“Not now,” he told himself and crept after her.
Before they reached the doorway, Basilard stepped into view, a knife in each hand and two pistols jammed into his belt. Two unmoving men lay alongside the wall behind him.
“Good job, Bas,” Maldynado said and jogged through the doorway, ensuring he couldn’t be trapped in the Un-Relaxation Grotto again. He anticipated another round of opposition in the foyer, but the oak doors leading out of the castle stood open, letting a nippy breeze flow inside. “Did everyone flee?” Maldynado wondered.
Slaps sounded on the stone floor of an inner courtyard that opened up beyond the foyer. Since Maldynado hadn’t had a chance to see any of that area, he didn’t know what to expect, and he kept his rifle ready.
A white-haired, pot-bellied man with a towel wrapped around his waist padded into view, his wet sandals slapping against the floor as he walked. He spotted Maldynado, squealed, and dropped the towel. As naked as a newborn babe, he gaped at the group. Almost as surprised, Maldynado gaped back. For a startled moment, the man stood there, his arms and hands in the strange tableau of someone torn between grabbing a towel to cover himself up and simply running away from view. He chose the latter, and sprinted up a set of stairs faster than someone that age typically ran.
“I should have given him a card,” Maldynado muttered, touching a breast pocket and finding the business cards still tucked within. Apparently the guards hadn’t deemed them as dangerous as his rapier-or his hat, which was also missing.
“It looks like nobody bothered to inform the guests that there was a kidnapping going on,” Maldynado said when Basilard and Yara joined him.
“You’d think the gunfire would have implied something was amiss,” Yara said.
Perhaps the grotto is soundproof, Basilard signed.
“So nobody will hear the screaming of the innocent outlaws the establishment is luring to their deaths?”
“Innocent?” Yara asked. “You’re about as innocent as a cat with cream smeared all over its whiskers.”
“Say, Basilard.” Maldynado gave him a thump. “Why’d you rescue her first and leave me tied up? Don’t tell me her insults have endeared her to you.” Or that you think she’s a more able fighter than I, Maldynado thought. That would sting.
I thought you could free yourself, Basilard signed. You’ve spoken often of exploits involving being tied up.
“There’s a difference between being tied to a bedpost by a hundred-pound woman and having one of those two-hundred-pound brutes trussing you up like the chicken going in the oven,” Maldynado said, waving at one of the fallen guards in view in the Grotto.
“I’m not sure what he said-” Yara pointed a thumb at Basilard, “-but, from your half of the conversation, it sounds like you’re whining again.”
Maldynado started to sigh-was this woman never going to recognize any of his finer qualities? — but he caught a slight smile on her lips. Hm. That was promising.
Basilard pointed at the doors leading outside. We must go after the others.
Maldynado hadn’t seen his rapier, or his hat, anywhere and was tempted to run around the resort to find it, but Books and the others might need reinforcements sooner rather than later. He started for the castle exit, but halted a few feet from the threshold, one foot in the air. Four gleaming metal creatures had slithered out of the moat and shambled onto the other end of the bridge. The alligators they’d seen before.
“That could be a problem.” Maldynado put his foot down.
“We’ll see.” Yara raised her rifle to her shoulder.
“I don’t know if bullets will work.” Maldynado waved toward the bronze-and-iron hides. He’d seen real alligators on a trip to the Gulf, and they had been green and distinctly non-metallic.
Two of the creatures moseyed across the bridge, their red eyes locked onto Maldynado. He glimpsed an engraving on the top of one of the heads. Tar-Mech. He groaned. That cursed shaman was dead. When were they going to stop running into his creations?
“You see that, Basilard?” Maldynado eased backward a few steps. “Those are like the things we fought in that mine. The things that took explosives to kill.”
Basilard nodded grimly. He fired at the lead alligator as it stepped off the bridge. As suspected, the bullet bounced uselessly off the metal hide. The mechanical creatures didn’t move quickly, but the two in front would be in the foyer in a few more steps, regardless. Maldynado wouldn’t count on those jaws being plagued with the same slowness as the legs.
“All right,” Maldynado said, backing farther. “Explosives. Any idea where we can find explosives in a warrior-caste resort?” Books would probably be able to mix something up in the kitchen, but he wasn’t-”What are you doing?” Maldynado barked, his thoughts interrupted by Yara running toward the alligators.
She stopped at the threshold and grabbed one of the heavy oak doors.
“Oh, good idea.” Maldynado darted for the other door.
He expected it to be heavy, but not so heavy it wouldn’t move when he pulled. The shoulder he’d nearly dislocated earlier stabbed him with pain, and he gasped. He gritted his teeth and tugged harder. The door inched away from the wall. Too slow.
Maldynado was about to suggest running into the castle and letting the nude bathers deal with the alligators when the door gave way. Both doors did, snapping shut so quickly Maldynado almost lost his nose. Yara tumbled onto her backside. The doors slammed closed with a thump as one smashed into the lead alligator’s snout.
Basilard waved to a spot on the wall and signed, Switch.
“Steam-powered doors, right,” Maldynado said.
Thuds nearly drowned out his voice. The alligators ramming against the oak. At first, Maldynado didn’t think they’d have a chance at breaking in, but the wood planks shuddered under the assault. It sounded like all four constructs had started banging away.
“Who’s up for finding a back door?” Maldynado asked. “Maybe we’ll stumble across our gear on the way.”
“I just hope you don’t find that hat with the ludicrous feather.” Yara jogged into the courtyard before Maldynado could respond.
Bare feet slapping on the stone floor, Yara veered around benches and potted plants only slightly less densely placed than in the Grotto. Maldynado and Basilard raced after her. She headed for a back wall where a hallway, sets of stairs, and closed doors offered numerous options. She chose the hall, something that might lead to the kitchen perhaps. Kitchens had back doors, didn’t they? For throwing scraps out to dogs or man-eating mechanical alligators?
They found a swinging door at the end. Maldynado peeked inside. A trio of chefs and bakers gaped back at him.
“How do you get out?” Maldynado figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. Meanwhile his comrades checked other doors, only to find them locked.
“You don’t,” a man in a flour-dusted apron said. “You use the garbage chute. Otherwise the gators will-”
An older man shushed him and gave Maldynado a suspicious squint. “Who are you? You don’t look like guests.” He grabbed a butcher knife.
“Just visitors.” Maldynado smiled and shut the door. He looked at the others, hoping they’d found a way out, but Yara and Basilard merely shrugged. “We’ll try another way. I don’t want a fight with the kitchen staff.”
Someone thrust the door open behind him. A glimpse of that butcher knife convinced Maldynado to thrust the door back with enough force to send the chef staggering.
“This way,” Maldynado barked and ran back toward the courtyard. Those stairs ought to take them up to the parapets. If nothing else they could climb down an outside wall.
He lunged out of the hallway, ready to race for stairs to the right, but a man stood there, a forty-year-old flintlock musket pointed at Maldynado’s chest. It was the old fellow they’d seen in the towel. He was wearing clothes now, and an officer’s saber hung from his waist.