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 wizard!’ 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 the
m 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.
‘He’s well enough. I think. But we haven’t got time now; they’ll be following us.’
‘The treasure?’ asked Moneva.
‘Disaster,’ said Kaved, heading away from the house into the grounds at the back and indicating that they should follow him.
‘We picked up a few coins from one of the chests that I had to throw out of the window. That’s it.’
Belwynn saw Moneva roll her eyes and begin to say something, but she controlled herself, biting her tongue.
‘Over here!’ A shout came from behind them.
‘Get on with it,’ said Kaved, picking up the pace as the grounds sloped gently downhill.
Belwynn could hear the jingle of metal armour and weapons coming from behind them, seemingly on the trail of Herin and the others.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
Kaved didn’t reply, but instead sprinted forwards towards a stream that flowed by quietly and appeared to mark the boundary of Vincente’s property.
Pulling out a small hand-axe, he hacked at the moorings of a large raft that was half hidden behind a tree.
‘Don’t worry, Kaved’s part of the plan will still work,’ said the Krykker in a sarcastic voice. ‘Get on.’
Kaved and Herin held the raft steady as Clarin walked on gingerly, gently lowering Soren onto its deck. Belwynn and Moneva followed on, trying to spread their weight so that it didn’t tip. From somewhere Kaved now had a long pole, which he used to push them away from the bank.
‘Shit,’ said Herin.
A group of about a dozen armed men were running down the slope towards them.
‘Faster!’ said Moneva.
‘I can’t go faster!’ responded Kaved angrily. ‘We’re on a raft, not a racehorse!’
He shoved the pole down onto the bed of the stream and pushed them away a little farther.
When the men reached the bank, Kaved had succeeded in nudging them out into the middle of the stream, too far out to be reached by a sword or spear. Some of the men tentatively put their feet into the stream, seeing if they could follow on foot.
Others arrived and crowded around the bank, shouting insults. One of them held a bow and reached for an arrow, ready to knock it and shoot. If he did, he could aim at virtually point blank range.
‘Archer!’ shouted Belwynn.
As she did so, there was a movement on the other side of the raft, and a knife left Moneva’s outstretched hand, burying itself in the neck of the archer.
Those men in the water froze, suddenly wary of their exposed position.
Meanwhile, Vincente had pushed himself to the bank.
‘Get them!’ he yelled at his men, gesturing angrily. ‘You’ve given yourselves a death sentence for this!’ he yelled towards the raft as it picked up a bit of speed in the middle of the stream and began to float away. ‘You’ve made one hell of a mistake tonight!’
‘Oh, fuck off!’ Kaved shouted back at him. ‘We didn’t get hardly any of your money, anyway!’
Vincente’s men were being herded into the stream, some making more of an effort than others. The eager ones were crossing the stream and threatened to reach the opposite bank before the raft did. Kaved pushed them closer to the bank, and Clarin was able to grab hold of an overhanging tree branch, pulling the raft in and then holding it steady as the others clambered out. Herin grabbed Soren under the arms and dragged him onto the bank. Clarin got himself off and picked up the wizard.
Soren murmured something unintelligible.
‘Looks like he might be waking up,’ the big man commented.
‘I hope so,’ said Belwynn, peering at her brother. There seemed to be a bit more colour in his face. ‘What happened to him, Herin?’
‘He held the door closed while we escaped. Then he jumped out of the window for some reason. But he cast some kind of spell that cushioned his fall. It didn’t look like he hurt anything.’
‘Hit the ground in slow motion, sort of,’ added Kaved, sounding slightly in awe of what he had seen.
‘He probably used too much magic, too quickly,’ explained Belwynn. ‘It’s happened before. It knocks him out for a while.’
‘Well, we better keep moving,’ said Kaved. ‘Just a little way up here.’
They marched up the riverbank, away from Vincente’s town, for a few hundred metres. It was pitch black now, and no-one had a light, but Kaved seemed to know where he was going.
Before Belwynn realised it was there, they had stopped by a cart, complete with two horses attached to it.
‘Wow,’ said Moneva drily, ‘someone’s been busy.’
‘Yes,’ said Kaved, climbing into the driver’s seat, ‘complete with provisions and enough space to hold three chests full of gold. Looks like all we’re taking away is the six of us.’
‘We got some of it,’ said Herin moodily, helping his brother to lift Soren into the back of the cart. ‘It’ll cover our expenses.’
‘Will it cover the loss of my lucrative wages?’ asked Moneva pointedly.
Herin turned towards her. ‘Just get in, will—’
He stopped speaking and wrinkled his nose. He looked at Moneva as if seeing her for the first time, then across at Clarin and Belwynn. He put a hand over his nose.
‘What the fuck happened to you?’
III
Intruders
The sun set the world alight that morning: brilliant orange shafts touching the sky, spreading along the horizon and driving down to the land.
My land, thought Farred, as he let his mount walk along for a while at its own pace, content to survey the world around him.
To his left, Gyrmund seemed content to ride in companionable silence too. The early morning was surely the best part of the day: everything to look forward to, and it was when the land here looked the most beautiful. The rolling grassland stretched on for miles in every direction, seemingly unending. The mist of the previous night still hung over the grass, as if the gods had decided to sprinkle Dalriya with fairy dust.
‘Do you miss it?’ he asked Gyrmund.
‘What?’
‘Walsted. The land here. The place where you grew up. I would find it hard to leave for as long as you have.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ agreed Gyrmund, looking around. ‘But so are other places. Just in different ways.’
Farred nodded. He would like to see other parts of the world too. But he also appreciated what he had here.
‘Don’t you ever get bored?’ asked Gyrmund.
‘Bored of what?’
‘I don’t know. I know you’ve got responsibilities here. But bored of the same routine. Doing the same things, at the same time...’
‘Maybe. Though in some ways I’ve appreciated having some structure over the last few years, since Father died. But I know what you mean. I think I’m ready for a new challenge now.’
They rode on in silence again. It got Farred to thinking.
They had been inseparable as youths, raised as brothers after the death of Gyrmund’s family. Farred had thought it would stay that way forever. It hadn’t crossed his mind that it wouldn’t. But now he was able to see the differences between them. Farred’s parents had owned the estate here at Walsted. His family had done so for generations, since the Middians of these parts had agreed to bend the knee to the Kings of Magnia and their tribal lands were divided up. Gyrmund’s parents, on the other hand, had rented their land and worked for Farred’s family. That difference hadn’t meant anything to Farred when he was a boy, but maybe it had to Gyrmund. And, of course, the two of them had wanted different things from the friendship at one point. But it still seemed strange that Farred, now, was the only one who called this place home. To Gyrmund, Walsted was still a refuge, a place he could stay if he needed to rest up or get some free lodging and dinners. But it was no longer his home.
‘Time to stretch these boys’ legs a bit?’ asked Gyrmund.
‘Come on then, Gamhard,’ Farred called out to his mount, nudging him into a trot.
They were heading west, away from the sunrise, to where the plains of Farred’s estate ended and became a wood of hills and hollow. Much of Plunder Wood was also owned by Farred, used for hunting game and to fetch timber. Beyond the woods was South Magnia proper, where the soil was deep and they farmed crops more so than animals.
After a while Gyrmund pushed his mount into a gallop and Farred let Gamhard join in. They raced along the open land, troubled neither by lake or stream, the ground dry from days of sunshine.
The woods became visible ahead. They headed for a wooden hunting lodge that Farred’s father had built when they were youngsters. Here they could see to their horses and sort out which supplies they wanted to take into the woods by foot. Deer was the quarry today, and both men carried long hunting bows. Gyrmund had always been the slightly better marksman, taking the skill more seriously. Farred preferred spear and sword.
Toric's Dagger: Book One of The Weapon Takers Saga Page 3
