The Dragonstone

CHAPTER 64

Egil's own pulse hammered through his skull with thunderous pain. He was lying in something damp and a sour odor filled his nostrils and he came near to gagging. Groaning, he rolled onto his back, a dank squash accompanying his movement. He opened his eyes to flickering torchlight. Dark stone met his sight. He raised a trembling hand to his head, pounding with the aftereffects of whatever vapor the Mage had used. Wincing, he levered himself to a sitting position and looked about, his gaze falling on stone walls, stone ceiling, stone floors, stone pillars, and iron bars embedded in stone. He was in a cell, and ranging to the left and right were adjacent cells, with another row across the way. At one end of the corridor stood an iron-clad door with an iron grille over a small warder window. He sat on damp, rotting straw, and just beyond the bars of his cage stood a rope-handled bucket, while just inside sat a wooden bowl with a wooden spoon, both crusted with long-dried porridge. He did not need to ask where he was, for he had been here before, long past: these were Ordrune's foul mews.

In a cell opposite he saw faint movement in the shadows. His heart plunged into the depths of despair, for he could see that it was Arin, the Dylvana yet unconscious, she, too, a prisoner of the monster Ordrune.

The worst of his nightmares come true, in wretched desolation Egil stood, and the moment he gained his feet, to the right and in a far cell someone began to hiss and weep.

It was Alos.

"Egil," he wailed. "Egil." But then his voice broke into great howling sobs, and although he tried to speak, his words were lost among the blubberings and yowls and gasps.

In individual cells between Egil and Alos, lay Burel and Delon, those two yet rendered senseless by Ordrune's foul gas, though they were beginning to stir. Aiko and Ferret were caged across the way in cells next to Arin. Ferret was completely stripped, her clothing strewn about the cell. As Egil watched, Aiko rolled onto her back.

Egil stepped to the bars of his cell and looked into the bucket. Water. He kneeled and reached through to take up a handful. As he remembered, it was foul-smelling; even so, he splashed it onto the back of his neck to ease his aching head. It gave no noticeable relief.

Now Aiko was afoot, and she, too, moved to the bars of her cell. Impassively, she glanced across at Egil, then turned her gaze toward Alos, the old man yet howling. Then her sight swept across her environs, a baleful look in her eye.

"Oh, Egil, do not take blame," pled Arin. "If any is at fault, then 'tis I, for I should have scanned the chamber with my ‹sight›. I would have located Ordrune hiding behind his shadow cast."

Aiko touched her own breast. "Dara, it was I who failed, for my tiger yowled that danger was at hand, yet I did nothing."

"Unh," groaned Delon, holding his head. "As I once heard someone say, we must fix the problem and not the blame."

Dressed once again, Ferret reached down and took up the encrusted wooden spoon from her food bowl. After a moment she cast it down, saying, "This is worthless." She looked across at Delon and said, "They took all my lock-picks, even the ones from my hair."

Delon turned up his hands and shrugged. "That's because Ordrune watched as you opened his chest… and this time I have no belt buckle to-"

His words were cut shy by a clank at the door. The warder window opened and a Drokh peered in. With a clatter, a key rattled into the lock to clack it open. The door swung wide and, accompanied by a squad of armed and armored Drokha, inward stepped Ordrune.

The Mage paused at the first occupied cell to peer in. Alos shrieked and scrambled to the back of his cage and cowered down sissing and whimpering, but all the other prisoners stood defiantly. Sneering, Ordrune moved onward to stop before Aiko; she casually dropped her hand to her waistband. Ordrune laughed. "No, my dear, the star you feebly cast at me in my sanctum went astray, and the others are no longer with you."

Aiko did not reply.

Ordrune moved onward, pausing in turn before the remainder of the prisoners. He came to Egil last and glanced at the red eye patch, a slight frown on his face. But then a look of enlightenment crossed his features. "Well, Captain, you surprise me. I did not think you could find this place again." Ordrune smiled. "Perhaps it is pleasant memories which bring you back, eh? Tell me, Captain, have you been sleeping well?"

Egil's hands gripped the bars, his knuckles white.

"Yes now you are back," said Ordrune. "Perhaps it is because you did not learn your lesson fully the last time." Then he gestured toward the other cells. "It is of no moment, for I have here more than enough to add to your pleasant slumbers, the stuff from which dreams are made."

Egil howled a wordless yell and lunged forward, hands and arms plunging outward between the bars in an attempt to grasp Ordrune, but the Mage was beyond reach. And in that same moment-crack!-a Drokh lashed a quirt down across Egil's arms. Ordrune snarled something in Sluk, and the Drokh drew back. "I want this one unharmed," added Ordrune, smiling at Egil.

Now the dark Mage turned and started for the iron-clad door, and again he uttered commands in the Sluk tongue. Alos's cage was flung open, and kicking and shrieking, the old man was wrenched out from his cell.

"Perhaps, Captain," called Ordrune over his shoulder, "perhaps we can sit down to a fine meal once again."

"Ordrune, you bastard!" Egil shouted. "Leave the old man alone!"

The plated door slammed shut and the warder window banged to, cutting off the sounds of Alos's squeals and Ordrune's sinister laughter.

Fallen into despair, Egil slumped to the stone floor and whispered, "Ordrune, come back; take me instead."

Aiko squatted and took up her wooden spoon and began grinding the handle against the stone of the floor.

Egil looked up, desperation in his eye. "We've got to get out, else the fate that befell my crew will…" His words stuttered to a halt, though all knew what he meant.

"Ferai," called Arin, "canst thou open these locks?"

"I can, given a probe of some sort," said Ferret. "Yet at the moment I am stymied."

Burel turned to Egil. "When does the warder bring food?"

"Are you hungry already?" asked Delon. "For Drokken fare?"

But Egil replied, "Late. After sundown, I think. At time of their own mess. Then a warder brings food."

"Perhaps he'll have something which Ferai can use as a pick," said the big man.

"Oh," said Delon, enlightened.

"If we get free- No, rather, when we get free," said Ferret, "we'll need weapons."

Aiko paused in grinding the wooden spoon against the rough stone block. "When they opened the door"-she gestured at the iron-bound panel at the end of the hallway-"I could see what looked to be a guardroom. Surely there will be weapons there."

"Wait now," said Egil, leaping to his feet. "There is an armory just beyond the guardroom… or at least there was when last I was here."

"Then if we get out of these cages and through that door," said Aiko, "we have a chance to secure weaponry and make an escape." She resumed her grinding.

"We still have to get past a fortress filled with Drokha," said Delon.

"And down to the docks where the Brise is now moored," added Egil.

"Unless we abandon the ship and fare through the jungle instead," said Burel.

Egil looked across at Arin. "Is it day or night, love?"

"It is a quarter way 'tween sunrise and noon," she replied.

None questioned her answer, for she was a Dylvana with the inborn Elven talent to know at all times where stand the sun, moon, and stars.

Egil grunted and said, "Then we have, I believe, from now till morning to make our escape, for Ordrune slays but a victim a day. He'll not come for another until tomorrow."

"Art thou saying that Alos…?"

"Yes, love. That is Ordrune's way."

"Oh, chier." Arin buried her face in her hands.

Ferret glanced at Arin, and then at Alos's empty cell. Finally she said, "All right, let's not waste his death. Assuming that I can get my hands on something which will free us, what then? What's our next move?" She looked across at Burel. "What choices lie before us, my fatalistic friend? What predestined path will we take?"

Burel grinned wryly, then turned to Egil. "You have been here before, Egil. What would you advise?"

Egil took a deep breath, then said, "Well, assuming we get free and have weapons in our hands, here is what we can do…"

Near sunset by Arin's reckoning, their deliberations were interrupted by a muffled singing from beyond the iron-clad door. The warder window clanked open and a Drokh peered in, the sound of the boisterous chanty blaring in as well. Then the door was flung wide, and inward came two Drokha bearing up an old man singing at the top of his lungs:

"Old Snorri in a cog

With his three-legged dog

Sailed off on the Boreal Sea.

And the Mystical Maid

At last was well laid,

So she set Snorri Borri's son free."

It was Alos.

Drunk.

The Drokha opened Alos's cage and shoved him within, the oldster reeling forward to collapse facedown in the rot of the sour straw.

Muttering to one another in Sluk, the Drokha slammed and locked the cell door and withdrew.

"Alos, old man," called Delon, "you're alive!"

Alos rolled over and peered at the ceiling. "Who said that?"

"We thought you were dead," said Ferret.

Alos craned his head up and bleared at the cell. Then he rolled back over and, levering up to hands and knees, he crawled to the bars and rapped a knuckle to one and then hissed, "Oh, no. I'm back in gaol." He began weeping.

"Alos, old man, tell us what happened," called Delon, kneeling at the bars between their cells.

Snubbing and snuffling, the oldster looked over at the bard. "We're trapped, you know," he whined.

In her cell across the way, Aiko turned her back to Alos, but Delon said, "Indeed. Nevertheless, what happened? What did Ordrune do to you?"

"Do?"

"Yes. Where did he take you? What did he do?"

"Why, he gave me some wine. Splendid wine." Alos slumped sideways, then hitched about until he sat with his back to the bars. Then he squinted his good eye and growled, "And he told me who raided the Solstrale with his crew of Trolls, the bastard who sunk her down in the chill waters of the Boreal Sea."

Aiko turned. "That's all, Alos? Nothing more?"

Alos frowned in concentration. "It seemed that there might be something else, but-"

"… Indeed, my friend, it was Durlok and his black galley who did the deed, Durlok who thinks to be Gyphon's regent on this world, but it is I, Ordrune, who will be His agent instead…"

"… Yet tell me, good Alos, just why would a mere seven of you come to my tower?…"

"… A rutting peacock, eh? Why, I would not have guessed. Here, have some more wine…"

"… Cut off her hand, you say?…"

"… One eye in dark water? What might it mean?…"

"… From the High King's cage with what? Oh well then, that explains how she opened locks I thought beyond any thief's skill to broach. Let me refill your cup…"

"… They slew Ubrux the Demon? Oh, they are indeed formidable…"

"… Here, my friend, inhale the fragrance of this vial, and then we'll have some more wine. That's right, just inhale as I tell you in spite of your misgivings, unlike before, you will never again desert your shipmates in their time of need, and you have said nothing of any consequence-yes, yes, inhale-nothing of any consequence at all…"

"-but I am certain that I told him nothing of any consequence."

"You were gone much too long for that to be the whole of it," said Aiko. "What else did you speak of?"

Alos frowned. "The weather. The stifling jungle air. The blood-sucking bugs. Durlok and his black galley Trolls overwhelming the Solstrale simply because her captain and crew knew the way into Serpent Cove." He turned and glared at Aiko. "Say, what are you accusing me of?"

"There's more here than meets the eye," hissed Aiko.

It was after sundown when the portal to the outer door was opened and a Drokh peered in. Then keys rattled in the lock, and a warder entered lugging an iron pot and he kicked the door to behind. He was alone, yet he was cautious and, with snarling gestures, he made each prisoner move to the back of the cell-all but Alos, that is, for the old man was unconscious and slumped down against the bars-before he dipped gruel out of the kettle and into the crusted wooden bowls at each cage.

Aiko glanced at Ferret and received a nod, and when the Drokh came to Aiko's cell-"Sate!" she called.

The guard looked up.

The hurled wooden spoon, its handle sharpened to a cruel point, took him in the throat. The iron pot clanged down on stone, and gargling and clutching at the air, the Drokh staggered back, crashing into bars behind, where Burel grabbed him and wrenched his chin sideways, breaking his neck.

Aiko reached out and dragged the pot to her and wrested the soft iron bail forward and back, freeing it from the eyelets, then she handed it through the side bars to Ferret.

Ferret set the tip of the iron into a crevice in the stone, bending the nib into a sharp crook. Quickly she inserted the angled end into the lock, and in mere moments- click!-the door was open.

Moving from cell to cell, she opened the locks to each, Aiko's first, Alos's last.

The iron-clad outer door was still unlocked. Cautiously they edged it open a crack. The key ring yet dangled from the latch. The guardroom was empty of warders.

Aiko glanced at Egil, a question in her eyes.

"Perhaps they are at mess," sissed Egil.

Silently they slipped through to the armory, and lo! there on a table were arrayed their own weapons and gear.

"Something is not right," growled Aiko.

Arming themselves, Delon went back for Alos, and he came carrying the oldster across his shoulders, Alos dead to the world.

They scooped up as many lanterns as they could find, and following Egil, up a stone stairwell they crept. At the next level they peered out into the courtyard. A crescent moon hung low in the west and in the shadows immediately at hand they saw no one, though up on the torchlit walls warders patrolled.

Again Aiko growled and shook her head, but she said nothing and instead, with Burel, stood guard at the door, while Arin, Egil, and Ferret emptied lantern oil across the wooden floor.

Ferret set it alight, and then they all scurried out into the night, Delon yet bearing unconscious Alos.

As they came into the shadows of the battlements, a Ruptish horn blatted, and Drokha cried in harsh alarm, for smoke poured from the building behind. Amid shouts and clamor Spaunen rushed down from the parapets, and others came tumbling out from the main building. And in the confusion, none noted the seven who ran the opposite way, up the ramp to the castellations, and then over the wall, Burel now bearing the burden of Alos as he clambered down the rope in the pale moonlight.

Down the switchbacks to the dark, unwarded docks they ran, where, as some made the sloop ready, others set the sails of the moored dhow aflame. And then, in the light breeze now flowing down the cove toward the sea, wing-on-wing the Brise fled the conflagration behind.

And from his aerie atop the tower, Ordrune watched as the sloop slipped away in the ruddy light of the flames. Though unforeseen, it was of little or no consequence that the building behind was ablaze and the sails of his ship were on fire, for all was going according to plan.