King of Foxes (31 page)

Even the slightest possibility that Havrevulen might somehow survive forced Tal to one of two choices: either kill him outright before they fled the island or take him _______________

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with them. There was no alternative but to talk to the man.

Tal waited until Zirga and the guards were asleep, then woke Will. “One man at a time, have the prisoners come to the armory. Tell them to keep quiet until I get there.”

“Where are you going?”

“To speak with our newest guest.”

Will and Tal parted company on the first landing of the keep, as Will continued going upward and Tal found Quint’s cell. Tal carried a kitchen knife under his tunic and made sure he could quickly reach it before he lifted the latch to Quint’s cell door.

Quint came awake as Tal entered. “Who is it?”

Tal stood in the gloom, his feature’s hidden. “Tal Hawkins,” he said quietly.

Quint rolled over and sat up on the straw pallet, his back against the wall. “How’d you find me?”

“You’ll find things are lax around here, and if you know how, you can wrangle a few privileges.”

“Hmm,” said Quint noncommittally.

Tal said, “What happened?”

Quint made a sound halfway between a grunt and laugh. “Failure is what happened. You know Kaspar when it comes to failure.”

Tal knelt, keeping his hand on the knife’s handle.

“Tell me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m curious, and because I might be able to help.”

“Help? How?”

“I run the kitchen. If nothing else, I can make sure you get enough to eat.”

Quint’s expression was hard to read in the gloom, but _______________

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Tal sensed he was considering this. “What have I to lose?”

he said at last. “I’m not going anywhere. All right, I’ll tell you.

“Kaspar is not given to patience. After
you
didn’t kill Duke Rodoski, I was sent on a mission, and I failed. Kaspar was not interested in my excuses, and here I am.”

Tal was silent for a moment, as if thinking, then said,

“You were his senior officer, his Special Captain, Quint.

You commanded his entire army. It must have been a critical mission.”

“It was. I took a company of men dressed as bandits into the Mountains of Aranor. Intelligence told us that the Prince and his family were en route to their palace at Lake Shenan, to enjoy spring in the mountains. We were supposed to fall on the camp, overpower the guards, and kill the royal family.”

“Why?” said Tal in surprise. “Phillip has always been Kaspar’s lapdog, and Kaspar keeps him on a short leash.

He’s no threat. So why kill him?”

Quint shrugged, the gesture almost lost in the gloom.

“I don’t know. Kaspar’s been doing unpredictable things as long as I’ve been in his service, but lately . . . they border on the insane. He spends more and more time with that wizard and . . . I don’t know.

“Somehow Aranor’s men knew we were coming, or they just decided at the last moment to send out a much larger company of guards, but for whatever reason, while Prince Phillip was killed, Princess Alena fled to safety, to Opast, then on to the Isles. Now she and her sons are in Rillanon and both the Isles and Roldem are threatening Kaspar.”

Tal was silent again. After he thought about it, he said,

“Kaspar must have a traitor in his service, if they knew it was his men behind the attack.”

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“I think so. Your man Amafi rose quickly after betraying you. Kaspar sent him out on one errand after another.

At the start, I thought him a useful tool, but he is more than that.”

“Much more than a tool. He’s a practiced assassin.”

“Kaspar’s plan was simple at first: to put himself in line for the throne of Roldem, then engineer a tragedy that would end King Carol’s life along with his entire family at once; a ship sinking while they were all aboard would have been ideal.

“But things began to go wrong, starting with your failure to kill Duke Rodoski.”

Tal laughed. “That was Kaspar’s doing, didn’t you know?”

“No,” said Quint quietly. “I had no idea.”

Tal explained how he was to have been sacrificed while Prohaska carried out the actual murder. When he had finished, Havrevulen said, “We were told that you had been discovered and that you gave up Prohaska, and that’s why Kaspar sent you here.” Softly he added, “Prohaska was a friend; I would have happily murdered you myself when I heard you betrayed him, Tal.” He shook his head in the gloom. “To find out it was Kaspar . . .”

“Maybe not. In all of this, there’s another hand at play.”

“I see that now. In the last two years Kaspar has asked me to draw up plans for several contingencies. Each time, after reviewing them, he rejected my plans and adopted plans that can only be called . . . strange.”

Tal considered his options. He had no desire to see Quint live one moment longer than necessary, but he also recognized him as a potential ally, if only for the short term. He had just arrived, so he hadn’t suffered any debil-itation from his imprisonment, and Tal knew he was a _______________

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skilled swordsman, an experienced officer, and as cold-blooded as anyone he had met. He would be an asset during the escape.
If
he could be trusted.

Tal decided to explore a bit more.

“I suspect this Leso Varen’s hands may be on this.”

“Probably. Kaspar has been becoming increasingly dependent upon him, spending more and more time in that abattoir Varen calls home.” Quint was quiet for a moment, then he said, “I’m a soldier, Tal. I don’t claim to be a . . . deep thinker. I’m a very good soldier, which is why I rose so high, but this is all beyond anything I have ever seen . . . it’s beyond what I can imagine.

“I know we’ve never been . . . friends. I’ve sensed something between us since you first appeared. I even wondered if Campaneal’s death in the Tournament of Champions was an accident or if you meant for him to die. And I never liked the way Natalia took to you.

“I guess what it is I’m trying to say is that fate has put us here together, so I see no reason for us to be at odds.

After all, we’re both going to be here a very long time, and neither of us needs more enemies.”

Tal stood up. “Not that long.”

“What do you mean?” asked Quint.

“Come with me,” said Tal, pushing open the door.

Quint followed him, and the two men moved quietly through the keep, past the guards’ room, where Kyle lay sleeping on the floor, rather than sitting at his post. Once they were in the bowels of the keep, Tal said, “Zirga counts on the island preventing our escape.”

“You’re planning an escape?”

“No, we’re escaping, right now.”

Reaching the armory, Tal found all but three of the prisoners waiting, and a moment later, Will, Masterson, and a man named Jenkins appeared with a single lantern.

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Tal spoke in a whisper. “I doubt anyone can hear us, but let’s err on the side of caution.”

“What are we doing?” asked one man.

“Escaping. I will tell you my plan. There is no debate.

If you come with me, you follow orders, without question.

If you won’t, you stay behind with Zirga and the guards.

Is that understood?”

Every man nodded or muttered agreement.

Tal said, “Put on as much clothing as you can comfortably wear. You will be wet and cold before we are through.” Tal turned up the wick on the lantern, and the room was illuminated. He pointed to a large pile of clothing in the corner.

Most men threw off their filthy rags and put on two or three pairs of trousers, and multiple shirts. “In those chests are boots. Try to find a pair that fits.”

In less than ten minutes, the men stood dressed, and every man wore sturdy boots. Tal said, “Weapons,” and indicated the racks behind the men.

All the political prisoners, as well as Captain Quint, picked swords. The others picked cutlasses, falchions, and short swords. Masterson, the huge murderer, favored a large ax, and Tal considered he could probably cut a man in half with it.

Will found a pair of shoulder belts with loops for daggers and put it on, then filled the loops with six or seven blades. Tal chose a rapier, and a baldric with scabbard he could set on his right hip. He said to Quint, “I wish I had practiced more with my left hand back at Masters’ Court.”

Quint chuckled. “We’re armed and outfitted, but how do we get off this rock?”

Tal motioned for everyone to follow, and they quietly moved to the pantry. He pointed to a pile of bundles and whispered, “Each man takes one.”

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They did so, and he led them back into the kitchen.

“Open them,” he instructed softly.

Inside each bundle was flint, steel, twine, and other useful items, as well as a handful of jerked beef and hard-tack. Tal went to a barrel of apples and quickly tossed two to each man, then said, “Will, get the waterskins.” While Will did that, Tal quickly went through the stores and added another half a dozen food items to the men’s bundles.

Masterson said, “Why all the skulking around? Why don’t we just kill Zirga and the others?”

“And risk injury? You want to be left behind with four corpses and a broken arm?” Nobody spoke. “Quint’s the only man here fully fit. We’re going to need every man if any of us are to have a chance.”

Baron Visniya asked, “Shouldn’t we carry more food?”

“How far are we going?” asked another.

Tal said, “Silence!” When they all stopped muttering, he said, “Either follow orders or return to your cells.

Questions are over.”

No man said another word, and Tal motioned for one of the prisoners to help Will pass out the waterskins. “Fill them outside at the well.”

They followed him outside, and once the waterskins were filled, Tal led the group to the north beach. They went down a steep path, and when they reached sand, Tal motioned for them to keep close, lest anyone get lost in the darkness. All three moons were down, and Tal could barely find the small cave he had discovered two years ago.

A few minutes later, he found it. “Move those rocks,”

he said.

Some of the men moved a few small boulders that were keeping a pile of driftwood in place, and when that _______________

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was removed, the cave opening was revealed. It was shallow and low, and two men had to kneel to enter. A few feet back, they found long poles and shorter logs, along with bundles of ropes, a small cask of nails, and a hammer.

“What next?” asked Havrevulen.

“Build a raft,” said Tal, “and we have less than four hours in which to do it.”

He gave instructions, and the men laid out the logs that Tal had painstakingly cut and hauled down to the beach. He had scraped himself, dropped logs on his feet, fallen down the trail and earned bruises, twisted muscles and splinters, but over the past two years he had managed to cut down eight trees, strip them, and drag them down the trail from the woods above. The poles had proven far easier, since he had discovered them in storage in an abandoned warehouse near the outer wall. The wood was old, but still serviceable. Those he had got to the cave in a week.

A few of the men lashed the poles on top of the logs, and when they had done that, a frame lay on the sands. Tal raised a single mast, held to the center by four interlocking boards, nailed fast to the two center logs. The sail was a bedsheet, folded over and sewn to form a triangle, tacked to the top of the mast. It could be pulled open at the bottom and tied to the rear pole.

“We can’t all stand on this thing,” said one of the men.

“We’re not,” said Tal. He said to Will, “There’s another pile of driftwood over there.” He pointed in the dark. “Take some men and move it.”

Will did as instructed and returned with large folded bundles of oil-treated canvas. It was laid on the left side of the raft. “Put all your bundles into the canvas, along with your weapons.” After this was done, Tal said, “Tie it securely, then lash it to the poles.”

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When the bundle was in place, Tal said, “Here’s the plan. It’ll be a month and a half to three months before the next ship arrives. That gives us six to twelve weeks to get off the island and head to safety before Zirga can send word to Olasko we’ve escaped. If the ship goes straight to Opardum, that’s another two weeks we’re away from here.

“There’s a strong current, and we’re going to let it do some of our work for us pushing us north while we head for shore. Most of you are too weak to swim more than a few hundred yards, if that, but you can hang on, and the rest of us will kick. The wind will do a little of the work for us. We’ll take turns pushing this raft toward the beaches. A man gets too weak to hang on, he can rest on the logs a bit. I reckon it’ll take us a few hours to get to the mainland and carry us north while we’re doing it. We should land five, maybe six miles north of here.”

“Where are we going?” asked Masterson.

“Karesh’kaar to start.” Tal looked around, and said,

“In Bardac’s Holdfast we’ll be a company of mercenaries.

After we get there, I will tell you what’s next. I’ll tell you this much now: some of you will not make it. Some of you will die in the attempt, but you were dead men in those cells anyway, so you will die free.

“For those who reach Karesh’kaar, I promise this much: if you want to quit and strike out on your own, I won’t stop you. But if you stick with me, and if the gods favor us, one day we will be standing on the battlements of the citadel of Opardum, with Kaspar’s head on a pike!”

The men actually cheered, and Tal said, “Get the paddles.” He pointed to the cave.

Four men returned with the roughly carved pieces of wood, barely recognizable as paddles. He had found four matching pieces of wood that he’d carved with a kitchen _______________