I scout out the corridor, check it's clear, then lead Nereith and Feyn to the storage room where I left my slave's clothes. I open the door slightly, slip in, then let them past after. I'd left a clay shard where it would be shifted by the opening of the door. Nobody has been here while I was away.
'Stay here until I get back,' I tell them as I dress hurriedly in the dark.
'Where are you going?' Nereith asks.
'Creating a diversion.'
Suitably attired, I head out into the corridors. I'm not nearly as confident as I was last time I was here. By now the girl who originally owned these clothes will have been missed, and undoubtedly Ellya will have told the other slaves she was last seen storming off to find me. This dress is dangerous now. I have to avoid the other slaves if at all possible, and hope I don't bump into any Gurta who knew my victim well enough to care about her disappearance.
It's a short distance, and the only person I see is a guard, who doesn't even glance at me. My luck's holding.
I find a linen room I'd selected on my last excursion. This is where clean sheets and blankets are stored after drying. Shelves of fabric line the walls, awaiting pickup by slaves. The Gurta are fastidious, obsessive about cleanliness and elaborate ritual, and that means having people to look after them. They've used slaves, of one stripe or another, since their histories began.
The shelves are only half-full when I get there, but it's enough. All the slaves are out cleaning the rooms of the dignitaries. I walk in, take the lantern down from the wall, smash it on the floor at the foot of a set of shelves and walk out again with the fire already beginning to catch on the bed sheets.
My journey back is as unhindered as my journey there, and it's with some relief that I return to the storage room where Feyn and Nereith are waiting. I strip and pull on my travelling clothes again, then tie my hair up with a thin blue scarf. The time for deceptions is over; I'll stand or fall with these two. There's a certain comfort in that.
'What will happen?' Feyn asks, and it takes me a moment before I realise he means: Now what?
'We wait. Sooner or later somebody's going to notice that I've just set one of the rooms on fire.'
A distant scream, exquisitely timed, and Nereith actually starts laughing, which sets us all off. We keep it muffled, but we really can't help it. It's that slightly hysterical laughter you only get when you're scared out of your wits. There's nothing like it.
Then we hear footsteps outside, racing, and we all hush at once.
The footsteps recede quickly. Someone is ringing a bell. Another pair of runners pass by our door. People in the corridors between here and the junk room where I stashed the slave's body are rushing to the summons. Everyone helps in a fire, slaves and guards and scholars alike. This is my way of making doubly sure that our short journey is made unobserved.
We wait in the dark, as still as the barrels and jugs and coils of rope that hunker half-seen all around us. We wait, and wait, and when we hear no more footsteps, I say: 'Now,' and we're gone.
I'm a veteran of breaking into and out of places, but the way it's done is by not taking chances, by being prepared. The parts of this plan that kill me are those in which I have no option but to put my head into the fanged mouth of chance. And we haven't even got to the really dangerous part yet. That waits for us outside.
Two guards burst through a door into the corridor right in front of us.
I knew it. Fucking typical.
It takes a moment for them to register that there are three escaped prisoners loose in the fort, but they go for their swords quickly. Still, I have the advantage of surprise. I was already running at them when the door opened. The first only just has his hand on his hilt when I drive the heel of my palm into his nose, spearing the cartilage into the front of his brain. His stunned gaze empties and he crumples.
The second guard pulls out his sword and takes a slice at my neck, hoping to take my head off. It stirs my hair as I duck, then I grab his outstretched arm at the wrist and punch into his armpit, between the iridescent armour plates of hardened sap. Hit a Gurta hard enough in the right spot and you can stop their heart. My aim is good, and I've got a lot of hate behind that strike.
I stare down at their lifeless faces, their pinched features white, cheekbones tinged with blue. Two for you, Rynn. It's not even a start.
'I see your reputation was not exaggerated,' Nereith says dryly, as he grabs hold of the wrists of one of the dead guards. 'Let's get these bodies out of the way.'
We put them in a storeroom, barely bothering to hide them. We don't have time. Nereith takes up one of the swords, but I tell him to leave it. The extra weight could make the difference between life and death, if we get as far as the river. He obeys without complaint. I'm not sure he knows how to use a sword anyway.
The last section of the dash is unhindered. Doors slam distantly, voices echo down the corridors, but we reach the spiral stairs without incident and head down into the thick darkness. The junk room is as I left it, though the air is faintly putrid with the scent of over-ripe decay. The slave in the chest is beginning to go off. Feyn notices it instantly, looks towards the chest and then back at me, a question in his black eyes.
I shake my head. Don't ask.
The drop from the window isn't a problem for any of us. This part is as safe as it gets. Due to a trick of the fort's construction, it's dark enough that we can't be seen from the yard: a convenient fold in the architecture, shadowed from the shinehouse that rises above the fort.
We gather against the wall, hunkered low. Ahead of us is the yard, scattered with piles of crates and sacks, busy with workers. A storage silo yawns on the far side, fed with cargo from the carts. The men yell bawdy jokes at each other, the answers returning in chorus since they've all heard them many times before.
'I'm going to get closer,' I tell Feyn and Nereith. 'Come after me when I give you the signal.'
With that, I scamper along the wall. With my black clothes and dusky skin I'm almost invisible. A quick rush to the cover of a netted heap of boxes gets me a good angle on the activity. There's a covered wagon nearby, its tailgate hanging down, half-loaded. Sheaves of metal rods are being slung into it with little care or delicacy. Behind them are several tied crates beneath a loose tarp. More slave-made weaponry and machine parts, on their way to the Borderlands? Perhaps.
A cart is just being let in through the gate. For a short time I watch and wait, observing the lax rhythm of the labour. Seeing where they go, who they stop and talk to, when the best moment would be to make a run. I'm thankful that they leave their carts at the edge of the yard, to make space for other traffic. There's a lot of peripheral clutter. If not for that, we'd never even get near.
I wave at the others and they scuttle, low and quiet, to my side. We're well hidden here, as long as nobody decides to look behind the crates. And we're beyond the point where I can even consider the possibility of failure. There really is no going back.
'That one?' Nereith asks, peering around the side of the boxes at the wagon.
'Good as any,' I say. We can make it in a dash. With luck no one will spot us. I've been relying far too much on luck lately, but in the absence of preparation it's the best thing I have.
It's all about expectations. Nobody expects three escaping prisoners to stow away on a wagon. I doubt half of these Gurta even know there's a prison inside Farakza. As long as we're not seen, we have every chance.
'Ready?' I say to Feyn, because he's first to go. I have to be last. I have to pick the times.
Feyn nods. I look out and around. The wagon obscures most of the courtyard; the loaders are heading back to the warehouse.