by Jon Sprunk
Caim slid his hand off the weapon and found Keegan watching him. With a shake of his head, he shouldered his way into the ring of outlaws.
“Listen close,” Ramon whispered, loud enough for all to hear. “We’re almost to the wall. We’ll try to take the gate without making too much-”
“The east wall.”
Caim had to fight the urge to reach for his knives as everyone’s eyes turned toward him. He wasn’t used to operating like this. There were too many of them. If he could take only one or two inside, that would be different. To hell with strength in numbers. Except for Ramon, he doubted any of these men had ever killed before. If they ran into trouble, how would they react? Like they had at the clearing?
“What about it?” Ramon asked.
“That’s our best way in.”
Ramon’s face was a pale thumbprint in the darkness, his eyes black pits of nothing. “How do you know that?”
“Call it a hunch. But whatever we do, it needs to be quick. We could lose cloud cover at any time.”
Ramon was quiet for a moment, and then said, “All right. You’re the professional. You can be the first one over.”
“Fine. Does anyone know where your chief is being kept?”
One man-tall, with a full red beard and sharp eyes set deep under bushy eyebrows-raised a hand. He had been at the clearing.
“Maybe I do,” he said. “My cousin used to work inside.”
A few ribald comments floated in the air, louder than Caim would have liked.
The tall man grunted. “Yeah. He was a right bastard. Hardly good for anything, but he told me a few things about this place. He said they kept the biggest fish on the top floor. I suppose Caedman fits the bill.”
“That he does,” Dray said. “The duke’s had a hard-on for Caedman since even before Aldercairn.”
“Why’s that?” Caim asked.
A grin split Aemon’s snarled yellow beard. “When Eviskine took the city, he offered amnesty to any clan or noble family who chose to join him. Caedman convinced his mother’s clan, the Indrigs, to refuse the offer. Even worse, he called for the other clans to ride against Liovard in a show of resistance.”
Caim showed his teeth. “I’m starting to like this man. So let me guess, the other chiefs didn’t show up for Caedman’s demonstration.”
“A few did,” Keegan said, softly.
“Not near enough.” Dray grumbled. “And the fucking witch sent those that did running like a pack of whipped dogs. Then the duke seized their lands for the insult and stripped their families of all wealth and title.”
“So Caedman turned outlaw,” Caim said.
“The duke never forgot who inspired the revolution, and forgiveness ain’t in his nature.”
“All right.” Caim rubbed his hands together. “When we get over the wall, we head for the front gate. Don’t try anything brave. Just stick close to me, stay quiet, and don’t get lost.”
Heads nodded, their eyes hooded in the gloom. With a deep breath, Caim checked his knives before he started across the long stretch of ground toward the gray walls. Some of his anxiety dropped away once he was out in front. It almost felt like old times: a moonless night, him stalking through the dark streets of the city alone. The only thing missing was Kit’s nonstop rambling while he tried to work. Dammit. What’s got into her?
She’d been gone for days now. What if something had happened to her? He scoffed at the idea; nothing could harm Kit. Still, he worried. But what could he do? Nothing, except hope she decided to return soon.
They reached the outer wall without raising an alarm. Caim went over first, and was surprised when the outlaws followed without a hitch. Climbing they understood. Being silent, however, was a different matter. Fortunately, a quick jaunt through the interior grounds revealed no sentries, and the towers were spaced far enough apart that Caim was able to lead the outlaws to the prison house without discovery. He peered around the corner of the building.
The prison had only one visible entrance, a large reinforced door set in the southern wall atop a short flight of steps. The six sentries guarding the door didn’t appear especially vigilant for trouble, laughing and trading jibes as they leaned on their spears, but they were awake and alert. If they fought like the other soldiers he’d encountered in the duke’s employ, Caim was confident they could be taken down quickly, even if the outlaws gave him only scant support, but there was the matter of noise. On a quiet night like this, any hue or cry would be heard throughout the complex, and the outlaws couldn’t win a pitched battle. Stealth was the key.
Caim gazed up at the prison walls. Rows of dark windows dotted the smooth stone facing. Little larger than the arrow loops found in castle walls, they were too narrow to allow access, and they probably led into locked cells in any case. Then Fortune smiled down from the heavens. Two of the door sentries walked off toward the gatehouse. They might have been making their rounds or rotating to another post or had just gone to use the latrine. In any case, Caim figured they had at least two minutes before the guards or their replacements came back this way.
“Wolmacks,” Keegan whispered behind him.
Caim kept his voice low. “What?”
The youth pointed at the remaining sentries. “They’re Wolmacks, the only clan to side with the duke. They come from some backwoods out east.”
“You don’t sound impressed with them.”
“Nah. They can’t fight for shit, so Eviskine gives them the worst jobs.”
“Like guarding his prison.”
Keegan nodded, and Caim went back to his surveying. He thought back to the backwoods boys he had known growing up. One thing they had in common was that they liked to tear it up whenever and wherever they got the chance. He needed to get moving. Those sentries could return at any time. Motioning for the others to stay back, he slipped around the corner.
Caim drew his knives as he sprinted toward the enemy position. The shadows flocked to him, concealing him under layers of darkness. He thought for a moment about how it must look to those behind him, but he didn’t have time to be subtle as he closed in on his targets. He only hoped the shadows did as he told them.
The nearest soldier stood with his back to Caim, which was convenient, but the others were more or less facing his direction. He bypassed the easy kill in exchange for added surprise. As he snaked around the first sentry, Caim clubbed him in the temple with the butt of a knife. While the other soldiers took a moment to register his presence, Caim weaved among them. His knives cut silver ribbons in the night. One of the sentries lifted his spear as if to throw it. Caim concentrated for a moment, and a chill ran down his back as the soldier’s shadow reached around to seize his neck. The man fell, clawing at the shadowy hands that strangled him. Caim kept moving. He had fought against his baser nature up to this point, but now there was no time for mercy. The clubbed soldier was the only one to make a sound before dying, a grunting croak that had barely begun before the edge of a knife silenced him forever.
Caim dropped to the ground with the fall of the last body and listened for the whistle of arrow fire. All was quiet. He dropped the shroud of shadows and waved for the outlaws to come. He was feeling a little lightheaded, and the pressure in his chest had returned.
Ramon was the first to arrive.
“By Ell,” he breathed. “I never saw anything like-”
“Check the door,” Caim said, waving the rest onward.
They had no time for chitchat. Every passing heartbeat increased the chances they would be discovered. And once that happened, things were going to get messy.
A few of the men cast curious glances at Caim as they crowded around the entrance. As he’d seen from the corner, the prison door would take a battering ram to bring down if it was barred from the inside. He was tempted to drop to his knees and say a word of thanks to whatever god was watching over them this night as Ramon pushed it open with his shoulder.
“Inside!” Caim hissed.
His forearm w
as killing him. He pressed it against his side as he waited for Keegan to catch up. The boy looked at the corpses on the ground. With a gesture, Caim steered him inside.
Beyond the door was a plain antechamber. Torches on the walls illuminated a wide corridor that extended through the center of the building; doors were set into both sides all the way down to an archway at the far end. One of the doors was open, and soft noises issued from it as Caim crossed the foyer. He heard men talking, at least two of them. Not waiting for the others, he slid up beside the door just as one man-a soldier with a brown hood settled loose around his neck-exited. The soldier’s head was turned as he spoke. Caim let him pass. The man behind him was older, well into his forties, and stockier around the middle. His uniform jacket, with a dozen carmine strips down the sleeve, hung open as he walked behind the soldier. When the officer stepped across the threshold, Caim attacked.
The soldier with his head turned didn’t have time to make a sound as nine inches of honed steel pierced the back of his neck. Blood spattered the floor. Before the officer had time to yell, Caim opened a second mouth under his chin.
The sounds of the bodies hitting the floor echoed down the corridor. Caim glanced through the open doorway, saw it was an office-sparsely appointed and empty-and kept moving down the corridor. He stopped at the next door and listened. Hearing nothing, he went on to the one after that. Also silent. No. There was a faint sound like buzzing insects. Snoring. As the doors in this corridor were varnished pinewood and not reinforced, he assumed they led to guard barracks, storerooms, and such. The cells must be in another part of the prison house.
Caim put a finger to his lips and waved for the outlaws to follow. They reached the end of the corridor without incident and found a double set of stone staircases, one going up and the other down. By best guess, Caim figured they were at the center of the building. He waited for Ramon and Keegan.
“You sure your man’s on the top floor?” he asked.
Keegan nodded, but Ramon beckoned to the bearded outlaw with the prison guard for a cousin.
“Oak, is that cousin of yours reliable?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose so.”
“Either he is or he isn’t.”
A cool sensation touched Caim’s ankle. He looked down to see a handful of shadows climbing over his feet. Images popped into his head: the stairs, long bare corridors studded with closed doors, a man in a gray uniform walking down a hallway swinging a stout club in his hand, and a door. Something about the door bothered him.
Oak started to say something, but Caim cut him off with a terse whisper.
“We’re going up. Keep your eyes open.”
The outlaws nodded. By the looks on their faces, they hadn’t expected to get this far and they were ready for this adventure to be over. Biting his tongue, Caim started up the stairs. He climbed two flights and came to a landing. Four doors branched off in different directions. Caim cracked open the doors and put his eye to each. Corridors led off into the dimness, each with many doors; these doors were rougher and bulkier in construction than those below. Prisoner cells.
By this time, the outlaws had caught up to him. Motioning for them to stay back, he continued his ascent. On each floor, four doors awaited. Caim didn’t bother checking them. He tried to calculate how many cells the building contained. Six floors with four wings each, and at least a score of cells per wing. The number boggled him. It spoke of a certain mind-set for the Nimeans to have constructed this monolith of imprisonment back when they conquered the land. Those who resisted were either put to the sword or locked away. Come to think of it, the True Church held a similar stance on how to treat its adversaries. A simple matter of following a successful model? How many have perished in these dark chambers?
Caim chewed on his thoughts as he climbed higher. The outlaws inched closer with every step until Ramon and Keegan were practically on his heels. At least their luck held; they didn’t see any guards on their climb.
The stairs ended on a wide landing. Here, as below, they found four doors. Caim had been considering how to conduct the search. By the time they reached the top, he’d made up his mind. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t have much choice. Time was against them. Any moment an alarm could sound.
“All right,” Caim said. “This is where it gets interesting. I’m splitting you into four groups and-”
As soon as they heard “splitting,” the men started muttering to each other. The sounds bounced off the stone walls and down the stairwell. Caim’s gloves creaked as his hands clenched.
“Quiet!” he whispered, louder than he wanted, but it got their attention.
A noise echoed from behind the west doorway. It was soft, like it came from a long way off. A boot step? Or maybe the butt of a spear striking the floor?
“Listen,” he said, quieter this time. “We have to move fast. Each team takes a different door. Keegan and I will go west-”
A short man with his hood pulled down low slipped through the group. “I’ll go with you.”
“Fine,” Caim said. “The rest of you, try to stay quiet. If you find Caedman, bring him back here and wait for everyone else to return.”
“What if we run into trouble?” one of the townie outlaws asked.
“This isn’t a carnival. Do what you have to do, but don’t stop to see the sights. Just keeping going until you’ve searched every cell.”
Hooded heads nodded to him, and then Ramon took over, dividing the men by some order of his own determining.
Caim went to the door and lifted the door’s handle. A sliver of light spilled through the crack. Everyone stopped moving to watch. Although the corridor beyond was dimmer than those he’d seen below, he could see it was empty.
“Come on,” he mouthed, and slipped through the doorway.
The others’ boots pattered behind him as he went to the first door on the left. It was a stout portal of old oak secured by a thick beam. As there was no window or peephole, Caim was forced to open it to find out what was inside. He sheathed both knives. The short outlaw hung back a few paces. Swallowing a curse, Caim gestured for Keegan to keep watch as he put his hands under the bar and lifted. The braces attached to the wall squeaked when he applied pressure, but then released the bar without further protest. Caim paused, holding his breath as he listened. Somewhere down the corridor, a dull thud echoed, the same sound he’d heard before, but he still couldn’t identify it.
Caim set the bar on the ground and pulled on the door’s latch. It opened with just a slight creak. A powerful stench rolled over him as he stood in the doorway, the combined odors of rot, feces, and death. Fighting past the reek, Caim peered into the darkness. Inside was a small stone room roughly four paces by three, furnished with nothing but an empty pewter bowl on the floor. A shape huddled on the far side of the cell. He couldn’t tell if the occupant was a man or a woman. It had something like a shawl draped over its head. Caim stepped inside. The shape didn’t move as he nudged an exposed, filthy foot.
“Can you hear me? Hello?”
He received no response. No movement, no sounds. Not even a hushed grunt.
Stooping over, Caim touched the shape’s head through the shawl. It rocked to the side without resistance. Dead.
He left the cell and closed the door. Shaking his head at Keegan’s inquiring glance, he moved to the door across the hall. They repeated the process six more times, twice more finding corpses, and just stale air in the other four. In the eighth cell they discovered a living person.
Living maybe, but hardly alive.
He was a man of advanced age smelling almost as bad as the corpses they’d found. A long dirty beard drooped across his shrunken chest.
“What do we do with him?” Keegan asked with a sleeve pressed over his mouth and nose.
The humane thing would be to put him out of his misery. But looking at the pitiful wretch curled up on the cold floor, Caim didn’t have the heart for it.
“You,” he said
to the short outlaw. “What’s your name?”
The boy hunched his shoulders like Caim had yelled at him. “Dongo.”
“Dongo, find something to prop this door open. We’ll gather him up on the way out if we have time.”
Caim and Keegan kept checking cells. They found a few more lost souls, most of them in the same condition as the old man or worse. One woman of indeterminate age, covered in dried blood, huddled in the corner of her cell. She screamed when they opened her door, and went on screaming until they closed it again. Keegan’s eyes were wide as they left that door, but Dongo crept closer as if he wanted to go inside.
“Leave it,” Caim said. “We can’t save everyone.”
Side passages branched off halfway down the main corridor, but Caim focused on the doors. It made sense that a high-profile captive would be kept somewhere convenient.
As they moved down the hallway, Caim saw there was a door at the end. He thought it was only another cell at first, but as they approached a sense of anxiety began to build in the pit of his stomach. While Keegan and Dongo unbarred another cell, Caim realized what was bothering him. The feeling was the same he’d been experiencing since he came north, a powerful presence that wrapped around him like a ghostly tentacle. Here, it was almost overwhelming.
And it came from the door at the end of the hallway.
Caim went up to the door. On the outside it looked like all the others. He reached for the latch.
“Caim!” Keegan called out.
Caim pulled his hand back. With a long glance at the door, he turned and hurried over to the next-to-last cell. Keegan stood halfway out the doorway. His face was ashen.
