For the first time in a year, he held a measure of hope. He began thinking of all that could go wrong, and even calculated his odds of escaping, but soon quit. It didn’t matter. He had a plan. A possible future, if slim.
“Quint, are you gathering that mortar?”
“Who’s this strange voice speaking to me?”
“There’s only you and me down here, Quint.”
“In that case, I’ve been far too busy to do manual work.”
“Well, un-busy yourself. The timetable for escaping has been accelerated.”
“Accelerated, you say? You use words like accelerated and accuse me of being overly educated?”
Raymer saw the guard with the two missing front teeth crouched behind a storage unit containing chains, saws, nails, and hammers, none of which were intended for carpentry. Dried blood, bone, and bits of flesh coated them. He raised his voice so the guard would hear. “Quint, I heard the night guards talking.”
“What’d they say, or do I care?”
From the corner of his eye, Raymer watched the eavesdropping guard move from the storage container to the corner of the hallway where a shelf stood. “They said two of the children belonging to our guard looks more like some of the night guards.”
“Not true, Raymer. I can tell you that for a fact. His ugly girls look like the spawn of the king’s stallion.”
The guard stood, pulled his blade and charged the cells, as if not knowing which to attack first. He shouted spittle flying. “You two can thank whatever demons you worship that you’re inside those cages where I can’t get at you.”
Quint spoke first, “Hey, it’s fine with me if you want to let me out of here so you can get at me.”
Raymer added, “Or, feel free to let yourself inside.”
The guard had pulled to a stop before he was close enough for either of them to reach through the bars and grab him. He sputtered in his anger and stalked away, only to return a moment later carrying a wooden bowl in each hand. When he was ten paces away, he tripped and spilled the contents of the bowls on the floor, while wearing a sly smile. There would be no dinner tonight.
Quint’s voice drifted from his cell, as soft as if it g on vapors. “Guard? You do understand that if I ever manage to escape from behind these bars, you will surely die a day or two later?”
The guard backed up with that threat as if the floor had suddenly become hot and he needed to move his feet to cooler stones. “You can’t threaten me.”
“So give me another life sentence if you don’t like what I’m saying,” Quint drawled, his voice dripping with false amusement. “But I will kill you by forcing two empty bowls down your throat.”
The guard threw the bowls back down the hallway. “I’ll be glad when you two are dead.”
Raymer smiled at the guard, “You know I’m working hard on a plan to escape from this place but Quint is holding me back.”
“Lime, again?” Quint growled. “You want lime and won’t let up.”
“Lime,” Raymer confirmed.
The guard huffed and disappeared around the corner. His footsteps echoed down the corridor. Raymer heard a new sound. A scraping, repeated over and over, steady and rhythmic, a sound he had never heard.
“Quint, what’s that sound?”
“I found this little piece of rock with a sharp edge. I planned to use it to cut a guard’s throat someday, but what the hell? Maybe I’ll scratch myself a bit of mortar from between these bricks and make a present of it to a friend of mine.”
Raymer settled himself in his favorite spot against the wall to rest, but then changed his mind. Instead, he stood and started to run again, his eyes almost closed with pleasure, his mind’s eye seeing the path he often used from his village to the high pasture where the sheep and goats grazed in summer.
He ran slowly at first, but his head filled with memories until he wanted to brush aside low hanging branches and leap over a couple of the smaller streams. His legs pumped faster and faster, although he ran nowhere. The cell seemed to have disappeared, but he knew as soon as he stopped he would still be in the center.
Later, he lay on the straw panting for breath, and the scraping in the next cell ceased. Raymer asked, “How’d you do?”
“Got a small handful. I’ll get more tomorrow and pass it to you.”
Raymer settled himself to rest without dinner, but feeling satisfied, nonetheless. He heard another new sound, this time, a steady slapping. “What are you doing now?”
“Running.”
Raymer grinned. “Why?”
“Because for the first time since they put me in here, I feel like I might need to run to keep up with you.”
“If they’re going to just catch one of us when we get out, I plan on it being you.”
“My plan’s a little different, Raymer. You better be ready to run like the wind.”
Raymer waited for more, but all he heard was the steady slapping of bare feet on the stone floor, one foot after the other, for so long he started wondering if he could outrun Quint. Tomorrow he’d increase his training. He fell asleep on an empty stomach and a smile on his face as he listened to the steady pat, pat, pat of Quint’s feet.
“What’s this mess?” the morning guard shouted as he discovered the slop spilled on the floor outside the cells. He woke Raymer with his loud complaining.
Quint said reasonably, “Don’t look at us, my friend. We didn’t open these cell doors and dump our slop way over there so we could go hungry last night, and then lock ourselves in again. We know better that to make you angry.”
“Damn toothless old man is going to lose a few more teeth if he doesn't clean up after himself,” the guard snapped, a youth barely old enough to order ale at a public eatery.
“He said he didn’t have to clean it up. He told us you’d clean it for him,” Quint drawled, sounding almost sincere and honest.
“I heard him say it, too,” Raymer added without looking behind him to watch the guard. He had pulled himself up to the window again and was holding onto the bars and looking outside, mentally deciding how many steps to the gate and then how many more to the dense forest lining the sides of the road on the other side. Run out the gate and perhaps a dozen more steps to the nearest trees. If he reached that far, he might get away.
But that’s all the lead he needed. A hundred running paces from his cell to cross the marketplace and a dozen more steps to the edge of the trees to give him a chance. Once in the forest, he could outrun almost anyone. He’d take paths so narrow a horse couldn’t follow. No soldier or palace guard could run as fast or be as motivated. A hundred and twelve steps to freedom.
“You looking outside again?” Quint asked over the soft scraping as he continued to gather mortar.
“I figure a hundred steps to the gate, and then twelve more to the forest. That’s all we have to do.”
“You actually think we might get the chance?”
Raymer nodded, then realizing Quint couldn’t see him, he said, “I think so. I think we might. . .”
The dragon’s spit destroyed almost anything. There were a few things that made it inert, or innocent, as his family called it. If he could call a dragon down and have it spit on the iron bars of his cage, they would melt.
The problem was that if he tried to squeeze through the opening, the black substance would melt his flesh, too. But enough lime thrown on the dragon spit after the bars melted would make it safe. Even a few handfuls might work. He might get a few burns while escaping, but it seemed a small price to pay.
He let go of the bars and turned, watching the guard wipe up the mess from their missing meal, just for something different to do. Then he went back to the window and watched the first people entering the farmer’s section of the market, the early shoppers searching for bargains and the farmers setting up their tents for shade, getting ready to spend the day selling produce. The dungeon cell window was set at ground-level on the outside, but the cells were below ground level, so he had to raise himself off the floor to see.