had gone.
They found the bodies!
The second group of soldiers stopped walking and pulled their swords from their scabbards, looking at Adair with suspicion.
The first group came back around the corner.
Adair now had enemy soldiers in front and behind him. And two doorways for escape.
“Get him!” they yelled, pointing at Adair.
Adair sprang from his position and ran for the nearest door, entering a dark hallway with six men in pursuit. The hallway went on in a straight line for a short time before any other passages became visible. At the first sight of a doorway Adair risked a glance behind him to find that he had gained a considerable distance on his pursuers. He passed by the first door and dodged through the second one on the left and kept running. To his surprise, it was another hallway with a large doorway at the other end. As he ran, he noticed that there were more passages on either side of this hallway as well. He quickly opted for one of the smaller doorways on the right, thinking that it would not be his first choice if he were chasing someone. Each doorway led to another passage with more choices. He kept running, trying to pick a random route to avoid being caught. After a few minutes, he stopped and tried to listen over his own heartbeat.
Silence. Have I lost them?
With at least a few calm moments ahead of him, Adair considered his situation. There was no hope of escaping this place by way of the cavern at the top of the stairs; there were too many people. He had to find another way. In a place like this, there has to be more than one!
Without the sounds of pursuit, he cautiously pressed on to locate another exit. He moved from the dark room that had been his hiding place and began walking tentatively down the hall. It was eerily silent, and Adair drew his sword to be ready for any more surprises.
As time passed he found himself in a hall that appeared to be a main artery inside this maze of tunnels. It was at least thirty feet wide and the ceiling sixty-five feet high. Adair glanced down the length of the hall in both directions and noticed that it curved until it disappeared from sight. This was just the sort of thing he was looking for. If it was a main thoroughfare, it would likely lead to an exit. The only problem was the increased probability of meeting more soldiers along the way. But Adair decided to take his chances. He turned to the right and kept to the outside of the curve, which allowed him the best view of what was ahead.
The minutes passed without any change in the scenery. Adair had just begun to wonder if this hall would go on f
orever when he noted a change in the air. The passage seemed cooler, and the torches on the wall flickered more than before.
Fresh air.
He scanned the walls and ceiling for proof of what he hoped for. Directly above him on the wall, only a few feet from the ceiling, was an opening. It was hard to make out at first with all the shadows cast by the torches. Adair’s heart sank when he became sure that this was where the air was coming from. It was more than forty feet above him and there was no way to climb to it on these slick walls. He would just have to find another way out.
He continued down the hall, hearing nothing but his own footsteps. A minute later he noticed another hole in the wall to his left. It too was out of reach, but a little lower than the first. It was still too far above the ground to climb to, but there was a pattern developing, and Adair liked the look of it. He sheathed his sword, jogging down the passage a little quicker than before, and found another opening in the wall just where he expected it to be. This one was only thirty feet off the ground.
Anticipation propelled him forward at a run, down the curving passage, watching one after another of these holes in the wall spiral closer and closer to his reach. Suddenly his excitement came to a halt. The hallway ended at an arched doorway like so many others he had seen in this labyrinth. He walked a short way into the smaller passage, but there was no hole where he expected it to be. He backed up to the last opening he passed and found that it was about ten feet off the ground, maybe more. Adair couldn’t remember any time in his life when he needed to be able to jump this high, and seriously doubted that he could.
He backed away from the opening and tried to get a better look at it. It appeared to be just a ventilation hole built into the wall and seemed large enough for a man to fit through, but there was no telling where it led. As Adair tried to figure out how he was going to get up to the hole, a faint sound came to his ears. He turned his head to listen and could barely make out footsteps. He glanced left and right, but he couldn’t see anything in the hall. The way sound bounced off the walls in this passage made it difficult to tell from which direction the footsteps were coming.
