Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

‘This is insane,’ Brexan said. ‘There has to be another way.’

‘We’ll be fine. This is the hard part. No one will expect us to be inside, because no one can get in. Once we’re in, we’ll be able to move about easily.’ He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. ‘Trust me.’

Brexan stifled a giggle. ‘We’re going to die.’

‘Someday, and far from here.’

‘Promise?’

‘As absurd a request as that is, I will grant it.’ He placed a hand over his heart, ‘I promise.’

‘How do we get in the window-? Stay put,’ Brexan said suddenly. ‘I have an idea.’ Without waiting for him to answer, she slipped away.

Sallax waited, straining to see back the way they had come. Save for the watch-fires, spaced unevenly where islands of tents remained after the mass military exodus, the park was in darkness. He could see no movement, and he couldn’t find Brexan in any of the shadows. ‘She has learned to vanish when she needs to,’ he said to himself. ‘A very talented spy.’

Soon Sallax began to grow uneasy. He had just about decided to go back and look for his wayward partner when he thought he saw a glow brighten the near side of the park, behind the first row of tents. He thought perhaps his eyes were fooling him, too much straining to see things that weren’t really there, and he shook his head and turned back to trying to work out a path between the sleeping soldiers – then Brexan was beside him.

‘Great whores, but you scared me,’ he whispered, certain the hammering of his heart was loud enough to wake the entire camp.

Brexan grabbed his wrist. ‘Back to the holly bush, quickly,’ she ordered.

Sallax didn’t argue, but followed her silently back to their vantage point. He looked at Brexan expectantly.

‘Just another moment now,’ she whispered.

‘What did you do?’

‘Hopefully, I managed to get us inside. The last sentry we passed, I think that’s him over there; he left his post back near that first row of tents to come up here and eat whatever that stuff is they’re gobbling down. He left that near patch of tents unguarded.’ Brexan looked back over her shoulder.

Sallax saw it now, an orange glow, only a few paces from where they lay nearly face down in the snow and mud. ‘You started a fire?’

‘I had a taper in my pack. I was worried that it might be dark when we got inside the palace. I went for one of the big tents,’ Brexan whispered, keeping as low to the ground as she could. ‘I tried to make it look like an accident-’

She was cut off by the first of many shouts from inside the tent; pandemonium followed. Soon the entire encampment was alive with soldiers rushing here and there, some carrying water and others simply moving about, uncertain what was happening and whether they should put out the fire or prepare for battle.

Is it an attack?

Where are they?

Partisans?

The fire, fools, the fire!

Over here, we need water over here!

The cries overlapped, creating a nearly incoherent wall of noise. Sallax watched, enjoying the fiery carnage, especially when the big tent finally toppled and ignited its neighbour. ‘You got two.’ He elbowed Brexan in the ribs, but the young woman ignored him; her attention was focused on the guards posted beside the south gate. Three had already dashed back into the camp to assist their comrades.

‘Two more to go,’ she said to herself. ‘Just another moment-’ She rose up on her elbows. ‘Now,’ her voice was harsh, ‘let’s go.’

Sallax was surprised when Brexan stood up and began running towards the palace gate. An iron fence, rusted nearly through, separated them from the stone archway and the shadowed doors beyond. If they could get inside the gate, the darkness beneath the arch would hide them until they determined if the door was unlocked, or if they had to try the window near the back of the building. Without slowing, Brexan pushed on the gate with all her strength, praying it wouldn’t creak and give them away – but it did grate, a long, whining squeal that made Sallax hold his breath. ‘Pissing demons, Brexan, stop!’ he whispered. ‘We don’t have to fit a grettan pack through here, you know.’

She stopped pushing, let him step through and then closed the gate, clenching her teeth at the piercing creak that rent the night and cried out for them to be captured and hanged right then and there. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered.

‘No matter,’ he said, ‘none of them heard it. Look at them, scurrying about like mice!’ Some fought the burgeoning fire, while others brandished weapons and crept warily from shrub to shrub. ‘We’ll have to stay inside until all this quietens down again,’ he said.

‘We have about an aven before dawn,’ Brexan said. ‘That should be enough time.’

‘Let’s hope no one is posted inside the door.’ Sallax moved past her.

‘Why would there be with five standing sentry out here?’

‘To ruin my night.’

‘Try the latch,’ Brexan forced herself to whisper.

Silence. Then ‘It’s unlocked, thank all the gods of the Northern Forest.’ Sallax pulled the door open a crack and slipped through. Brexan followed. No one guarded the foyer.

They could see five smoothly worn stone steps leading to a landing and a second door, but there were no windows and when Sallax pulled the door closed behind them, they were left in total darkness. He felt his way up the steps and across the landing. ‘This is unlocked as well.’

A leather strap threaded through the door released the latch with a click! that echoed through the chamber. Brexan held her breath, waiting to hear the sound of boots clacking on the floor as guards came to investigate the noise.

Nothing.

Sallax opened the door just far enough for them to slip through into a long chamber with high buttressed ceilings and wooden support beams. The smooth floor was carpeted in places with the remnants of old rugs and tapestries the Barstag family had imported from Praga, though not nearly enough of them to mask the sound of two intruders moving through the hall. A lone torch burned in a sconce at the base of a stairwell.

‘That must lead up to the south wing,’ he breathed into Brexan’s ear.

‘Where Jacrys is staying,’ she answered.

‘It’s a good place to start looking.’

‘How are we going to get out of here afterwards?’

‘I’m working on it.’ He was already creeping on tiptoe towards the pool of light and the stairs to the upper floors of the south wing.

The wide stone stairs, like the main floor, were polished smooth from use, carpeted down the middle with a thin layer of woven wool. Brexan kept to the carpeted pathway, imagining generations of King Remond’s descendants walking up and down this same ribbon of fabric.

At the first landing a torch illuminated a few paces in either direction along a corridor lined with wooden doors. Sallax mimed soldiers sleeping in awkward gestures and Brexan nodded. Anything they did to call attention to themselves meant they would have to make their way down through a full platoon of groggy, upset soldiers. As if reading their minds, one of the far doors opened, and a half-dressed young man emerged carrying a chamber-pot.

They fell back into the shadows, watching as the soldier walked to a window at the end of the hall, opened it with a shoulder and emptied the pot into the shrubbery below. As soon as he disappeared back into his room, Sallax turned the corner and started up the next flight of stairs, which narrowed into darkness.

Uneasy at the sight of the narrow passageway, Brexan slipped back to the landing and lit her taper from the torch; it wasn’t much light, but it was better than nothing. Sallax nodded thanks and gestured that she lead the way upstairs.