The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way (10 page)

“Maybe so. However, there’s something you haven’t considered. I may yet hang, but you are free.” Lowtower gave Tejohn an odd look. “You no longer have to do this dishonorable duty. Those children—”

“We care for them!” The woman said hotly. “We bring them extra food from our own rations, and make toys for them, and—”
 

“You don’t have to do any of that any more. You did your duty, and now you can set them free. Children should be allowed to play in the sunlight.”
 

There was silence from the far end of the corridor. Tejohn risked a quick peek into the darkness; was that archer still there? He couldn’t see that dim figure anymore.
 

“What will happen to us?”
 

That wasn’t Tejohn’s choice to make. He glanced down at the commander. “My quarrel isn’t with them,” Lowtower said.

“War is coming to Twofin lands,” Tejohn called out. “Every spear and bow will be needed on the walls. Come out of that pit and take your place among the other soldiers.”
 

The response came much faster than Tejohn expected. “Stay where you are! We’re sending them out.”
 

A few moments after that, there was a sound of bare feet on stone. They weren’t running, just walking in a tired way. A woman stepped into the torchlight. Her hair was gray and her face was pale. Lowtower cried out at the sight of her; she didn’t react. She looked fifteen years older than her husband, and Tejohn bit back a surge of anger. The two girls with her looked to be fourteen and twelve. Lowtower embraced them both and lifted them off the floor with tears in his eyes.
 

More people shuffled down the hall—small children, elderly women who couldn’t stand straight, grown boys. All looked dirty, haggard, and undernourished.
 

If Tejohn hadn’t already killed Tyr Twofin, this sight would have driven him to it.
 

“Thank you,” Lowtower said in a quiet voice. He extended his hand to Tejohn. It was a farewell gesture.

Tejohn shook his hand and held on. “You can’t go home. Not yet. Doctor Twofin is still alive; the old tyr’s whisperers are spreading rumors that his crimes are fabricated. Soldiers are turning on other soldiers—the man you put in charge is on his way to a sleepstone right now. Where are the merchants?”
 

“Gathering others,” Lowtower said. He held onto his children as though he was afraid they would disappear. “They’re going to bring four other merchants to Doctor Twofin’s lab so that people learn the truth.”
 

“Good. Who is left to take control of the soldiers and guards?”
 

“Remly Snowfall,” the commander answered. “He’s one of the old tyr’s distant cousins.”
 

“Will he strike at the tyr’s children and take the chair?”
 

“No.” Lowtower obviously wanted to get away from Tejohn and this conversation, but he could not bring himself to walk away. “No, not that one. He was loyal to the tyr but what he cared most about was red wine and late sleeping. He’s a commander, like me, but his troops are inside the holdfast while mine are, usually, on the walls and in the streets.”
 

Tejohn shook his head. He didn’t want to say this, but there was no choice. “Your family is free but not safe. We need to find them—”
 

Two guards in Twofin green came down the hall toward the torchlight. Both were women; one held up an unstrung bow while the other carried her shield on her back. They looked nearly as pale and haggard as the prisoners they’d been guarding.
 

“Is that all?” Lowtower said, moving his family safely behind him. “I know there were more than two guards down here.”
 

“We were five,” the archer said. “The others didn’t believe we would be reassigned to the walls.” By the look on her face, Tejohn though she didn’t believe it, either.
 

“Call them out here,” Lowtower ordered. “Let them see we’re serious.”
 

The archer looked from one face to another. “Commander,” Tejohn said. “She said they
didn’t
believe us, not that they
don’t
. Soldier, they fell on their swords, didn’t they?”
 

The archer nodded. Lowtower’s two daughters burst into tears. The girls had known those guards for years, possibly most of their lives.
 

“We can’t afford to lose any more people,” Lowtower said bitterly. “We have never had the spears we needed, not with Bendertuks to the south and Holy Sons to the north and east. We can’t afford to be killing our own!”
 

“Husband.” The commander’s wife stared at him with dead eyes. She had a voice like a ghost. “You must see to your duty. I will take the girls away somewhere. We will clean, and rest, and look at the sunlight. Is it day?” Lowtower shook his head. She did not seem to have any reaction to his answer. “Do what you must.”
 

She spoke to her husband as though he was her jailer. He embraced her again. She allowed it helplessly.
 

“My mother will look after them,” the guard with the shield on her back suddenly said. Her cheeks were flushed as though she was ashamed to speak. “She will be glad to, I promise. She likes to fuss over people and look after them. I swear to keep them safe, sir.”
 

Lowtower’s wife spoke before he could. “We should accept. Adellin has been a friend for years, and I feel as though we know her mother from all the stories we’ve heard.” She tried to smile, but it was obviously difficult. “You have much to do here, it seems. Seek us out when you can. Girls.”
 

The commander’s daughters moved toward their mother, both laying a hand on Lowtower’s shoulder as they went past. He looked as if he wanted to snatch them all up and run away with them. “Strangers,” he said quietly. “You’ve become strangers to me. I’m sorry I could not free you sooner. I tried.”
 

“We understand. Adellin explained everything, more than once. Seek us out.”
 

“Do you blame me?” Lowtower asked. “Do you blame me for...”

“Seek us out,” she said again, in that same terrible way, then turned toward the two guards. “I want to go right away.”
 

The guards looked nervously at Tejohn and the commander, then back to Lowtower’s family. “This way. The servants’ passages are faster.”
 

They slipped through a narrow door, leaving Tejohn and Lowtower alone in the antechamber. Great Way, how would it feel to rescue your family after so many years only to discover they were still lost to you? “I apologize, my tyr,” the commander said, his voice shaky. “I meant to introduce you...”

Anxious to change the subject, Tejohn said, “Let’s make sure no one has been left behind.”
 

Yanking a torch from the sconce on the wall, Lowtower led the way down the long corridor. It was not as long as it had seemed. There was a square room at the end with two heavy wooden doors and another door on the left. Tejohn could see the usual signs of guards stationed on duty for a long time--worn benches, food-stained floors, a patterfall set that was almost certainly missing a piece or two, an old bone flute. A dying coal fire burned in a hearth beneath a slantwise air hole.
 

The commander marched through the doorway on the left, searching each cell as he passed them. Finally, he paused.
 

“This is it.”
 

Tejohn came up behind him and held the torch inside the room. A trio of cots had been set up snugly against one wall, and a thin rope held stained linen shifts off the floor. There was a bucket full of human waste in the corner.

Lowtower pointed toward a gray blanket with a piglet’s face on it. “My mother wove that for my youngest when she was very small. She must have taken it on the day... I wasn’t there when they were arrested. Six years ago. Do you think their eyes will be able to handle the sun when it rises? I had forgotten about this blanket until just now. My mother isn’t even alive any--”
 

Tejohn’s killing urge evaporated. He laid his hand on the man’s shoulder. “The sooner we finish our work, the sooner you will return to them.”
 

“Thank you. You’re right. We shall settle things here, all of us, and then I will win them back.”
 

In the last cell, they found the other three guards. All had fallen on their swords. Two were men, portly types who looked the worse from years of drink. The woman, Lowtower explained, had been one of the tyr’s cousins.
 

Time to leave. Lowtower collected the piglet blanket and they started together down the hall.
 

Tejohn laid his hand on the commander’s chest to stop him. There was an awful lot of torchlight at the end of the hall. “Show yourselves,” he called.
 

Eight guards stepped into the center of the room, shields and spears high. A chubby young man with stooped shoulders came out behind them, sword in hand. “Disarm or be struck down!”
 

“Commander Snowfall,” Lowtower said. “You look almost sober.”

Chapter 6

Lowtower turned to Tejohn and said, “This is Tyr Twofin’s cousin, the one in charge of security inside the holdfast.”
 

Tejohn scowled at him. “Not much good at your job, are you?”

“You have the gall to make light of the crime you committed?”

Tejohn snapped back at him. “Twofin’s people have suffered long enough.” Three of the eight guards glanced toward the men beside them, and a fourth closed his eyes for a few moments before opening them again. Some of the man’s spears agreed with him. “I won’t throw down my weapons just so you can stab me in the back. I’m a tyr myself. Promise me a trial and I will come peacefully.”

“I agree to your terms,” Snowfall said. “Now drop your sword.”

“The terms were that I would come peacefully, not unarmed. Let us go up to the great hall together, like soldiers. At trial, I will explain what I’ve done and why you should release me.”

They did not go directly to the great hall. Instead, Tejohn was brought to a small chamber--apparently belonging to low-ranking officers--and made to sit for most of the night. Lowtower was imprisoned with him; Snowfall explained that he had been accused as a co-conspirator.
 

Frankly, Tejohn was glad for the chance to rest. He lay back on the straw mat, glad to be off his feet.
 

“I think…” Lowtower said quietly as he sat on the cot across the room, “I think this room belonged to the tyr’s two favorite bodyguards.”

The men I killed.
The blanket Tejohn pulled across his legs had, only the night before, lain across the legs of the man he’d killed. Perhaps it should have bothered him, but it didn’t. Over the years, he’d killed a lot of soldiers and taken their things for his own use. He wouldn’t lose sleep over this.

He was awakened some hours later by a guard sitting at the foot of his cot, as calm and as comfortable as a man could be. Tejohn was instantly wide awake; he glanced down at the floor beside him and saw that his stolen short sword had been removed. No matter. He hadn’t expected to be allowed to keep it.
 

The serene guard’s voice was mild as he inquired about the location of the tyr’s heirs. Tejohn explained that they had been moved to a safe place. The guard suggested that he could arrange for Tejohn to get free of Twofin lands in exchange for the children’s safe return.
 

Tejohn felt a pang of regret. If he had been less honorable, he would have bargained for his life then and there. He could have gotten provisions, supplies, even weapons. Instead, he was forced to say, “You misunderstand. I’m not an assassin or a usurper. I am on a mission to give all humans everywhere a weapon to use against the grunts. That’s why I ordered Twofin’s loyal men to hide his children until things are settled.”
 

The guard glanced over at Lowtower, who had finally come awake. The guard was in his mid-twenties, old enough to have ambition but still young enough that others around him might not recognize it. Tejohn recognized his squarish Twofin nose, but his other features--the sly, lizard’s smile and the large, staring eyes--seemed unique to him. “Which men?”
 

“I don’t know the names of the guards in your holdfast,” Tejohn said mildly. “I wouldn’t recognize them again if you dangled a noose above me. That was why I chose them. What’s more, if none of the other people in the hall will answer that question for you, it’s possible that you are one of the people I hid them from.”
 

The guard smiled placidly, uncrossed his legs, and moved to Lowtower. The commander said, “I have no idea where the tyr’s heirs are, but you still have a play. My man Jarel should be off the sleepstone by now. Send him to me.”
 

The guard stood, straightened his green cloak, then walked out of the room. Before the door shut, a platter with two loaves of bread and a jug of wine was set on a stool by the door.