“Neither, Prince. The courtyard is chock-full of Whites, all in position and looking for trouble; no free pass there. We’ll try the tunnel.”
“The one in the wine cellar?”
“I don’t know of any others. Did Beregond tell you about it?”
“Certainly. Its door opens out but is locked from the inside, so it can be neither unlocked nor broken down from the outside – as is standard for any tunnel out of a fortress. There’s always a sentry at the cellar door: nothing unusual about that, wine needs guarding. Beregond didn’t know where the key was and didn’t dare ask directly. Have you found the key?”
“No,” Tzerlag responded lightheartedly, “I’ll simply pick the lock.”
“How?”
“Exactly how I picked the lock to your door and a couple more on the way, and exactly how I’ll have to pick the lock to the cellar. That’ll be the most dangerous part, by the way: monkeying with the cellar door in full view. But should we quickly take down the sentry and open that door, we’re three-quarters done. You, Prince, will stand guard in your new uniform, like nothing had happened, while Éowyn and I drag the knocked-out sentry inside and I start working the lock in peace.”
“But that lock has to be hard to pick…”
“I don’t think so. It’s most likely heavy and sturdy – it has to be, if the door is to withstand battering from outside – which means not too complicated. All right, let’s go! Prince, did you take the palantír? We have to make it while the Whites are still waiting for me in the courtyard, and there’s only one sentry by the wine cellar.”
“Wait!” Éowyn spoke again. “What about Beregond? We can’t leave him here!”
“Oh, so Beregond has been arrested? We didn’t know that.”
“Yes, just now. They know everything about him.”
Tzerlag thought for only a couple of seconds: “No can do. We don’t know where he’s being held and will spend too much time looking. Tonight Grager will grab every single one of Cheetah’s men in the village, so if we free the Prince, tomorrow we’ll trade Beregond. But if we don’t get you out, he has no chance.”
“He’s right.” Faramir tightened the cinch of the sack with the palantír and hoisted it on his shoulder. “Let’s go, in Eru’s name!”
…The Dúnadan standing guard at the wine cellar scanned the large dimly lit hall. The main entrance to the fort was on his left, to the right were the three main stairs leading to the north and south wings and to the Knights Hall. What a strange decision: putting the entrance to the cellar by the front entrance, rather than in some hidey hole. Then again, everything in this here Ithilien is weird and unnatural. Start with the Prince, who’s not even a prince but rather a who knows what, and end with the rules of their White Company: whoever heard of passing officers off as sergeants and privates? It’d be one thing if it was a secret from the enemy, the local terrorists, say (although no one has seen any yet), but it’s from each other! Allegedly we’re in the same army, but we’re not supposed to know that Sergeant Gront is really a captain, while our Lieutenant His Grace Sir Elvard is passing as a private! Funny, but the Secret Guard guys probably still don’t know about Sir Elvard; like they told us at the briefing: the Secret Guard has its business while His Majesty’s Royal Dúnadan Guard has its own… I dunno, maybe the spies like this setup, but to an honest soldier it’s like glass on stone. What if it turns out that the chief here is the cook or the butler – wouldn’t that be funny?
The sentry looked up: he could hear the approaching footsteps of two people in the uneasy silence of the deserted fort. In a few seconds he saw them: a private and a sergeant were coming down the north wing stair at a quick clip, almost running. They were heading towards the exit and looked very concerned; are they going for help? The sergeant was gingerly carrying a sack with something large and round inside it in outstretched arms. Almost abreast with the sentry they traded a few words and split up: the private kept going towards the exit, while the sergeant apparently decided to show his find to the Dúnadan. What’s he got there? Looks like it might be a severed head…
The rest happened so quickly that the sentry knew that something was off only when his hands were in a viselike grip, while the private who showed up behind his shoulder (to his astonishment, the sentry recognized Faramir) put a blade to his throat. “One word and you’re dead,” the prince promised without raising his voice. The Dúnadan swallowed convulsively; deathly pallor covered his face, and drops of sweat rolled down his temples. The two impostors traded looks, and the ‘sergeant’ (gloomy Mandos! it’s an Orc!) smirked derisively: so this is the West’s fighting elite? The smirk turned out to be absolutely unwarranted: the young man desperately did not want to die, but in a couple of seconds he overcame his weakness and yelled: “Alarm!!” so loudly that echoes and clanging of arms rang back throughout Emyn Arnen.
Chapter 29
Cutting off the Dúnadan’s yell with one short chop (the man did not even moan – just sagged to the floor like a sack of meal), the Orocuen turned to Faramir and addressed a few choice words to His Highness, the mildest of which was ‘damn idiot.’ His Highness took it in stride; it was he who was suddenly overcome with sentimentality and tried to simply scare the sentry, rather than knock him out, as Tzerlag insisted. As usual, humanism only made things worse: the soldier got his predestined share of bruises and internal injuries anyway, but all for naught. Their situation seemed hopeless now.
In any case, there was no time to decide fault. Tzerlag instantly ripped off the sentry’s black cloak, tossed it to just-arrived Éowyn and snarled, pointing at the cellar door: “Stand there, both of you! Swords at the ready!” while he swiftly dragged the Dúnadan to the center of the hall. The six soldiers who burst in a few seconds later found the leftovers of a very recent fight: the sentries at the cellar door stood ready to handle any further attack, while another Dúnadan was motionless on the floor; the sergeant kneeling by his side barely glanced at them, pointed imperatively towards the south stair and again bent over the wounded man. The soldiers ran where they were told to go, boots thundering, almost kicking the Orocuen with their scabbards. The group had a break of a few seconds.
“Shall we fight our way to the stockade?” The prince was clearly looking for a nice quick way to lose his head.
“No, stick to the original plan.” Tzerlag got out his tools and began studying the lock.
“But they’ll immediately know what we’re doing!”
“Yep…” The pick went into the keyhole and began feeling out the pins.
“So what then?”
“Three guesses, philosopher!”
“Fight?”
“Good boy! I’ll be working and you’ll be protecting me – just as our estates are supposed to do…”
Despite everything, the prince laughed: this guy was definitely to his liking. Right then, there was no time for laughing any more. The brief respite ended the way it had to: two confused Dúnadans came back down the south stair – who are we hunting, Sergeant? – and three real White Company sergeants appeared in the door. Those twigged to the situation right away and yelled: “Freeze! Drop your weapons!” and everything else one is supposed to yell in such circumstances.
Tzerlag kept working on the lock with great concentration, detachment even, ignoring everything happening behind his back. The conversation that started up was totally predictable: “Surrender your sword, Your Highness!” “Try taking it!” “Hey, who’s over there – come here!” He only glanced back, and then only for a moment, when the crossing blades first rang out above his head. Immediately the three White sergeants fell back; one of them, grimacing with pain, was carefully hugging his right hand under his arm, and his weapon was on the floor – the ‘magic circle’ erected by Faramir’s and Éowyn’s swords performed flawlessly so far. The prince, in turn, had no chance to glance back – the half- circle of Whites, bristling with steel, was drawing close, like a pack of wolves around a deer – but a short time later he heard a metallic click and then Tzerlag’s strange chuckle.