Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

She looked at them: to an observer, they were just crewmembers, nervous, shuffling their feet and waiting to see what was about to happen, but with a few paces separating them, they could each check the area for possible routes to freedom, should the discussion going on inside the major’s office go badly.

Hoyt nodded pleasantly to one of their guards and signed, ‘What dog?’

It took a moment for Hannah to understand, but after Hoyt repeated the gesture several times, she finally got it. ‘Sorry. My dog. Back there, the dog from my…’ She didn’t know the sign for dream, or vision, but they appeared to understand what she meant.

‘That was Alen’s dog. The dog from my…’ Hoyt gestured as if he was waving flies away from his face; Hannah guessed that was Churn’s sign for dream.

‘It’s real?’ Churn asked.

‘It is a real dog, but it isn’t mine, and it wasn’t Hannah’s.’ Alen joined the conversation.

‘Branag’s!’ Hoyt exclaimed out loud, then hid his outburst behind a feigned coughing spasm.

‘What?’ Hannah asked.

Hoyt’s hands moved quickly, but he punctuated his comments with coughing fits, hoping to cover the curious way he was standing alone waving his hands about. ‘It’s Branag’s dog, the old dog that follows him everywhere. That’s his dog.’

Churn turned to look along the dock; the dog was coming towards them. ‘You’re right!’ Churn agreed. ‘That’s Branag’s wolfhound. Remember?’

Now Hannah remembered: Southport, and the dog that padded back and forth down the short hallway between the saddlery shop and the workroom in the back. She, Hoyt and Churn had hidden in there for days after Churn killed the soldier along the road above the village. The dog had made for pleasant company. She signed, ‘Why is it here?’

‘It must be following us. That’s why we were stopped. They knew we were coming.’

‘How can that be?

‘You came through the portal. Nerak knew.’

‘So he sent a dog to follow me?’

‘Not him, no.’

‘Who?’ Hannah was confused now.

‘I think I know who.’ Alen turned towards the palace which rose above the army encampment and the village.

‘It came this far? How can that be?’ Hannah asked.

‘Look at it. The thing is a mess,’ Hoyt signed. The wolfhound limped over to Alen and nuzzled the old man’s palm; Alen patted it on the head, leaned over and whispered into the animal’s remaining ear, ‘You tell him I’m here. It’s Kantu. You tell him, wherever you are. Tell him to come out here and meet me. I’m waiting.’

The dog growled and Alen stood back up, turning away from it.

‘What did you say?’ Hannah asked.

‘I told it goodbye.’ Alen’s face was angry; he mouthed a few words, nothing anyone around him could hear. Then feigning an itch on his opposite shoulder, he gestured towards the animal as it backed away across the wharf. Almost immediately, the dog began to cough, raspy and laboured. It started panting for breath and it turned to yelp in their direction, then, dragging its crooked hind leg, Branag’s old wolfhound, emaciated and scarred, slunk behind a stack of pallets.

The door to the customs house flew open and an angry Captain Millard stepped into the street growling. ‘Gouty whoreson, no wonder his foot’s bad.’ He waved his copy of the River Prince’s manifest at the upstairs window, an act of defiance. Lieutenant Warren followed closely behind.

‘Tell them, Captain, and make sure they come peacefully. I would hate to have your crew-Well, you know.’ It was obvious that the major had just berated Lieutenant Warren for allowing the furious captain anywhere near his private office.

‘Oh, shut up Warren,’ Millard said, ignoring the fact that he was insulting a Malakasian officer with a squad of armed soldiers standing by.

‘What do we do?’ Hannah signed, her hands shaking.

‘Wait,’ Alen replied. ‘Just wait.’

Lieutenant Warren’s response shocked all of them, Captain Millard most of all, as he drew a short sword and levelled its point at Millard’s throat. ‘Soldier!’ Warren barked, and the squad immediately stood to attention.

‘Sir!’ shouted the man nearest.

‘Bind this man. If he speaks again, bind his mouth. If he resists at all, kill him. Understood?’

‘Sir!’ He pulled a length of rope from his pocket and gestured at the captain, who was still gripping his winter vegetable manifest.

For the first time Millard looked scared as his hands were bound behind his back.

‘They aren’t going to kill us,’ Hoyt signed.

‘How do you know?’ Hannah asked.

‘Because they’re tying him up, not hanging him.’

Lieutenant Warren gestured to five soldiers from the squad. ‘Take the crew and get the barge unloaded.’ As the soldiers started moving, the lieutenant interrupted, ‘Not those four. They’re coming with me. Bind them hand and mouth. If they resist or speak out of turn, kill them. We need only one of them alive. Confine Captain Millard to his cabin, bound, until he learns to control his tongue or until I order his release. Understood?’

‘Sir,’ the squad responded in unison.

Hannah heard a rush of sound, like a great blast of wind that drowned out the noise of the docks and she began to shake. ‘Not inside the palace,’ she said. ‘They can’t take us in there. Please, no.’

‘Quiet,’ Alen signed. ‘It will be all right, but you have to be quiet.’ Then they tied his hands.

Churn looked to Hoyt, his hands still free. ‘Now?’

‘No.’

‘When?’

‘Not now. Inside.’

The big man relaxed, dropped his arms to his side and allowed the soldiers to bind his wrists. One of them prodded him in the back of the knees with the flat of a sword. ‘Kneel down,’ he ordered, and Churn complied quietly; the soldier was not tall enough to reach his mouth.

Before they could gag him, Alen called out, ‘Lieutenant, please.’

Warren cocked an eyebrow at the old man.

‘Can I speak?’

‘Make it quick.’

‘Prince Malagon’s daughter, Bellan, can you tell me if she has changed yet?’

‘What?’

‘Changed. Begun wearing gloves all the time? Maybe taken to her chambers and not been seen for days?’

Lieutenant Warren looked at him in curiosity. ‘Because the chances are slim that you will live through the day, old man, I’ll tell you that I have never been above the lower level of the palace, and I have only been in there once. I don’t like going up that hill, and since you are the reason I have to go up there today, I don’t like you. I have never seen Princess Bellan, nor do I care what she wears. But I will tell you that if you speak to me of her again, I will run you through myself. Do you understand?’

‘One last question?’ Alen dared.

Lieutenant Warren shook his head in mock-despair and put his band on his sword-hilt. ‘I told you, old man, I would-’

‘Get word to the palace; let them know that Kantu is here. They’ll know who I am. Just let them know. Kantu.’

‘Gag this rutter!’ Warren snapped. ‘Make it tight.’

Still shaking, Hannah allowed herself to be guided towards the sloping road that led through the village. Behind her, the waterway was abuzz as naval vessels patrolled back and forth and barges, too many to count, moved up and down the channel, some stacked high with crates, others starting their return journey unladen. Hannah saw, in the shadows, Branag’s dog, the wolfhound she had seen padding into the living room from her mother’s kitchen as clearly, lying dead, its broken form motionless.

Ahead, Welstar Palace rose above the village, a dark structure with windows that appeared to absorb rather than reflect light: depthless pools of midnight black staring out at passersby. There were three towers, and wings stretching out and back from the elaborate main gate, and a series of enclosed courtyards, but there were no pennants flying from the ramparts, no flags hoisted above the towers and no smoke rising from chimneys; no sign of life inside at all.