David Brin - The Practice Effect

He turned and rejoined the others, straining against the massive log. Every time it shifted, it made a racket that Dennis imagined could be heard across the valley.

Arth hurried over from his watch position. “I think they heard something,” the thief whispered. “Should we shut down for a while?”

Dennis looked at the log. Stars shone through the gap. On Stivyung Sigel’s face was a fierce, luminous expression that made Dennis feel a chill. The farmer’s arms were a blur and the saw gave off an almost continuous quiet whir.

Dennis didn’t dare disturb Sigel. He shook his head. “We can’t. It’s all or nothing! If the guards come you’ve got to distract them!”

Arth nodded curtly and hurried away. Between heaves Dennis glanced up at the needle grin that told him the pixolet was still there, watching their struggle. Enjoy, he wished at the creature and joined in another push.

The log groaned, this time really loud. There came a yell from the compound behind them—a commotion of shadows back at the barracks. Then there were screams and shouts coming from almost everywhere.

“Hard!” he urged. They all knew they had very little time left.

Mishwa Qan bawled and battered against the barrier between himself and freedom. Gath and Dennis were thrown aside.

Flames flickered in the barracks shed. Arth’s distraction had begun. Shadows moved in front of the fire. Clubs were raised high as guards and frantic prisoners struggled. High above, in the castle, an alarm gong started clanging. Out of the shadows the thieves, Arth and Perth, appeared suddenly. The small man panted. “I bought us maybe two hunnerd heartbeats, Denniz. No more.”

The log moaned again, like some animal dying, as it tipped another ten degrees. “Make that one hunnerd beats,” Arth said dryly.

Sigel hunched over and the saw sang an even higher tune. The man seemed enveloped in turbulence, and flakes of light fell from the floss cable.

Mishwa Qan stepped back about twenty feet, scuffed his feet, and let out a fierce ululation as he charged the teetering log. It toppled with a crash, and suddenly there was an opening before them. The sound carried through the night. There was no mistaking the reaction of the guards. They turned from the fire and riot and shouted to each other, pointing toward Dennis and his comrades.

Sigel stared in exhaustion at his handiwork, his hands fallen limply to his sides. The man looked spent, but his eyes were exalted.

Three guards charged out of the flickering light from the sheds, truncheons high. Suddenly a shadow on the ground rose up slightly, just high enough to trip one of them. Arth snagged the left foot of another running guard, sending that one, too, sprawling.

The third came at Dennis, uttering a fierce battle yell.

“Aw, hell,” Dennis sighed. He caught the upraised club arm and punched the guard in the nose. The soldier’s feet flew out from under him and he landed flat on his back, knocking the wind from him.

More guards were coming. Dennis felt a whipping breeze as Arth sped past him.

“Let’s go!” Dennis shouted at Sigel and dragged the farmer toward the narrow portal to freedom.

A spear thunked into the wall near them. Stivyung shook himself, then grinned at Dennis and nodded. Together they scrambled through the opening and out into the night.

As they made their escape, Dennis caught a glimpse of something that glittered, like a necklace of diamonds in the starlight, half protruding from under the fallen log.

They did not tarry, though, and soon he and Sigel were dodging through the alleys of Zuslik, their pursuers behind them.

Lantern-semaphore signals flashed from the castle to all gates. Guard details were doubled, and every person trying to leave the city was thoroughly searched. High overhead, members of the overlord’s aerial patrol scoured the surrounding area until dark, when they had to land.

“The Baron never put up a fuss like this before when someone got away from him. Not that he ever took it gracefully, but why the big manhunt this time?”

The one-eyed thief, Perth, looked out from an upper-story window in one of Zuslik’s newer—and hence shabbier—high-rises. He was disturbed by the flashing lights and the passing troops of marching northmen in their high, bearskin helmets.

Arth, the small bandit leader, motioned his associate away from the window. “They’ll never find us here. Since when ’ave Kremer’s northers ever picked out a single one of our hidey holes? Close the shutters an’ sit down, Perth.”

Perth complied, but he cast a sidelong look at the other fugitives, who sat talking at a table near the kitchen while Arth’s wife prepared dinner. “You and I know who they’re lookin’ for,” he told Arth. “The Baron don’t like losin’ one of his best practicers. An’ even worse, he don’t like losin’ a wizard.”

Arth couldn’t help but agree. “I’ll bet Baron Kremer regrets lettin’ Denniz sit in the jailyard for so long. He probably figured he had all the time in the world to get around to torturin’ him.”

Arth rubbed the plush arms of his recliner. Once a day, one of the free members of the band had sat in it to keep it in practice for him. Arth was pleased because it showed they had believed he would get out eventually. “Anyway,” he told Perth, “we owe those three our freedom, so let’s not begrudge ’em the Baron’s wrath.”

Perth nodded but wasn’t mollified. Mishwa Qan and most of the other thieves were out now, scouring the city for the items Dennis Nuel had asked for. Perth didn’t like having a foreigner boss Zuslik thieves around—wizard or no.

Gath looked from Dennis’s drawings to the Earthman. The boy could barely restrain his excitement. “So the bag won’t have any flying essence until the hot air is put inside it? Will it really fly then? Like a bird, or a kite, or one of th’ dragons of legend?”

“We’ll find out as soon as the Lady Aren returns with the first bag, Gath. We’ll experiment with a model and see how much practice improves it overnight.”

Gath smiled at mention of the old seamstress. Clearly the youth did not think much of Lady Aren and her strange, delusion. The old woman lived down the hall, making a paltry living as a seamstress. Yet she maintained high manners and insisted on being addressed as she had been as a young courtier in the days of the old Duke.

Right now their entire plan depended on the skill of one crazy old lady.

Stivyung Sigel sat beside Gath, puffing slowly on a pipe, content to listen and voice an occasional question. He seemed fully recovered from the effects of his felthesh trance. In fact, he had held off on his initial idea—trying to climb the city walls—only on Dennis’s assurance that there was a better way to get out of town and look for his wife.

Arth and Perth joined the three of them at the table. Dennis and Gath cleared the drawings away as Arth’s wife, Maggin, brought out a roast fowl and mugs of ale.

Arth ripped off a drumstick and proceeded to make his beard greasy with it, apparently feeding himself as an accidental side effect. The others took their turns stabbing the bird after the host, as courtesy demanded. Maggin brought a steaming bowl of boiled vegetables and joined them.

Arth spoke with his mouth full. “We had a messenger from th’ boys while you were so intent on makin’ those drawings, Dennis.”

Dennis looked up hopefully, “Did they find my backpack?”

Arth shook his head, mumbling around his food. “ Ye weren’t too awfully specific, Dennzz. I mean, there’re a lotta buildings near th’ west gate, and some of ’em use their parapets as balconies an’ gardens, in which case your pack’s been picked up by now.”