David Drake - Out of the waters

A clang like a cartload of armor overturning sounded in the corridor. Holding the lump of food in one hand and her garment in the other, Hedia walked in a dignified fashion to the grilled doorway. Walking was about the only dignified thing she could do under the circumstances, and she didn't imagine that her moving faster would change anything that was going on outside her cell.

The Servitors had leaped into action. They stood beneath the grate in the corridor ceiling, pointing their spears toward the dark bulk that had crashed down hard enough to dimple it. Had a block fallen from the top of the airshaft?

Fingers from above thrust into the grating. It rocked, then lifted slightly. Hedia touched her own bars. If the grating was the same metal, it had to weigh five or six times as much as she did.

A guard thrust upward, nicking the steel. His orichalc point missed the gripping fingers.

The square grate lifted a hand's breadth higher, then shot down into the corridor. One guard dodged in time, but it struck the other squarely and slammed him back against Hedia's cell. His spear flipped into the air like a spun coin, bounced from the corridor ceiling, and landed ringing on the floor. The grating toppled to lie on the point and half the shaft.

Lann hung within the air shaft, his broad palms pressed against opposite walls. He had lifted-and thrown-the grate with his feet. Weight alone held it on studs cast into the sides of the bottom course of crystal blocks.

The ape's tattooed human face scanned the situation below; then he leaped onto the standing guard, catching his spear-shaft in his toes. They hit the floor together with Lann on the bottom.

Hedia pushed the rolled-up garment between the bars with her right hand and caught the end with the other hand, lacing it back through the next opening to the left. The guard had fallen with his back against the cell. He started to get up.

Hedia looped the garment around his glass neck and crossed the portions on her side around one another. She didn't have time to knot the ends, but even so the fabric took the strain instead of her hands and arms. The Servitor half-rose, then recoiled into the bars with a clang almost as loud as that of the grating hitting the floor.

Lann used his hands and feet together to fling the other Servitor against the wall of the corridor. The glass head shattered to dust; the Servitor's torso and limbs crumbled into gravel-sized chunks a moment later.

The remaining guard jerked forward again. The steel bar flexed noticeably outward, but to Hedia's amazement the makeshift noose didn't break: the fabric had made her itch, but it was clearly stronger even than silk.

The Servitor turned and reached through the bars. Hedia jumped back, avoiding a grip that she knew could squeeze her bones to powder. The glass hands pulled the loop open, now that she was no longer able to keep the ends tight.

Lann grabbed the Servitor by the ankles. The glass man reached for Lann's wrists instead of holding onto the bars. Lann swung him sideways like a huge club. His head hit the opposite wall and powdered like that of his fellow guard.

Hedia stared at the ape-man, scarcely able to believe what she had just seen happen. How strong are you? she thought. But unless he could tear apart steel bars as thick as her two thumbs together, killing the guards wouldn't change her situation.

Lann gripped the spear of the guard he had just killed and jerked it from under the grate. He thrust the point into the door's lower hinge. Gripping the shaft in his hands and the bars with his toes, he pulled. The slender orichalc blade didn't bend, but the hinge pin snapped and the lower corner of the door twisted noticeably inward.

I might be able to slip through, Hedia thought; though she knew that slim as she was, she wasn't really that slim. But if Lann would break the upper hinge also- The ape-man dropped the spear and gripped the corner of the door. With his feet braced on the crystal jamb, he used the bars' own length to lever them outward.

"There, I can squeeze through!" Hedia said. She got down on her hands and knees.

Lann continued to pull. Can he understand Greek?

The corner of the door squealed as it bent upward like a scrap of cloth caught in a breeze. The ape-man dropped to the floor again. He was breathing hard and the fur of his chest and shoulders was soaked with sweat.

Hedia started to crawl out. Lann pushed her back with the brusque gentleness a nurse uses toward an infant who insists on going somewhere she shouldn't. To Hedia's surprise, he crouched and squirmed into the cell, twisting part-way through so that his massive shoulders would clear. She hadn't thought he would fit, but the ape-man had a better eye for the problem.

Although that didn't explain why he apparently wanted to imprison himself. Hedia could think of one possible reason, but she supposed she should discount that because her mind always tended to run in that direction. So, however, did the minds of many men who came in contact with her.

The ape-man ignored her and shuffled splay-legged to the drain. He thrust his right hand into it and planted his left hand flat on the floor. The muscles of his shoulders bunched again.

Hedia thought for a moment that Lann's hand was trapped; then she realized that the tile was lifting. The ape-man straightened till his long left arm was straight; the tile wasn't completely out of the hole in which it had nested, but she could see the underside shimmering close to the level of the floor.

Lann leaned backward, using the weight of his body to balance that of the massive tile: it was square, three feet on a side and eight inches thick. He gripped the upper edge with his left hand and tilted it further upward; his right hand was clenched into a fist, creating a lump too big to slip back through the drain hole.

He rotated the tile in the opening, then gave it a slight shove sideways and unclenched his fist. The tile, aligned with the diagonal, dropped through the square hole and smashed into the sewer beneath.

Lann turned, grinning, to Hedia. His right wrist was ringed with blood. He pointed down into the opening, grunted, and then climbed through. He held the rim for a moment, then dropped.

Hedia looked into the hole. She couldn't see the bottom, but she caught the motion of the ape-man waving. He grunted again, louder and this time imperiously. The sound echoed like a lion's cough.

Hedia darted to the front of her cell and stretched through the bars for the spear Lann had used for a lever. She pulled it in with her, then managed to reach the belt from which the second guard's dagger hung. The previous wearer was now a pile of sharp gravel which spilled away when she tugged the scabbard. She hung the belt over her shoulder like a bandolier instead of bothering with the complex buckle.

Lann called a third time, obviously angry. She doubted he could climb up again to fetch her, but she had learned not to discount the ape-man's strength and resourcefulness.

Hedia thrust the spear through the opening butt-first and waggled it until she felt a powerful hand snatch it away from her. She slid into the opening, bracing her arms on the sides as Lann had done. Relaxing them, she dropped.

She hoped Lann would catch her instead of letting her fall onto the edges of the drain tile. Even if that had happened it would be better than being dangled as bait for a monster.

Besides, trusting Lann had proved to be a good idea this far.

David Drake

Out of the Waters-ARC

Lann caught Hedia not only easily but gently; his hands were like a pair of leather pillows shaped perfectly to the contours of her body. He lowered her till her feet touched water. She twitched back for an instant, but the ape-man was standing so she straightened her legs.