"Message for Captain Marjus," Leesil said.
'Try the officers' quarters in the barracks… east side."
"Thank you."
After this exchange, Leesil was just another Varanj patrolling the courtyard. He walked casually toward the inner keep's east corner, in case anyone was watching. Once he passed out of sight, he hurried around the barracks to the back.
There were no guards patrolling the back courtyard for the moment. All he need worry about were those upon the ramparts, but the night shadows near the wall made it easy to slide along the courtyard's outer edge. He stopped when he'd reached the correct place.
Testing stone and mortar with fingertips, Leesil found no sign of an opening or its catch.
For a moment, he feared he'd misjudged the bolt-hole's location. He had felt it on the outside, but his bearings were disoriented. He forced himself to grow calm. He knew it was here. He just had to find it.
The best escape routes were often exits from tunnels beneath a keep, but the lay wouldn't work for that. The grounds were too close to the river, and tunneling toward the water's edge would create a problem with seepage over the years. Not impossible to deal with, but this place was not large or complex in construction. So the obvious choice would be a simple hidden portal through the wall itself.
Of course, standing there flattened against cold stone in the shadows wasn't exactly the best moment to consider all this.
And he heard footsteps up on the rampart moving toward his position.
Leesil looked both ways, along the wall to his left and to the tower's base on his right. There was a ground-level door into the tower. He slid along the wall, stopping to listen at the door and then slowly cracking it open.
Inside, a ladder led up to a wooden half-platform above. To either side were archways leading out onto the walls. He could hear the soldiers strolling above, but what he sought wouldn't be there. Leesil felt along the tower's inner surface nearest the wall that he knew held the bolt-hole, and low to the ground he found a small cubby in the stone, and within it was a wooden lever. He stuck the toe of his boot into the hole and stepped down on it.
A section of stone around his foot shifted, and he went down on all fours to shove it inward.
The hatch was barely large enough to crawl through on hands and knees, but once through it, he slowly stood up in a hollow space inside the wall itself. He pulled out a cold lamp crystal Wynn had given him and rubbed it once with his thumb. It gave off a dim glow, enough for his elven eyes to make out his surroundings.
There was no need here for the engineers to hide the mechanism for opening the bolt-hole. Counterweights hung from chains that passed through steel wheels mounted in the narrow chamber's ceiling. Short steel rails in the floor led up to where the bolt-hole was. All he need do was trip the lever and tug on the counterweights, and he did so. A small section of the outer stone of the wall rolled inward along the rails, and the bolt-hole was open.
Leesil closed his fist around the crystal and peered around the opening's edge with one eye, first one way then the other. There was no one in sight on the street. He leaned out and raised his hand, loosening his grip on the crystal to let its glow leak between his fingers. He waved it back and forth.
At first, no one came, and he worried that something had happened to the others. Then he saw Magiere creep out of the shadows across the way, leaning down with her eyes toward the city. Wynn and Chap followed behind her.
He put his finger to his lips and helped them into the wall. Then he put his shoulder to the section on the rails, waving for Magiere to do the same. They pushed it back in place, and Leesil set the lever to lock it in position.
"Now what?" Magiere whispered.
"We get out of this wall space and find a rear entrance to the keep."
"What if there isn't one?"
"Then we'll have to find a disguise of some sort for you and Wynn… and hope for the best."
Magiere stared at him as if he'd sprouted horns. "You're insane."
She was right, but in the past he'd had only himself to get inside a place such as this.
"Just follow me," he said.
Leesil was first to crawl through the low hatch into the tower's bottom. When he was certain the soldiers atop the walls were far enough off, he signaled the others to follow.
He spotted no entrance along the keep's back. The only other possibilities were the closer side facing the bolt-hole wall or the far side by the barracks. He kept to the bolt-hole wall as they scurried in its shadow. When they were nearer to the keep's comer, he ran across the courtyard to it, and the others followed to crouch beside him.
It was a horrible position. Any soldier upon the rear wall might spot them. Leesil looked around the comer to the keep's near side, but he saw no entrance.
"Well?" Magiere whispered from behind.
He shook his head and led them along the keep's back. Around the comer on the barracks side, he spotted what they sought.
"Good and bad," he whispered. "There's an entrance with two soldiers in front of it."
"Can we take them by surprise?"
Leesil scowled at her. That prospect wasn't appealing, but it was only thing he could think of himself. As long as no one else came along in the middle of it, they might not get killed on the spot.
"Wynn and Chap, wait here," he said, pulling a dagger from his boot and handing it to Magiere, blade first. "When I move, ram this handle into the other guard, dead-center between belly and ribs. It'll take his breath so he can't call out before you put him down."
Leesil sauntered out of the shadows as if he had all night, and Magiere followed his lead.
He smiled lazily as they approached the soldiers, but both men tensed at the sight of Magiere. She wasn't armed, as Leesil still wore her falchion, but the castle grounds were sealed. Anyone not wearing a Varanj surcoat called immediate attention.
"Captain Marjus requested a delivery of stores for the prince's return," Leesil said with an edge of boredom in his voice. "She's to see about space in the cold room and larder. Got the orders right here."
He gestured with his thumb at Magiere, and he stepped across to the Varanj on the far side. Magiere stepped up to the nearer soldier. Leesil's target glanced toward Magiere.
Leesil grabbed the man's arm and neck, simultaneously turning him about and closing off his windpipe.
Magiere instantly rammed the dagger's hilt into the other guard's stomach. Her target buckled over, and she grabbed the back of his helmet, pulling forward and down. She flipped the dagger in her grip, and smashed the hilt against the base of his skull. The soldier toppled to the ground, still and silent with his face in the dirt.
Leesil's soldier struggled for a moment before going slack. He let the man slide to the ground beside his companion.
"Behind the barracks with them," Magiere whispered, and Leesil followed her lead as they dragged the soldiers away to where Wynn and Chap crouched in hiding.
"Wynn, get the rope out of my pack," Leesil said.
"Why?" the sage asked, already doing as instructed.
He cut two sections of rope, and he and Magiere bound the soldiers's arms and legs.
"Where's that ridiculous scarf of yours?" Magiere asked him.
Before he answered that he'd left it behind, Wynn pulled it from the pack.
"I thought you might need it," she said. "In case you had to abandon your disguise."
Magiere took the scarf and split it in half with her dagger.
"What are you doing?" Leesil asked.
"Gag that Varanj," she answered, handing him half the scarf. "Better he swallow it than you wear it again."
There was no time for a nasty retort. With the soldiers hidden among the barrels and crates behind the barracks, Leesil was about to lead them back to the door. He turned back to dig inside the surcoats of their unconscious prisoners, and pulled out an iron key.