A Tailor's Son (Valadfar) (18 page)

“What the hell?
” Ernest exclaimed, finding himself forced back
up two or three stairs before he fell onto his back as the deranged old
man with the iron weapon swung it madly in his direction. It sliced at
his cheek, digging in deep and sending a spray of Drow blood against
the wooden railing that crawled up the stairway. The power of his
swing sent his father stumbling forward, and with a push from Ernest
as he stepped aside, Harold’s father ended up face first on the stairs
above the injured Drow. Ernest took his chance and scrambled on all
fours like a dog towards the open front door and fled into the street
leaving a trail of dripping blood from the wound on his cheek all the
way.

Neill had been left alone to face the aged Pole. It was then his
father made his mistake. He turned to the open doorway to face the
fleeing Ernest while struggling to stifle a cough as he got up from his
knees. The temptation to chase him would have been strong, but the
sickness rapidly drained the surge of adrenaline that had brought his
father to his feet. Neill seized his chance and leapt from the lounge
elbowing Harold’s father hard in the chest with his good arm. His
father fell, crashing to the floor once more and he could only watch as
Neill escaped in pursuit of Ernest. It was not like the old days when a
blow like that would have taken moments to recover from. Harold’s
father did not know how long he lay there before he managed to get to
his feet and close the door but it seemed like an age. The sickness left
him fragile and the blow to his chest would have loosened the phlegm
that clogged his lungs. After whatever wait his father needed to regain
his composure he got up and closed the door, noticing that the lock
was broken. It would remain so until Harold visited again. His father,
weak as he was and coughing terribly, struggled up the stairs gasping
for air as he went to free his wife. Together they sat on the bed in each
other’s arms, his mother shaking and sobbing heavily, the trauma of the
attack had broken the mask she had worn to hide the sorrow of his
father’s sickness. She had been crying so hard that she had not even
noticed when his father fell asleep. In his weakened state, it had taken
everything he had to put up a fight against the intruders.

While his mother and father lay in bed recovering from the
attack, Harold had sat in the dark confines of the storeroom for too
long. The officer on the front desk must have been growing more and
more suspicious of his delay in the station. After all, how long did it
take to put a woman in a cell? The only reason they’d been left alone is
that he suspected him to be bedding Muriel. However, the officer
whose brother Harold was pretending to be, could come back at any
time, so they needed to think of a way out, and quickly. The way they
came in was out of the question. Harold could have easily walked out
alone, but that would leave Muriel stuck inside and if they went out
together then the guard would know something was up. Although
Harold could probably overpower the guard if he needed to, it was not
a guarantee. They had to think of another way. There was no back door
for them to use, and the few windows on the floor all belonged to
holding cells and had large bars across them. If Harold could get
outside on his own somehow then he could get a cart from somewhere
and pull the bars from a window, like he had read in the story books at
school. But that was unlikely to work – the noise would alert every
officer in the building and Harold was still trying to prove his
innocence, not confirm his guilt. That left only one choice. The second
floor windows did not have bars. Harold would have to walk outside
leaving Muriel with the documents and catch her as she jumped out.

“Muriel, I’ve thought of a way to get you out.”
Harold whispered in
the darkness of the storeroom door, hoping not to horrify her with his
suggestion.

“
How’s that then?”
Muriel asked. Harold could sense an edge of
doubt in her voice. Her resolve was weakening and he hoped she would
not break when he told her his idea.

“The windows on the next floor are not barred. You could jump out and
I’ll catch you from outside.”
He said, but could tell from the look on her face
she did not like his idea. They were not given time to discuss it, as from
the reception room they heard the voice of the guard.

“
Hey Fred, you finally got over your hangover, then?”
The old guard
said and Harold did not wait for the other officer to reply. He grabbed
hold of Muriel’s arm and made for the stairs. They heard the sound of
the wooden rattle coming from the main entrance, as the officer called
for reinforcements to subdue the would-be infiltrators. Its click clack
sound was so loud it could be heard over the sound of the pair’s shoes
clattering on the hard stone floor. The sound of their footsteps would
give them away but they did not have time to creep.

Harold cleared the steps two at a time dragging Muriel behind
him. He thought afterwards that they seemed to have gone full circle.
She had saved him when she had dragged him down the side alley and
away from danger. Now Harold was returning the favour, the only
difference was that he had brought her into danger in the first place.
She should not be involved in any of this. At the top of the stairs
Harold heard a door fly open below them and the sound of footsteps
moving swiftly in pursuit. They had to hide and fast. Harold darted into
the first room on the right, shutting the door as quietly as he could. The
room they ran into was well-decorated with deep blue wallpaper and a
thick carpet covering the floor. There was a well-crafted desk in its
centre facing the door and a bookshelf built of solid oak close by. It
looked aged and must have been a relic from before the war.
Thankfully, the room was void of life. Harold did not waste the sudden
luck they’d been granted and let go of Muriel and darted for the desk,
leaping over it and scattering papers in his wake. It was heavy but
Harold begun pushing it towards the door. Muriel caught on fast and
came around to help him, her tiny arms shaking with the effort of
sliding it across the deep carpet that began to bundle in waves. The
bookcase came next. Harold could move that alone. He dropped it on
top of the desk scattering guard records across the floor like leaves in
autumn. The doorway was now completely blocked. Muriel had
brought across the chair and was jamming it against the handle of the
door, arching it across the top of the desk. It would buy them time, but
not long with the gathering number of officers the rattle had called.
Panting Harold made his way to the window, the glass would not open
and Harold had to break it. He brought his foot up into the corner of
the window and it shattered instantly, sending down an array of sharp
fragments to the ground below. Harold turned, pulling the documents
from his pocket. With his back to the window, Harold gave them to
Muriel.

“Here, hold these.”
Harold said, passing them over his hands
shaking with fright.
“
What are you doing?”
She asked as she took the documents
from him.
“I
’m going to have to climb down.”
Harold said. “
Once I’m out then
you jump down to me.”
Harold did not give her time to argue. It was
another occasion where if she had said ‘no’ to him, Harold would have
lost his nerve. He was scared enough, and as he started to climb out of
the window, learnt quickly he wasn’t a fan of heights either. Harold did
not need much talking out of it, but he knew they had no other choice.
He stepped out on to the small seal around the window, slowly
lowering himself down until he was hanging by his fingertips, his toes
desperately seeking a crevice within the brickwork to balance him. It
took only a few seconds for his fingers to feel tired and start to ache as
he began to edge down the wall.
As he slid lower, the upper ledge of the barred window below
became his podium. Harold could not climb down any further and
envied the spider in his father’s shop, not for the first time. It would
have made the descent look easy. Harold kicked off from the wall and
dropped towards the floor, hoping to catch the ledge below as he fell.
A crowd had already gathered outside the station, watching the
entertainment of one of the Rinwidian cultists many rants about the
end of days. Harold was thankful that the spectacle drew enough
attention that no one noticed him clambering down the building like a
wounded fly.
The Rinwidian cultists had sprung up not long after the
shadow demons had first been seen in Briers Hill. They spent their time
bellowing at the top of their lungs how the end was coming and to
repent their lives back to the rightful ruler of Valadfar, the demon
Rinwid. As their numbers seemed to have grown they had taken to
organizing and were now almost famed for their blackened robes and
the god-awful smell that followed them around. For some reason,
which Harold did not have time to think on as his fingers were growing
ever more tired; the cultists had taken to wearing the rotten heads of
Smooth-hounds around their necks. The dead fish symbolized to them
the power and rancidness of their demon god. The practice of the
cultists was illegal and so the guards turned a blind eye when the
peasant folk stoned them or beat them mercilessly in the streets, so
whenever one started preaching it always gathered a crowd eager to
either join in on the assault or watch it. The cultist drawing everyone’s
attention stopped the calls that would have come otherwise and alerted
the guards of Harold’s escape.
His legs hit the ground and his knees buckled, casting him
down on his rump. His backside bruised instantly but, other than that,
Harold was not injured. He pulled himself to his feet ignoring the
chorus of accusations from the crowd who still hadn’t noticed him, and
readied himself to catch Muriel. She was already hanging over the ledge
and dropped quickly. Harold held his breath as she sailed through the
cold air and did not breathe again until he closed his arms tightly
around her. It is a strange thing that can happen to you even in the
turmoil of the worst of moments. With Muriel pressed tightly against
him, time seemed to stand still. Harold could feel her heart beating
rapidly. The warmth of her body returned blood to his chilled fingers,
and Harold held her, savouring the moment. Their eyes met and
Harold knew Muriel could read his thoughts. He knew that he had
been falling for her, and now she had literally fallen into his arms.
Harold did not want the moment to end but the world snapped back at
the sound of the guard calling out from the window above them. Two
tiny heads poked out glaring down, before disappearing back inside.
The pair knew they would be coming down for them so they began
running again, pushing past the crowd and disappearing off into the
streets of Neeskmouth. As they ran, Muriel reached for Harold’s hand
once more.

Dante couldn’t believe his misfortune. In the last few days he
had escaped a fire with only a few scorched hairs. Dodged rat catchers,
dogs, cats and the creator only knows what else as he made his way
back and forth across the city. He’d scrambled across the cobbled
streets, in and out of houses, explored the sewers and the rooftops as
he tried to make his way to the harbour. He’d come close to getting
there a few times, even hitching rides on the underside of horse and
carts, but somehow something kept getting in his way. It was like fate
didn’t want him to make it back to the ship he so desperately sought
and now to top it all off; he sat in a damp cell trapped under a tin
bedpan.

He’d been happily sitting in the dark chewing the edges of a
rather tasty paper folder when some big footed moron had stumbled in
and kicked him. Dante really couldn’t understand why humans had so
much paper neatly pressed into files when they could just as easily tear
it up and make a nice comfy bed out of it. Regardless, Dante had taken
off on his toes again and hidden under a bookcase until all hell had let
loose and the noise of the wooden rattle had sent him scrambling
through a hole in the wall, which had led him into the predicament he
was now in. The bedpan had come down so fast Dante didn’t have
time to avoid it, and to make it worse, it had trapped his tail outside of
it.

Dante didn’t know it, but the strong smell of ammonia that
burnt his tiny nose hairs belonged to that of William Boatswain, who
was the once famous pirate king and governor of Neeskmouth after
the last war. William had lead the city during its gold age and should
have retired gracefully back to the White Isle when his governorship
failed, and that is what most people thought happened to him. The
truth was much darker than that, and showed just how far Malcolm
Benedict would go to ensure he remained in power. It had been years
since William had seen the outside world and he had readied himself,
not for the first time in his life, to die in prison. The reason he’d
trapped the little rat was a simple one. William had torn off a corner of
his sheet and written a letter using the charred edge of a fragment of
wick from a candle in the hall, and the rat Dante would be his unwilling
postman. William knew it was a one in a billion shot that anyone would
see the letter tied to the rat’s tail, and even more desperately crazy was
the idea that it might even end up getting to, the person it was meant to
but he had to try. He’d never managed to tell her.

The letter was to his daughter, Erin. The string tied tight,
William pulled the bedpan up and, just like that Dante was gone
scooting back out through the hole he’d entered the cell through,
leaving William to his unjustified fate. Back inside the dark storage
room, Dante sniffed at the letter attached to his tail. He’d chew the
strings and get that off just as soon as he was somewhere safe, for now
he had to get back out of that place and into the streets.