The Prisoner of Carronne - 15. Chapter 15

-- Chapter Fifteen --

The alarm rose even before they were clear of the dungeon halls, and well before Septimus and his men had galloped back into the castle courtyard.

A horn blast – sharp, furious and unmistakable – tore through the stone and echoed along passageways, followed by shouts and the rush of feet, boots on stone floors. Even those in the depths of the castle dungeons heard the shrill echoes of the horns.

The bodies of the guards had apparently been found. The prisoner was missing. The guards knew, and once Septimus also knew, there would be hell to pay.

Luther had quickly locked the dungeon door, as well as the cell door, then the band of rescuers and prisoners left that dungeon and crowded into the secret passageway.

‘You know where to take them?’ Drake asked Kit, who nodded, before he began to lead the group away. Drake then slid the secret doorway shut, leaving the dungeon quiet and empty, and let the locks click into place, before hurrying after the others and catching up with them at another heavy oak door.

‘Now, are you ready for the next part?’ he asked his friends.

‘Yes,’ Kit replied, while the other urchins all nodded and grinned in the torchlight.

‘With any luck it will be ages before the guards will find the doorway, if at all, as it is well disguised,’ Drake said. Everyone knew that they wouldn’t be able to rely on that doorway remaining undetected, but still, there was no time to waste.

‘And what is the next part?’ Luther asked.

‘Do you trust us?’ Drake asked.

‘You ask that now?’ Luther snapped.

‘This is our world, Sire. We have this covered,’ Kit said. ‘Once we pass through this door we descend to the next system of passages. We cannot flee as one. If we stay together, we die together.’

‘We must separate,’ said Kit, delivered in a harsh whisper beneath the dripping stones, while the rumbling sounds of pursuit came faintly through the passageways above them. ‘From here we spread out, travelling the many passages and drains within the bowels of the castle, covering some of our tracks as we go. You can trust us to lead you from this place.’

‘Very well. Rae comes with me and Drake. Your urchins take the others.’

‘That is our plan, Sire,’ Drake said, as he pushed through the small crowd and leaned a shoulder against the oak door. Before opening the door, however, he turned and faced his urchins and said, ‘You all know what to do. Be extra careful, both inside the castle, and when you are clear of it. Watch for the guards, both inside and upon the streets’ he said, addressing his friends. ‘Be sure to stick to the shadows. The city will open for you. It will protect you. You know where to meet us. Now make haste . . . and may the Gods be with us all.’

As the door opened it creaked loudly, and Luther took a moment to quickly look at the faces of his own men, faces that showed a mix of concern and bemusement.

‘You can trust them, Luther,’ Prince Raemande said quietly, as he placed a hand on his friend’s upper arm. ‘I believe these waifs will know their way around this castle better than any of the guards. They will lead us out safely.’

‘As you wish, my Prince,’ Luther replied, before turning to Garrett. ‘You go with the Warlock and the boy. Deliver them safely.’

‘It will be done.’

*   *   *

Septimus looked down at the body of the guard he had just run through with his sword, and sneered, before then looking up at the men surrounding him.

‘Well, what are you waiting for? FIND THEM!’ he roared, as his eyes took on a strange hue that chilled each of them to the bone.

As his personal guards scurried off in search of the castle guards, he turned to Judayah.

‘Take me to the dungeon,’ he commanded.

‘As you wish, my Lord.’

Setting off across the courtyard, their boots tapped out a sharp sound against the cobblestones. From windows above them, curious eyes watched from shadowed recesses, their owners not wanting to reveal themselves.

Judayah led his master quickly to the dungeons, past worried guards, down stone steps and along empty passages, until they soon arrived at an open dungeon, inside which they found one guard dead, and one guard dazed, while being attended to by another; the Commander of the Guards. This man snapped to attention as soon as Septimus and his companion came to a halt at the doorway.

‘I have but one question,’ asked Septimus, his voice dripping with ice as he stared down at the injured guard. ‘How?’

The groggy man looked up at him, and then at his commander.

‘There were two of them, my Lord. Burly-looking men. We don't know where they came from.’

Septimus glanced at Judayah, who he could see was thinking.

‘The drains. The sewers,’ Judayah finally said, his expression fierce. ‘They came up from below us!’

‘Show me the dungeon where the dog was being held,’ Septimus demanded. With a nod, the Commander of the Guards picked a torch from the wall and led his superiors down the corridor, and into the dungeon which had, until just hours earlier, been home to the Prince.

Snatching the torch from the guard, but not before the guard noticed the snarling expression upon the Dark Lord’s face, Septimus began casting his eyes around the dungeon. Trying the door to the cell, he found it unmoving.

‘It is locked.’

‘The keys that were in the possession of the guards, they are missing, Sire,’ the commander said, instinctively shrinking back in fear as he did so.

‘So . . . they come up from below us, overpower the guards, relieve them of their keys, and then break the prisoner free . . .’ the Dark Lord pondered aloud as he stalked around the cold room.

‘Yet there was no sign of them leaving, my Lord,’ the Commander of the Guards ventured.

‘And what does that tell you?’ Septimus enquired.

‘That they . . . left the way they came, Sire?’

‘Or perhaps they simply vanished into thin air?’ the Dark Lord mused.

‘But how, Sire?’

‘How indeed?’ Septimus responded, as he began to look more closely at his surroundings, starting with the steel bars of the cell, testing some of these as he walked each wall of the cell, but finding them firm.

Oddly, the dungeon was partially filled with clutter, with barrels and wooden crates lying here and there, and another stack of crates along one wall. When he reached the wall that the cell bars joined onto, he turned his attention to this clutter, pushing aside crates and barrels, even a wooden stool, as his companions studied him.

While doing this, they noticed Septimus sniffing the air, like some wild animal trying to pick up a scent. Judayah had seen this trick before, and knew well of some of the mysterious abilities the Dark Lord seemed to possess. He also knew well enough not to disturb his master when he was in such a frame of mind, so stood back, while Septimus continued his search.

Eventually the Dark Lord disappeared behind a pile of wooden crates, before finally arriving at a spot in a darkened corner.

‘Here!’ he finally said in triumph. ‘This is the place.’

‘Sire?’ the Commander of the Guards enquired, his confusion clear, from the tone of his voice.

‘Break this wall down,’ the Dark Lord ordered. ‘We will have these scoundrels yet!’

*   *   *

By the time Septimus had picked up the scent of the urchins and the knights, and had instructed his guards to tear the place apart, Luther’s small band of liberators were already scattering to the four corners of the castle, and beyond.

Their journey had led them down flights of stairs and along corridors, as Drake took them deeper and deeper into the bowels of the ancient building, until finally they arrived in a cavern, where they came to a stop.

When Luther looked around him, he found there were but six other people left. Drake and Rae, along with Kit, Garrett, the Warlock, and the boy, Carel.

When he glanced at Drake and raised his eyebrows at him, the boy said, ‘They are all being led to safety. Our boys know the importance of their tasks and will see to their safety.’

‘And what of the soldiers and guards, can they stay clear of them?’

‘Provided they keep their senses. The paths through the castle and the city are well known to them, and should they encounter the Dark Lord’s men, there are alternate routes. There are also certain . . . precautions . . . in place, should diversions be needed. A well-place blow with a club to a beam in certain tunnels will bring down enough rubble to block the passage and prevent the Dark Lord’s men from reaching ours.’

‘And what of us? Which way shall you be leading us from this pile of rubble?’ Garrett enquired.

‘Through the catacombs, Sire. There are multiple avenues of escape, some of which will lead us almost to the rocky shores of the dark sea . . . and from there we will reunite you with your men. I will lead Luther and our Prince in one direction, while Kit will lead the others in another direction. Should either of us be unfortunate enough to come into contact with the guards, or the Dark Lord himself, then we will still be safe.’

‘I hope that you are correct, lad, because only heaven will help you if you are not,’ Garrett growled.

‘That’s enough,’ Luther commanded, as he glanced around at the small group. ‘We are all putting our lives on the line here, Garrett. These boys may well be the saviours of this kingdom, and I don’t see anyone else around here who might know the way out of this castle. Now, Drake, please lead us from this place . . . Highshaw awaits us.’

At the mention of Highshaw, the Prince’s eyes sparkled. He remembered that place well.

‘As you wish, Sire,’ followed by, ‘Lead on, Kit.’

With a nod, Kit turned towards his charges, then said, ‘Follow me,’ before starting towards a tunnel. The boy, Carel, took the Warlock by his hand and followed, with Garrett bringing up the rear.

Before entering the tunnel, Garrett stopped and looked back at Luther, the two knights studying each other for what seemed a long time, but was in fact just a few moments.

‘We will see you outside,’ Luther said to his friend.

‘Godspeed,’ Garrett replied, then followed the others and disappeared into the dark void.

Turning back towards Drake and Rae, Luther simply asked, ‘Are we ready?’

‘Yes, Sire,’ Drake answered. ‘This way.’

*   *   *

While Drake and Kit were discussing the next steps to be taken with Luther and the others, their band of urchins was already leading their charges through the tunnels and passageways that only they were familiar with.

Each pairing would find their own route beneath the castle, to be swallowed up by a different throat of darkness, where tunnels forked like roots through old burial vaults and storm drains and forgotten passageways left from past noblemen.

The two blacksmiths, Bull and Hobb, were led away by lads named Zef and Kali, two dark-haired waifs of not more than ten summers, who were brothers and had no business living this life at such a young age.

Silently, each took the hand of their charge and led them into a dark tunnel, before separating, when their one tunnel became two.

The remaining two men were led by two of the older gutter-runners who knew enough of the hidden ways to pass for ghosts themselves. Each had been setting traps in the dark underbelly of Carronne since before the heroes had ever reached the city.

For a little while all that remained was the echo of soft feet, ragged breathing, and the far-off cry of horns beginning to rise through the night above.

With their paths lit only by torchlight, and with their feet splashing through ankle-deep water, the going was slow, but each pair carried on, wary of their surroundings, yet determined.

‘What causes you to live in such surroundings?’ the man known as Bull, asked his young guide, Zef.

‘No talking. We must stay quiet,’ the boy reprimanded his charge.

‘As you wish,’ Bull replied.

Before long they came to a larger passageway, with Zef stopping suddenly, causing the blacksmith to collide with him. Cautiously the boy looked out into the passage and checked each way, before then stepping forward and dragging the man after him.

Shortly afterwards the boy stopped again, then quickly grabbed the man and dragged him sideways. Another passage seemingly appeared from out of the darkness and the two soon found themselves running, feet splashing through a trickle of water. Eventually their passage took a turn, and only then did the boy finally slow, and then stop.

‘And what was that for?’ the blacksmith asked, as he leant over with hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

Zef smiled at him. ‘Guards,’ he simply replied. ‘Go back to the bend . . . you might even see them pass.’

With doubt clearly showing in his expression, the blacksmith took the few steps needed to be able to peer around the corner. He found himself looking at the entrance to the passage they were now in, yet something seemed odd. It took a moment, but he soon realised what the problem was. He shouldn’t have been able to see anything. He should only be seeing darkness, yet there it was; a dark circle at the end of the passage, that wasn’t quite as dark as the area around it.

Much to his amazement, as he continued to watch, the circle was growing lighter, and lighter, and moments later he watched as three guards, each bearing a torch, passed by.

The sound of their feet splashed in water. The sound of steel hitting stone. Every sound came directly down the passageway to where Zef and the blacksmith were standing.

When finally, the entrance to their passage was dark once more, the blacksmith asked, ‘So, what now? How do we evade them?’

‘We continue to go this way,’ Zef said. ‘And before we breathe the sweet night air of the city, we cover our tracks. We shan’t be caught.’

‘You had best hope not.’

*   *   *

Kali’s path was harder. He was all sharp edges and quick eyes, and far more talkative than his brother, but still no more than a scrap of a lad in the dark, his long hair tied back with string, a knife tucked into one boot.

He had taken the other blacksmith, the broad-shouldered man named Hobb whose silence seemed less from fear than from the lifelong habit of listening before speaking.

‘Don’t loom over me,’ Kali hissed at his charge as they hurried through a low sewer passage. ‘You block the light.’

‘We ain’t got any light,’ Hobb muttered.

‘Exactly.’

He led him through waist-high culverts, over channels of black water, and through old niches where carvings of ancient saints had once been set in the walls before some darker faith had clawed their faces away. Twice they flattened themselves into side cracks as patrols passed along adjoining corridors. Once they heard someone screaming in the distance and neither spoke of it.

Their trouble came in a tunnel lined with old brick, where the roof had sagged and the floor was slick with moss.

Kali stopped so suddenly Hobb nearly ran him down.

There were voices ahead. Then more voices behind.

Guards.

Kali spun, listening, eyes narrowed. ‘Damn.’

From the sound of it there were at least four men coming from one end, maybe more from the other. The tunnel offered nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. Hobb’s hand went to the hammer hanging at his belt – much less a weapon than a tool he had refused to abandon.

‘Can we break through a wall?’ he whispered.

‘With what? Your head?’

The guards’ torchlight was already beginning to bloom at one end of the passage.

Kali’s gaze shot upward.

There, above them, half-hidden in slime and shadow, was an old maintenance shaft covered by an iron grate.

Too high. Unless . . .

‘Blacksmith,’ he hissed. ‘Kneel.’

Bull looked at the boy once, then dropped without question. Kali sprang onto his bent back, caught the grate, and strained. Rust showered down, but the thing did not move.

The voices were closer now. One of the guards was laughing.

Hobb rose beneath the boy, adding strength without being told, and together they tore the grate free just as the first torch rounded the bend.

‘Up!’ Kali snapped.

He wriggled into the shaft like an eel. Hobb shoved the hammer through after him, then jumped, caught the lip, and hauled himself upward with a grunt that sounded loud enough to wake the dead. Below, a guard shouted.

A spear-point flashed upward.

Hobb jerked with a curse as it scored his leg, but Kali grabbed his wrist with both hands and pulled with desperate ferocity. Somehow, he came free. They dragged the grate back into place above the clamour below and lay there in blackness, both gasping.

The shaft was barely wide enough for them to crawl. Dust filled their mouths. The brick scraped skin from elbows and knees. Beneath them the guards pounded at the grate and cursed them as vermin, but could not follow.

Kali began to laugh softly, breathlessly.

Hobb turned his head toward him in the dark. ‘You alright, lad?’

‘No,’ the boy whispered. ‘But they’re less alright.’

Hobb could only grin.

They crawled until the shaft ended in a crumbling wall above an abandoned cellar. From there Kali found them a stair, and from the stair a hidden passage leading toward the outer wards.

Hobb limped, but would not complain.

*   *   *

By now, Luther knew that Septimus would have already learned of the rescue. The castle was waking like a beast in pain.

Drake moved steadily, and never so quickly that the prince could not keep up. After spending so much time confined and barely cared for, the prince was not in the best of condition.

‘Mind your step,’ Drake whispered over his shoulder. ‘There’s a drop.’

Luther caught Raemande by the arm just as the prince stumbled at the lip of a broken stair descending into the catacombs proper. The air changed there. It grew colder, heavier, and full of the old dead smell of stone sealed too long from day. Narrow alcoves lined the walls, each holding a crumbled bier or a nameless skull. Water ran in threads along the floor.

Raemande breathed hard but said nothing. For all his weakness there was stubbornness in him still, and Luther felt it in the set of the man’s jaw.

They had stopped and rested, when behind them, somewhere far back, there came the dim thunder of boots.

Drake glanced once over his shoulder, his narrow face ghost-pale in the darkness. ‘They have found our scent.’

‘How close?’ Luther asked.

‘Too close.’

Drake darted left through an archway no grown man would have noticed. The passage beyond was mean and narrow, forcing Luther to turn side-on in places as he guided the prince after him. Their shoulders scraped wet stone. Twice Raemande nearly fell. Twice Luther hauled him up again.

The tunnel twisted, then widened suddenly into an old burial chamber ringed with pillars. At its centre lay a cracked sarcophagus, long since plundered. Drake crossed straight to it, dropped to one knee, and reached beneath the stone lip.

A faint click sounded.

Luther’s hand tightened on his sword. ‘What have you done?’

‘Bought us a little time.’

The boy sprang back just as the rear archway exploded in a roar of collapsing stone. Dust and broken rock belched through the chamber in a choking cloud.

Raemande flinched violently. Luther threw an arm over him and turned his face away.

When the rumbling ceased, the tunnel behind them had vanished beneath a mound of shattered masonry.

Drake was already moving again. ‘Not that much time. Septimus won’t stop for rubble.’

‘He will if it buries him,’ Luther muttered.

Drake’s expression in the dimness was grim beyond his years. ‘Men like him climb.’

They pressed on, deeper still, until the catacombs gave way to older passages hacked from black stone. Here the walls were rougher, the ceilings lower, the turns sharper. More than once Luther heard voices that were not theirs – orders barked somewhere beyond the stone, the crash of boots on another level, the scraping fury of men searching every dark throat beneath the castle.

Once, at a crossing of four tunnels, Drake froze and held up a hand, as a light flickered ahead.

Not torchlight – too cold for that. It was more a pale-green wash, moving against the walls like corpse-fire.

Septimus.

Luther felt Raemande stiffen beside him.

Drake did not hesitate. He grabbed a fist-sized stone from the floor and hurled it hard down the tunnel to their right. It clattered and bounced, as loud as a trumpet in the stillness, and at once the green light swung toward the noise.

Voices rose. Boots pounded after it.

‘Now,’ Drake hissed.

He dragged them down the opposite passage, through a slit in the wall hidden behind hanging roots, and into a crawlspace so tight Luther thought for one breath he would wedge fast in it. Dirt rained into his hair and down his collar. Raemande gasped once in panic, and Luther reached back blindly until his hand found the prince’s wrist.

‘Steady,’ he whispered. ‘You are through. Keep coming.’

On the far side, they emerged into a drainage tunnel where black water slid sluggishly toward the sea. Fresh air touched Luther’s face for the first time since entering the underground. Faint, salt-heavy.

Drake grinned then, wolfish and exhausted. ‘That’s the dark sea. We’re nearly free.’

Nearly.

The word had scarcely formed in Luther’s mind before there came a cracking roar from behind. The wall through which they had crawled shuddered.

A voice like iron dragged over stone echoed through the darkness.

‘Run, my little rats,’ a voice hissed.

Raemande went white.

Septimus had found them again.

Drake’s grin vanished. ‘Move!’

They ran along the drainage tunnel, half slipping in slime, the prince leaning on Luther now with nearly all his weight. Behind them, the black space glimmered with that same sickly green. Luther did not look back a second time. There was no need. He could feel the Dark Lord gaining.

Then Drake swerved toward a timber brace driven into the wall.

He seized an iron pin wedged into it and yanked with all his strength.

For one terrible heartbeat nothing happened.

Then came the sounds. A groan. A creak. Then the ceiling ahead of Septimus grumbled and came down in an avalanche of stone, mud, and ancient timber. The tunnel shook as if struck by thunder. A wave of dust blasted over them. Luther threw himself over the prince and felt fragments sting his back and shoulders.

When he rose again coughing, the passage behind them was gone.

This time, gone completely.

Even Drake stared at it a moment, chest heaving.

Then he spat dust, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said with savage satisfaction, ‘That one was for keeps.’

Luther clasped the boy’s shoulder once, hard. ‘Lead on.’

And Drake did.

*   *   *

At a deep junction three teams of stragglers found each other, each while hiding from the sounds of boots around them.

The first team was Hobb and Zeff, who were catching their breath after escaping their guards. They had been startled by the sounds of voices and footsteps, and had dived for cover, only to see the quiet farmer, Bran, led by a lanky gutter-boy called Nyle – whose nose had clearly been broken more than once – emerge from the dark, both spattered with soot.

These four were soon joined by Toman, the hard-eyed youth whose cousin had vanished into Daarkeeth in the third of the dark years, led by a freckled little wretch named Sive who could not have been more than twelve. Both were white-eyed and shaking. ‘Guards behind us,’ said Toman.

Their meeting was not planned. It happened because each of their escape routes had gone wrong in the same quarter of the underground, driving them toward the same half-collapsed cistern beneath the city.

‘We had to fire one of the tar pits,’ Nyle said by way of explanation, as the others eyed their filthy state. ‘Tunnel’s an oven now, but we stopped the guards.’

For a moment they stood in the damp chamber with water dripping from cracked arches, and with fear beating like another pulse among them all.

‘How many guards?’ Hobb asked.

‘Enough.’

Then the sounds came once more: boots, from one passage. Shouts, from another.

Once again it seemed they were trapped.

Bran looked at the stagnant pool at the centre of the cistern. ‘What’s under there?’

Nyle frowned. ‘Drain channel, perhaps.’

‘Perhaps?’

The farmer had already waded in, up to his thighs, feeling with his boots. ‘No choice now.’

A guard’s torch flared at one arch. Another answer came from the far side.

Hobb splashed in beside Bran. Toman followed with grim resignation. The children scattered to the edge of the pool.

‘Here!’ Bran barked.

His foot had found a grating buried under slime. Together he and Hobb heaved. The old iron lid tore up with a belch of foul air. Black water rushed downward in a whirl.

‘Down!’ Nyle cried.

It was madness. It was filth. But it was all they had. Their only chance.

Sive went first, vanishing into the hole just as arrows hissed across the chamber. Kali shoved Hobb’s hammer into his hands and dropped after. Toman caught Bran’s shoulder to steady him as the bigger man lowered himself through. A spear struck sparks from the stone beside Hobb’s head. Then he, too, disappeared into the drain, dragging the limping blacksmith with him.

The channel below was little more than a storm sluice, steep and slick and foul beyond words, but it carried them away from the cistern in darkness while above them guards shouted in frustration and could not follow without abandoning armour and dignity alike.

Finally, they came out in a culvert near the river quarter, stinking like the underworld and alive enough not to care. At least the air was cool and clear, and high above them, they could see stars.

They were free of the castle. Their next destination was the place where they were to meet the others.

To be continued . . .