Slowly and, he hoped, quietly, Samir drew his sword. Listening at the door was a waste of time in the circumstances and steadying himself, he flung the door open and jumped inside. The stair well had escaped the blast, even at the lower levels, and fresh, clean air blew down from above. There was no sign of movement and Samir began to leap up the stairs, two at a time.
The next level’s door stood open and Samir approached with caution. Ducking his head round the door, he quickly drew himself back, but not before having noted in the flash of an eye what lay beyond. This was most definitely the prison level. The doors leading off the inner corridor were heavy and iron banded, each with a grille at face height and a locking bar across the outside, all lit only by oil lamps burning on ledges at intervals in the corridor.
The guard he’d seen just inside the door had worn an expression of utter confusion and shock. His helmet lay on the floor alongside his sword, while he stood with his head at an angle, poking at his ear with a gloved finger.
Samir smiled; Ha’Rish was working hard to help him today. Without delay, the pirate captain strode into the circular corridor, stepped up behind the guard, raised his sword above the man and brought the pommel down hard on his skull. There was a crack and a groan and the man sank to the floor, his eyes rolling up into his head.
For a moment, Samir considered shouting out Ghassan’s name in an effort to identify which cell he needed, but the futility of that struck him immediately: there was no hope of anyone hearing anything in here. His own hearing had gone and he’d been outside the tower in the open air, let alone trapped inside with the explosion ringing echoes around the hall.
Instead, he ran to the nearest door and peered into the grille. Speed was now of the essence. As soon as the town guard realised what had just happened, this place would be flooded with uniforms and he had to get Ghassan out of the tower before then.
The first cell appeared to be empty. Despite his urgency, Samir spent a moment casting his eyes left and right to be sure there was no figure lurking in the darkness, his vision largely impeded by the low, dancing light, the shadow cast by his own body, and the dim conditions within. Shaking his head, he moved on to the next door. Careful peering around within revealed finally a thin old man hunched over by the far wall.
This was ridiculous! He could search for half an hour and still not find his brother. Samir stopped and scratched his head as he pondered. A moment passed as the whining in his ear continued to insist on his thoughts and then he slapped his forehead in irritation at his own short-sightedness. The solution was simple. Returning to the first door with a determined expression, Samir drew back the locking bar and threw the door open.
“Let’s give them a crowd of escaped criminals to keep them busy” he said to himself as he rushed to the old man’s cell, grinning, and slid the bar, swinging open the portal.
On he rushed from cell to cell, throwing back bars and opening doors, taking only the briefest glimpse within as he did so. Behind him, prisoners emerged, blinking, into the lamp light, some clearly having spent years inside; others more recent additions to the captive population.
He was so surprised when Ghassan appeared at one of the doors and reached out to him that he was already moving on to the next door. He stopped, turning, and grinned at his brother. The taller sibling was dirty but had not been mistreated, his leg wound now tended and bound, along with the bite wound on his hand.
Ghassan grasped him by the forearms and said something, his lips moving rapidly, excitement clear on his face. Samir shrugged and pointed to his ears. Ghassan laughed and mimicked the gesture before pointing at the stairwell. The smaller brother nodded and, leaving the half dozen confused prisoners milling about in the hallway, Samir led Ghassan back round the curved wall to the door.
As the pair dashed out into the cool stairwell, slowed only a little by the taller brother’s limp, Ghassan initially turned upwards, there having been no exit at the lower levels prior to the explosion. Samir grasped him by the wrist, pointing at shadows cast on the wall. Though neither of them could hear a thing, the shade puppets moving against the torchlight from above clearly announced the approach of the tower’s guards from the higher levels.
The two men moved down the stairs to the next level as fast as they could. Samir had considered leaving the stairs on the ground floor, but the destruction of the store’s contents would make it slow and difficult to pick their way out. Ghassan blinked in astonishment as they reached the lower level and stepped out into the light admitted by the enormous gaping hole in the outer wall. The taller brother frowned, pointed at the huge opening and then at Samir, a question in his expression. Samir grinned and nodded as he beckoned and ran over to the edge.
Once again the floor creaked alarmingly as the pair approached the hole, and he slowed as he reached the drop. Ghassan’s wounds seemed hardly to hamper his movement at all as the pair made light work of climbing out onto the ruined wall and down to ground level, the taller brother slipping only once as his bad leg gave way. As they alighted on the scree, he mimed a question over their next move to Samir.
The smaller brother beckoned once again and led his sibling over to a small knot of scrub bushes. There was no hope of the two men escaping down the scree without being spotted and guards from the port area would even now be approaching the bottom of the slope. There was nowhere they could safely go, and nowhere to hide, but Samir had counted on this being the case. As he and Ghassan disappeared into the cover of the greenery, he reached down to a small bag hidden under leaves and withdrew two neatly folded guard tunics and cloaks. Helmets, chainmail and gloves sat ready next to the bag.
Ghassan grinned and quickly began to don his uniform as his brother did the same.
No matter what the rest of the day might hold, even amid a hundred enemies and with a horrible whistling in his ears, it was good to be working with Samir. His smaller brother was a force of nature and it seemed there was just no stopping him.
Ghassan couldn’t help but smile.
In which brothers escape
The brothers looked at one another, took a deep breath, and strode out from behind the ruined wall of the tower where they had been lurking as they watched the guards approaching up the scree bank. Ghassan kept his head slightly lowered, shaking it as if to clear his hearing. In fact his hearing was returning slowly; he could make out noise from the men as they climbed. Samir strode boldly out next to him, squaring his shoulders.
“Ha’Rish watch over me now.”
Ghassan smiled at his brother, not entirely sure of what he’d just said, but aware of the feeling behind it from the tenseness in Samir’s expression.
“You!”
One of the unit of town guard climbing the slope and wearing a commander’s uniform pointed at the pair of them as he reached the top and came to a halt before them.
“What the hell happened here?”
Ghassan furrowed his brow and pointed to his ears. Samir caught the gesture out of the corner of his eye and took the lead.
“SOMEONE BLEW UP THE TOWER!” he shouted in an exaggerated fashion.
“Lower your voice” replied the commander, grimacing at him.
“WHAT, SIR?”
The commander turned to a lesser officer next to him.
“These two need to see a medic about their hearing. They must have been too close to the blast. Have someone help them back down.”