DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (124 page)

“Well, human lockpicker, let’s be seeing if ye can get yer way outta this.” The powrie laughed, set a torch in a wall sconce, lit it, and went to the top of the ladder, calling out to some comrades. “Kos-kosio’s not wanting this one to get away!”

“Double lock?” one of the dwarves up above asked.

“Double lock,” the powrie on the stairs confirmed. “And then sit the damned hound on it! And ye get one to come and take me seat before the sun’s too low. I’m not wanting to miss me supper sitting with this smelly human.”

“Quit yer bitching,” the other dwarf replied, and closed the heavy trapdoor with a resounding bang. Roger listened carefully as chains and locks were set in place on the door. He studied the powrie coming down the stairs.

One mistake,the young man silently berated Kos-kosio Begulne.You let this one keep a weapon.

The powrie made straight for Roger. “You just lie still,” the dwarf instructed, and then, to accentuate the point, the nasty creature kicked Roger hard in the ribs.

Roger squirmed—and that only choked him all the more.

Laughing, the dwarf moved across the way and sat down under the burning torch. The wicked creature took off its crimson beret, twirling it about with one finger, letting Roger see it clearly, as if to promise him that his blood, too, would soon enhance the hue. Then the powrie put its gnarly hands behind its head and leaned against the wall, closing its eyes.

Roger spent a long, long while getting his bearings. He fought away the nausea and the pain, then tried to figure a way to get out of the ropes. That would be the easy part, he decided, because even if he got free, even if he then took the dwarf’s weapon and killed the creature, where might he go? The cellar bulkhead was locked and chained, and he didn’t have to be reminded of what lay in wait atop it.

Truly, the task before him seemed daunting, but Roger forced himself to calm and to concentrate, trying to break things down one step at a time.

Sometime in late afternoon the powries changed guards. The new one gave Roger a bit of food and a drink—nearly drowning him in the process—and then took a seat in much the same place as the previous sentry.

Within an hour this one, too, was snoring contentedly.

Determined not to spend another night as Kos-kosio Begulne’s guest, Roger decided that the time to act was upon him. One small step at a time, he reminded himself as he braced his shoulder against the hard wall. He had to angle himself just right, so his weight and not his strength would do most of the work. With a glance at his powrie jailor to make sure the creature was sleeping soundly, Roger closed his eyes and mustered his nerve.

Then he dove against the wall, suddenly, powerfully, hitting with the front of his shoulder, the jolt driving his arm back. Roger’s muscles and weight worked in a coordinated manner then, driving him ahead.

He heard a loud pop as his shoulder dislocated, and waves of pain rolled through his body, nearly laying him low. He fought them away, though, and with his arm thus contorted, the rope was loosened enough for him to slip it over the shoulder.

In a matter of seconds he was lying on the floor, free of the rope, gasping for breath. Then, after a moment’s respite, he went back to work, jamming his shoulder the other way, popping it back in place—a useful little trick the thief had perfected over the years. Again he spent a moment letting the waves of pain subside, and then gathered up the rope and moved to the sleeping powrie.

“Hey,” the dwarf protested a few minutes later, opening its sleepy eyes to see Roger standing before it, the dwarf’s short sword in hand. “And what’re ye meaning to do with that?” the powrie asked, climbing to its feet and drawing a dagger from its boot. Both the dwarf and Roger understood that even thus armed, the man was no match for the battle-seasoned powrie.

Roger hopped backward on his good leg, falling against the far wall; the powrie growled and charged, raising its dagger before it.

As that arm came up, the dwarf realized that a rope was looped about its wrist, a short leash fastened to a root sticking from the earthen wall near to where the dwarf had been sitting.

“What?” the powrie said, even as the loop tightened and held, pulling the dwarf’s arm low, right between its legs, flipping the dwarf over to land heavily on its back.

Roger came off the wall even as the dwarf began its somersault, sliding in beside the prone creature.

“What?” the dwarf bellowed again, just before the pommel of its short sword smashed down on its hard head. The powrie thrashed, trying to pull its arm free, trying to grab at Roger with its other hand.

Roger pounded away with the pommel again and again, until finally the stubborn dwarf lay still. The man nearly fell away from the pain then, and the exertion, flitting in and out of consciousness.

“Not much time,” Roger reminded himself stubbornly, dragging himself to his feet.

The powrie stirred; Roger slammed it again, and then once more.

“Not much time,” he said again, more insistently, shaking his head at the sheer resilience of the hardy dwarf.

Now things got more complicated; Roger played through the entire scenario, trying to figure every obstacle and every item he would need to overcome them. He took the dagger from the dwarf’s hand and the belt from around its waist, and reset the rope to better secure the creature. Then he moved to the ladder, trying to get a measure of the bulkhead’s strength. At the center of that trapdoor, on the inside, was a support beam, a strong log. Roger went at this first, or rather, at the wood above it, scraping a hollow area wide enough to loop the rope over the beam. Then he began an expert assault on the boards, whittling at their supports on either end. At one point he heard the growl of the wary Craggoth hound, and had to pause for a long while before the vicious dog would quiet down.

One scratch at a time, one broken splinter, one loosened peg. Again Roger had to stop, this time because his leg was throbbing so badly he could not remain on the ladder. And then again he had to wait, for the powrie was coming back to consciousness and needed to be clunked on the head one more time. Stubbornly Roger went back to work, and finally the boards to either side of the central support were loosened.

The moment was upon him; he hoped he wouldn’t faint away from the pain at a critical juncture.

He went back to the dwarf and gathered more tools, then spent a long moment replaying the expected scenario. He checked his gear one final time—the short sword and the dagger, the post from the dwarf’s belt buckle, the leather laces from the dwarf’s boots, andfinally, one of those smelly boots—and then took a deep steadying breath and moved back to the ladder. He pressed slightly on each of the loosened bulkhead boards, trying to get a better feel of where the hound might be. Of course, if there was more than one dog, or if there were any powries in the immediate area up above, the game would end quickly, and likely, painfully, Roger realized, but he decided he had to take the chance. In his mind, he had nothing to lose, for Kos-kosio Begulne would never let him go, and Roger held no illusions about his captivity: as soon as the powrie leader decided he was no longer useful, he would be tortured to death.

He had already looped the rope over the beam from right to left, but then, realizing that the hound was more to the left, he reversed the direction. Down the ladder Roger went, positioning the dazed powrie at the base and to the left-hand side.

Back up on the ladder, in place below the trapdoor, Roger rubbed his hands anxiously, reminding himself over and over that his timing had to be perfect. Using splinters from the worked boards, he set the noose in place just under the right-hand board. Then he took up the boot in one hand and put his other hand firmly against the right board, up through the noose.

A final deep breath and Roger pushed hard, partially dislodging the board, enough so he woke the hound fully and offered it an opening through which it could attack.

And attack it did, jaws snapping right for the boot that Roger pushed up into its face. As soon as the dog latched on, Roger, holding the other end of the boot in both hands, jumped from the ladder, drawing the stubborn hound in through the opening, in through the noose.

The snare worked perfectly, tightening about the hound as it came falling through, hooking about the dog’s neck and under one paw about the shoulder. Down they went, Roger in a tumble—a painful tumble!—and the hound dropping to the end of the rope length. The sudden jerk lifted the powrie at the rope’s other end to its knees and left the hound dangling, one of its back feet just brushing the floor.

The Craggoth hound bit hard on the boot, shaking its head violently side to side, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was hanging. Roger was there in a split second, taking the opportunity to loop the leather shoelace about the creature’s closed jaws, wrapping it tightly many times and then tying it off.

“Bark now,” he taunted, then flicked his finger against the hound’s nose. With a last quick check on the powrie, and one more slug to the head for good measure, Roger struggled back up the ladder.

All was quiet outside, but considering the pain in his leg, Roger didn’t think he would have much luck trying to slip through the narrow opening he had broken in the trapdoor. He did get his hands out, though, enough to feel along the chains to the two padlocks. Always pleased by his own cleverness, smiling Roger took the narrow post of the powrie’s buckle in hand and went to work.

Nightbird waited for the signal whistle, then moved quickly and quietly up to the tree in which his small friend was perched. From this vantage point they could see most of Caer Tinella, and Juraviel’s estimate of the number of monsters within that town seemed conservative to the ranger.

“Do you have any idea where they would hold him?” he asked.

“I said that I heard them speak of him, not that I actually saw him,” the elf replied. “He could be in any building, or more likely, considering the events of last night, he could be dead.”

Nightbird wanted to argue, but held his tongue, for he found that he could not logically disagree with Juraviel. An entire day had passed—he and the elf couldn’t risk coming into Caer Tinella in broad daylight—giving Kos-kosio Begulne plenty of time to sort out the details of the disaster in the forest and to lay the blame for it at the feet of his valuable prisoner.

“We should have come right in,” Juraviel went on. “As soon as the fight was over, with still two or three hours of darkness before us.”

“Pony had to tend the wounded,” the ranger replied.

“She is not here anyway,” the elf reminded. Nightbird had hoped she would accompany them, but Pony was still exhausted from the overuse of magic. After their sword-dance that morning, she had slept through most of the day, and would likely sleep well again that night.

“But this is,” the ranger answered, holding up the hematite. “Roger Lockless might need it.”

“More likely, Roger Lockless needs burying,” the elf said dryly.

The ranger didn’t appreciate the sarcasm, but again he said nothing, except to motion ahead and tell Juraviel to lead on.

The elf was gone in an instant, and a few seconds later another whistle moved the ranger even closer. They held their next position for some time, as a large group of powries and giants filtered out of the town, heading more to the west than the north.

“The fewer left in town, the better our chances,” Juraviel remarked, keeping his voice to a tiny whisper now that they were so close.

The ranger nodded and motioned for Juraviel to move along. The next hop put them at the railing of a corral; the next after that put them right beside a barn on the northeastern edge of town. Now they moved together, both holding bows. They froze when they heard voices within the barn, some goblins complaining about work and one grumbling about a broken chain.

“He could be in there,” Juraviel said softly.

The ranger didn’t think that a reputedly wise powrie leader would be foolish enough to put so valuable a prisoner on the outskirts of the town, but he wanted to leave an open path out of Caer Tinella anyway, and so he gave a little tug on his bowstring and nodded toward the barn.

Juraviel led the way around the side, coming up on the front corner. They passed a pair of doors at the level of the ranger’s head, used for throwing hay bales out to the cows, but there were no handles on the outside and so they paid the portal no heed—none, at least, until the two doors swung out, one slamming Nightbird about the shoulders, forcing him to fall back, the other swinging right above Juraviel’s head. The poor goblin who had swung the doors didn’t realize that a human was blocking one from opening all the way, didn’t even realize that anybody was outside, until Juraviel, ducking and turning under the swinging door, lifted his bow and put an arrow right between the creature’s eyes. The elf skipped right in, fluttering up with his wings. He grabbed the fast-dying goblin by the front of its ragged tunic and propped it in place.

Nightbird groaned and grumbled, finally getting around the awkward door, only to see Juraviel patting a finger frantically against pursed lips and pointing inside.

The ranger kept his calm and moved to the edge of the opening, peering around. He saw one other goblin, working with a block and tackle and a chain. There may have been others, for the inside of the barn was too cluttered by stalls and bales, a wagon and many other items, for the ranger to be sure. Leaning Hawkwing against the wall, he drew out Tempest and eased beside the goblin, then up to the tier inside the window. Silent as a hunting cat, the ranger made his careful way right behind the goblin working the block and tackle.

“Do you need help?” he asked.

The goblin spun, eyes-wide.

Tempest cut it down.

But there was indeed another goblin in the barn, and it came racing out of a nearby stall, trying to run right past the ranger. It jerked and stumbled as an arrow hit it, then staggered again, nearly going to its knees and slowing enough for Nightbird to catch up. The strong ranger grabbed the thing about the head, clamping his hand over its mouth, and pulled it down to the ground.