He hadn’t gone a dozen yards before he was spotted, though the cook and her helpers were raising such a ruckus behind him that it was bound to draw attention to him in any case. Grince sped around the corner of the house, wincing each time the scorched soles of his feet hit the ground, and thanking the Gods that his thin shoes had been enough to protect him from worse injury.—He took the back way into the stable yard—and ran straight into a group of four guards carrying a long ladder. They went down like ninepins, but they had companions nearby who were drawn by the commotion. Increasingly desperate, the thief disentangled himself, bleeding now from a shallow sword cut in the leg.—Guards—more and more of them—burst through the arched gateway to the stable block and fanned out in his direction. Grince turned tail, doubled back toward the house—and the kitchen workers who were charging at him from that direction. Shit! he thought, diving to his right, into the narrow space between the two pursuing groups and heading for a row of long, low buildings.—With nowhere else left to go, he chose a door at random, went through it like an arrow, and slammed and barred it behind him.
The air in the stable was warm, and thick with the robust scents of hay and horseflesh. The only illumination was a slip of pale yellow lamplight from the half-open door at the far end of the building. Grince ran along the central aisle, ignoring the sleek inhabitants of the stalls on either side. Though he had originally run in this direction with the idea of stealing a horse, it was no good trying now, when the yard was full of armed guards. Concealment seemed his only hope, but the stable seemed singularly free of places to hide. The thief moved faster—he was running out of time. Already he could hear the barred door creaking alarmingly under repeated blows. The wood was already beginning to splinter and crack beneath the onslaught.
When the thief reached the far end of the aisle, it seemed that hope had deserted him. Beyond the farther door was a large, square room filled with bins of grain, and rows of saddles and bridles hung on pegs, and lit by a lantern hanging from a rafter. There was no way out. He had come to a dead end. Fear kicked like a jolt of fire up his spine—but there was nothing he could do. He would be caught red-handed.
Grince raised his eyes heavenward and muttered, “Thanks for nothing, Gods, you bast—” and that was when he noticed the trapdoor in the ceiling.
“I take it back, I take it back.” There was no ladder to be seen, but it was the work of an instant to scramble up the pegs, kicking and knocking the saddles to the ground as he went. The tricky part was reaching over to undo the catch, without unbalancing. Holding on to the topmost peg with one hand, Grince stretched until he felt his arms were coming out of their sockets—and at last, the finicky bolt yielded and the trap swung open, fetching him a solid clout that almost knocked him from his perch. Making a wild grab for the edge of the opening, he hung by his fingertips for a desperate moment before panic lent him the strength to scrabble his way to safety. Heaving his body up over the edge of the trapdoor, he rolled over onto his back and found he was lying, gasping for breath, on a bed of prickly hay, looking up at the web-festooned rafters of the stable roof. He felt as though he would never move again, but there was no time to rest now. He leapt to his feet at the sound of splintering wood and angry voices. His pursuers were in the building!—There was no way to close the trapdoor from the inside. Desperately he looked around, seeking another way out. Bales of hay were piled up against the long wall at the back of the loft, while on the other side the floor was clear, and Grince could see a row of small openings in the floor, where hay was lowered directly down from the loft into the mangers of the horses who waited below.—Briefly, he considered them, but they were no use to him save as a last resort. They would put him right back into the hands of Pendral’s guards—if the horse didn’t trample him to death in the confined space of the stall.—The door to the tack room slammed open. They had almost found him. Come on, Grince. Think! Then he had it. There had to be a way to get the hay up here.—They had seen the trapdoor now—he heard them shouting. Thinking fast, he dropped to his knees and reached down through the opening to knock the lantern from its hook. The guards scattered as it plummeted to the floor and smashed in a fireball, hurling flaming drops of oil in all directions. A blast of heat came up through the trapdoor—the room below had turned into an inferno. He heard screams of agony below him, and voices cursing and yelling. “Quick!” someone shouted. “Get the horses out!”
He was just congratulating himself on his cleverness when it occurred to him that if there wasn’t another way out, or he couldn’t find it, he had killed himself.
“You bloody fool!” Grince knew he would have to be quick. The loft was filling with smoke, and he could feel the wooden floor growing hotter through the thin soles of his shoes and stinging his feet, already scorched by the kitchen fire. Choking and half-blinded, he began to grope his way along the nearest wall—the narrow side wall of the building. Nothing. Bugger it. The floor around the trapdoor opening was beginning to blacken and char, so he fled to the other end of the loft. At least it was safer there, and if nothing else, he could get through one of the little trapdoors into the stalls below.—The loading door was at the far end of the loft, partly concealed behind a pile of bales. Coughing fit to turn himself inside out, the thief flung open the double doors, taking blessed gulps of clear night air. As he leaned out, still rubbing his streaming eyes, he hit his head hard on something that swung back again an instant later and gave him another clout for good measure.—Blinking away the last of the tears, Grince discovered a large iron hook connected to a block and tackle near the ceiling. He followed the rope down into the gloom at the side of the door and loosened it, letting it slide through his fingers until the hook had reached the ground. Making it fast again, he slid down too quickly, cursing as the rough rope burned his hands raw. His feet were running before they hit the bottom.
Grince had come out behind the stable block into an unfamiliar part of the grounds, but that didn’t bother him, so long as they stayed empty. He pounded downhill on painful feet, knowing he must eventually reach the dry bed of the river. At least there might be a chance to lose his pursuers there. Behind him, he heard the stable roof fall in with a crash, and his shadow sprang out darkly before him as flames leapt high into the night sky. A vivid image of the past—the soldiers raiding Jarvas’s sanctuary, the roof of the warehouse collapsing in flames, his mother gutted by a sword . . . Grince stumbled, rolled, and picked himself up with a curse. He used the horrific childhood memory to help him, letting the terror lend impetus to his flying feet. With luck they would think he’d perished in the stable.
A shout went up. Some bastard had found the blasted rope. Just to plague him further, the path began to meander, turning away from the river. Swearing bitterly, Grince pushed his way into a shrubbery at the side of the path. He expected to hear the sounds of pursuit behind him, and was surprised when nothing happened. Then, after a moment the air was ripped by the sound of a deep, discordant baying. They had loosed the dogs!
Up to that moment, Grince had thought he could go no faster. His muscles burned, his heart was pounding fit to burst, and his wheezing lungs were starved of air. Hearing the deadly ululation behind him, however, he discovered a new and unexpected turn of speed. The baying grew shrill behind him. Pendral’s killer hounds had discovered his trail.
His mind blank with panic, Grince ploughed through the shrubbery, hampered at every step by treacherous roots and tough, springy branches with thorns that tore at his clothing and unprotected face. Oblivious of bruises and scratches he struggled onward, forcing his way through the thicket, the baying of the dogs growing ever louder. Soon they were closing on him: he could hear the crack of splintering branches as they crashed through the undergrowth, and the hoarse exhalations of their panting breath.