AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Us?” For the first time she checked the other cells and realized there was a large group of men imprisoned here with Garrin. Men in the same disheveled and abused state as Garrin were crowding against the bars of the adjacent cells, watching her.
Garrin recaptured her attention with a squeeze of the hand and an urgent whisper. “Quickly, my lady, there’s no time to waste if we’re to escape before the dawn brings our deaths. Why else would the gods have sent you here?”
Feeling as if she was in an adventure trideo and no one had told her what her lines and stage business were, Dianora searched the nearby area and spotted a big ring of oddly shaped keys hanging on a hook a few feet away. Freeing her hand from his, she ran to grab them and hastened to the cell, trying one key after another with trembling hands until finally there was a loud click which echoed in the space and the door opened.
“Now the ankle cuff,” he said, pointing at his leg.
She ran through the keys again. “There’s nothing here that small. I’m sorry.” There had to be something she could do. With a surge of hope, she remembered her tool kit, sealed in one of the leg pockets of her cargo pants. She’d expected to clean and catalog artifacts today using those tools and the delicate instruments in the kit ought to make good lock picks. Going to her knees in the disgusting straw, right next to him, she pulled out the kit. “Can you move a bit more into the light?”
He shifted and Dianora chose a probe and worked it into the primitive lock. She had to shake it and reinsert it once or twice but finally the cuff unlocked and fell away from Garrin’s ankle. With a muffled cry of triumph, he pulled her to her feet, kissed her soundly and grabbed the cell keys. He ran along the line of cells unlocking them and his men surged into the walkway. Several of the prisoners who must have been higher ranking were chained by the ankles in their own cells and Dianora showed Garrin how to unlock the cuff, giving him one of her probes, while she took care of the first man.
Finally all the prisoners were free.
“What now?” Dianora asked. “I don’t even know where we are.”
“We must go quickly and quietly to the secret ways,” Garrin said, addressing his men, who nodded. “By dawn we must be out of this place and well on our way to the forest or we’ll be easy meat to recapture. Head for the west wall and I’ll reveal the secret door momentarily.”
“Weapons?” asked one of the men who had been chained.
“Take a squad and see what you can scrounge at the armory on the next level but don’t get caught. Then join us as rapidly as you can.” Garrin checked with Dianora, startling her. “Are you ready?”
She retreated a step, the two. “I’m not going.” Her laugh was nervous. “None of this is real—I’m in a really weird dream. Rubbing her fingers over the giant stone in her ring, she said, “I want to wake up in my own bed, now.”
The cold assaulted her and she threw back her head to scream but her breath was stolen away before the sound could begin. Automatically she closed her eyes and had the sensation of a rushing wind sweeping her away. Garrin spoke to her but his words were lost in the sound of the storm.
The mystery lady vanished in front of his eyes, leaving only her toolkit behind, on the straw where she’d dropped it earlier. Garrin grabbed the packet and gestured to his men. “No time to waste, we must be gone before the guards are sent to fetch us for the executioner.” He sprinted as best he could toward the place where an entrance to the hidden passageways was concealed. The ancestor who built this castle had been a suspicious old man by all the tales and insisted on being able to roam his fortress without being detected, to spy on people and to escape if there was ever an assassination or coup attempt. He’d had the architect and the builders executed when the work was done—the old times had been barbaric all right.
As he ran, Garrin was grateful to the long gone king, and to his forebears who’d kept the secret closely guarded. Fortunately the man who’d betrayed him knew nothing of the passageways, so therefore neither did the Craadil. Pushing through the crowd of soldiers, he reached the wall and located the trigger point. There were gasps as a portion of the stonework slid aside in fits and starts. “Hurry, there’s no time. Be quiet, always take the lefthand branch when there’s a choice and you’ll come out in the far meadow by the river. You may have to force the door there. No one’s used these passages in centuries.” He pushed the first man inside and kept the line moving. Their luck wasn’t going to hold forever.
Bakuln, his sword brother and right hand man, came up with the squad he’d taken to the armory, all of them bearing weapons now. “The enemy is lulled into a false victory,” he said, handing Garrin his own sword, with the emblem of his House on the hilt. The blade felt right in his hand and as if the sword was giving him strength to overcome his wounds and the beatings he’d received since being taken prisoner. Bakuln continued his rapidfire report. “The overconfident fools celebrated too much and got blind, stinking drunk. The patrols are barely moving and certainly not alert. We might actually carry this escape off.”
As soon as the last soldier had entered the wall and began making his way to safety, Garrin motioned for Bakuln to climb into the opening and followed closely. Pivoting, he managed to get the door to close again and the two men set out to follow the others. “We’ve got to get to the meadow before dawn and escape into the woods,” he said as they scrambled through the narrow passage. “We’ll go to the mountain fortress and pray it hasn’t fallen to the enemy.”
His nerves were strung tight the entire time he was inside the walls. When he stepped out into the meadow and saw his loyal guards, who were to have died with him at dawn, he had to swallow hard. “We’ve been blessed by the gods this night,” he said loudly enough for them to hear over the sound of the nearby river. “We’ll regroup and regain strength at the mountain location and return to retake our home from traitors and enemies.”
There was a cheer, which he instantly hushed, and then the escapees formed themselves into a company, doing a quick march into the forest, heading away from the capital city and the castle. Garrin appreciated the determination and toughness of his men, given they all bore injuries and wounds from the fierce combat when they’d been overwhelmed and the castle taken. The soldiers helped each other now and several men had to be carried by their fellows, having used the last of their strength to escape. He feared a few wouldn’t live to enjoy this miraculous freedom for long, being too badly injured.
“Who was she?” Bakuln asked as the column jogged through the forest. “She had your family’s ring.”
“I have no idea,” Garrin answered. “I can only guess the gods sent her tonight, after I’d abandoned all hope of any rescue or intervention. Our future was short and grim, my friend.”
Bakuln grunted his agreement and by mutual unspoken agreement they stopped talking to save their energy for the escape. Garrin continued to think about the mysterious woman. Indeed, he couldn’t stop reliving the moment when he’d shivered at the touch of deepest cold and opened his eyes at the sound of his name to see her standing outside his cell, in strange garb and wearing the ring. At first he’d thought she must be a hallucination but once he touched her hand, he knew she was real. Not a demigoddess or divine messenger though. Too uncertain and nervous to have been sent by the gods. Let the men believe the myth. Garrin was sure she was a real flesh and blood woman. Certainly she’d been able to unlock the cells and to get the cursed chains off but when the tool slipped, it cut her hand. And when she’d refused to come with him out of the castle she’d seemed quite frightened and babbled about being in a dream.
He didn’t fault her for the way she’d left. She’d come to his aid, given him a fighting chance—at least now if he died, it would be as a warrior, on his feet, not as a tethered beast led to public slaughter after watching all his friends and comrades die first. For that alone he owed her.
He wished he knew her name. She knew his after all. Despite her strange clothes, she’d been a strikingly attractive woman too, with ivory skin so pale it practically glowed in the dungeons. He’d remember her all the rest of his life even if they never met again, and he’d measure any other women against the standard she set in their brief encounter.
Putting more energy into his stride, he hastened to encourage the men who were flagging. He refused to lose any more of this brave company. His lady had given him a chance and he intended to use it well.
This time Dianora didn’t lose consciousness completely when the ring snatched her away from the dungeon on her command and suddenly she felt her firm mattress under her and the only sounds were the usual ones of the camp beside the dig site. She heard someone call a greeting to a colleague as they passed close by her tent and opened her eyes.
She was on top of her bed, but dressed in her work clothes and by the chrono on her desk, four hours had passed since she’d gone to her work station. She sprang to her feet in shock and yanked the ring off, shoving it into her pocket again. What the seven hells? People didn’t sleepwalk during the day, did they? How had she gotten here? Had anyone seen her? The lower pocket on her cargo pants was open and her toolkit was missing. A few bits of smelly straw clung to the bottom of her work shoes and when she headed for the door, she was surprised by a stinging cut on her hand, which she’d acquired when the probe slipped on her first attempt to open the cuff on Garrin’s ankle.
Real? It was all real? Had she been transported back in time by the ring and prevented Garrin from being executed by his enemies? Had she changed the history of this planet by her actions?
History be damned, how could she possibly have left him there to die? She saw his face again in her mind’s eye, tired and careworn but handsome, and fired by determination to save himself and his men. “I didn’t think it was real,” she said out loud. “It was all so weird.” And who in the seven halls were the Craadil? She didn’t remember the name from any of the research done on the planet and the site.
Head whirling, she opened the door gingerly, afraid to find a completely changed world in front of her but as she stepped outside, the camp looked reassuringly normal. Walking to her work station, she began to relax. Although having another disturbing vision and evidently sleepwalking to her tent was alarming, at least she hadn’t changed the future. With a small chuckle, she altered her path and ducked into the mess tent to grab a snack and a drink. The holo Dr. Soren had showed them all of the great hall excavation was on a loop and she paused to watch, suddenly hungry for a glimpse of Garrin’s face, to compare the carved representation to the man she’d seen.
