Warlords Rising (7 page)

Trev’nor became very, very worried
about her. Becca was taking this harder than either he or Nolan. Being detached
from the sky for most of the day was highly uncomfortable for her. It was as
bad as Nolan being cut off from most of his magic. Between being cut off from the
weather and having severe sleep deprivation, she wasn’t holding up well at all.
She was becoming more fragile with every passing day, although her spirit and
determination to win free of the cages hadn’t changed. Trev’nor just wasn’t
sure if her strength would hold out much longer at this rate.

Guard A came to stand in front of
their cage and he had a highly unhappy turn to his mouth. “We just received
word. You’ll be taken to Trexler the day after tomorrow. So whatever projects
you started need to be finished tomorrow. We won’t let you eat or rest until
they’re done.”

With that said, he turned on a
heel and left as abruptly as he’d come in.

Trev’nor watched him go, an
uncomfortable tightness in his chest. Moving to Trexler would not be good. 

Nolan moved, jarring Becca out of her comfortable spot, and
stood. It was the first time in days he had fully stood up instead of just
crab-walking to one side or another of the pen. It drew Trev’nor’s attention
completely and he stared up at him in surprise.

Nolan lifted his chin, projecting an aura of confidence that
no one in these abysmal pits had. In spite of the dirty clothes, the grime on
his skin, the oily hair hanging around his face, he looked like the prince he
was. “It’s time.”

Trev’nor and Becca both looked at him blankly, not
understanding at all what he meant by that statement.

“It’s time to go, don’t you think?” the Prince of Chahir
clarified.

Becca frowned up at him, words coming out uncertainly. “We
don’t have an accurate count of the guards right now. I thought we needed to do
that before we moved.”

“I’d normally agree and wait a little longer but if we don’t
move now—”

“—we get separated,” she finished, chewing on her bottom
lip. “We’ll have to do this by the seat of our pants if we go now, but you’re
right, that’s better than possibly being separated tomorrow.”

“I agree, but we have a slight problem, remember?” Trev’nor
objected. He pointed to the five amulets still hanging about his chest. “What
about these?”

Nolan smirked. On his grit-streaked face, the expression was
more macabre than he probably intended. “We are students of Riicshaden, the
best soldier Chahir has ever seen. We can’t use our magic. So what. I look
around me and you know what I see?” He splayed his hands to gesture in every
direction. “Weapons for the taking.”

Trev’nor looked around as well but didn’t see what his
friend meant. At first. Then the lessons that Shad had taught him, the methods
of fighting that didn’t have anything to do with a proper staff or sword in
hand, but in using everything in their environment to fight came to mind. They
came slowly, through a fog of half-remembrance, but they came. The second time
he looked around him he saw slave chains hanging on hooks, iron food trays,
stakes for nailing the chains to the floor, and oil lamps that were already on
fire. He saw
weapons.

“I can tell from your face,” Nolan
said softly, triumphantly. “Now you see it too.”

Well, if he was serious, and
Trev’nor was inclined to agree they needed to go now…. Shrugging, he deftly
pulled out two slender picks made from granite and pulled them free from his
braid. Reaching around, he put them both into the lock and wiggled them a
little, springing the lock free.

“Now when did you get those?” Becca
demanded.

“I made them a few days ago,” he answered absently, his mind
debating on what would make the better weapon. “While I was working on the
wall, I slipped a little granite away and crafted them before they put the
fifth amulet on.”

“If you had those, then why
haven’t you used them earlier? Or mentioned them? I’ve been racking my brains
for days trying to figure out how to get out of this thrice-cursed cage!”
Becca’s voice rose uncontrollably at the end.

“I was waiting for the right timing,” he defended himself.

“We will have a long talk about your sad communication
skills later, don’t think we won’t,” she muttered, aggravated. Becca cracked
her knuckles against each hand, then her neck to either side. “I call chains.”

“That’s the spirit.”  

Nolan went for the nearest stack of stakes on the ground,
arming himself the way he would have two daggers.

Orba grabbed him by the arm, dragging him to a halt.
“Don’t,” he pleaded. “You’ll be killed.
We’ll
be killed.”

Nolan looked down at him with one of the saddest, gentlest
smiles Trev’nor had ever seen. “You live worse than an animal would, Orba,” he
said quietly. “If you’re willing to keep living like this, it means that means
you’re already dead. Your body just hasn’t stopped moving yet.”

Trev’nor met Becca’s eyes for a moment, feeling a shiver go
up his spine as he realized that Nolan might be more right than not. Fighting,
no matter the outcome, was better than just sitting here.

For the first time in ten days, Trev’nor walked out of the
cell like a free man. It was a liberating feeling. Becca eyed the door with
mixed emotions, trepidation and eagerness at war on her face. “How do we do
this? It’s, what, a few hours after dinner now?”

“We don’t know how many are in the guardroom,” Trev’nor
started.

“Four,” Nolan instantly replied. At their looks of surprise,
he grinned. “My magic is shut off, not dead. From here, I can tell at least
that much.”

“Four in the immediate vicinity.” Trev’nor wished he had more
information about the guards’ schedules, but all he knew was what he could see,
and they always locked them away in this room after dinner. The little he did
know was what they did in the daylight hours. “We know what the guardroom looks
like. Should we fight as far as there and then decide?”

“If we can fight and escape the city completely, I vote we
do so,” Nolan confirmed, stretching his arms high over his head. Even from
here, Trev’nor could hear his joints pop. “Ow. Hunching over like that is not
good for the back.”

“Tell me about it,” Becca grumbled, also stretching,
although she focused on her waist. “If we can’t escape the city completely,
what then? Find a defensible position and hold until the amulets drop off?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Trev’nor grabbed iron bars so
that he had one for each hand. Tearing off his vest, he ripped it in half, then
tied off cloth on both ends before grabbing a lantern and soaking it with oil
and igniting them.

“Nice,” Becca approved, holding chains in both hands. “We
ready?”

“I am,” Nolan replied, stepping to join their sides. “Are we
taking prisoners?”

Trev’nor snarled the word, “No.”

“Good.” Nolan strode forward, stakes in hands, then paused.
“Come to think of it, Becca, you’re going to have the most reach with those
chains. You’d better go first.”

“Gladly.” She didn’t have an ounce of hesitation in her as
she entered the short tunnel.

“—hearing some strange noises,” one of the guards ahead was
saying.

“They’re in cages or weighted down with amulets, you
kabat
,
what do you think they can do?”

“Quite a bit,” Trev’nor responded conversationally.

Becca breached the door like a whirlwind, spinning on her
toes in a never-ending pirouette that sent cast iron slicing through the air
and connecting to anything and everything around her. One cuff on the edge of
the chain found the jaw of a guard as he jumped to his feet in alarm. The other
solidly hit someone else in the head with a meaty
thunk
, sending him
instantly to the ground.

She didn’t stop until she ran out of room, almost at the
wall, and then she put her back to it, changing her grip on the chains so that
she could whirl them vertically instead of horizontally.

Her pause gave Trev’nor and Nolan the time they needed to
come inside. The guardroom wasn’t much—a single square with four men on duty—and
slaves had never revolted, so they were ill-prepared to face three armed and
very upset teenagers. Trev’nor tackled one guard with his flaming bars, Nolan
the other with his stakes, and the guardroom went completely still within
minutes.

Nolan put his stakes down and looted a sword from one guard.
He eyed it critically and made a face. “Not the best quality or condition. But
better than what I had, I suppose.”

Trev’nor made the same evaluation and declared, “I think I
like my bars better.”

“I would. If there had been more than two of them, I’d have
grabbed those instead.” Nolan inclined his head toward the doorway. “What’s our
plan for out there? Becca, want to go first again?”

“I can? But it won’t be as much of an advantage as it’s all
open air outside. I can only give you enough clearance to get out the door
without a fight.”

“That’s enough,” Nolan assured her.

Trev’nor propped up his bars against the table, making sure
they weren’t going to accidentally set something on fire, then found cuffs for
the guards. He didn’t check if they were alive or dead. He didn’t want to know
that yet. Shad, Chatta, Aletha, and Garth had all taken lives in the line of
duty. He knew that. They’d been very frank about how rattling and awful it felt
afterwards. Right now, they couldn’t afford to be sick or have any hesitation.
So he just made sure they couldn’t cause trouble if they woke up again, and
stood. To Becca, he said, “We’ve got your back, go.”

She didn’t so much open the door as kick it aside and stride
through. Trev’nor and Nolan were at her heels. In the few seconds it took to
clear the doorway, Trev’nor kept his bars held high in a guard position. But it
turned out that everyone outside was so stunned to see three slaves come out
that no one knew quite how to react.

Becca took advantage of their hesitation. She rushed toward
the nearest group of slavers and attacked with such savagery that one would
think she was a starving wolf.

Trev’nor swore aloud and raced to her, spinning and putting
his back to hers, making sure that nothing could attack her from behind. He did
leave enough distance between them that she didn’t accidentally brain him,
though. Just in case. Nolan moved with him, positioning himself on her other
side, forming a triangle.

“Move as a unit!” Trev’nor yelled to them over the clangs
and shouted orders of panicking slavers. If they tried to go their own
directions, they’d be cut down in short order.

Trev’nor had never gotten a good headcount, but he knew that
the ratio of slaver to slave was very unequal. He saw just how disproportionate
it was when slavers and guards started pouring out into this narrow courtyard
they were in. There were far more slaves than guards. It made sense, after he
took a second to think about it. Even slavers had to sleep and the Night Watch
would have fewer guards. People rushed him from all sides, and he had to focus
to guard his right even as he attacked with his left, but he still got a rough
idea of what they were up against. If there were more than twenty men in there
with them, he’d eat his boots.

Shad had stacked the three of them up against worse odds
than this during their training. Was this really all that had been holding him
back in there? Twenty men that weren’t particularly well trained in combat, and
having their magic sealed off? Granted, they’d had little information about
what they were up against the first few days. But still, they could have moved
sooner than this. They should have. He let out a bloodcurdling war cry and
watched them flinch back.

He couldn’t watch his friends, couldn’t turn to check on
them, but he kept his ears open, and Becca’s chains never faltered. They constantly
whirled through the air or hit something with a hard cracking sound. Nolan’s
breathing was a little ragged, but steady, his borrowed sword clanging against
others’. Those sounds let him know that they were alright and it gave him the
strength to fight that much harder.

An arrow of magic and fire whizzed past his nose, barely an
inch away, and Trev’nor flinched and rolled in sheer instinct. He came up ready
to roll again, head snapping from one direction to the next as he tried to spot
his attacker. There, in between the guards. Trev’nor wasn’t sure in this dim
lighting, but the man looked familiar, one of the magicians the guards trusted
to keep the rest of the slaves in line.

Staying low, he put on a burst of speed and went directly
for the man, which scared both the magician and the two guards next to him.
They stood their ground well enough, but he could clearly see the whites of their
eyes. Trev’nor was ruthless and quick, utilizing every skill Shad and Aletha
had taught him on how to combat another magician. One of the guards fell to
Nolan’s sword, the other to Trev’nor’s staves, and then the magician tried to
turn and flee.

Ha, wasn’t very confident with his magic, was he?

Trev’nor tried to dredge up some pity from somewhere. It
seemed he was temporarily out. He’d have to gather some up later. The man was
more or less out of reach at this point so he used a little magic to scoop up a
handful of street and chuck it at the man’s head. The magician went down
without a whimper of sound.

Turning, he reclaimed his spot next to his friends. It
became a blur of faces, and hands with swords, and bodies falling one after
another. The pounding tempo of his heartbeat in his ears almost drowned out
everything else, and the sweat pouring off his temples threatened to fall into
his eyes. Trev’nor blinked furiously and kept moving even when he couldn’t see
clearly. His bars swept one side, then another, and didn’t encounter any
resistance. He stopped, breathing hard, and swiped quickly with a sleeve to
clear out the sweat enough to see.