Then he holds still as the guards turn and begin approaching the area where the statue is located. Praying for them not to notice the arrow and rope, he waits. The watch they are walking takes them to within several feet of the statue. But then they both reach the end of their watch, turn and begin to walk away from the statue again.
Leaving the rope where it is, he runs back over to where the others are hidden in the shadows. “Now,” he says once he’s rejoined them, “we wait for the diversion.” Another ten minutes go by before a commotion begins to develop. The guards on the wall turn their attention to the far side of town, and one of them points to something. Coming together, they begin talking excitedly to one another.
“Aleya, you need to take them out fast,” he tells her.
Nodding, she removes two arrows from her quiver and sets one point first into the ground before her. The other, she puts to her bowstring and aims. This is something she is confident she can do with little problems.
Releasing the first arrow, it flies true and strikes one of the guards in the back. Before the other guard realizes something is happening, another takes the second guard through the spine just below the neck. The first man topples onto the top of the wall while the second one falls off and lands in the street not far from where Jiron and the others wait.
Indicating the guard, Jiron says to Miko, “Get him out of sight. When I get to the top, the rest of you climb up. Before he runs over to where the rope is hanging against the wall, Brother Willim stops him.
“I’ve never climbed a rope before,” he admits.
“Don’t worry,” he assures him. “James never could either. Let the others go first then tie a loop in the end of the rope. Then we’ll pull you up.”
“Alright,” Brother Willim says.
Moving to the wall, Jiron takes the rope and very carefully begins climbing up. He understands that he can only apply steady tension to the rope. That to suddenly jerk on it may snap the arrow in two. So hand over hand, he slowly and steadily works his way to the top. As he climbs the rope, he can hear raised voices coming from within the Keep area on the other side of the wall.
When he finally reaches the base of the statue, he grips the top of the wall with one hand and then pulls himself up. Once on top, he looks over to the far side of town and sees what the diversion is.
“Not much huh?” he mumbles to himself. The damn fools set fire to the town. And so it appears, for fires are burning in several different sections of the city. Men are running through the streets on their way to put them out.
He casts a quick glance to the guards on the other walls, and the gaze of each is directed to the far off fires. The grounds within the Keep area are fairly deserted, a few guards walk to and fro as they keep watch. One man, a civilian, hollers to one of the guards down there. Together they quickly make their way through the gates and toward the fires.
Sure that everyone’s attention is averted, Jiron removes the arrow from the statue and unties the rope. He’s just taking a firm hold of it when he feels the rope grow taut as someone down below pulls on it. Jiron gives the rope two quick tugs to let them know he’s ready, then braces himself.
He receives two quick answering tugs before someone begins climbing up. In a moment Aleya appears and he offers her a hand which she takes. He then pulls her the rest of the way up onto the wall.
The first thing she notices are the fires burning throughout the city. “What do they think they’re doing?” she asks.
“I don’t care as long as the rest of the guards are looking away from us,” he says. Gesturing to the guard she killed with her bow, he adds, “Grab his crossbow and make like you are him walking the wall.”
Nodding, she says, “Right.” Then moves over toward the dead guard.
Another two pulls announces Miko’s turn up the rope. He has a much more difficult time at it than Aleya had, but after a few tense moments, he makes it. Jiron has him pretend to be the other guard that should be up here instead of dead down below.
He sets himself for hauling up Brother Willim while Miko moves further down the wall. When the rope jerks twice, he begins hauling him up. Pulling up a person is much more strenuous than holding while they climb. When he figures he has pulled Brother Willim up about half the distance, the rope suddenly vibrates. Sensing there may be trouble, he calls for Miko and together they rapidly pull it up.
As the end of the rope reaches the top, they find Brother Willim holding on with one hand to the loop where his foot should be. In the other hand he’s gripping his staff. “What happened?” Miko asks as they haul him the rest of the way up.
“My staff slipped,” he admits somewhat embarrassed. “When I moved to catch it, my foot slipped out of the loop. I almost didn’t catch hold of it in time.”
Miko grins and says, “That would have hurt when you hit the ground.”
Nodding, Brother Willim sits on the wall and tries to calm his trembling nerves.
Jiron coils the rope in his hands as he looks over the wall and into the courtyard below. There are still few guards upon the grounds down there but none in close proximity to the section of wall they’re on. A check toward those upon the walls finds them still staring at the fire burning in the city. So far, none of the guards have yet to notice that something is going on.
“Aleya,” he says and when he has her attention waves for her to come over to him. “There are three guards down below,” he tells her and then shows them to her. One is on the far side and is just moving beyond the Keep’s wall, another is walking across the middle of the courtyard, while the third is closer and moving their way.
“Take out the man coming our way,” he says.
“You got it.” Removing an arrow from her quiver, she places it to string and aims at the approaching man. When she’s sure she’s got him, the arrow is released. Flying true, it strikes the man in the chest and knocks him backward to the ground.
“Miko!” Jiron says as he begins lowering the rope over the side of the wall to the courtyard below. “Get down there fast and get that guard out of sight.” When the rope is played out and he has a firm grip, Miko begins to rappel down the other side. As soon as he’s down, he says to Aleya, “You’re next.”
Nodding, she takes the rope and descends to the ground below.
Once she’s down, he turns to Brother Willim and asks, “Can you make it down by yourself?”
He holds up his staff and says, “Not holding this I can’t.”
Jiron gives him an annoyed look and shakes his head. Then he grabs the staff and throws it over the side. “Now can you?”
Brother Willim looks over the side and watches his staff as it lands on the ground below. Turning back to Jiron he nods, “I think so.”
“Then please hurry,” he says. “Our luck won’t last forever.”
“Right,” he says. Taking the rope, he begins to work his way down. When he reaches the halfway point, he loses his grip and begins sliding down. By the time he hits the bottom, he has a good case of rope burn on both of his hands. Praying to Asran, he uses his magic to heal the burns.
“Stop!” exclaims Aleya.
The urgency of her cry breaks his concentration and the spell stops. “What?” he asks.
“You were glowing like a candle,” she explains. Looking around, she’s relieved to discover no one noticed his magical aura.
“Sorry,” he says. “Forgot about that.”
Jiron lands on the ground next to him and whips the rope back up where it dislodges from the place he had secured it. As it falls to the ground, he begins coiling it back around his middle. He had seen the green glow surrounding the priest but had been too far away to alert him.
Miko joins them and brings Brother Willim his staff. “Here you go,” he says as he hands it to him.
“Thank you,” he replies. He takes the staff gingerly as his hands still throbs with pain.
“If you need to heal yourself,” Jiron says, “Best to wait until we get inside.�
�
“And how are we to do that?” he asks. “Through the front door?”
“Actually, that is exactly what I intend for us to do,” he says. “Currently, the courtyard here is free of guards. One’s around back and will reappear soon. The other one just disappeared in through the main entrance, which as you’ll notice remains open. If we hurry, we might be able to make it.”
“No guts no glory?” Miko asks with a grin.
Jiron nods with an answering grin. He recognizes another one of James’ expressions. “Let’s go.” Running swiftly they cross the courtyard, taking advantage of what shadowy areas there are. No cry ensues by the time they reach the area before the Keep’s gate. Doubling their speed, they race through the entrance.
Chapter Thirty Two
“So, you’re awake are you?”
James cracks open his eyes to see who it is that’s talking to him and the light in the room stabs his eyes like a red hot knife. He moans and tries to rub them but can’t. His mind at first is unable to figure out why, but then comes to the realization that his wrists are manacled above his head to the wall behind him. Squinting so as to allow only a very minimal amount of light through to his eyes, he tries to see what’s going on.
“Everyone else was fooled by that stunt you pulled in Cyst,” the oddly familiar voice says. “But I knew it couldn’t be true. I knew you would end up here. So I came and waited for you to show. I didn’t expect my efforts to yield results so quickly.”
Smack!
His eyes somewhat adjust to the light in the room and he’s now able to tell that the voice is not addressing him. Rather, the man is talking to someone else who is tied to a chair in the center of the room. The man in the chair is facing away from where James is sitting on the floor thus he’s unable to get a good look at who it is.
He slowly moves his head to scan the room. The others who had been in the common room with him at the inn are sitting in a row against the same wall as he is. Each is manacled to the wall in the same manner. Over on a table against the wall he sees their belongings haphazardly stacked, it doesn’t look as if anyone’s taken the time to search through them yet.
Returning his attention to Perrilin, for that is whom he finally realizes is sitting in the chair being interrogated, he sees the man interrogating him strike him again across the face. In his drugged state, it’s hard for his mind to function properly and it takes him a bit, but he begins to recognize the man interrogating Perrilin. He’s seen him before.
With a scar running along the side of his face across one eye, it would be hard for James to ever forget him. Korgan, or as James better knows him, Ol’ One Eye. The man from whom he rescued Perrilin when he had him in a farmhouse outside of Cardri. The man who aided the Empire by poisoning the guards in charge of the gates in the City of Light. A powerful agent of Lord Cytok. To be here in his hands bodes ill for James and the others. He has little love for the man. In fact he’s one of the few people he’s met that he wouldn’t feel any qualms about killing.
Smack!
Korgan strikes Perrilin across the face again and then gazes at him for a second. Moving in close to Perrilin’s face, he lifts one eyelid and examines the eye beneath. “Damn!” he curses. Then he says something in the northern tongue to one of the three guards there in the room with him. Abruptly turning about, he exits through the door behind him.
James feigns unconsciousness as he works in his mind what exactly is going on. From what he overheard Korgan say, he came here for Perrilin. The fact that James happens to be here as well could possibly have eluded him for the moment. James fervently hopes that he will continue to remain ignorant of it.
The last thing he remembers is eating and drinking back at the inn as they listened to the bard play. From his brief scan to the others sitting there on the wall with him, he doesn’t think that they have all the others. But which ones are here he can’t tell. He did see Scar and Potbelly for sure, maybe Reilin too. For all their sakes he prays that Miko and Jiron have yet to be taken. If those two are still at large, then they stand a good chance of getting out of this.
In the meantime, he keeps his eyes closed and hopes the effects of the drug wears off sometime soon.
“Now where?” whispers Aleya. Miko just shrugs.
After entering the keep, they’ve been searching the halls for the way to the dungeons below. Three guards and two servants lie dead behind them, hidden in closets, under beds, etc. They had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the four intruders happened by.
Now the corridor they’ve been following ends at a meeting hall where a dozen tables are placed about the room. One of the larger tables has four men standing around it looking at a map laid out across its top. Two are soldiers, commanders by the looks of them, and two civilians. The men are talking earnestly to each other.
Jiron moves back from the end of the corridor where he had been spying on the men. Joining the others, he has them move into what seems to be an unused storage room. There he relates to the others what he saw. “We’ll never find the way down in time,” he says.
“You should never have killed those servants,” states Brother Willim.
Jiron gives him an annoyed look and says, “If they had spoken our language, I wouldn’t have. We need to find someone with whom we can talk.”
Suddenly from the room where the four men are looking over the map, they hear raised voices. Jiron moves to the storage room’s door and peers out to try to see what’s going on. Unable to ascertain anything, he turns back to the others and says, “I better check this out.”
“Be careful,” Aleya tells him.
With a nod to her, he exits from the room and hurries to the end of the corridor. One of the voices within the room has grown agitated and is beginning to yell. Moving to the end, Jiron peers into the room. A fifth man has entered the room and is yelling at the other four. His face is set in an angry expression as is the others whom he’s yelling at.
“I know you,” Jiron whispers when he sees the face of the new arrival. “Ol’ One Eye Miko called you,” he says to himself. He’ll know where James is located. In fact, he’s likely to be the one doing the interrogating. Jiron grins at this stroke of good fortune.
The men argue for another several minutes before a soldier hurries in through another doorway. The talking comes to a halt as the five men turn their attention to the new arrival. He delivers what is most likely a quick report then waits.
The older of the two soldiers says something to the other one who then follows the soldier from the room. The remaining soldier then turns back to face Ol’ One Eye. He says something to him in a calm voice that’s straining to be anything but. Then Ol’ One Eye’s single remaining eye narrows and his lips press together hard when the soldier finishes speaking. Turning on his heel, Ol’ One Eye stalks off across the room and exits through a side door.
Jiron looks at the door and knows that has to be the way to where James and the others are being held. Glancing back to the soldier and the two civilians, he sees the two civilians begin to leave through the door which the soldier had come through earlier. Once they’ve left, Jiron rushes back to the others.
“I think we may have a break,” he says once back in the storage room. Then he briefly tells them what transpired. Miko gasps when he hears that Ol’ One Eye is back in the picture.
“He’ll kill James!” he blurts out.
Jiron looks at him and asks, “Have you felt any murders or deaths since we entered the keep?”
Looking surprised, Miko shakes his head, “No.”
“Then they’re still alive,” he states. “If we hurry they may remain so.” He then jerks his head in the direction of the meeting room and says, “There’s one man still in the room between us and the door Ol’ One Eye took. If we take the soldier out fast, we can follow Ol’ One Eye right to James.”
“Then let’s hurry,” urges Miko.
“Aleya,” he says, “take him out wi
th your bow, it’ll be quicker.”
“No problem,” she assures him. Moving to join him, she pulls an arrow from her quiver and places it to string. Keeping the string relaxed until it’s time, she hurries along beside him. Behind them come Miko and Brother Willim.
At the end of the corridor, Jiron motions for the other two to wait back a ways while he and Aleya proceed. He creeps to the end of the hallway and peers into the room. The soldier remains alone in the room. Turning back to Aleya, he indicates the room and nods. Moving out of her way, he allows her to move into position.
She looks around the corner and sees the man standing there, bent over the map on the table. Taking a calming, centering breath, she steps away from the wall and draws back the bow at the same time. Just before she releases, the man looks up and they lock eyes. Then the arrow is launched. In a blur, the man dodges out of the way, and his hand comes up to snatch the arrow out of the air.
Once she releases the arrow, Jiron pulls his knives and moves to rush into the room just in case the arrow didn’t complete the job. When he sees the man standing there with the arrow in hand, he moves forward to finish it.
“Korgan was right,” the man says as he draws his sword. “The fire in the city was just a ruse so a rescue attempt could be made. I didn’t believe someone would willingly burn down a whole city just to save a few lives.” He then braces for Jiron’s attack. “I’ll have to apologize to him after I’ve killed you.”
Before Jiron can close with him, a noxious looking black cloud forms between them. From the hallway he hears Brother Willim gasp, “Magic!” Jiron comes to a quick stop and backpedals quickly to avoid coming into contact with the black cloud. He doesn’t take two steps before it begins moving quickly his way.
“Down Jiron!” Brother Willim cries out as he enters the room, aglow with power.
Trusting in the priest, Jiron jumps to the side and hits the floor. He no sooner lands on the floor than something strikes the center of the black cloud. One of Brother Willim’s many seeds he carries begins to grow, and as it grows, it absorbs the black cloud. Blossoming into a black orchid, the seed draws all the cloud into it until finally dropping to the floor.
The mists of sorrow ms-7 Page 43
