A Flight of Ravens

by John Conroe

  Somewhere far away, something metal screeched and clanged, followed by silence.

  First things first. I checked myself over. The stiffness in my limbs was fading, if slowly. My boots were gone, as were my socks. I wore only my undershirt and my pants, minus the belt.

  So they got ninety-nine percent of my weapons and stuff just by removing most of my clothes. Now to see what they missed. I shuffled over to the stone bed, making my traitorous legs obey me. Sitting, I pulled my left leg up and checked the hemmed cuff of my pants. On the front edge, I felt a tiny metallic shape, barely over two one-hundredths of a span in length—a small needle. On the back edge where it fell against the bottom of my calf, a slight rectangle of hardness was still inside the spot where the seam was sewn—a tiny blade. I switched sides and tested the other hem. The wire woven into that leg was still there, along with another ceramic cutting edge and a small straight rod of good steel.

  The waistband of my pants still contained almost two full spans of thin cord woven from Mondrigian trap spider webbing. The back of my pants waist, where suspender tabs were attached, had two pieces of flexible steel, a tension wrench, and a small pick. Locks had not changed in Nengled in centuries and every RRS trooper was well trained in lock picking.

  I hadn’t been kidding when I told Mr. Kazilionum that we had learned from his tailoring of needles and tools into our clothing. Lessons that we hadn’t had time to impart to the royal guard yet.

  I had enough stuff to possibly break out, and the needle in my left cuff was coated in the same toxin that had just knocked me out. By why was I here in the first place? Alarm bells were ringing in my head and I was suddenly very worried about Brona.

  The man, who I suspected might be the king’s jailer, commonly known as Egg, had left the metal plate open. I stood and walked stiffly to the door to peek out.

  Across from me was a cell with open bars, in fact, the very cell Lady Dominick had occupied up until recently. Another open grated cell was next to it and I could see a pair of booted feet on the exposed end of a cot.

  “Who’s over there?” I called out.

  The boots lifted off the thin bed swiftly, disappearing for a second before being replaced by a face I knew well.

  “Brent?” I asked.

  “Yes, Captain. Are you alright?” He looked tired and disheveled, but I couldn’t see any injuries.

  “Eel venom sucks, but yes. Why are you down here?”

  “Two days ago, I was called to attend the king in his office but as soon as I got to the anteroom, royal guards grabbed me and dragged me here. The jailer won’t answer my questions. Then they dragged you in here.”

  “How long ago did they drag me in?”

  “Maybe an hour, maybe more. Time is hard to figure down here.”

  “Is there anyone else in these cells?”

  “Not that I know of. I heard a bunch of steps earlier, but they went to a different section of the dungeons.”

  A sharp metallic screech caused me to hold up my hand, fist clenched for silence. He nodded and hurried to lie back down as the sounds of several pairs of boots came in the darkness.

  I moved to my own bed and sat. The footsteps walked up to my door, then came the sounds of a latch being thrown, and suddenly an overhead metal grate rumbled down over the oak door, like a miniature portcullis. The big ironbound door creaked open to reveal Egg, the jailer, holding a torch high so the light shone over the shoulder of the king. Standing back in the shadows was another man, whose face I couldn’t see.

  “Ah, Savid. Awake much faster than even I had guessed,” the king said, his voice almost jovial. “Comfortable?” He looked a little off, as he had in his throne room.

  “I have a sharp pain in my neck, Your Majesty, from all of the sudden turns. Hero to outcast to favored son to prisoner.”

  “Too fast for you?” he asked, his tone condescending. “My daughter has always espoused your intelligence, but I’ve had my own doubts for years.” It was hard to get a real good look at him, but his eyes seemed a little wild, and his skin seemed slack. Those bells in my head were going crazy now. “So let me explain. You are, have always been, and will always be—just a tool. Like Toothacker here.” He waved behind him at the man shrouded in darkness, whose shape I now realized matched the rook’s. “And, to your credit, you are a most excellent tool at that. But the issue is that you are my daughter’s tool—ha! A joke in there somewhere!”

  King Helat was an egomaniac but even still, this behavior was far out of his norm.

  “Neil has been in your ear, Your Majesty?” I asked, taking a risk I normally wouldn’t.

  He laughed. “Neil has been with me since our days together in the Academy, when my father was still king—in the days when your father only had the guts to stare at your mother from afar.”

  “That’s right. You were roommates at the Academy,” I said. “But he left after graduating, right? Lived in Berkette for a number of years.”

  “Berkette, Mandrigo, Lachia, and Wenkroy,” the king replied, nodding. “Neil traveled and experienced most of the cultures of our little world. It made him the spymaster he is today.”

  “And he returned only after you ascended the throne, am I right?” I asked.

  He stared at me of a moment, then turned to Egg. The squat jailer knew his cue and immediately stepped forward, tossing a bucket of cold water through the grate. There was no room to dodge and I didn’t even try, having only enough time to close my eyes. I waited for the icy water to run free from my eyes so I could open them.

  The king continued as if nothing had happened. “Yes, that’s right. He stepped up to faithfully serve me when my time had finally arrived. He has forgone a wife and family to give himself to this kingdom.”

  “And stood by your side the night your own wife died so mysteriously.”

  The king didn’t even have to move for Egg to know to throw another bucket of water on me. He must have taken them from outside to have the water so icy cold.

  “I’ve indulged you enough, Savid. You are a sharp weapon, one currently locked away from my daughter’s grasp. Perhaps solitary reflection will be a benefit to you,” Helat said, backing from the door and waving at Egg, who threw one more bucket on me before shutting the oak door. Even the little porthole was shut tight.

  The king and his own weapon, Toothacker, moved away down the hall while the sounds of Egg moving about told me he remained nearby. I was left freezing cold and soaking wet in near complete darkness.

  Chapter 34

  I peeled off my undershirt and wrung its retained water into my mouth. After laying it over the stone bed, I did the same with my wool pants, steeling myself to ignore the awful taste of wool in the precious water. Whether I would receive food and water, I didn’t know, and my training dictated staying as combat ready as possible. Naked but for my underwear, I pushed my stiff body through sets of pushups and other exercises to raise my temperature and stave off hypothermia. When I was done, I put the pants back on, as the wool would help retain warmth, even damp. The undershirt was cotton and wouldn’t help me at all. I left it on the stone bed and then sat upon it, hoping the body heat of my posterior would help it to dry. Legs crossed in a sitting position, I started a breathing exercise that was one of my first lessons from Jella.

  Slow, steady, measured breaths. In through the nose, down into my lungs, then back out through my mouth, relaxing more of my muscles and tendons with every breath. It might have helped that the three buckets of water had washed some of the filth out of the cell, taking down the awful odors by quite a lot.

  I put everything out of my mind for a bit, concentrating on relaxing each body part, starting with my feet, all the way up to the crown of my head. When I was as relaxed as I could be, floating in the chill dark, pushing away the chill of my cooling skin, I pictured a well of black ink in my mind. Every stray thought that tried to force its way in was pushed aside and sunk into the ink spot that I kept centered. The calisthenics and relaxation tec
hnique, along with the cloth-tainted water, all helped flush away the lingering effects of the toxin, so I was feeling better, if chilled, when I heard the locked gate at the dungeon entrance screech open again. The new footsteps were much lighter and softer, only one of the three sounding like boots, the others soft like ladies’ slippers.

  Egg moved about outside as, apparently, he too heard the approaching steps.

  “Open it,” a very familiar voice said.

  “Your Highness, I was told he was not to have visitors,” Egg said in a whining tone.

  “If I have to have Salis put you on the ground and open it myself, you won’t like the outcome,” Brona said, her own tone icy. “And I just passed my father on the stairs. He only laughed as I walked past.”

  The next thing I heard was the lock disengaging and then the big door creaked open, the steel grating still in place from mere minutes ago.

  Brona’s no-nonsense bodyguard moved Egg away with a sharp blade against his groin, pressing him right up against the wall with her other arm against his throat, while my princess moved right up to the grating, her eyes locked on mine. Behind her, Rose stood watching, her own eyes a little wide, perhaps at seeing me locked up.

  “Why are you wet?” Brona asked, not waiting for an answer before turning to Egg. “Why is he soaking wet?”

  Egg stammered and coughed, his eyes not meeting hers. Brona glanced down and saw the empty buckets against the wall, two more full ones next to them. When she looked back up at the jailer, he froze at whatever he saw in her eyes, his whole body going still.

  Without releasing him from her gaze, she reached up and untied her cloak, swinging it off and stuffing it through the grate. “Take this, Savid,” she said, turning back to me. Her face was a clear mask of anger—deadly anger. I pulled the still-warm wool to me, my nose instantly filled with the scent of her perfume.

  “I still don’t know what’s happened while I was gone,” I said, putting the small, light blue princess cloak around my shoulders. Instantly I felt warmer.

  “Slinch convinced Father to give him Ash. Ash didn’t hang around and they lost three people trying to stop him.”

  “Your father said he wasn’t even there?”

  “My father seems to believe whatever lies Slinch tells him,” she said, still extraordinarily angry. “As you know, your brother turned out to be the shaper. Father told you he was injured during capture. The truth is that he was almost killed. He was slashed in the throat by one of Slinch’s agents. He’s in a coma from blood loss, but even if he wakes up, his vocal cords are likely too damaged to talk.”

  I let that flow through me. “Seems like the whole government has had its feathers ruffled,” I suggested, mindful of Egg’s open ears.

  “Exactly right. Some require plucking,” she said softly enough that I’m not sure the jailer could even hear her. She looked around, saw something out of my view, and stepped to one side of the door. When she stepped back, she held a water dipper, which she proceeded to fill from the closest full bucket. Then she put her arm through the grating and handed it to me. I drank it down, the icy cold making my teeth hurt, but the water too good to not swallow.

  “The king did not seem himself,” I said. “Has he been ill?”

  “You noticed? Doctor Eltienne has approached him but he denies feeling unwell.”

  “During my time on the coast, it was pointed out how many delicious types of seafood there are: lobster, scallops, oysters, clams, mussels, tuna, cod, hellfish, devil’s squid, hard scale haddock. Hell, did you know some people even eat scorpion sand strikers? Despite the really, really toxic nature of their venom.”

  Her left brow shot up and her head tilted to one side. “Really? I had no idea. I’ve always heard how venomous they were,” she said.

  “Yes, but if you are very careful, you can make things much, much safer. Still some risk, but just a tiny bit. Miniscule, really,” I said. “Considered to be such a delicacy that you could lose your mind over it.”

  “That’s an interesting observation, one I will have to think about before I approach the chef. Speaking of food, Rose has some bread and cheese for you.”

  Taking her cue, Rose moved right up and passed me a loaf of bread and a block of cheese through the grate.

  “Your Highness…” Egg started to protest but shut right up when Brona snapped around to look at him.

  “You will still feed him, Jailer. That food is for whenever he thinks he needs it. Should you mistreat him, I will have Salis gut you and let you die trying to hold your own intestines in. Are we clear?”

  He could only nod, his mouth clenched tight with fear.

  My loaf of fresh bread was still warm, but it seemed a touch too heavy. The cheese was a good local cheddar.

  “I must go now. Things are afoot,” Brona said, frowning at me. She reached her slim hand through the steel and I held it with my own. “Eat that wisely. You may not need it at all,” she said, nodding at the loaf of bread I held in my other hand. “You’ll know if you do.”

  “I will?”

  “Earth-shaking hunger should be a strong clue for all my Shadows,” she said with a smirk.

  “Thank you, Princess,” I said. Her reminder that the Shadows were hers was not lost on me. I might have built, recruited, trained, and run them, but the Shadows ultimately reported to the crown princess, and she never forgot that.

  “Hmm, my blue looks good on you,” she said, eyeing my naked chest, one brow twitching up when the others couldn’t see her face.

  She turned and moved away, glancing back at me once, as did Rose. Salis waited for three seconds before stepping back from Egg and then following her princess. The squat jailer stood where he was, hyperventilating for a few moments before he got himself under control. He grimaced at me and slammed my oak door shut, or at least tried to. The big door was so heavy, it never really worked up enough speed to actually thunk shut. Instead, it made a soft thud as it connected with the timber jamb. The spring-loaded lock automatically engaged.

  Back in the dark, I sat back on my bed and set the cheese on my still-damp shirt. The warm loaf tore in half to reveal a slim blade of good Wenkroy steel and a long brass key. One of Salis’s personal knives, probably her smallest, with a cutting edge only as long as my index finger. Still, it was razor sharp and the flat, thin profile let me hide it in my pants pocket. The key was likely to the cell locks, all of which were made to open to the same key. I ate the bread and used the blade to hack off slivers of cheddar.

  Some time later, I heard Egg moving about, muttering to himself. Then I heard his footsteps head down the line of cells and the end gate creaked open and shut. I waited a bit, then moved to the doorway. The portcullis grate prevented me from doing more than just brushing the oak door with my fingers. Experimentally, I pulled up on the lattice grating. It was heavy as a horse, but it shifted, if only a bit, the bottom spikes just barely pulling free of the little floor openings they fit into. When I let go, it instantly dropped back down.

  Just above my head, the darkness hid the opening the grate slid up into, and I could reach my fingers into the slash in the stone ceiling. Using the bottom of the grate itself as a foothold, I was able to lift myself so that my head brushed the stone ceiling and my fingers reached farther into the opening. At first, I felt nothing but smooth, cold rock. But near the left side, I found a little stub of something that felt metallic. A bolt or rod. Most likely the latch that normally held the gate up. It was thumb-thick and almost touched the grate. I couldn’t move it even a little. I stepped back down and did some thinking.

  Then I took off my pants. The sharp knife cut the threads holding the spider cord around the waist. Pulling my pants back on against the cold, I looped one end of the cord over the latch, tying it tightly in place. The remainder hung down almost two spans and I pulled the bottom end through one of the grate openings just about a third of the way down the heavy barrier.

  Back up over the round latch and down again, now hanging only
a third of its former length. I knotted that hanging end several times to prevent my hand from slipping off. Once more, I grasped the grating and heaved upward with all my might. The gate resisted for a moment, then lifted free of the floor, just a little, maybe a tenth of a span. I shoved my weight against it and held tight with my left while grasping the cord with my right and pulling out the slack. Then I slowly, carefully released my hold on the metal but kept a death’s clutch on the cord. The rope held, keeping the grate where I had lifted it. Carefully, I switched hands on the slick cord, the little lump of knots pressing hard against my skin as it sought to slip free. With my strong right hand, I grasped the metal grate and used my legs to press upward. It lifted a little more, and again, I took up the slack. I did this three more times until most of the rope hung down and the grate was halfway back to the ceiling. With no more cord to tighten, I tied it off to the metal of the gate itself.

  The heavy gate stayed in position, the bottom high enough that I could easily get under it. With enough room to get under the gate, my only barrier was the locked door. I reached through the metal and used the tip of Salis’s knife to poke the metal porthole cover. Egg hadn’t latched it and the little door swung open.

  “Brent, are you there?” I called softly. I could just barely see a small portion of his cell through my lookout. Moments later, his face appeared, his eyes flicking about as he tried to see into my dark cell.

  “I’m here.”

  “Is Egg gone?”

  “Yes. I heard you shifting things about in there,” he said.

  “I can get past the security gate, but the door remains locked and the lock is unreachable from this side. I have a key and can throw it out this opening, but I don’t have any way of aiming it well.”

  “I have some wire hidden that they didn’t find. If you get it out and in front of my cell, I’m sure I can get it,” Brent said.

  I took Brona’s key and studied the little portal. I can throw an axe five or six spans and hit an apple every time. A knife like the blade Salis had lent me in the bread, I could accurately throw eight spans and pin a playing card with most attempts. Here I was faced with a one-span throw through a hand-sized opening and it was as if I was in the Kingdom Dart Tournament finals. After several deep and calming breaths, I held the key like it was a dart, pictured myself playing Soshi for a jug of my own ale, and then made one smooth, careful throw.