I was surprised when he passed the lantern up to me, and even more so when he tipped me a nod goodbye. Returning the gesture, I rode into the narrow gatehouse, grateful for the waft of wet dirt and foliage smell that met my nostrils. There was only so much of city living I could stand, and I’d been spending far more time in Altapasaeda lately than I’d have liked.
I’d half expected to find Pasaedan soldiers camped outside, but the road was clear as far as I could see in either direction; the King must be focusing his efforts upon the northern walls for the time being. I turned left, glad that my way lay inevitably southward — for there was only one place I could have lost Malekrin, and unlikely as it seemed that anyone could have squeezed through the door beneath the barracks, that skinny brat would have stood a better chance than most.
Then again, I was just as likely to find him still wedged there, or else buried beneath the rubble on the far side. Kalyxis hadn’t specified, but it was safe to assume that she was expecting her grandson back alive. Dragging his crushed corpse back probably wasn’t going to satisfy her.
Still, one way or the other, I had to know. I rode on through the night, clasped in a shell of pounding rain lit by the amber glow of my lantern. It was strange but, despite the cold and wet, despite everything that had happened so far that day, I actually felt quite at peace. For the moment at least, there was nothing I could do about anything. I couldn’t help Saltlick, couldn’t protect Altapasaeda, probably couldn’t even save my own skin from Kalyxis. All I could do was see what was waiting for me at the barracks and follow where it led.
My calm lasted until I was nearing the last turn before the barracks, and the moment when something hissed past my eyes and shattered with a resounding crack upon a roadside rock.
“The next one goes through your neck,” a voice said. “Who the hells are you and what do you want?”
“My name’s Easie Damasco,” I said. “Perhaps you know it?”
“Damasco? Of course.” A cloaked figure materialised on the bank to my left and picked his way down to the road, all the while careful to keep his bow trained on me. Close enough that he couldn’t possibly miss but still well out of my reach, he ordered, “Show me your face. No sudden moves.”
I drew down my hood, careful to make no moves that might be interpreted as sudden.
He paused to inspect my features. Then, apparently satisfied, he pulled back his own hood. When I failed to show any recognition, he said, “It’s Panchez. From the City Guard.”
“Right… Panchez.” I vaguely remembered Alvantes using the name for one of his handpicked elite of guardsmen, but they all looked more or less the same to me. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, spying mostly,” he said airily. “Keeping an eye out for trouble, you know? There are only a couple of us left here since the fighting broke out.” Finally, he lowered his bow, slipping the arrow deftly into a quiver slung over one shoulder. “How about you, Damasco? Don’t get me wrong, it’s always nice to have a visitor, even at so late an hour, but they’re not exactly common these days.”
“Panchez, I need some help. I’m on a mission for…” I almost said Mounteban, realised at the last moment how it would sound. “For Alvantes. I need to have a look at the door that leads into the palace tunnel.”
“You’ll have a fine time getting in there,” he said.
“I just need to see it. It’s a long story.”
Panchez shrugged. “Fair enough. If you’re here on the Hammer’s orders, that’ll do for me. This way, Damasco.”
The barracks had been burned almost to the ground under Mounteban’s brief reign; however, there was one portion that had escaped the flames, and that was where Panchez led me. I tied the mare off to a stump of blackened timber and we brushed through the curtain that served as a door. Inside, a second guardsman sat beside a small campfire on which a hunk of meat was roasting; he looked up suspiciously and then, seeing Panchez, greeted me with a wave.
Panchez pressed on through a second doorway, into the central quadrangle that had once been the guard’s training ground. He led the way to a section of building in the northwest corner — or what was left of it, for the fire had struck hard there, leaving little but rubble and charred wood in its wake. I could see how the floor had collapsed, depositing much of the upper room in the cellar below.
The last time I’d seen this place it had been from the other side and below, looking out through the gap in the hidden subterranean doorway. Holding my lantern high, I thought I could make out where that entrance must be, though it was impossible to say for sure with all the debris piled about it. There was certainly no sign of any princes, dead or otherwise — and I only realised then that I’d been half hoping to find Malekrin here, trapped and whimpering to be let free. No such luck; my mission wasn’t going to be so easy.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen anyone leave this way?” I asked Panchez.
“We haven’t seen anyone at all before you turned up,” he said.
My heart sank. Could I have been wrong? If Malekrin hadn’t escaped this way then he could only have left through the palace. He might even still be hiding there; if he wasn’t, he could be anywhere in Altapasaeda. Not only had I come here for nothing, the chances of me finding him in the city’s myriad nooks and crannies were beyond non-existent.
“But,” said Panchez, “we lost a couple of things this morning. A travel cloak and some food. And now that I think, there was some trouble in the stables too. One of the horses kicking up a fuss.”
“None of them missing though?”
“I think we’d have noticed a missing horse,” he said.
So Malekrin had come this way. He’d stolen a fresh cloak, probably as a disguise, taken food for a journey, and he’d tried to take a horse, without success. Luck was on my side there, for if he’d managed it I wouldn’t stand the faintest chance of catching him.
I guessed that he’d have headed south then, as soon as he’d realised that the city he was so keen to avoid lay to the north. If I was right, he was unlikely to have come across anything more rideable that a goat, for the stretch of land between here and the southern tip of the Castoval was sparsely populated.
“You think someone came through this way?” asked Panchez, breaking in on my thoughts. “Must be someone important, too, for you to be hunting around on a night like this.”
I could think of no reason not to tell him. “Prince Malekrin of Shoan has decided to take a tour of the Castovalian countryside. His grandmother, being the fond, maternal sort, is concerned for his wellbeing and would like to see him back.”
“Phew! Politics, eh? It’ll be the death of all of us,” said Panchez, as though it were a subject he’d given much consideration to.
“Right now,” I said, “I’m expecting something sharp and pointed to be the death of me, when I have to go back without him.”
“Why’s that?” he asked. “It shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Oh no,” I said exasperatedly, “there’s no reason at all that finding one lone boy whose only goal is to stay undiscovered in a vast wilderness should be difficult.”
“Well, that’s it,” replied Panchez, apparently unconcerned by my outburst. “If he’s sleeping rough, you probably don’t stand a chance. But if he wanted out of this rain and was willing to pay, there’s really only one place he could be.”
A sarcastic observation regarding Panchez’s expertise in tracking lost princes was halfway to my lips before I realised that he had a point. Malekrin didn’t know this country even slightly and there’d been rain enough by now that his heavy clothes would be soaking. For all he knew, there might be bandits, wolves or three-headed monsters lurking in the wilds. Ignorant of the local geography, he’d have had to rely on asking directions of anyone he met, and they would all have told him the same thing: there was only one inn nearby that he could hope to reach on foot.