“What are you looking for?” one of the other prisoners asked.
“A way out.”
“There isn’t any.”
“There’s always a way out. The trick is finding it.”
The elf didn’t bother responding, but the dwarf asked mildly, “Do you really believe that?”
She looked over one shoulder at him. “I do.”
Kerian moved her arms, carefully working out the stiffness. “I’ve been captured before. All that’s required for escape is persistence.” A faint smile touched her bruised face. “And a little luck.”
The elves scoffed at her bold words. They were local farmers, traders, and fishers, thoroughly intimidated by the slavers.
The dwarf related Kerian’s escape attempt on the road into Samustal, how she had dispatched the goblin guard and allowed two of their fellow prisoners to get away. None of the elves commented, but his words affected them. When Kerian began to question them for useful information, they answered readily enough. They also shared the last of their bread and water.
The only guards they had seen were goblins and humans, who periodically brought additional captives or took some away. Kerian was pleased to hear the half-ogres didn’t come there. Once a day the door opened and food and water was put inside by one guard while two others kept swords leveled at the captives. The next such delivery should occur within the hour, welcome news to Kerian’s nearly empty stomach.
She put the time to good use. Without revealing her identity, she worked to energize the dispirited captives. Her resolve, her commitment to finding a way out, as well as the dwarf’s own account of her previous success, began to rouse them from their passivity. By the time the guards returned, Kerian’s plan was in place.
A thump on the door and a shouted command to move back heralded the guards’ arrival.
The dwarf yelled, “I think she’s dead! You killed the elf woman!”
A bearded human face appeared in the small window. Kerian lay on the floor just inside the door, her arms bound (very loosely) behind her.
“A trick,” scoffed the human.
“I’m telling you, she’s dead. She keeled over a few minutes ago. I don’t think she’s eaten in weeks.”
The human was unconvinced but wavering. The dwarf added, “Fine. I don’t care. But when Olin learns you let valuable property die…” Thick shoulders rose in a shrug.
The human conferred with his compatriots outside. He still wasn’t completely convinced, but a female elf, however bad-tempered, was the most saleable item of a sad lot. Lord Olin would be furious at the waste.
“The rest of you, get back from the door,” he ordered.
The captives complied, shuffling as far back as the tight confines allowed. The door opened slowly. Two guards held swords leveled at the captives. The third advanced cautiously. He took hold of Kerian’s arm and hauled her out the door. Eye closed, head lolling, she allowed herself to be dragged like a sack across the rough planking. When she cleared the door, it slammed shut again.
The captives heard a muttered exchange, the tromp o booted feet on the cobblestones, then silence. They exchanged outraged looks.
“She lied to us!” hissed one. “She got herself out and left us here!”
In their preoccupation with the female prisoner, the guards had forgotten to leave food and water. The elves cursed the lack cursed their own stupidity for believing the lies, and cursed the dwarf for making them believe.
“What are you waiting for?”
Thirteen pairs of eyes went wide at the sight of the Lioness’s face in the small window. In moments the captives were out of the wooden box, staring in astonishment at two human guards lying unconscious (or dead?) in the shadowed lee of the cage. Kerian’s face bore several new cuts, and a gash on one arm bled freely, but she held a bloody sword in one hand and a ring of keys in the other.
“How—?” the dwarf began.
She shoved the keys at him, saying, “Let’s go!”
A dozen sets of keen ears allowed them to avoid detection as they wound their way around the crowded cages. Their greatest challenge was keeping excited prisoners quiet as they skulked by. Few guards were to be seen, which worried Kerian, but the lack was soon explained.
Several trestle tables had been set up near the center of the square, and the guards were enjoying a raucous meal. Fortunately, most had their backs to the row of cages. The prisoners were generally so docile, the guards had grown contemptuous and did not watch them closely.
Kerian, acting as lookout, signaled the others when it was clear for them to skirt the opening between the cage rows. Singly or in pairs, all twelve elves made their way across the naked gap, leaving Kerian and the dwarf to bring up the rear.
They found themselves in a back street littered with refuse. Still, the open air was a balm to those choked by the stench of too many goblins and humans in close proximity.
“Now what?” asked one of the elves, and the others looked to Kerian for an answer.
She itched to find an armory. But she had no idea where to go, and anyway, her band of fugitives was not made up of stalwart soldiers, so she shrugged. “We run. Quietly and carefully, we run.”
To their left, the narrow street connected with a larger avenue, better lit and, hence, not appealing. To the right, the street dead-ended at a gate. Coming from that direction was the smell of horses. A mounted escape posed its own problems, but the added speed and mobility made up for those, Kerian decided.
With the sword-wielding Lioness in the lead, the little group made for the gate.
It wasn’t long before she began to regret her decision. Two members of her little band, a pair of brothers who made their living fishing, confessed they could not ride. She told them to double up with others, but the brothers were afraid of horses, and none of the rest wanted a passenger anyway, not with Lord Olin’s cavalry likely to be on their heels. The escapees fell to arguing in loud whispers.
They were hiding behind a pile of garbage just outside the corral. Every moment they delayed brought closer the time when their absence would be discovered and a search launched. Yet all Kerian’s exhortations wouldn’t move the elves one step closer to the corral. Furious, she told the brothers to make it out of town on foot.
The corral was unguarded but for a couple of stable boys. One had just returned with their supper and they had gone into the tack shed to eat.
Crouched low, the elves entered the corral. Kerian had told them what to do. They would mount quietly. Each rider would lie low on his horse’s neck as Kerian opened the gate, then the animals would be whipped to a gallop. Riding in a body, they stood a good chance of making it to the stockade before anyone could stop them. At the stockade they’d have to trample anyone trying to bar the way. It wasn’t much of a plan, but considering what she had to work with, Kerian knew it would have to do.
They’d barely begun to mount the horses when shouts rose from a nearby street. Kerian froze, listening, and it quickly became apparent they’d been missed at last.
“Go!” she hissed. She boosted the last elf atop a horse, and rushed to the gate.
The noise in the streets had drawn the stable boys from the shed. Both stood on the other side of the gate, beer tankards in hand, their backs to Kerian. Noiselessly, she lifted the latch then headed back to the rear. Drawing a deep breath, she shouted, at the same time slapping horses’ flanks. The riders twined their fingers through the animals’ manes, and the herd surged forward. Kerian grabbed a passing horse and swung herself aboard. The lead animals hit the unlatched gate. It sprang open. The stable boys dove clear, and they were away.
Lying low on her horse’s neck, Kerian guided it left, away from the town square. Her mount was a young mare. It moved to the front of the herd, and the other animals followed. Responding to the pressure of Kerian’s legs and feet, the mare veered farther left, into the street leading down the hill to the stockade gate.