Chapter 29: Don’t Stand So Close to Me

It was almost an hour later that Alcar was finally able to move from his hiding spot.

After about ten minutes, the other two soldiers that he had seen had returned, after which the three of them stood in silence for a long while, looking one way or another, and kicking out at the occasional passing child. One called for ale from a merchant cart that drove past, and the three then stood drinking and sharing jokes. Finally, all three went and pissed against the wall of the nearest house, then finally began to walk away, not towards the outer city wall but back towards the southern part of the merchants’ quarter.

Free at last, Alcar stood up and groaned; his muscles felt like they had seized up. He pulled the blanket back around his shoulders, stretching backwards and rubbing at his spine. “Now I know how Dad feels after spending hours cobbling shoes,” he murmured to himself.

The thought of his father made Alcar pause. Was he really just about to flee the city as a fugitive, with no ‘goodbye’ and without telling his only family member where he was going?

On the other hand, telling his father could put the man in danger. And he also didn’t actually know exactly where he was going – or when he would be back.

Taking one last glance in the direction that the soldiers had gone, Alcar began to circle the hulking jailhouse building. It didn’t have an exterior wall or fence, but it had very few windows on the outside, and those that he could see were all very narrow and high up. It certainly looked like a prison. It was only three storeys tall, but very long, and reached almost to the point at which the two great inner walls met – the walls that some locals called the ’interquartile walls’. This means that he was currently at the very far north-east point of the merchants’ quarter.

So far, Alcar hadn’t seen a door. There was more trash piled up against what looked like it must be the rear face of the buiding – broken barrels, piles of rotting food refuse. He even scared off a family of foxes who had been nestled in some abandoned sacking.

Eventually, Aclar turned around the northmost point of the building, traversed its shorter side, and began to circle back towards the south. Now, the great interquartile city wall ran above him on his left, and the channel between this and the jailhouse itself was only around three yards wide.

Ahead, Alcar could now see guards, and as he progressed, he realized that the main building must be in a c-shape, with a smaller wall encompassing a yard of some kind near its entrance, and a guarded gateway in the middle of this. It was now directly ahead of him.

Still, though, he had seen no sign of Brutus. If the dog was waiting for its Khranulian masters, surely this would be the natural place to do so? He decided that he had nothing much to lose by asking the guards – after all, they weren’t Imperials, and surely wouldn’t yet suspect his fugitive status. He therefore paused as he reached the gates.

“Excuse me – I’ve lost my dog.”

One of the guards glared at him, raising a spear. “Get back, fool! This is a secure facility run by Duke Frage. You need to step away. Go on! Further back. Yes – and another step.”

But as Alcar backed away until he was right up against the internal city wall, the other of the pair of guards looked at Alcar more sympathetically. “Wait, Mo. The guy has just lost his pet. I can relate to that.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” said Alcar, giving a side eye to the more aggressive guard from where he now stood and then focusing on the nicer one. “I certainly don’t want to distract you from your important work. I just wondered if he might have tried to get in here. He’s a bloodhound – does that sound familiar?”

The more friendly guard shook his head. “I definitely haven’t see a bloodhound either here, or inside.”

“Okay, okay – thank you. I’ll be on my way, then,” said Alcar, beginning to walk, and then pausing again. “Although... I don’t suppose you might have seen the dog’s former owners – a pair of warlike Khranulian barbarians? Did anyone like that get put away in here?”

“Many barbarians,” snarled the first guard, slamming his spear back onto the ground as he spoke. “That scum are being rounded up for the Imps.”

“I’m afraid we can’t tell you who’s in here,” added the friendly guard. “But Mo is right. Any Khranulian who is arrested is soon taken off for the army. Unless they arrived today, the pair you mentioned have most likely been sent to the front by now. To fight the Confederacy.”

“I see, I see,” said Alcar, frowning.

Forced labor for the Imperial army? That was a new one on him, Alcar reflected on this as he stepped away. Khranul might be the newest Imperial province, but the general perception was that its inhabitants would be afforded the same rights as people elsewhere. If they were being forcibly conscripted, what might that mean for the people of Sefindarg, itself a relatively new province?

Alcar nodded his thanks, and hurried on.

***

It took another quarter of an hour at least for Alcar to make his way back to the area around Maluhk’s tower, by which time rain had begun to fall lightly. As he passed the Black Mackerel, he cursed softly, remembering that he still had just a single copper piece to his name. Why had they not bought some trail rations from Xian’s store? He was starving. And though the Black Mackerel was a rough and dank-looking place, their lunchtime stew was smelling good. But he couldn’t afford to stop and eat there.

Instead of stopping, Alcar hurried on, pausing at the next street corner before it reached the open area near Maluhk’s tower. There, he saw two things that caused his heart to leap for joy. One was the absence of any General Tung or any of the Imperial soldiers. The second was Brutus. The dog had been waiting faithfully for his master. But rather than sitting outside the jail, the dog was outside Maluhk’s tower, looking up at the external stone steps.

“You chose me, boy!” murmured Alcar quietly, a smile spreading across his face.

He took one step forward, but then paused, still some thirty yards away from the tower. There could still be Imperial spies around, he realized. It seemed inconceivable that the Imperials could have moved on quite so quickly, apparently unconcerned with finding the remainder of a group of revolutionaries that they had previously considered worthy enough targets to send twenty soldiers and a general after.

“Brutus,” he whispered, tapping his staff against the street corner.

Did he see a slight twitch of the dog’s ears in response? But so far, Brutus was still rooted to the spot, gazing up in the direction of Maluhk’s tower.

Alcar looked back up the street behind him. He had just passed a tiny stall outside one house where an elderly woman was selling dried strips of goat meat, and he now stepped back and approached the vendor.

“How much of that meat can I get for a copper rigg?” he asked, pulling the coin out of his pocket.

“Handful,” grunted the woman. “And if you’re going to buy, then be quick about it. Hard rain’s going to be falling soon.”

“Okay, okay, woman. Here you go. And if there is anything you can spare for my dog, I’d appreciate it.” Alcar passed over his sole coin, and held out his hand.

“Dog?” The woman looked around at the street near Alcar’s heels, obviously perplexed.

Alcar nodded, gesturing with his staff. “Bloodhound. He’s sitting near the little tower over that way. A sorcerer lives there, perhaps you know of him? But I’m having to be careful – there’s an Imperial general on the warpath.”

The woman nodded, narrowing her eyes, and for a moment Alcar wondered if he had been a complete idiot – could the woman be a spy, and if so, would she turn him over?

But instead, she smiled, and pulled out a little brown cloth bag. “Here you go, lad. That should be a couple of coins’ worth, but I do like dogs, I do. Now, let’s see if we can get this pet of yours to come over.” She put her fingers in her mouth and blew. No sound came out that Alcar could hear, but as he looked around, Brutus raced across the open area and into the street.

The woman threw the dog a scrap of meet which he caught in midair, and soon he was eagerly greeting Alcar, rising up onto his hind legs and licking the apprentice sorcerer with a meaty-smelling tongue.

“Oof! Easy, there, Brutus!” said Alcar, staggering under the weight of the dog, but smiling broadly and rubbing the hound’s back and neck, while taking hold of the leash that had been hanging loose.

“Woof!” said Brutus.

“Thank you kindly,” Alcar said to the vendor, beginning to move back the way he had come, and away from the tower. “We’ll be back! And now, let’s get going, Brutus. We need to get away from here.”

“Woof.”

Soon they were walking back past the tavern, with the rain now falling more and more heavily. The vendor had been right – it felt as if a storm was coming. Alcar paused at the area by the graveyard, near where Maluhk had first shown him how to use sorcery to conjure up lights.

“I’m not going to keep you on a leash anymore, okay boy?” said Alcar to Brutus as they walked. “It’s up to you whether you want to come along and stay with me or not. I hope you do. But if you’re rather run after the Imperial army and find those barbarians, you are free to go. Understand?”

“Woof!”

He paused, crouched, and released the leather cord that had been attached to Brutus’s collar, and stood back, half-expecting the dog to charge away towards the city gates. But instead, Brutus sat back, putting his head on one side and making a quiet growl.

“Aw, man,” said Alcar. “Or rather, dog. It’s you and me, then, buddy! Now I just need to figure out a way to get us both out of this city.”