Page 11 of Fate of the Argosi

It was the manner of our escape that had set him off. Those secret tunnels I’d paid so dearly to discover had turned out to be a myth propagated by shysters to sucker wealthy foreigners desperate to rescue their incarcerated family members. Wasn’t anything the victims could do about it either, since complaining to the law about a prison break failing on account of a fraudulent map would only see them permanently reunited with their loved ones behind bars. Chedran had insisted we could fight our way past the guards. Arissa, well, she’d known better than to drink from that particular mirage. Me, I’d held to the Path of the Wild Daisy.

‘They’re . . . they’re all dead,’ Arissa had said, emerging from the last row of cells, past the empty guard alcove and into a wider passage where four corpses awaited us on the ground. The last remaining jailers of Soul’s Grave stared up at us with dead eyes and placid smiles. All except for one.

The broad-shouldered Zhuban woman was waiting for us by the iron-banded door that led out of the lower levels and up a quarter-mile long set of rough-hewn stone stairs to the surface. She dangled the ring of thick brass keys needed to open the three locks at the top, middle and bottom of the impregnable door. Each trio of guards on duty was only ever given one of those keys, which made the prospect of bribing your way out of Soul’s Grave both too expensive and too risky.

‘You kill ’em?’ I asked, gesturing to her dead comrades.

The Zhuban shook her head, sending sparse strands of stringy black hair whipping around her face. In her other hand she held out a blue flower petal with gleaming yellow edges. ‘A gift from the clerics,’ she said gruffly. ‘To be ingested after we executed the last prisoner. The promise of a gentler passing into their god’s embrace than any the prince’s troops would offer once they hunted us down for our loyal service.’ She tossed her petal into the air, watching it drift away to land on the cheek of one of her dead colleagues. ‘The last thing he said before he stopped breathing was that it tasted of oranges.’

She turned back to the door and placed each of the three keys into their respective locks. ‘The mechanism is devious and intricate. The keys must be turned at the exact same time or else a fourth lock will engage that can only be opened from the outside.’

‘Go on,’ I told Arissa and Chedran. ‘Should be the two of you who open the way out of here.’

Arissa said nothing. Chedran sneered at the guard. ‘You should have taken the poison,’ he told her. ‘The prince’s soldiers won’t bother pursuing a pair of escaped convicts. They’ll assume you followed the clerics’ orders and exterminated every last one of us. The incarceration records will be incinerated to avoid any diplomatic incidents with those nations whose citizens were unlawfully detained at Soul’s Grave. No doubt the warden vizier and his clerics have already slithered off to some monastic sanctuary where they’ll be left alone. Too much trouble to violate religious laws. Ah, but the jailers . . . you know how it goes. The Berabesq people will demand that someone suffer for the atrocities committed in their name. The so-called Faithful, with their razor-tipped gloves and so, so many ways to torment the body without letting the spirit flee . . .’ He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. ‘Your suffering will be the stuff of legend long before the Faithful are finished with you.’

‘Shut your fool mouth until she gives you the signal to turn the key,’ I told him.

Arissa though, she sided with Chedran. ‘You didn’t see what the guards did, Rat Girl. Whatshedid.’

‘I saw enough.’

I nodded to the Zhuban, who counted down from three and then slowly turned her key. Arissa and Chedran had no choice but to do likewise. When the keys wouldn’t turn any more, the mechanism inside the door kept going for three more long seconds. A click, a thunk, and then the scrape of a heavy bolt sliding back before the door swung open like it was inviting us through. I waited for Chedran and Arissa to go first, giving Conch a gentle kick in the butt to get him to follow after them.

‘You planning on running?’ I asked the Zhuban as she stood back for me to go next. ‘Five can travel as discreetly as four. We might be able to help each other along the way.’

‘No, the Mahdek was right. The prince’s soldiers and the Faithful won’t concern themselves with counting dead prisoners. They will, however, hunt down every last guard.’

‘I can show you ways to evad—’

‘Perhaps that’s as it should be,’ she said, cutting me off. ‘Lies will be spread about Soul’s Grave by the warden vizier and his clerics. Even by the mob, who will pretend they never knew what was happening here. Perhaps someone should stay behind to remind the Berabesq people of the truth.’

Durral once told me that honour was like a dashing portrait of yourself that you hide behind. Looks nice, fools some folks, but no good at stopping a blade. ‘They won’t believe you,’ I warned her. ‘The Faithful will have you on the rack in the city square while the prosecutors shout down everything that comes out of your mouth other than a confession. Believin’ you can sway ’em with words alone . . .’

I let the warning die on my lips. The Zhuban was grinning at me like I’d just said something hilarious. Which I guess I had. ‘Gettin’ all them folks ta hear the truth?’ she asked, mocking the way I talked. ‘Reckon that would take . . .’

She held it there, leaving the last part for me.

‘A miracle,’ I said.

As I set foot upon the first of those steps out of hell, I imagined daisies growing from the barren rock. Wild daisies.

Alas, not everyone was so sanguine about our departure. With Arissa, it was only the raw, unassailable beauty of her first dawn after a night lasting almost a year that shook her bitterness. Chedran, though . . . Chedran was seething. Knowing his bile couldn’t burn me, he’d spewed it at Arissa instead.

‘How lovely.’

I crossed the sand between us, turning my back on the sun. He was spoiling for a fight, and I was sorely tempted to give him one. Without the iron bars of his cell to hang on to, he wasn’t nearly as steady as he pretended. Seven days in prison may not sound like much compared with Arissa’s three hundred, but that first week is when the guards make it their business to break you. Chedran’s snake-charmer gaze had made the guards skittish enough to wear blindfolds during his beatings, but it hadn’t hindered their determination. He’d been left with bruises on his back so black I’d almost mistaken them for more tattoos. The way he walked, the stiffness not just in his legs but in his pelvis, told me they’d done other things to him too.

That explained why he couldn’t tolerate the Zhuban guard seeking redemption, or Arissa hoping a thousand sunny tomorrows might make up for all those awful yesterdays.

‘Those injuries of yours need rest and healing,’ I reminded him. I kept my voice flat, devoid of anything but dispassionate logic so as not to arouse his cynicism. ‘We’re likely to encounter trouble on the way, and it’s going to be you and me who do the fighting. I used up most of my aquae sulfex on those . . .’ Here, I allowed a touch of shame to shade my words; he’d like that. ‘Will you allow me to make restitution by offering my shoulder as we walk?’

‘You think I desire your help?’ He jabbed a finger at Arissa. ‘She’s far weaker than I am.’

Funny how an assertion can be entirely true and yet utterly false at the same time. ‘She doesn’t have twelve Mahdek runaways waiting for her to rescue them before some heathen-hunting posse of Berabesq Faithful or a coven of Jan’Tep hextrackers finds them first. Arissa can afford to be stubborn. But can you?’

Chedran’s eyes narrowed. Instincts bone-deep had him attempt his mesmerism on me again so he could feel like I was under his spell instead of pitying him. I waited until he’d done giving himself a headache, then once again offered my shoulder. At last he put his arm around my neck and leaned against me as we began our slow, awkward journey towards the hills where poor Quadlopo was waiting for me.

‘We’ll make for your camp,’ Chedran declared, as if doing so put him back in charge. ‘Tomorrow we leave the thief behind. She’s too weak, too damaged to be of any use. She would only slow us down. Once rid of her, we’ll acquire fresh mounts and ride for the meeting place where the children will be waiting for me.’

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