When he reached the bottom, he saw the soldiers coming back down from the loft, and he raced to the fence. Using his momentum and a hand on the top rail, he launched himself over the fence. In truth, he was lucky his grip did not miss the top rail since the entire fence was overgrown with honeysuckle and blackberry bushes. It was the growth that gave him cover while he fled. Running while crouched is not an easy thing to do, and his knees ached terribly when he finally reached the tree line. From there, he watched and rested.
The Zjhon seemed quite relaxed. They had taken Harborton and the highlands, and now those who remained to hold these seemed content to get fat on what had been left behind by the people of the Godfist. Anger and resentment burned in Benjin's belly, and when a sentry came too close, he moved without hesitation. Silently he approached the bored-looking soldier and caught him completely by surprise. Using his momentum and leverage to focus the power of his muscles, Benjin landed a devastating punch that dropped the soldier without a sound. After dragging the man back to the tree line, Benjin took his uniform and left him there.
Knowing it was only a matter of time before someone noticed the sentry was missing or found his body, Benjin hurried through the trees, looking for the game trail he used to hunt. When he found it, he took a moment to change into the soldier's uniform, and he stashed his clothes near the trail. He tucked his hair beneath the jacket collar and hoped his disguise would be sufficient, though he knew it was thin.
Getting to Harborton was as easy as following a series of trails through the woods that dominated the foothills, but when he reached the edge of town, his task became a great deal more difficult-the darkness his only boon. After sifting through a garbage heap on the outskirts, Benjin found some things that might help him get to the Watering Hole without having to answer any questions. He cut the top off an old leather flask and filled it with a noxious mixture of rotting vegetables and stale wine, and he hid the flask within his coat.
When the moon was high, Benjin walked the streets, doing his best to look as if he belonged there. Careful planning took him along a route that he guessed would have the least traffic. One street ran along a narrow canal whose smell kept most people at a distance, and another was little more than a dirty alley between two rows of buildings. The refuse that had accumulated there over many years made getting through difficult, but Benjin was grateful for it.
At the end of the alley, he could see his destination. The faded and chipped sign above the inn had always been a welcoming sight, but now Benjin knew better. The Zjhon religion declared churches and libraries sacred and decreed that they must not be destroyed during the conquest of a city, but it was the soldiers who declared inns sacred. It was a long-standing practice that those the Zjhon conquered were allowed to continue a limited and heavily taxed business, and it appeared this was still the case, for the sounds coming from the Watering Hole indicated the inn was still operating. Benjin could only hope that Miss Mariss was well and still running the inn.
Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself for what would likely be the most dangerous part of his journey. A patrol of soldiers walked the streets looking half asleep and utterly disinterested, and Benjin waited for them to pass. As soon as they were out of sight, he left the safety of the shadows and walked into the moonlight, hoping no one chose this moment to leave the inn. As he crossed the street, a loud outburst of laughter emanated from inside, and Benjin nearly leaped from his skin, but no one emerged.
With an ill-advised burst of speed, he covered the last bit of distance between himself and the shadows alongside the inn. Just as he rounded the corner, he encountered a soldier who'd been relieving himself in the bushes.
"Who's there?" the man asked in Zjhonlander, and Benjin nearly stumbled as he was taken by surprise. Quickly he turned and leaned over, making vomiting sounds and pouring some of his foul mixture on the ground. "If you can't hold your drink, you shouldn't indulge," the man said as he came closer. "What's your name, soldier? Whom do you serve under?"
Benjin felt a hand on his shoulder, and he prayed for good luck. As he turned toward the soldier, he never raised his head, and he made more retching noises, and then he poured the rest of his mixture on the man's boots. The soldier stepped back, and Benjin waited to see if his plan had worked or if it would be the end of him. The soldier must have gotten a whiff of the foul mixture and Benjin heard his stomach heave. Without another word, the man turned and left, probably hoping to keep the contents of his stomach where they were.
As soon as the man turned the corner, Benjin stumbled around the back of the inn and was pleasantly surprised the find the back door unguarded. Miss Mariss's kitchen looked much as it always had, save there were fewer people and a lot less food to be seen, and now there was an oppressive pall of desperation that hung in the air.
When the kitchen door suddenly swung inward, Benjin crouched down, but Miss Mariss saw him instantly. Her face registered no surprise or fear; she simply held a finger to her lips, grabbed half a loaf of bread, and walked back to the common room. Admiring her strength, Benjin moved to a darkened corner and waited. It took some time for Miss Mariss to convince her unwelcome guests that the inn was closing for the evening, but she eventually came back to find Benjin. Again she held a finger to her lips and led him to the cellar, which, like most cellars, was damp, cold, and had a smell like moldy soil.
"It's good to see you, Benjin," she said after leading him to a place between the stacks of crates and barrels, most of which appeared to be empty. "There's been much worry over the safety of you and those in your care."
"We've worried about you as well."
"I've got it good compared to most. I have to put up with the scoundrels in my inn, but I have most of my freedom. As for the rest, things could be a great deal better."
Benjin nodded his agreement, and they settled down to discuss their plans.
***
When five days had passed and Catrin and the others still had seen no sign of Benjin, they were worried, but they tried to be optimistic.
"I'm sure he's just being extra careful, and all the rain we've been having is probably slowing him down as well," Chase said.
"Knowing Benjin, he's probably so overloaded with salt and cheese that he'll barely make it back before the first snow." Strom laughed.
After ten days, the group was anxious and restless. Catrin had so much pent-up energy, she thought she could probably sprint all the way to the ocean. She was fretful and paced constantly.
"I'm going fishing," Strom announced, clearly wishing to escape the oppressive atmosphere, even if it was only to sit in the rain. Chase seemed to share his desire.
"I think I'll go hunting in the high reaches today," he said nonchalantly.
"The high reaches?" Catrin asked. "What kind of game do you expect to find up there? Goat?"
"Perhaps no game at all. I want to find a high place with a good view of the valley. I have a bad feeling about Benjin."
No one disagreed, and Strom offered to go with him, but they jointly decided one person stood less of a chance of being spotted than two. They were going against Benjin's orders, but they all felt compelled to do something-anything. Catrin and Osbourne felt helpless, left without much to do.
"I think we should keep watch while they're gone," Osbourne said, looking pale and shaken. "I'll take first watch."
"I'm going to look again for another exit from the cavern in case we need it," Catrin said.
She retrieved a coil of rope and a couple of torches that Benjin had fashioned and made her way back to the old raft. She lowered the logs to the ground and lashed them together. It was a hot job, and her eyes burned with sweat by the time she finished, but the raft looked strong. She grunted with effort as she pushed off into the dark water. The raft seemed to float well, and she hoped it would be stable. She pulled it back to shore.
Searching through the woodpile, she found a branch she could use to push herself across the water. It still had leaves on on
e end, and she hoped it would work like an oar if the water got too deep for poling. When she returned to the fire to light one of her torches, Osbourne looked concerned.
"I don't think it's a good idea for you to go off on that raft. It's not safe."
"Nothing we do these days is safe. But don't worry; I'll be fine."
Catrin put her spare torch on the raft along with the rope and her makeshift oar and climbed tentatively aboard the awkward craft, holding her lit torch aloft. Her weight caused the raft to sink lower into the water, and at times it was almost completely submerged; only her quick reactions kept the second torch from getting saturated. The sudden movements threatened to overturn the raft. It was precarious, but she was determined.
Poling and holding the torch up at the same time was hard, but she managed to move along the shoreline, still staying close to the cavern wall. There was no real shoreline this far out, but she did occasionally come across what appeared to have been other passageways leading into the cavern. They were all blocked with fallen rock and debris, and none appeared passable.
As she became more adept at poling, she moved more quickly toward the far end of the cavern. The water grew deeper, and she had to put her entire arm in the water to reach the bottom with her pole. Eventually the water was too deep to reach the bottom, and she pushed off the cavern walls when she could. Occasionally she pushed herself out too far and had to paddle back. Her branch made a poor paddle, and at times she made more progress by setting the branch on the raft and paddling with her free hand.
When she reached the back of the cavern, she came on a collapsed corridor that was larger than all the others. Fallen stone blocked this one too, but the size of the arch intrigued her. As she began to wonder if someone hadn't blocked the tunnels intentionally, a small breeze caressed her cheek. She sniffed the air-a bit dank but not foul.
After pushing the raft closer to the doorway, she latched onto some of the rocks that blocked it. She wedged her torch into a nearby crevice and pulled herself onto the top of a protruding rock, hoping the raft would not drift off. There wasn't much room for her on the small shelf of rock, but she managed to balance as she reached out to the raft. She had to stretch to grasp her rope, which she used to secure the raft to one of the jagged rocks at the bottom of the doorway.
Cooler air continued to seep through the rocks, and Catrin loosened some of the top pieces. It was slow work, but she cleared a hole about the size of her head. She poked her torch into it to see what lay beyond. She could see very little, but it did appear that the corridor was mostly clear beyond the initial blockage. When she pulled her torch back, she noticed a narrow rectangular slit in the stone above the doorway and shivered as she recalled the lessons that spoke of old castles having arrow slits above the entrances, often referred to as death holes. The sight of it was unsettling.
She needed a much larger opening to crawl through, but several large stones were wedged tightly just below the hole she had created. She finally got one of the large rocks to wiggle and rocked it back and forth, moving it a little more with every sweep. She gave it a hard yank and nearly fell from her perch when it jerked free, the stone hitting the water with a loud splash. Catrin leaned back against the rocks and took a couple of deep breaths.
"Are you all right?" Osbourne shouted across the water, and his words echoed loudly in the cavern.
"I'm fine. I've found another passage, and I'm going to see where it goes."
"Don't be gone too long, Cat," he said in a quieter voice. "I don't want to be here alone."
"I'll be back as soon as I can."
The hollow left by the large stone gave her more room to work and made the removal of the next one a bit easier. She soon had a hole she thought she could squeeze through. With her torch held through the hole, she saw the rubble pile sloping down and away on the other side. Dropping the torch onto the rocks on the other side-carefully so as not to extinguish it-she wriggled her way through the hole, getting slightly stuck when her belt knife caught on the stones. After freeing the knife, she slid farther through the hole. A rock broke away and moved out from under her hand, and she began to slide. She landed noisily, her face just inches from the burning torch she had tossed into the space. She wasn't bleeding, but she was a sore in several places.
After gathering her gear, she moved past the rest of the debris. The ceiling and walls were unbroken, and Catrin was convinced these halls had been sealed intentionally. It also occurred to her that whoever had done it had most likely done it in a hurry. Otherwise, the barrier would have been much more substantial. She recalled the arrow slits above the doorway and thought perhaps they had not needed much more of an obstruction.
When she moved her torch closer, she could see how cleanly the stone had been cut. There were no visible seams in the smooth walls, which seemed to be one continuous surface. The floor was also smooth, though covered with a thick layer of dust and dirt.
Walking slowly down the corridor, Catrin felt like an intruder in a place long lost to the living. Ahead she saw a doorway, but there were no tracks in the dust on the floor, so she didn't think she would encounter any wildlife. Still, she crept ahead slowly, half expecting a specter to jump out at her. Instead, she found a short hall with several doorways on either side. She looked into one of the rooms and saw some crumbled pieces of pottery and rotted wood that may have once been a bed frame. In the other rooms, she found similar hints that these had once been sleeping chambers, but the rooms were rather small. She doubted they had been rooms for the wealthy, and she wondered if they had been servants' quarters.
In another she found a washbowl behind the ruins of another bed frame. The bowl was almost perfectly preserved, with the exception of one sizable chip out of the rim. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She bent down and wiped her finger across the surface to find under the dust that the bowl was shiny with elaborate designs below the glaze.
As she bent down to inspect it more closely, a clump of reddish clay caught her attention. It was wedged inside one of the bed frame's wooden joints, as if it had been hidden there when the bed was still whole. Drawn to the clump by some mysterious desire, she pried it away from the disintegrating wood, and a small shape revealed itself.
In the dwindling light of her torch, it appeared to be a carving of a fish, made from some kind of milky crystal, its surface porous and rough. She placed the little carving in her pocket and in that moment saw her torch was not far from burning out. She had been gone a while, and she figured Osbourne was probably worried. She turned back, eager to tell him what she had found.
Though she hoped not to use it, her spare torch was tucked into her belt. When the first torch sputtered out, she had to quickly decide if she wanted to light the spare while the first was still hot enough to ignite it. She decided to save it since she was not far from the opening, and her vision would eventually adjust to the darkness.
Shuffling along the smooth wall, she worked her way back to the pile of stone and poked her head through the hole. The raft waited below, and she was grateful it had not gotten loose. Looking across the water, she saw Osbourne's silhouette leaning against the wall near the cavern entrance. Sliding forward carefully, she was in a very awkward position when shuffling noises and deep voices shouting words she did not understand suddenly echoed in the cavern.
Twisting her neck and body so she could see across the water again, she saw three shadowy forms outlined against the light of the no-longer-shaded entrance. Helplessly, she watched as two large men tackled Osbourne and tied his hands and ankles behind his back. Two more forms entered the cavern, and she knew she needed to escape. Jerking herself back through the hole, she retreated into the dark corridor.
For a brief moment, she stopped to think; there was nothing she could do to help Osbourne, but horrifying visions of Osbourne as a captive tormented her. She was no match for two grown men, let alone four, especially not men as large as those, and she had no idea what her next move would b
e.
***
With four redfish in his sack, Strom stood and stretched his legs. A light rain fell, thoroughly soaking him, but at least he was outside. He had never been afraid of confined spaces, but the cavern made him feel like the world was closing in on him. Breathing in the fresh air, he started back toward the cold and dark of the cavern.
His fears returned as he got closer, and he wondered what would happen to Catrin next. It was as if the gods were toying with her. Thoughts of the gods had always seemed distant to him, but now he was overwhelmed by nagging questions. The rules of his world had suddenly changed, and he was no longer certain what was real.
It was almost too much for him to absorb, and he turned his mind to the task of getting back safely. Not far from the cavern entrance, he encountered Chase.
"Did you see anything?" he asked.
"There's an army coming from the north, and I thought I saw movements in the trees, so I came back to check on everyone."
"Did you hear that?" Strom asked. "That sounded like it came from the cavern."
Chase didn't bother to respond; instead, he took off at a run, Strom close on his heels.
***
When Benjin reached the farm, he sneaked back into the hayloft to retrieve the things he'd hidden there. Under the cover of darkness, he carried the sacks down from the loft and used a piece of rope to tie them together before he slung them over his shoulder. Then, knowing every moment he stayed only increased the danger, he made his way along the fence.
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