23. The fury

“I’ve stepped on something.”

“That was my boot, Duke.”

“Whoops, I’m sorry, Dash.”

“No harm done.”

“Be quiet!” Azune intervened in a whisper.

Rowyn, Azune, Dashvara, and Rokuish had just halted, holding the long ladder, in an alley of the Docks District, at the opposite side of the main entrance of the slaver building. Rokuish’s arrival in the group had gladdened the Pearl Brothers rather than bothered them. Naturally—they had mistaken him for a steppe warrior just by seeing him bearing a saber, and that stubborn Rok had not deemed necessary to disabuse them.

Dashvara sighed mentally, and he peeked out of the alley, copying Azune. In theory, according to Rowyn, the Gem and the Candle were twinkling in the sky. But this one was dull, and Dashvara had the disturbing certainty that, if a band of slavers had been watching them from the wall just in front of them, he wouldn’t have noticed them.

“Can any of you see Tildrin?” Azune inquired, narrowing her eyes.

They had sent the old thief and the mad wizard at the forefront to guard the main door. Dashvara shook his head.

“I can’t see anything.”

Rowyn snorted.

“Now, if we can’t see him, it sure will be harder for him to see us.”

They remained silent for a moment. They could hear the shrill breeze against the ship lines, as well as the lapping of the water against the stone dike. Then, there was a strange singing, and Dashvara started.

“What was that?” he breathed.

“An owl,” Azune answered. “A bird.”

Rowyn laid an appeasing hand on Dashvara’s shoulder, and this one realized that his own hands had dropped to the hilt of his sabers. He relaxed a bit.

“All right. How can we know if Arviyag is gone if those two don’t come by?”

“They will come,” Rowyn assured. For a moment, Dashvara envied his confidence. Then, he just awaited.

While, at those hours, the streets of the Dragon District were still slightly busy, in the Docks District everything was empty. Rokuish yawned; Dashvara put a garfia in his mouth. There were still some left, and he shared them with the others out of an equity question. Azune puffed out.

“If Arviyag doesn’t go out, I’m going to pull you by the ears, you and the Duke.”

“He will go out,” Dashvara affirmed.

“Is it a matter of faith?”

“It may be,” he admitted.

“Just what I was afraid of,” Azune sighed. And she stepped away to peep her head out of the alley.

An endless time passed before Axef appeared, running in the middle of the street, followed by Tildrin. On seeing them, the wizard let out a giggle. Even in the dark, the pearls adorning the wizard’s orange tunic reflected some light. Azune hissed.

“Frankly, you couldn’t be stealthier.”

“He’s gone,” Axef replied.

The relief was general. In Azune’s view, it wasn’t so obvious that Arviyag would accept an informal date with Wanissa behind Lord Faerecio’s back. Rowyn elbowed the half-elf.

“I told you so!”

Immediately, Dashvara went back to his place by the ladder.

“Did you bring my things?” the wizard asked Rowyn.

The Duke growled, nodding, and he handed him two bags. Dashvara would have liked to ask what those contained, but Rowyn lifted the ladder, and he had no choice but to follow the movement.

“Let’s go,” the Pearl Brother murmured.

They get out of the alley, and they arrived next to the building wall, peering into the shadows. There was nobody, or at least no suspicious sound could be heard.

“Let’s unfold it,” the Duke said.

The wooden ladder had a rotating mechanism. They unfolded it in the street surrounding the building, and between the Duke, Rok, and Dashvara, they pulled on it.

“Easy does it,” Rowyn whispered. “This is the head of the ladder.”

The extremity Rowyn was pointing to was covered with small pillows to muffle any sound of the ladder hitting the roof edge. They tugged at it, raised it, and set it. Rowyn tried a rung.

“It seems to be steady.”

“Of course it is!” Tildrin breathed.

Already perched on the ladder, the Duke declared:

“Azu, watch the main entrance. Remember: if you see Arviyag coming back before Tildrin tells you we’ve already gone out, go back here, and set the ladder again.”

The half-elf was in a bad mood. She did not answer.

“Tildrin, Rokuish, support the ladder, and then remove it. Dash, Axef: let’s go up.”

The Duke began to climb. The Shalussi sighed, and Dashvara easily guessed that his assigned task wasn’t especially to his taste. Would you rather go up, bold Shalussi? Dashvara smiled.

As soon as the kampraw reached the top, Axef began to ascend quickly, his two tied bags hanging around his neck; no one would think he did not like the ladders, the way he was climbing up. Dashvara glanced around nervously. He thought it was quite unbelievable that nobody had got the idea of passing along that street.

“Your turn, Dash,” Rokuish whispered.

Dashvara fastened the headscarf over his head and began to climb.

“Hey!” the Shalussi called him in a hiss. Dashvara looked down at him. “Don’t do any crazy thing, okay?”

Dashvara merely shook his head, and he kept climbing. Up, the flat roof, about sixty paces long and thirty paces wide, was spacious and completely empty. He made out the two figures of the Duke and Axef, squatting by a rectangle blacker than the rest. Everything seemed to go all right. He slightly moved the ladder so that Rok and Tildrin knew they could remove it, and he hurried to join Axef and Rowyn. The wizard was taking something out of his bag, and he was spilling it over what seemed to be the trapdoor hinges.

“I assume you have checked it was locked, first, haven’t you?” Dashvara inquired under his breath.

Rowyn sighed, and he signaled to him for silence. After completing his task, Axef earnestly took hold of some black gloves, put them on, and laid both hands on the powder line he had left over the trapdoor slit. What he did next went faster than Dashvara had expected: the product he had poured began to flash like white lava. Impressed, Dashvara shivered but did not move away. It was the very first time in his life he saw a person casting a spell.

When the last white glint extinguished, the hinges had vanished, and Dashvara bet that all the iron that was locking the trapdoor had melted down. Axef drew back and sat down on the ground.

“Ready,” he let out. “Now it’s up to you to lift it, my friends.”

Rowyn handed a hooked iron bar to Dashvara, and they used it as a lever to open the trapdoor. It was not easy, primarily because the door was thick and weighed like a horse. At last, they dragged it on the flat roof stone, uncovering a black hole.

“I don’t know why, I half expected all the guards to wait for us behind the trapdoor,” Axef commented. He almost looked disappointed.

Panting, Dashvara handed the crowbar back to Rowyn, and he drew out Zaadma’s thief lantern. He rubbed it. A light sparkled and slightly illuminated the inside of the room. This one was large. In fact, it was no room, but the inner staircase of the building. A small ladder led down to the floor.

“Go down first with the light,” the Duke said.

Dashvara went down. Not a sound could be heard. Could it be that everyone was sleeping except the door guards? As long as they did not sleep in Arviyag’s office…

Rowyn landed by his side, and Axef followed him. Dashvara clearly caught the warning look the Duke cast at the wizard: “if you open your mouth now, I will hate you for the rest of my life”, he seemed to tell him mutely. Axef rolled his eyes, and with a meaningful expression, he pointed to a door at the end of the corridor. Dashvara would have liked to ask him how he could be so sure that this door was that of the office. He guided his two companions to the indicated door, passing by two other ones. On the opposite side, there was a banister, over which you could distinguish the three flights of steps and part of the first floor. If someone went upstairs, we’ll see him arriving from afar, he thought, pleased.

Axef indicated the door lock, and Dashvara lit it with his lantern. While the wizard was working to force—or rather to disintegrate—the lock, nervousness grew stronger. Rowyn stepped away to make sure nobody was coming. He was going back and forth, turning more than an unquiet cat. At last, they heard a crack, and the door opened.

“How surprising, isn’t it?” Axef whispered. His sparkling eyes were detailing Dashvara’s face. Failing to conceal his discomposure, the Xalya turned to Rowyn to wave him closer. He perceived perfectly the mocking smile stretching the wizard’s lips.

“Stay here,” Rowyn murmured, pushing the door. The inside was just as silent as the rest. The Duke extended the hand to ask him the lantern; sighing, Dashvara gave it to him and then stood alone beside the half-open door and before complete darkness.

He could hear distinctly short noises of opening drawers and rustles of papers, and he asked himself how the hell it could be that the guards did not hear them at all. Then he wondered what he would do if a slaver emerged from one of those doors and saw him. Kill him? No doubt he would. But it would be difficult to do it before the man gave a shout.

He heard a sound of voices, and he tensed up. Then he understood it was only Rowyn and Axef. They were talking. Damn it, they’re going to wake up everybody… Dashvara was squeezing the hilt of one of his sabers as if an orc were trying to grab it. He could not forget the relief he had felt when Rok had given him the two sabers made by Orolf: entering a slaver house with a simple dagger would have been to him like throwing himself from the top of a tower without having wings. It was a matter more psychological than anything else, since anyhow, with two sabers, he wouldn’t have been able to take on all the Arviyag’s men and hope to survive.

He heard a metallic jangle; a curse; and a giggle. And then, distinctly:

“You’re a fool, Axef.”

The door opened, and Rowyn blinded Dashvara with his lantern. The Xalya walked in, hissing:

“Did you go mad?”

“We have a problem,” the Duke communicated to him, and with his lantern, he indicated a large iron box. “We suspect that the papers are here. Do you think we would be able to carry it between both of us?”

Dashvara stared at him, amazed.

“And go down the ladder with it? I don’t think so, republican.”

Rowyn nodded sadly.

“Neither I do, steppeman.”

Suddenly, a flash lit the whole room for a split second, and a clap of thunder boomed out. Oh, no, Dashvara lamented. Another storm? The rain began to thrum against the glazed windows.

“So. Do I try to open it?” Axef asked, sitting by the strongbox.

Rowyn nodded as if despite himself.

“But, whatever you do, don’t damage the contents. Dash, go out and just stand guard.”

Dashvara went out of the office and pricked up his ears. He could only hear the raindrops and the crashes of thunder. All in all, the storm wasn’t so inopportune…

Lightning lit the corridor through the trapdoor hole. The hells themselves seemed to have erupted in the sky. Then, Dashvara turned pale.

“Oh, no,” he breathed. He rushed toward the trapdoor and inspected the floor. A brook was growing, flowing right to the banister. And as this one had no upper platform, the water had already started to leak down to the first floor. There was nothing he could do but hope that no one passing by would notice it… Yeah, and you can also hope that we will get out of here alive with the proofs. Hope costs nothing, after all…

He heard the noise of a door behind him and he hastily jumped back next to the wall. For an instant, he believed it was the Duke, but not at all. It was a child. He had to be no more than six. He could see him because the boy was holding a candle in one of his small hands. When he turned to him, Dashvara’s heart sank. The child did not seem to see him, though: all his attention was caught by the open trapdoor.

“Oh,” he said, surprised.

After a brief hesitation, he turned to the stairs. Just in time: a bolt of lightning illuminated the whole corridor. Then this one plunged into the darkness, hiding Dashvara again. The candlelight began moving away, and the child’s stealthy footsteps with it. Why it had to be a child? Why it could not have been a damned slaver?

Dashvara stifled a growl and hurtled into the office.

“We must get out of here right now,” he gasped out in a rush. “A child has seen the open trapdoor, and he has gone downstairs.”

“Help me,” the Duke merely replied.

Dashvara noticed that the strongbox was still intact. The wizard was wheezing and staggering like a drunk.

“A powerful disintegrator, huh?” Dashvara said ironically in a panicky voice.

Rowyn glowered at him.

“The strongbox is protected with enchantments. We couldn’t guess it beforehand. Help me carry it. We have no choice.”

Dashvara helped him, and he puffed out.

“That weighs like a horse.”

He stepped backwards out of the office, and since lifting it to the top of the ladder was unthinkable, he turned to the stairs.

“Where do you think you are going?” Rowyn panted. “We could try, at least, to lift it up on the roof.”

Dashvara clenched his teeth out of the efforts.

“That’s just impossible. And you can be sure I will get out of here either with the proofs or with the prisoners. You choose.”

Rowyn didn’t protest. There was clearly nobody else on the second floor: otherwise, the house would have already been in turmoil for a good while. Going downstairs was a painful task. Axef was stumbling, sliding along the banister; Rowyn and Dashvara were laying the strongbox every few steps, less and less careful of making noise… And finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs. They laid their load on a table in the corridor as stealthily as possible.

“And where’s that kid?” Rowyn inquired in a whisper. “Are you sure you haven’t had some hallucination, Dash?”

“I wish.”

With his sleeve, Dashvara wiped his forehead and his cheeks. They were soaked in sweat.

“And what if the proofs are not in the box?” he asked.

Rowyn shrugged and looked at the end of the corridor just when a flash of lightning illuminated it. He turned wan.

“Dash. The kid.”

Dashvara whirled and stretched a hand just in time to prevent Axef from slumping down over the table.

“Just a lack of practice, that’s all,” the wizard assured with a furred tongue. “As I’m not allowed to cast spells—”

Dashvara craned his neck and could finally see the child—he was walking closer with his candle like in a nightmare. Some sounds got out of his child’s throat. He understood nothing.

“What did he say?” he whispered.

Rowyn shook his head, and Axef responded:

“He asks us whether we are friends of his brother and whether the storm woke us up too.”

“Well, say yes to everything,” Rowyn muttered. “And tell him that it would be much better if he goes back now to his room without making noise.”

Dashvara didn’t like that situation at all. Axef took care of translating the child’s words, then both held a conversation until the wizard nodded, took his small hand, and walked to the stairway, almost not staggering. Rowyn and Dashvara followed them with their gaze, puzzled.

“Where are you going, Axef?” the Duke asked.

“Where is the world going?” Axef replied, and he clarified: “He says that the storm scares him but that a certain Paopag, who usually cares about him, is now out with his brother. So I accompany him back to his bedroom.”

Dashvara choked, and Rowyn gazed at his comrade, open-mouthed, while the wizard started going upstairs with the child.

“Axef…” Rowyn croaked in a muffled voice.

Taking a sudden decision, Dashvara grasped the Duke by the arm to silence him, and he said to the wizard in a whisper:

“You get out through the flat roof, okay?” Axef nodded without stopping, and Dashvara sighed, “At least, we get rid of the child.”

And of the wizard. When Rowyn was in a bad mood, he looked much like Azune, Dashvara noticed. The Duke pointed at the box.

“Your idea of going downstairs was really fantastic. How are we going to get out with this now? Through the main gate, perhaps?”

Dashvara stroked his beard. He had not yet got used to it being so short.

“It’s the only way,” he admitted. “The windows are barred, and without the wizard we cannot do much.”

Besides, the other exit door was that of the warehouse, and as likely as not, it led to the guard barracks. Dashvara unsheathed his sabers.

“You wait here,” he whispered.

The blond nodded, swallowing saliva. Dashvara was just arriving close to what, he supposed, led to the hall and the main entrance, when a sudden clatter of hooves petrified him. Arviyag? So soon? Or maybe it wasn’t that soon. He had no idea what time it was, but he didn’t remember having heard the gong of the temple striking midnight, and according to Rowyn, it had to strike. Perhaps the claps of thunder had muffled the noise.

If Arviyag was coming back, he would come back with his companions; added to the probably two guards who were there, by the door, waiting for him… That was a considerable number of opponents. Maybe he could have sprung outwards by force, but he would have done it without Rowyn… and without the proofs.

Dashvara sheathed and turned around. He pushed the door nearest to the strongbox, and he almost let out a frantic chuckle when he saw it wasn’t locked.

“Answer me, Duke,” he said, “you can still get out through the flat roof. Do you want to get those proofs, or do you want to live?”

“Stop asking silly questions,” Rowyn replied.

Dashvara shook his head sadly; he had no time to argue. Wordlessly, Rowyn and he lifted the box, entered the new room, and shut the door behind them. It was… a pantry? It looked much like one. Dashvara breathed out softly, trying to calm down. Getting into a hole wasn’t a good idea; no, it wasn’t. But given the situation, he was starting to understand that the possibility of escaping had almost diminished to none.

Some laughs resounded in the hall, and then in the corridor. Fortunately—or unfortunately—they spoke in Common Tongue.

“As stupid as they come,” one was laughing. “He thought he would fight in a duel, like we were equals! Bah, this takes a load off my mind. That girl will regret this night for the rest of her life.” There was another laughter.

It was Arviyag, Dashvara understood, horrified. Still, the words did not manage yet to make sense in his mind. He was more worried by imagining the slavers opening the pantry and finding them out with their strongbox.

“But have you left him dead?” another man was asking in a curious tone.

“Now, I can’t say. Paopag has knifed him in the back while the boy was letting out his diatribe, and we have left at a gallop.” Arviyag guffawed. “If only all the nights were just as thrilling. Leriyag, prepare a bath for me, will you?”

There were footsteps in the staircase. The ransacked office would be discovered very soon, and then even the ants wouldn’t be able to get out of the house. Dashvara, who was holding the thief lantern against his chest to deaden the light, finally understood what had happened. Instead of Wanissa, it was Almogan who had awaited the arrival of Arviyag to challenge him to a duel. What an idiot. What a fool. What a… He suppressed his thoughts, in distress. He wasn’t able to find a suitable word to qualify the secretary’s action.

May a lightning strike you, Arviyag! he vociferated mentally.

Then, he noticed Rowyn’s gaze. This one was sitting, as straight as a stick, between two big sacks, and he had the expression of the one who has just seen what it is really like to die. You should have thought better of it before coming here, friend. Dashvara made a wry, sorrowful face, and he took a look over the strongbox. It had a mechanism with numbers, and he guessed that, with the correct number, he would be able to open it. That was what you call heartening, indeed. He only needed the number.

He closed and opened his eyes. For a moment, he considered seriously going out with Rowyn through the main entrance, killing the two guards, and running away. But, even if they managed to do it, then they would have done nothing more than alarm the slavers, and the twenty-five Xalyas would become slaves in Diumcili maybe forever… He rose, and he went to place an empty sack in the lower slit of the door. Right after, he rubbed the lantern and concentrated on inspecting the room. This one was longer than wide, and it had no window. He wouldn’t have planned it better if he had wanted to let the slavers catch them and kill them like defenseless foals.

Infuriated voices burst.

“Ah,” Dashvara said, sitting down beside Rowyn. “I bet my head that Arviyag is irritated. And you?”

The kampraw was shaking violently. Dashvara patted him on the shoulder with that nonchalance of the one who knows himself doomed and enjoys his last minutes of life.

“You’re a good man, Duke. I’m happy I met you.” Rowyn gave him back an empty look. A clack of doors could be heard on the second floor, and then on the first. They were reaching the house.

“They have entered through the flat roof!” a slaver cried. “Sutag, go with your men and surround the house.”

Dashvara contemplated moving the strongbox to block the door with it, but Rowyn was as if thunderstruck, and he wasn’t able to move it alone. Anyway, even so, they could have broken the door. He heaped some flour sacks and set away the small table to make room. When he did not know what more he could do, he sat down again and handed the lantern to Rowyn.

“Keep it in your bag, will you?”

Rowyn didn’t react, and with a sigh, Dashvara himself shoved it into his bag. The light disappeared, leaving them in a total dark. It was almost strange that no one had tried to open the pantry door. With a bit of luck, they might forget to open it.

A ghostly, lifeless voice spoke beside him.

“Don’t you fear death, steppeman?”

If he had not known they were the only two living beings in the pantry, Dashvara could have sworn Rowyn wasn’t the one who had spoken. He swallowed. If you could see my expression at this very moment, friend, you would have never even thought about asking me such a question, believe me…

Suddenly, someone pushed the door and shouted on seeing it was stuck. It was about time. Dashvara inhaled and got to his feet with the heavy-heartedness of an old wolf.

“Of course I fear death, republican,” he finally answered. A beam of light sprung through the narrowly opened door. It opened an inch. “Where I come from, they say even Death fears death.” He unsheathed the sabers and lowered his gaze to Rowyn’s dark figure as he murmured: “But I don’t fear it as much as my brothers’ slavery.” A flour sack fell down from the heap. Dashvara glanced at his weapons and added: “Listen, Rowyn. As soon as the way is clear, run for the exit. You have a dagger, don’t you?”

Rowyn’s nod was almost imperceptible. The door opened another inch. It was enough to pass through. In some occasions, a hesitation may cost your life; in others, madness may save it.

Dashvara bounced forward and sank a saber into the nearest body. He roared:

“Wake up if you want to live, republican!”

In a commotion full of screams, he set on the slavers to get out of that hole of death. Fortunately, he caught them completely off guard: they didn’t expect to come across a wild demon armed with two sabers. He wounded another one, but they rapidly drew away from him and took hold of their daggers and short swords; one of them nearly slipped onto the floor, which was wet because of the open trapdoor. They were four. And the other ones wouldn’t take long to come thanks to the bawls that one was uttering in his Diumcili dialect. Dashvara didn’t let them encircle him: he lunged at the man on his right. He noticed a gleam of surprise in the slaver’s eyes. Logically, they were all expecting he would have gone to the left, toward the exit. Not toward the warehouse.

He dodged the slaver’s blade, gave him a slash in the side, and leaped backwards, in such a way that he placed himself several steps closer to his objective. His four adversaries had followed him, and he felt a stir of hope when he saw out of the corner of his eyes a silhouette bolting out of the pantry.

If you die, I hope I will die before you, Duke…

He avoided another attack, and he finally managed to move away from the staircase and draw backward into the corridor. This one was wide enough to wield the sabers easily but wouldn’t allow more than two opponents to attack him at once.

If more men come from the warehouse and attack me from behind, I am definitely lost.

He squinted his eyes. No one of the four men dared attack. A sudden skirmish burst over the main entrance, and then there was a scream. Dashvara went ashen white, but he decided it was no time to fantasize. He repelled an attack, and just when the slaver was stepping backwards, the muscles of his chest contracted. Aghast, he saw a fit of coughing coming over him. Eternal Bird! He had passed two whole days not even sensing the poison effects! Could it be that an infernal hand had decided he had to die inevitably this very night?

He stumbled backwards, struggling against himself. His lips stretched into a demented smile. Are you going to die of a coughing fit, Dash? Truth to tell, I can’t find any better way to die. I can almost hear my father telling me solemnly: this death, son, is worthy of a Xalya. Worthy of the Prince of the Sand. You tried, son. Now rest in peace.

He stopped raving when one of the Diumcilian men, encouraged because other companions were coming into the house, thrust at him, raising his daggers. Dashvara crouched, waiting for him, but no attack came. The slaver stopped dead, and a scornful smile stole across his face. Hearing a sudden noise behind him, Dashvara darted aside, and he received a club blow on his arm. Traitors… He spun around, his eyes wide, and he charged, but he couldn’t say if he had aimed straight or if he had smashed into a wall. He whirled over and over like a madman, striking all over the place, not caring about anything anymore, because he was in a mousetrap, after all, and all he could do was keep moving. Kill red nadres, or slavers. It was all the same. He received another blow in his side and a cut on his shoulder. Then he stopped counting the hits until someone threw him a lasso around the neck, and he began to suffocate. He attempted to cut the rope with one saber while blocking an attack with the other one. He was choking. He drew a wheezing breath, and suddenly a fit of coughing seized him as if he had to expel some demon, but he only expelled blood. He heard a scream, and then there was another blow. And then he couldn’t know what happened next.