by Aaron Pogue
Maurelle saw him fall. She gave a nervous whimper, but as soon as the second guard fell, she darted forward. Rushing through the startled crowd, she leaped the fallen guard and locked her grip on the carriage door. Her charge drew the third guard’s attention.
She saw him coming and she cowered, raising one thin arm to protect her face, but she held her ground, even when the soldier raised his club. Corin felt a flash of pride at that. Then he threw himself upon the guard and caught him from behind.
Corin’s right arm locked around the soldier’s throat, and with his left he dealt a vicious blow to the soldier’s temple. The soldier fell. Panting hard, Corin met the lady’s eyes, then nodded to the coach’s door. She pulled it open.
Avery of Jesalich sat inside. Alone. Corin breathed his gratitude to fortune, then shoved Maurelle ahead into the cab. He slammed the door behind him and turned to meet his idol.
He dreaded the thought, but Corin had half expected Avery to prove another simpering dandy like Parkyr. To Corin’s relief, Avery—even in chains—looked more like a general than some spoiled prince. He held himself erect, tense as a coiled spring, and his dark eyes flashed with a heartfelt passion. He directed it all at Maurelle. “What are you doing here?”
Corin answered for her. “We’ve come to take you away from Ephitel.”
Avery turned his disdain toward Corin. “I do not know you.”
“No,” Corin said. “But I’m an admirer of your body of work.”
“I’m no admirer of yours,” Avery said. “How dare you bring my sister into this mess?”
“Excuse me,” Maurelle snapped, “but I brought myself.”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Well! Then you are more a fool than I thought.”
“I’m here to rescue you!”
“And I am only a prisoner because Ephitel wanted to catch you,” Avery said. “Now you’ve delivered yourself into his hands.”
Corin threw a glance at each of them. At a time like this they bantered. He tried to hurry them on. “Not quite. Err…on all counts. Ephitel does not want her, he wants me. And we still have a chance to escape.”
“I want my sister clear of this,” Avery snapped. “And I don’t want you anywhere near her. Right now, I consider you far more a threat to her than Ephitel’s jailers.”
“Avery…I need your help. I know what you are capable of, and I need your skills.”
The elven thief turned up his nose. “My skills are not for hire.”
For a moment Corin said nothing. He merely held Avery’s hostile gaze. Then he looked away. “Well, it is your good fortune that mine are.”
He produced the shoddy lockpicks borrowed from Parkyr. They were barely better than a toy, but the heavy manacles used a crude lock and Corin’s talents were sufficient to the task. He hesitated one twist shy of slipping the lock, and asked quietly, “Will you trade your services for your freedom? Or will you leave your sister in my hands?”
Avery bristled. “You, sir, are no gentleman.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“What do you need?”
“To see the king.”
“That is not such a difficult thing.”
“But Ephitel wants me dead.”
Avery frowned. “Ah. I see. And you need me…”
“To help me find a way inside. Or to connect me with the kind of men who can.”
“That is why I made the Nimble Fingers.”
Corin gave him a count of seven heartbeats, then asked, “Well? What will it be?”
“It will not be easy.”
“I fought an angry mob and three of Ephitel’s jailers just to get this far.”
“I suppose you did.” Avery gave a heavy sigh. “Very well. I accede.” He jerked his wrists, which yanked at the chain and made the lock jump in Corin’s hand. The lock twisted against the picks still in place and opened with a click.
Avery rubbed his wrists as the chains fell away. He nodded to the far corner of the coach. “Should we take her?”
Corin turned, confused, and for the first time he noticed the prone figure on the coach’s floor. Aemilia lay unconscious, draped in chains of her own.
Corin said. “She’s a druid, and we can’t let Ephitel have her. Do you think you can carry her?”
Before Avery could answer, the door behind Corin flew open. Corin fell away from it, twisting to see, and recognized the soldier he’d assaulted outside the carriage. An ugly purple bruise already showed on the jailer’s left temple, but his eyes were sharp and clear. He drew back the heavy truncheon to attack.
Corin had no time to make a plan, no room to maneuver, but Avery uncoiled like a snake, snapping out a kick that passed just by Corin’s nose and connected hard with the soldier’s jaw. The soldier reeled away, stumbled two paces, then collapsed.
Beyond him, the druid Jeff stood with his arm extended, a strange little weapon like a miniature crossbow in his hand, the glass-and-steel dart not yet fired. Delaen waited by his left shoulder, guiding a pair of strong stallions on leather leads. She hissed something in his ear, and Jeff hurriedly concealed the weapon. Then he rushed toward the carriage door. Beyond them, the crowd was draining from the courtyard.
Corin nodded to Jeff as he approached. “They have Aemilia. She’s unconscious.”
Corin scooped her up, with some help from Avery, and passed her across the cab and down into the druid’s waiting arms. So close by, Corin caught Jeff’s expression clearly. It was apology and regret, though it lasted just a moment. Jeff tore his gaze away, heaved Aemilia’s limp form up in front of his saddle, and scrambled up.
Corin tried to follow after him, but Jeff quickly spun away. Corin shouted, “Wait! We have a coach!” but the druids didn’t meet his eyes. They didn’t wait. They galloped hard across the emptying plaza and disappeared down a dark alley.
Corin was left standing alone, surrounded by the fallen forms of guards and the rioters those guards had felled. While Avery and Maurelle came down behind him, Corin shook his head. “So. That’s why the druids helped.”
“And that,” Avery said, pointing past Corin’s shoulder, “is why the crowd is thinning.”
Corin had already spotted it. Ephitel rode into the plaza, shining like a star in silver-chased armor. More than a hundred mounted soldiers rode behind him, fanning out as they entered the plaza until they filled the far edge from end to end.
Avery darted to the rear of the carriage to look past it, back toward the Nimble Fingers’ hall, but Corin didn’t bother moving. “The other way is blocked, too,” Avery called.
“Of course it is,” Corin said.
“We’ll never get this carriage moving fast enough to escape the cavaliers.”
Corin shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“So how did you plan to escape?”
“In Parkyr’s coach.”
Avery heaved a disappointed sigh. “You’re going to need another plan.”
“I’ve just devised one,” Corin said, while Ephitel spurred his line forward at a walk. The prince had eyes like a hawk’s, sharp even behind his visor, and they never drifted from Corin’s face.
Corin licked his lips, mind racing. Then he raised his hands high and shouted, “We’re unarmed. And we surrender. Take us before the king.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Across the plaza, Ephitel’s face twisted in a cruel grin. He came forward at the same slow advance.
“This is your plan?” Avery hissed.
“It gets us in the palace,” Corin answered under his breath.
“In the dungeons! That is not the same at all.”
“Can you think of something better?”
“Yes! You should have left town! Hidden in some manling farmer’s barn for a week while you made some connections and plotted something that might actually work.”
Corin swallowed his first sarcastic response. He said, “Maurelle believed the Nimble Fingers would be connections enough.”
“Not to challenge Ephite
l. Oberon himself might not be connection enough.”
Ephitel’s arrival ended that conversation. For a long moment, he sat in judgment over them, his cohort spread out in tableau.
Then he spoke. “Avery of the House of Violets. While under charge, you have further dared to despise the custody of the Royal Guard. And here’s your pretty sister, Maurelle of the House of Violets. A conspirator in your crimes.”
Avery’s whole body tensed in anger and fear, but the gentleman did not dare object. Corin had no such restraint. “She’s done no—”
“And you,” Ephitel boomed, smiling even as he voiced his grim displeasure. “Corin Hugh of Aepoli, a manling vagabond far from home now meddling in the affairs of his betters.”
Corin staggered at those words. How had Ephitel learned his identity? The answer came to him in a moment. “Aemilia…”
Corin barely breathed the name, but Ephitel nodded. “You have led me on a merry chase, slinking fox, but the moneylender made for docile prey.”
But she’s escaped your net, Corin thought. He strove to hide the flash of satisfaction from his eyes, but Ephitel reacted. He spurred his stallion forward, knocking Corin back, and kicked aside the open carriage door. He stared inside. Corin itched to have some weapon—the sword he’d left behind, or even the crude knives he’d nearly borrowed from the kitchen earlier. For one long moment Ephitel left his back turned on Corin, and the pirate yearned to bury three feet of sharp steel in it.
Maybe not too sharp.
Then the prince wheeled in a fury. “Where is she? Where has the druid gone?”
One of his lieutenants pressed forward. “She must have slipped away with the crowd.”
“Impossible!” Ephitel shouted. “She carried a draught of the druids’ own sleeping potion. That would have rendered her as useless as these fools upon the road.” His eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. “What has happened here?”
Panic burned behind Corin’s breastbone. He couldn’t let Ephitel suspect the druids’ involvement. Corin pushed forward and raised his chin. “I came to rescue Avery.”
“I have seen something of your tricks,” Ephitel said. “This is not your handiwork.”
“It is!” Corin shouted. He pointed to the guard he’d overcome earlier. The unfortunate soldier was stirring now, groaning softly, and matching bruises blacked both his eyes. Corin darted toward him. “Ask this one. I fell upon him like a storm at sea.”
Ephitel followed Corin until he sat staring down at the stirring soldier with the same disdain he had shown to Corin before. “Yeoman Kellen. I should not be surprised to find you embroiled in this affair.”
Yeoman Kellen stopped stirring, although he did give one more heartfelt groan.
Ephitel leaned one arm against his pommel and asked icily, “Do you need aid, Yeoman Kellen?”
“No, sir,” the fallen soldier said. His eyes snapped open, and Kellen winced once, then began the laborious process of climbing to his feet. “No, Lord Ephitel. I am able.”
“Hardly,” the prince said. “What happened here?”
“Riot, sir. There might have been a thousand angry citizens—”
“Rebels,” Ephitel growled.
Kellen swallowed hard, then shrugged. “As you say. Torches and stones.”
“What was their intent?”
Kellen swallowed hard again, and this time he looked away. “I couldn’t make it out.”
“Ha!” Ephitel leaned back and shook his head. “You’ve never had a spine, Yeoman Kellen. I feel your time among my men is at an end.”
The yeoman hung his head in shame and gave no answer.
“And what of my other brave jailers?” Ephitel cried, apparently hoping to stir more of them. “So much disturbance, and still they sleep, though I see no mark upon them. One might even think these others suffered the effects of druids.”
Ephitel’s lieutenant called out, “Sir!” from where he knelt beside one of the fallen men. “Even so. These are the druids’ poisoned darts.” He brandished one of the shiny projectiles Corin had seen before.
“Aha,” Ephitel said, “proof at last of their treachery.”
“No,” Corin cried, inventing wildly. “That’s my doing, too.”
“Impossible.”
“Not at all. I…the druids took me in. As you well know. And…while I was in their care, I stole these trinkets.”
“Is that so?” Ephitel asked, a strange, hungry look in his eyes. “You are quite the resourceful one. Yeoman Kellen! Tie him up.”
“Tie him, sir? There are chains in the carriage—”
“Chains he has already defeated once, you will find. As I said, he is a resourceful one. Tie him with an elven knot.” He turned aside for a moment, running his eyes over his other prisoners. “We should have a knot for Lord Avery, too. Chains will suffice for Lady Maurelle.”
“No!” Avery cried. “Let her go!”
Ephitel spurred his horse two quick steps closer to Avery, then answered the angry thief with an armor-plated kick to his unprotected stomach. Avery folded double, then collapsed in a whimpering pile. Ephitel spat down at him. “Watch your tongue when you speak to the lord protector.” He turned dispassionate eyes back to Kellen. “Well? Tie them!”
The soldier sprang into action. He uncoiled a cord from around his upper arm, something fine and gilded that Corin had taken for decorative braiding. But as Kellen unrolled the cord and drew out a measured length of it, Corin recognized the hair-fine thread. In his time it was an artifact, a relic of the ages when elves walked with men. But he was in those ages now, and Yeoman Kellen approached to bind his hands with a delicate thread that could have held an anchor through any gale. Now two loops went over each hand, and Kellen pulled the knot tight with a simple gesture, but Corin found no slack, no loose edges, no angle to escape the bindings.
“There’s a handy trick,” Corin said. “Why use manacles at all?”
Ephitel moved closer, eyes narrowed. “It is strange the things that you don’t know. And, then again, the ones you do.”
It took only a moment before Corin understood. The dwarven powder. Maurelle had told him Ephitel craved the stuff. Corin shook his head, “I am just a manling vagabond—”
“Rich in mystery and richer in defiance,” Ephitel said. “We have a place set aside for such as you.” He jerked his head toward the coach. “Take them to the palace dungeons. And you! Take thirty men and hunt down the traitor druids.”
Halfway to the carriage, Corin wrenched against his captors’ grip to shout back, “No! The druids had no part in this!”
“You are a wretched liar,” Ephitel answered. He told his lieutenant, “Go. Now.” Then he turned back to the jailers’ carriage as two of his soldiers forced Corin into its confines. “Two insignificant children from the House of Violets, and one mysterious manling from out of time,” Ephitel mused, almost to himself. “What can you have in common?”
Corin suppressed his angry response. He said, “Innocence?”
“Hardly.” The prince stepped back half a pace so Yeoman Kellen could heave the groaning Avery up into the cab with Corin and Maurelle. Ephitel considered them all for a moment, then nodded slowly. “This shall be interesting. I must speak with Oberon.”
“I would speak with him, too,” Corin said. “Shall we go together?”
Ephitel’s brows crashed together. “You shall go to the darkest prison I can find for you.”
“I demand an audience with the king.”
“It is not your right to demand such a thing.”
“Avery, then—”
“No. By its association with you, the House of Violets has lost such rights as well.” Ephitel grinned. “Oh, you may prove useful to me after all.”
“Gods’ blood!” Corin snapped. “What have they done against you?”
“Be careful of the threats you make,” Ephitel answered him. “Yeoman Kellen! Are the prisoners secure?”
“Yes, Lord Ephitel.”
“Ve
ry good. You will accompany them to the dungeons.”
“Yes, Lord Ephitel. And who will join me? The rest of my unit are still upon the road.”
“So they are,” Ephitel said. “I believe you will go alone.”
Kellen looked into the confines of the carriage, and a little shudder shook him. Corin understood. Once the carriage was in motion it would become an island, isolated, and on that island Yeoman Kellen would be much outnumbered by his charges. Even with their hands bound, they could do him no small damage. Jailers always preferred numbers until their prisoners were safely in cells. This was near enough a suicide order, or must have seemed so to the yeoman.
He swallowed hard. “Alone, sir?”
“You have your orders.”
For a moment he seemed prepared to argue. Then he meekly bowed his head and reached to retrieve the truncheon that had fallen from his grip. Ephitel urged his horse forward, and a steel-shod hoof slammed down on the haft of the hardened club, reducing it to splinters. Kellen barely kept his hand.
The yeoman leaped back, looking to his lord protector in shock. Ephitel nodded pointedly at the sword on Kellen’s belt. “A soldier of mine should not fear a little bloodshed.”
Kellen nodded, defeated, then turned and climbed into the carriage. A moment later the door slammed shut, and everyone within it could hear the locks on the outer doors slamming into place. Outside, Ephitel sniffed. “Ease your heart, Yeoman Kellen. I would not trust these prisoners to your charge for all the gold in Oberon’s coffers. There will be forty of your stalwart companions riding along outside.” Then he shouted a command and the carriage jerked into motion, dragging them all toward the palace dungeons.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
For some time silence reigned within the carriage while Corin plotted. He had learned much in the brief exchange between the lord protector and his reluctant guard. This Yeoman Kellen seemed hesitant to execute Ephitel’s cruelty, and that could prove a boon. If Corin could just find the best approach, he might make an ally of their captor.
