It was cool underground. In the blackness, even Errollyn needed a lamp. Sasha walked behind, blade sheathed, fingers trailing the tunnel’s stone wall. Behind them, five noblemen. She trusted none of them, and was uncomfortable to have them at her back, but reasoned well enough that if they wished to dispose of her, they’d surely wait until after she’d done them something useful.
They had entered the tunnel from the wall of a basement, downslope of the Justiciary, and Sasha figured that it would make a straight line for the dungeons. The basement had been part of an unremarkable house, owned by a family who owed allegiance. The tunnel had existed for quite some time, unbeknown to most, the Tracato nobility having long ago foreseen a day when such access to the Justiciary dungeons would prove useful. Certainly it was no rough-cut rabbit hole, its walls smooth stone, its floor paved, its ceiling a flat surface of timber planks.
After some distance walking hunched, the tunnel turned a bend, and stopped. Errollyn placed his lamp on the floor, handed his bow to Sasha (even in such tight quarters, he insisted on bringing it) and pushed on an overhead stone, uncovered by ceiling planks. The cell above was empty, they’d been told, courtesy of some inside source. That meant that it had been empty at the time the source had walked past it, most likely some time earlier today. A late transference of prisoners, or some newly captured person, would make things interesting.
The stone scraped as Errollyn heaved, then came free. He pushed it up, reached to set it aside, then heaved himself up on the lip to peer within. After a moment, he hauled up and disappeared, only to reach back down for his bow and lamp. Sasha followed, and rolled up onto a stone cell floor. The first of the nobles pulled himself through, unwrapped some keys from a bundled cloth and moved quietly to the door.
Sasha crouched beside him, and peered through the bars of the door’s small port, listening intently. She heard nothing but the clacking of the key, then the slow squeal of the lock. The cell door opened, and Errollyn pushed past into the corridor, handing the lamp to Sasha and gesturing for the others to stay back. He moved with catlike grace beyond the lantern’s dim light, past adjoining doors, and vanished in the dark. Sasha stood in the corridor, and could hear only her own breathing.
After a moment, Errollyn came back. “The first guards are not where they’re supposed to be,” he whispered. “They’ve gone.”
“Then our way is clear,” replied the senior nobleman-Torase was his name, and he was young, blond and brash. “Let’s go, quickly!”
Errollyn led the way, Sasha this time bringing the lamp. The corridor turned, briefly right, then left, and then some stairs leading to an arch. That was where the guards would be, they’d been told. Errollyn had been confident that even with their illumination, he’d have been able to approach and disable them without killing, guard duty being dull at the best of times, and in a hole deep underground, even more so. There was no illumination now besides the lamp.
Errollyn gestured Sasha to stay at the arch, and walked alone to where his eyesight gave him the advantage, without illumination to give away his presence to any guards. He’d barely gone ten paces before he stopped, and cocked his head, listening. Sasha listened also-serrin hearing was no better than humans’.
There, she heard it. A distant yell, echoing. And another. More yells, a shouted conversation, somewhere up the corridor. A rattle of metal, an armoured man running. Sasha’s hand moved to her blade, then stopped, as she realised the man was running away, sounds growing fainter.
She advanced on Errollyn. “An alarm?” Errollyn wondered.
“Guards won’t leave their post for a mere alarm,” Sasha muttered. “It’s an attack.”
“Conveniently timed,” Errollyn said darkly.
Sasha nodded, and swore. The nobleman Torase approached, and Sasha had her blade at his neck before he could blink. “You told us nothing of an attack!”
Torase stared at her, his companions coming warily up behind, drawing weapons. He opened his mouth to lie, looked again at Sasha, and thought better of it. “It was necessary,” he said. “We needed a diversion.”
We’re fools, Sasha thought bleakly. Naive fools, to have trusted them. But still, it could work.
“Dammit,” she said. “Let’s move fast before they suspect something.”
Torase had the only keys, courtesy again of the inside source. Sasha moved with Errollyn to the head of the corridor, leaving the lamp with the noblemen. The light dimmed then brightened as cell doors were opened along the row behind, one after another, whispered words exchanged, footsteps scampering amid hushed cries and exclamations. Sasha peered up the steps from the dungeon, listening to the distant commotion. Errollyn had an arrow nocked to his bowstring, and he tested the tension.
Several loud, metallic blows, then, that echoed dangerously between walls. Someone was breaking chains. A hushed exclamation followed, as nearer doors creaked open. Then a fast approaching shuffle of footsteps.
“Sasha?” It was Alythia, barely visible in the dark. Her eyes were wide from several days without sunlight, her hair bedraggled. She hugged Sasha hard. “I knew you’d come! I knew it!”
“’Lyth, you have to go with the others,” Sasha begged. “Quickly, I’ll be right behind you.”
Alythia gave her a final, grateful kiss, and shuffled off, holding her dress up with both hands. Those retreating down the corridor were now carrying extra lamps, Sasha realised. At least the prisoners had not been left entirely without light. This row of cells now emptied, several of the noblemen were in dispute with a pair of newly released prisoners.
“My master Lord Hainel is not amongst these!” a furious ex-prisoner in dirty, once-expensive clothes whispered harshly, as Sasha retreated toward them. “There are more cells further along, we must empty them also! Hundreds of our noblest languish there!”
“We have the Lady Renine, and the Princess Alythia,” Torase retorted. “If we try for more we may jeopardise the rescue for them. We do not take risks with the Lady Renine’s freedom…!”
“And I say that my loyalty lies firstly with the Lord Hainel!” the exprisoner bristled. “I refuse to leave until-”
“You’ll do as he says,” Sasha told the man, “or we’ll beat you bloody, throw you back in the cell and lock the door.”
The man glared at her, but did not appear prepared to argue with the blade in her hand. Torase grabbed his arm and thrust him on down the corridor. Sasha and Errollyn followed, Errollyn turning constantly to watch the way behind, as the shadows advanced in their wake.
It was only when both she and Errollyn were back in the tunnel, and Errollyn was replacing the stone above their heads, that Sasha began daring to think that the entire exercise might actually work. She moved at a fast crouch, Errollyn behind, before meeting a queue as prisoners ahead climbed from the wall opening. Finally it was her turn, a short jump from the hole to the floor, behind shifted barrels of wine. Alythia was waiting for her by one barrel as other prisoners were ushered across the basement, and more men began shifting barrels back into place.
“Sasha, what now?” her sister asked breathlessly.
“’Lyth, did they hurt you?”
“No no,” said Alythia impatiently, “I’m fine. What is the plan, do you have one?”
“Me? I’m just going along with your friends, ’Lyth. I was a bit rushed, I didn’t have a choice.”
“And their plan?” Alythia pressed.
“A boat, I think, for you and Lady Renine. To Larosa, or Elisse.”
“I would rather stay! Feudalists are the majority in Tracato, we have money and weapons…we can win, Sasha! Why do they think to run away?”
“’Lyth…what’s this ‘we’?” Alythia frowned at her, not understanding. “I’m not on your side, ’Lyth! Or rather, I am on your side, but only yours!” She spared a fast look around, but those not leaving the basement were unlikely to understand Lenay. “They want me here because they think they can split me off from the Nasi-Keth, but…”