Page 14 of The Empty Throne

Smiling faintly, he abandoned the window andreturned to the door, tugging at it experimentally. Maybe he waslooking at this the wrong way. Instead of focusing on unlocking thedoor, he should put his energy to making sure it didn't lock in thefirst place. Prison doors like this didn't need to be manuallylocked every time; the tumblers fell into place whenever the doorwas closed. All he needed to do was figure out how to make sure atleast some of the tumblers didn't fall into place when the door wasclosed later.

They tended to empty his pisspot at nightevery couple of days, tonight being one of those nights. That washis best opportunity, while they were still enjoying the rush ofFazekas being gone, eager to do anything but their boring jobs.They'd rush through their chores, including attending him, and thengo off to gambling, drinking, and fucking.

Turning away from the door, Cohea scoured hisroom for pebbles, grit, anything he could shove into the keyholethat might fall deeper into the mechanism when the door was openedand prevent the door from closing properly. Hopefully not to thepoint the guards would notice, but enough he could yank itopen.

When that was done, he returned to his bedand paper-thin blanket and waited.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long. Duskhad barely fallen when he heard a guard shuffling up the stairs.One guard. Not the usual two. Tempting though it was to takeadvantage of that, Cohea remained where he was. He'd have muchbetter luck waiting until they were all drunk and exhausted.

He ate his meal quickly and returned to hisblanket, trying to keep as warm as possible, because very soon hewas going to be out in that miserable weather with limitedprotection. The very moment he was home in front of a roaring fire,he was never leaving again.

Once moonlight was pouring through histattered blanket tapestry, he took the blanket from the window,laid his other blanket on top of it, placed his hoarded food on thestack, rolled it up, knotted the ends together as best he could,and slung it across his chest. Waste not, want not, as his motherhad so often said.

Padding to the door, he gingerly tested it.There was definitely give that hadn't been there before.

Cohea drew a deep breath. This was it. Eitherhe was getting out, or he was going nowhere. He released hispent-up breath as he yanked on the handle—and slumped in reliefwhen it opened. The door creaked as he pushed it open further, butin a keep as old as this, nobody was going to hear yet anothernoise. They'd already tuned such sounds out without even realizingit.

Down the stairs he went, putting out torchesas he did, so guards going up to check on him later would be evenfurther impeded by the minor annoyance.

At the base of the stairs, he took anothermoment to breathe and collect himself. He could not afford to wastetime, but careless haste wouldn't help him either. The more urgenta matter seemed, the more patience was required, another axiom fromhis mother.

So he stood listening, and then slowlyfollowed the sound of voices down a hallway.

He didn't have to get more than a few pacesfrom the door to confirm they were doing exactly as he'd expected:gambling, drinking, and fucking. Whether they'd managed to findsome whores in this remote place, or were making do with eachother, he didn't know and didn't care.

Cohea continued on, creeping past the doorwhile they were all distracted and waiting by an exit one of themwould eventually use to take a piss. That was the opportunity heneeded.

So he settled in some shadows and waited,ignoring the cold, every ache and pain of his still healing body,the gnawing hunger from an inadequate meal.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait longbefore a guard came shuffling-stumbling down the hall, alreadyfumbling to get his cock out. Disgust pulled at Cohea's lips. Ifthese men worked for him, he'd terminate every last one of them,and without references or two weeks wages to tide them over.

As the man drew closer, his face was revealedin the light of a torch for the barest moment, and Cohea's angerstirred for the first time. Most of the faces of the men who'd beathim were blurry at best. But this one. This one he remembered.Every smile. Every laugh. This was the sort of bastard who enjoyedhurting others, and he didn't have any discipline about it. Coheahad learned a vital lesson about people who could control suchurges and people who couldn't.

He let the man stumble past him and out thedoor, then removed the sash around his waist and followed.

As the man stood their pissing and groaning,swaying ever so slightly on his feet, Cohea wrapped the ends of thesash in his hands and dropped the loop over the stupid bastard'shead. Cohea had to marvel that the man hadn't even noticed.

Before he could, Cohea yanked andtwisted.

The man struggled, but he was drunk andsurprised, and Cohea sober, prepared, and angry.

Strangling someone took more work than mostrealized, but he'd learned from the best.Dishonorablehisfather would say.Better than deadhad been the acerbicreply from his instructor. Cohea hadn't been able to find a flaw inthe logic.

When he was certain the guard was dead, andgood fucking riddance, Cohea stripped him as quickly as he could.Thankfully, while the man didn't have his sword on him, he hadplenty of other useful things.

Finally dressed warmly, Cohea shoved theguard into his clothes and then dumped him back into the snow,piling it up so that it would look, at least momentarily, like he'dfallen over drunk in his own piss and frozen to death. Hardly thefirst time a guard would die thus.

It wouldn't buy him much time, but hopefullyit would buy enough.

He looked around, but spied only stillness.Quiet. Everybody was inside, escaping the miserable weather as bestthey could. Maybe he'd get a caribou after all. Pulling up the hoodof his stolen cloak, which smelled of sweat and alcohol, but wasbetter than the nothing he'd had before, he hastened across theyard to the sorry excuse for a stable.

Inside were approximately thirty caribou,barely enough for the men left behind. Fazekas had taken the vastmajority, which meant he was planning to travel with little to nostopping. What could possibly be so urgent?

Thirty caribous still left exactlytwenty-nine that could be a problem for him. Cohea wavered despitethe urgency of his situation. Oskia would tell him to leave thestable open and the caribous loose. Kite would tell him to justgrab a caribou and go. Sobeki would never have been in thisposition in the first place.

Then of course there was Bittersea, whowould, in his brutally efficient way of dealing with life, killevery caribou but the one he needed, wasting time but ensuring thatfollowing him would be all but impossible.

Despite everything, Cohea could not bringhimself to let the caribous freeze to death or kill them outright.Still far too soft, even after all this time.

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