Raymer watched as Quint raised the end of his staff to head-height and waited. As predicted, a head slowly appeared. Quint slammed the end of the staff into the head. The man toppled over to fall quietly to his death.
Raymer stole a quick glance at Ander. The man looked as ill as he felt. “Quint, is there another way?”
“No.”
“How long do we stay here?”
“Until those above stop sending good men after us.”
They had looked away from the ledge while talking, and a soldier with a sword held high leaped into view, ready to slash. Without thinking, Raymer shifted the butt of his staff in front of the soldier’s feet. Then he struck the staff upward to meet the shins. The man stumbled over the staff, took two quick unbalanced steps and fell over the side, a wild expression on his face, as if he didn’t understand what happened.
His scream was quickly cut short, but none of the three cared to look over the side to see what finished it so fast. Quint said, “I’ll bet the next one will wait until they berate him enough to move.”
Ander said, “I only saw six of them when we were above.”
Quint looked to Raymer. “You?”
“Six.”
“Then I miscalculated,” he eased to the ledge and made a quick move that let him see up the path where they’d come from. “Nobody there.”
“There were six, I swear,” Ander said. “There should be two more.”
Quint nodded, “I believe you. Six. Four we sent over the side. Above is an officer who won’t come down until the way is declared safe, and a coward who’s too smart to come down. Probably he’ll get put into one of my old cells for refusing orders.”
“What now,” Raymer asked.
“We go down. No sense in waiting here for reinforcements to show up. Just senseless deaths from now on.” Quint gathered several rocks and placed them on the ledge where it turned, and then added a few more, further down. He also pulled several strips of leather from the crevasse in the wall and held them up. “Trips. We’ll set these at convenient places along the path.”
Ander gathered the blankets and shirts. He looked at Raymer, eyes tearful. “Did I make a mistake coming with you?”
Quint chuckled, but Raymer said, “It depends. If those men stop chasing us, will I hurt anyone else? No. But if they keep coming, will I kill them? After you answer those questions in your mind, you can either stay or go.”
Raymer turned his back to them and started down the ledge again. The position of the sun told him he had daylight left, but he didn’t want to be stranded by darkness on the ledge. He hurried faster. The trail continued to descend until it ended in a mass of jumbled rocks that had fallen and piled at the base since time began.
The dragon flew nearby again, and Raymer again ordered it away. It seemed that each time he became emotional or fought an enemy the dragon ventured close. It was something to consider and possibly use in the future when one misstep on a path would not end his life.
A trace of a trail started where the ledge ended. Rocks had been cast aside or used to fill gaps between boulders. The footing was surprisingly firm for crossing what is called scree, usually better for broken legs or twisting ankles. He suspected the trail along the ledge had existed far longer than anyone knew, and there had been more manpower to construct it than was apparent.
There was little daylight remaining when they reached to bottom, an area covered with low brush and green trees in the distance instead of the barren landscape above. Looking up, Raymer couldn’t see any soldiers on the top of the cliff, and he hoped he didn’t find the remains of any who had fallen to their deaths. He also hoped the horses they’d paid for were well taken care of, and the old lady who’d sold the horses hadn’t been punished.
Quint said, “That’s a river is ahead. Anybody thirsty?”
The mention of water made Raymer’s mouth all the dryer. He gave a look to Ander, “You still going with us? It’s not too late to claim we took you here by force.”
“I am with you, but barely. Not because I changed my mind, but because I’ve never worked so hard in my life as I did escape from that horrible dungeon.”
Quint said, “Tired, are you? Why this is one of the easier days in my life. Certainly one of the better ones.”
Raymer saw the sparkle of water as he heard the first rush of the swift river. Breaking through a thicket of willows, the cobblestone edge of the river lay ahead. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about water until now. They had been too busy fleeing, but the sight of flowing water stilled him in his tracks.
Quint rushed past and fell on his knees at the edge, placing his face fully into the river. Raymer took hold of Ander’s shoulder and helped him move across the rocks to reach the water. Both slurped their fill, waited until that settled and then drank some more.
Quint pointed to a tangle of brush and small trees on the shore that had washed down the river. “Dry wood for a fire and the sand is a soft place to sleep.”
They limped ahead and settled down for the first time since their escape. Quint fell onto his back, his forearm over his forehead. “Raymer, how’d you manage it?”
“Manage what?”
“That dragon attack. Don’t try telling me it was an accident or coincidence.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“I’ve heard about you guys calling down dragons but didn’t believe it.”
Ander looked from one to the other as he listened to the exchange. Raymer didn’t want him to believe something not true. “My family says some can do it, but I was too young to teach. I didn’t call him down.”
“Do you deny trying?”
“My plan was to have the dragon melt the bars with the slime they spit. We would have covered ourselves in lime and crawled out.”
Quint laughed, “Knocking down the whole damned wall worked pretty well, too. Nothing fancy, but effective.”
Anders shrugged, “You two make me realize how unhappy my life was.”
“How so?” Raymer asked, the comment drawing his attention and curiosity. Ander had been raised in a wealthy family almost as powerful as the kings’. The idea that he might envy two prisoners sounded interesting.
“Oh, it’s hard to explain. I guess laughter among royals is more a weapon than an expression of joy. We laugh to support someone who can help us, or we laugh to ridicule our enemies.”
Raymer didn’t understand but decided to keep their conversations on survival track. He asked, “Will we stay here tonight?”
“Yes. Rest our feet some. Mine are raw from that walk down the ledge. Soak them in the water and get a good night’s sleep. We leave early.”
“What if they come tonight?” Ander asked, his eyes raised to the walls of the canyon above.
Quint snorted. “After seeing and hearing those men fall today, would you dare tread that ledge at night? And if you did, you’d find yourself falling from those trip strings I left.”
Raymer walked to an eddy of the river and sat on a boulder, his feet in the cold, healing water. The coldness numbed them, and they already felt better. “Hey, Ander. We’ve offered you the chance to turn back about three times, so far. I still don’t get why you want to go with us.”
“I’d like to know more about that, too. That is before we reveal all of our plans, and you tell all,” Quint said as if there were more plans between them.
Ander said, “I was the fourth son in my family. My oldest brother inherits a title and lands. I get nothing but a royal appointment to a job nobody else wants.”
Quint growled, “That’s more than most.”
“It is, I agree. But my whole life I was raised a royal. The problem is that I never had an objective, yet any time I tried to do something on my own. My family laughed and told me to stop acting like a commoner. The truth is, I think in many ways I’m more a commoner than royal.”