Page 81 of Silverbow
“We have to get him out,” she said.
“There’s no getting him out,” Bade answered flatly. He delivered his findings in the same unfeeling tone he used for everything. “He’s being kept with the king’s gold in the store rooms below the soldier’s outpost. Aside from the dozen men on watch since someone started setting outposts on fire, Ralenet travels withthree dozen of his personal guard. They only bring him up once a day for his public flogging and he goes straight back down.”
“What does that mean?” Enya asked desperately.
“It means,” Oryn sighed. “There’s no getting him out.”
She hurled her belt knife so hard it buried itself in the wall. Oryn blinked at the quivering length of steel. Giving it back definitely hadn’t been wise.
“Nice throw,” Aiden murmured.
“I am not leaving without him.”
Colm cleared his throat. “I spoke to him in the dream, Ansel. He wanted me to tell you he knew the risk when he committed his crime, and he made his peace with it.”
The girl gaped at him. “His crime? What crime, exactly?”
“The High Lord’s accused him of tax evasion,” Colm answered levelly.
“That’s…that’s ridiculous,” Enya spluttered. “He paid the tax collectors every year. And that doesn’t sound like him at all.”
Colm sighed. “He was dreaming of Greenridge. The place where you camp with the herd in the summer.” Her brow furrowed as objection shifted to uncertainty. “He also told me to tell you that Liam said you running off to turn yourself in was the dumbest thing he’s seen since Oslee Amcot tried to wrestle that porcupine.” A faint smile tugged at the corners of Colm’s mouth.
The strangled sound that escaped her seemed to teeter between a hiccup and a sob. The mention of the stablemaster’s son seemed to wield some kind of leverage Colm’s word alone could not. Or perhaps this porcupine business led credibility to his word.
“They do not want you caught,” Colm said gently.
“Did he tell you what Ralenet’s interest in her is?” Oryn asked.
Colm shook his head.
“I overheard one of Norvallen’s men say it was an old grudge. Something about Renley Ryerson being a Queen’s Guard,” Aiden offered.
All eyes turned toward the girl.
“Did you know that?” Oryn demanded.
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “I am the most ignorant woman in Estryia, remember?”
Enya
“What exactly do you propose? Even if we got him out, we’re stuck in the middle of Windcross Wells surrounded by a battalion of wielders and a wall twenty feet thick.”
Enya scrubbed her hands over her face. She had to find a way to get to him, no matter what the demi-elves said. “You said you could bring walls down.”
Oryn ground his teeth. “We could, and then we’d run our horses to death trying to reach Tuminzar before we could be intercepted. There’s no wielding out of this. Not with the outpost here.”
“What about Cedric’s men?” She asked desperately.
“Still too few and even if he’s taken with you, we can’t trust that one of his number won’t be tempted by ten thousand gold marks. They could buy Norvallen House for that.”
She chewed her lip. “What about outside of the city? When they move him again?”
Bade picked at his fingernails. “By all accounts, the Master of Coin is hunkering down for an extended stay.”
“So?” She asked, hating the way her voice cracked. “He can’t stay forever. We can wait him out.”
“Every word you speak, every man who looks at you, is a risk,” Oryn sighed. With each point and counter-point, her chest seemed to constrict tighter and tighter.
