Slaves of Socorro

by John Flanagan

  ‘Open it and get out of the way,’ he said. Jesper stooped over the lock, his two picks sliding into the keyhole and his sensitive fingers feeling the movements of the tumblers inside the lock’s mechanism as he teased them open. He took a little longer over this lock, as he wanted to avoid any unnecessary noise.

  Then a soft click! was audible to them all. He glanced at Thorn, making sure the old warrior was ready, then turned the door handle and threw the double doors wide open.

  He felt Stig and Thorn sweep past him like a hurricane as he moved to his right to stay clear. Hal, sword in one hand, saxe in the other, moved in behind them to provide support wherever necessary.

  The guardroom was lit by three lanterns and a brace of candles on the table. After the dimness of the stairwell, the light inside was positively brilliant. Four of the guards were seated at the table, directly in front of Thorn. They looked up from their dice game, frozen with shock at the terrible sight of Thorn, massively built and his wild hair flying out underneath his black watch cap, storming towards them. For a moment, all any of them could see was the massive club that formed his right hand.

  Then, one of them, slightly faster on the uptake than the others, began to rise, just as Thorn kicked the heavy table over. The two guards on the far side went down under it. The two on the side nearest Thorn were caught by a quick back and forth sweep of his club, thudding into their skulls and sending them sprawling to either side.

  Stig went round the table at a run. There were three men dozing in the bunks. They’d taken off their chain mail and leather armour and were wearing undershirts and trousers. Drowsily, they came awake, trying to work out what was happening.

  Before they could, Stig’s axe had done its work, sweeping backwards and forwards to send two of them back to sleep. Like Gilan earlier in the evening, Stig drew the line at actually killing the men, unarmed and defenceless as they were. He used the flat of his axe blade to hit them and knocked them senseless. The third man actually made it out of bed. He was on Stig’s left and the young Skandian drove into him with his shield, the heavy metal boss in the centre crashing into the man’s ribs and the force of the impact hurling him back against the stone wall. His head hit the stone and he too resumed his all-too-briefly interrupted slumber.

  One of the two men pinned under the table finally disentangled himself and shoved himself back along the floor, away from Thorn’s terrifying club. He scrambled on hands and knees to reach the rack where the guards’ weapons were stored. He’d just got his hands on a sword when Thorn’s small shield swung in a wide arc and hit him on the side of the jaw. He went down, limp as a rag. The other man pinned under the table wisely made no move to extricate himself. He lay back on the floor, hands raised in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘Where’s the eighth man?’ Thorn demanded harshly. Four men at the table and three asleep. There should have been eight in the room, according to what Mahmel had told them.

  ‘Maybe he called in sick,’ Jesper said.

  Then, from an inconspicuous door behind Thorn that had so far gone unnoticed, the eighth man erupted into the room, charging straight at Thorn, an iron-studded club in his hand.

  Thorn whirled to face him, but trod on the unconscious body of one of the men from the table. He staggered and lurched awkwardly, desperately trying to recover his balance as the club began its forward arc, aiming to shatter his skull.

  ‘The roof?’ Gilan said, puzzled. ‘What about it?’

  Lydia gestured up to the ceiling in the stall where they had taken shelter.

  ‘That bit doesn’t look too substantial,’ she said.

  Gilan looked up and agreed. The ceiling was made up of thin sheets of wood supported on battens. It was more for appearance than strength.

  ‘If we break through there, we can get to the outer roof, smash through a few tiles and run for it. I noticed the other day that there are walkways set along the roof – presumably so workmen can walk on them without breaking the tiles.’

  ‘Do it,’ Gilan told her. ‘Break through the ceiling and then get some of the tiles out of the way. I’ll keep our friends busy.’

  They could hear more timber shattering and cracking as the dooryeh broke through to another stall. Without another word, Lydia ran to the back of the stall they were in. She looked around, saw the display counter standing empty and dragged it under the spot she had selected. Cat-like, she leapt onto it, and found she had to stoop under the ceiling. In this part of the stall, rich brocaded material hung in folds from the ceiling, creating an exotic tent-like appearance. She ripped it down with her dirk, then sank the point of the blade between the ceiling material and the thin batten it was fastened to. She levered upwards and there was a rending noise – though not as penetrating as the ones the dooryeh were making – and the ceiling panel fell free, opening the way into a low, dark space above.

  The lightweight battens wouldn’t support her. She stood upright, with her head through the gap she had created, and felt around in the darkness for something more substantial. Her hand touched a thick, hardwood rafter. That would do, she thought. Gilan had discarded his bow in favour of his sword. She stooped, grabbed it and tossed it up into the roof space. She reached through the hole, found the rafter again and heaved herself up after the bow, lying across the rafter at first, then gradually coming up into a crouch, balanced on it. She heard a rending crack from below, followed by a sharp cry of pain. She hoped it wasn’t the Ranger.

  The thin wall Gilan was facing suddenly bulged inwards, then split. A huge crack appeared in it and one of the dooryeh was forcing his way through, a scimitar in his hand. His eyes widened in alarm as he saw Gilan ready and facing him. He tried to extricate himself from the tangle of split wood and hessian but before he could, Gilan’s sword darted out and ran him through.

  The Ranger’s previous reservations about not killing a man who was simply doing his job were gone now. These men were soldiers, trained fighters. And Gilan and Lydia were outnumbered and fighting for their lives.

  As the man went down, another guard tried to force his way past, kicking flat-footed at the rent in the wall to widen it. Behind him, Gilan could see other faces – dark skinned and bearded – and the gleam of weapons. In the constricted space of the stall, it was difficult to swing the sword, a fact that put the scimitar-bearing dooryeh at a disadvantage. The scimitar was designed to cut and hack at an enemy, not to thrust. Gilan’s straight-bladed Araluan sword was more suited to the conditions. As a second guard forced his way through the wall, Gilan parried a clumsy, off balance thrust and darted his own sword forward like a striking snake.

  The dooryeh was wearing a chain mail vest. It would protect him against a dagger thrust, but against Gilan’s specially hardened blade, with the strength of his body, shoulder and arm behind it, it was of little use. The point smashed the chain links aside after the briefest pause, then went on into the man’s body. He gave a great shout and sank to his knees, effectively blocking the path of the men behind him.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Gilan yelled. He could see a sword blade smashing through another part of the light wall that separated the two stalls. Any moment now, he’d be defending two breaches.

  Crouched in near darkness, balanced on the rafter, Lydia shoved against the underside of the tiles above her. She’d always assumed that tiles were simply laid on a roof, without any fastening. But these ones seemed impossible to shift. She felt with her fingers for a join between two of them, then drew her dirk and inserted it in the tiny crack.

  Nothing moved. She tried levering the dirk back and forth, to no avail. Then, shoving the point hard up against the break between the two tiles, she hammered her free hand against the pommel, forcing it up into the gap. It was airless and hot in the narrow roof space and perspiration ran down into her eyes.

  She hammered again and felt something give. Again! And the left-hand tile actually moved a few centimetres upwards. Once more, she thrust up at it, straightening her bent knees to use the big mu
scles in her body, and the tile flew clear, clattering loudly down the sloping roof as it did.

  With one tile missing and the structural integrity of that part of the roof gone, it was relatively easy to smash and heave others out of the way. She rapidly widened the gap, hurling the loosened tiles down the shallow slope of the roof. When she felt she had enlarged the hole sufficiently, she ducked back into the ceiling space and hung head-down from the rafter.

  As her head emerged through the rent in the ceiling, Gilan was dealing with another dooryeh who had broken through. They faced each other, scimitar and sword touching, then moving apart, then touching again as they tested each other, the tips moving in small circles, each duellist’s eyes intent on the other.

  The guard was a capable swordsman, Gilan could see. He was nowhere near Gilan’s level of skill, but he was an opponent worthy of respect. One mistake, and no matter how skilful you might be, you could find yourself dead, the other man’s blade sliding between your ribs and the blood and life flowing out of your body. You didn’t toy with an opponent like this. You didn’t try to be fancy or tricky or to wound him or disarm him. When the opportunity came, you killed him.

  Or you died yourself.

  The moment came.

  The dooryeh lunged the scimitar forward, the blade inverted so that the tip pointed down. It was a move calculated to test Gilan’s speed and reflexes, but the dooryeh mistimed it slightly and was a fraction of a second slow in withdrawing the blade and recovering his guard position.

  Gilan’s sword shot forward, flicking the scimitar aside a few centimetres, slid past, struck, then withdrew. The guard felt the impact, felt the point penetrate his chest, and almost immediately withdraw. Then he felt the hot gush of blood that spelled the end. He looked up at Gilan, shock and surprise in his eyes.

  They were always surprised, Gilan thought. They always thought it couldn’t happen to them.

  The man sank to his knees, his lips moving as he tried to speak. But no words came.

  ‘Come on!’ It was Lydia, her voice cracking with tension as she leaned down through the hole in the ceiling, her hands stretched out to help him. He turned back momentarily to where another guard was stepping through the ragged hole, shoving his recent opponent to one side as he came. Gilan drew back his arm and sent his sword spinning, end over end, at the man.

  The unexpected tactic caught the dooryeh by surprise. He flung up his scimitar to deflect the spinning sword, stepped to one side and slipped, falling across the dead body of the man who had preceded him. As he went down, he saw the foreigner leap up, hang for a few moments, then draw himself up through a hole in the ceiling.

  ‘They’re going through the roof!’ he yelled.

  But it was too late. The foreigners were gone.

  Lydia, the moment Gilan turned away from the rent in the store wall, wasted no time getting out of his way. She tossed his bow up through the hole in the tiles, then seized both sides of the hole and jackknifed herself up onto the roof. One of the tiles was lying close by and she retrieved it, holding it ready. A few seconds later, Gilan heaved himself up onto the roof beside her.

  ‘Damn,’ he said angrily. ‘I was quite fond of that sword.’

  She had no idea what he was talking about, but she gestured to where his bow lay a few metres away. As he moved to retrieve it, she leaned back over the hole. She could see a pale face peering up from below the gap in the ceiling.

  ‘This way!’ she heard the man yell. Then, aiming carefully, she dropped the tile through the two gaps. She heard a dull thud, followed by a cry of pain. She looked again and the face had gone. Gilan touched her arm, pointing up the shallow slope of the roof. The raised plank walkway along the apex was ten metres away and the Ranger started out towards it, the tiles beneath his feet groaning and cracking as he ran. She followed him, stepping gingerly as she felt the tiles give beneath her feet, expecting any moment to go plummeting through them, back into the gold market. Then she was on the firm footing of the walkway.

  She looked back. Smoke was beginning to seep out through the narrow cracks between the tiles. Then a head and shoulders emerged through the hole she had smashed in the roof. A guardsman clambered out, looked around and saw them.

  ‘This way! They’re going this –’

  He got no further. Lydia’s dart flashed across the roof and hit him in the chest. He staggered back under the impact, then went crashing through the hole, back the way he had come. They heard muffled cries of alarm as he fell, presumably landing on top of his comrades.

  ‘Nice shot,’ Gilan said, the admiration obvious in his voice. ‘That’ll make them think twice about poking their heads out through that hole.’

  ‘Let’s get going,’ Lydia said. Her heart was pounding with the tension of the last few minutes. Adrenaline was surging through her system and her hands were shaking. Under these conditions, she knew that the shot had been more of a fluke than anything else. But fluke or not, it would do as Gilan said and delay their pursuers.

  ‘Which way?’ she asked.

  Gilan pointed and ran, heading north-west. The walkway ran along the spine of the roof, which was oriented south-east to north-west. This way had them heading back towards the harbour.

  ‘Shortest way’s best,’ he said. ‘We’ll find a way down once we’re closer to the north-west wall, then get back to the boat.’

  ‘It’s a ship,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘Whatever. We’ll get back to it. I get the feeling this is not going to be a good place to be in the next hour or so.’

  Behind them, to their left, they heard a smashing sound. Turning to look, they saw several tiles being flung aside as someone made another exit through the roof. Smoke roiled up out of this hole and a dim figure was just visible, climbing up, crouching on the roof and searching for them. He saw them and threw up a hand to point at them, just as Gilan’s arrow hit him. He flung out his arms and fell back without a sound, sliding a few metres down the slope of the roof.

  ‘It’s not a good place to be right now,’ said Lydia. Once more, she was astounded by the Ranger’s speed and accuracy. They had both seen the guard emerge. Yet she hadn’t managed to draw a dart from her quiver before Gilan nocked an arrow, drew back, aimed and shot.

  And hit his target.

  ‘Save your breath,’ he told her and they set off again, running, crouched low. The moon had risen while they had been in the souk. It seemed to flood the broad, shallow-sloped roof with light so that they felt totally exposed to view. Fortunately, the feeling was an illusion, as there was nobody to see them.

  They were almost to the north-west wall of the souk when Gilan paused, holding up an arm for her to stop. He looked behind them. There was no sign of any pursuit on the roof. But that didn’t mean that the alarm wasn’t being raised in the market below them.

  ‘We could break back through the tiles,’ Lydia suggested. ‘We’re well away from the fire now.’

  But Gilan shook his head. ‘If we go back in, we’ll have to go out through one of the gates, and they’ll all be secured by now.’ He gestured at their clothes. ‘And without our robes and kheffiyehs, we do tend to stand out. We’ll have to find a way down the wall.’

  He stepped off the walkway and began to edge carefully down the sloping tiles to the edge of the roof. Lydia followed tentatively, once again feeling the tiles bending and cracking under her feet. This roof will leak like a sieve if it ever rains here, she thought. As Gilan reached the edge of the roof, he went down on hands and knees to spread his weight, and moved to look over the edge.

  She joined him, also crawling, feeling the roof’s movement under her lessening as she did so. He pointed to a spot ten metres back from where they crouched.

  ‘There,’ he said. There was an arched gateway between the wall of the souk and the building adjacent. The top of the arch was two metres below the roof. From there, it was another two or three metres to the ground. But there were plenty of footholds and handholds in the rough stone
of the arch and they could scramble down it. Or they could hang at arm’s length from the arch and drop to the road below.

  The trick would be getting down to the arch from where they were. They would have to jump and the top of the arch was less than a metre wide. Gilan knew he could manage it without losing his balance, but he wasn’t sure if Lydia could.

  ‘Are you up for it?’ he asked her.

  She didn’t reply, but ran lightly to a spot above the arch, slid her feet over the edge of the roof and dropped without hesitation. She landed light as a cat on top of the stone arch, absorbed the shock of the fall with her flexed knees, and kept her balance with her hands spread wide. From there, she stooped and let herself hang by the arms. There was a drop of less than a metre beneath her feet and she let go, landed with barely a noise, looked up at him and nodded.

  ‘Apparently, I am,’ she said.

  Hal moved instinctively, faster than conscious thought. In a fraction of a second, he sensed that, even if he ran his sword through the attacking Socorran, the wicked club would undoubtedly complete its arc. The guard would be dead. But so would Thorn.

  Instead, he swung backhanded with his sword at the wooden head of the club itself. The sword struck home with a loud THOCK! The razor-sharp edge bit into the hardwood and locked there, stopping the club in mid-stroke. Then he jerked the sword to one side. The blade, sunk deep in the wood, dragged the club with it, pulling the guard to his left as he held onto the shaft of the club.

  Thorn quickly swung his small shield in a vicious left hook and hit the man flush on the nose. Blood spurted and, almost masked by the thud of connection, Hal heard a small cracking noise as the bones in the nose gave way. The guard gave one long sigh of pent-up breath and fell on his side, his face now a mask of blood. The club fell from his hand, dragging Hal’s sword blade down with it.

  Thorn looked round at his young friend. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘He nearly had me.’

  Hal nodded. He put one foot on the club and jerked his sword free. There was no need for either of them to say more. They were shipmates and brotherband members and that was the way things were between them. Any of the Herons would have done the same thing – although possibly not with the instinctive speed and lightning reflexes Hal had shown. In fact, Thorn realised, had it been anyone other than Hal, or possibly Stig, standing behind him, the odds were that his brains would be splattered over the floor by now.