Chapter 4
They were gaining on the Ktasi’on every day but the storm had held them up too much, and the Tarasanka ship had berthed in Taraska’s harbour before they even sailed into the bay.
The winds had dropped to almost nothing and all Eleanor’s frustration couldn’t make the sails fill out any more than they were, so they drifted slowly towards the shore. She watched the Ktasi’on through the telescope, hoping for any sign of Gisele, but saw only the loading and unloading of supply crates.
“Maybe we should take the little boat and row?” she suggested to Daniel.
“Have you gone out of your mind? Rowing would gain us very little speed at the expense of a great deal of work.”
“But we’re losing Gisele. Every moment we’re stuck out here is giving them time to hide her further away.”
“You said yourself they are not strategic thinkers,” Daniel said. “I doubt they are building a maze to conceal her. They will simply deposit her in a dungeon somewhere and assume their defences are sufficient.”
“I’ve broken in to their prison before,” Eleanor said. “Although if they’ve finished building the new citadel, who knows what that’ll be like. We should have paid more attention to those plans.”
“The trick plans?”
“This might be our chance to find out just how tricky they were. Do you think we can remember the key features?”
“I remember the secret passageway that was so obviously designed to bait us. I doubt we would have any trouble finding its end.”
“It’s probably got a big sign saying ‘Secret passage to the citadel,’ with a bright red arrow pointing the way,” she said. Even the idea made her laugh. “And it’s probably written in Charanthe, just for us. I think I’d rather not take that route, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Indeed.”
They looked up to where the gilded turrets of the new citadel caught the late evening light, shining out even more brightly than the rest of the city’s sparkling skyline.
“But seriously, what do you reckon?” Eleanor asked. “The old one that we know, or the new one that they want us to attack?”
“Just because they have built some traps does not mean that the new citadel is just for show. Surely even they would not waste that much money on a mere trap.”
“Perhaps not – but the old one seemed fairly well built. I’m not sure why they’d replace it.”
“Maybe because you found your way out,” he said. “I expect that was not popular. And they are paranoid.”
“Well, perhaps we should start by going in the way that I know. If we don’t find Gisele in the cells where they held me, we can take a look at the new buildings.”
Eventually they reached the quay, and Eleanor and Daniel disembarked with only a hasty goodbye to their shipmates. Eleanor caught sight of her reflection in the water as she scrambled to shore, and was taken by surprise at the dark hair framing her face. She hardly recognised herself, which was reassuring. Even the Tarasanka soldiers who’d guarded her cell would be unlikely to identify her now.
“At least we don’t have to wait long for nightfall,” Eleanor said. The sun had already dipped below the height of the buildings.
“We will need to eat,” Daniel said. “Preferably before we go breaking into citadels.”
“There are plenty of food stalls, but you won’t like any of them,” Eleanor said. “I suggest we go back to the tavern where Raf and I stayed. We can get a meal there and leave some of this baggage.”
“I am not sure that is a good idea. What if they recognise you?”
“The landlord probably will, but he’s a good bloke. He’s helped us before.” It was only as she spoke that she remembered how he and his friends had leeched every last coin from Raf – but she didn’t have any other ideas, so she kept her reservations to herself. She and Daniel could take care of each other.
“Where is it, then?”
“Follow me.”
She led him through the still-familiar streets with an ease that surprised her; it had been a couple of years, but at every turn it felt like only yesterday that she’d last run around these corners. The tavern still had the same tatty bead curtain across the door. Eleanor pushed her way inside and led Daniel through to the landlord’s living quarters in the back.
“Is your attic room free?” she asked, gesturing towards the ladder.
The landlord looked at her suspiciously, and she suddenly remembered how different she looked. She held her hands up to cover her hair and recognition flashed into his eyes, followed swiftly by fear.
“You is coming to revenge your friend?” he asked.
“What? Oh, no. No, Raf’s fine, he’s back home.” She studiously ignored Daniel’s quizzical expression. “We’d like to stay with you for a few days, if you have space.”
He nodded, and waved them up.
“What was he afraid of?” Daniel asked. “What is your history here?”
“It’s nothing. Just some business with Raf after I came back to the Empire.”
“But you trust this man?”
“I trust him not to turn us in, yes.”
“Why?”
“We’ll pay him.” Eleanor piled their bags under the table, and fished out a couple of coins from her purse. “Come on, let’s see what he’s got for us to eat.”
After a quick supper of fish in a bitter Tarasanka sauce, they ventured out into the night. Eleanor picked out a circuitous route around to the tower she and Raf had escaped from; thankfully, the streets in that part of town were deserted after dark.
“Well, here it is.” She waved her hand up towards the tower. “It’s a tough climb. Are you ready?”
“I will follow you,” Daniel said, so she started to scout out holds on the wall.
As she reached what she thought was about the half way point she jammed her fingers into a crack that was just wide enough for the job, braced her toes against sheer rock, and turned to look down at Daniel’s progress. As she watched him struggle beneath her, she realised she’d overestimated his abilities – and underestimated the smooth black stones. She forced a wedge into the crack, roped herself into a quick harness and dropped a few feet down the wall to face him.
“You should go back,” she said, steadying herself against the wall. “I’m sorry, I remembered it being a hard climb but I assumed the academy would have taken us so far on that it’d be easy now.”
“It is fine,” Daniel said, although the beads of sweat on his forehead told otherwise. “I am fine.”
He tried to slide his dagger between two blocks of stone to give himself a hand-hold, but to no avail.
“Are you stable?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Wait there. I’ll throw the rope back when I get to the top, and you can climb that way.”
“You do not need to worry, I–”
“It’s not surprising you can climb ropes better than walls, but it won’t help either of us if you end up falling,” Eleanor said flatly. “Stay there until I can tie this off at the top.”
She pulled herself back up the rope to where she’d lodged the wedge, jammed her fingers again, and loosed her rope. She glanced back to make sure that Daniel was obeying her instruction, and then began to hunt for her next grip. It was slow progress. She was undoubtedly more skilled than the last time she’d made this climb, but that simply meant the wall was merely challenging, rather than near-impossible. No amount of practice would make this into an easy climb, and several times she had to spring from a single hand- or foot-hold to grab at a crevice that was otherwise beyond her reach.
When she finally reached the top she looped one end of her rope around a stone antefix and threw the end down to where Daniel was still spreadeagled against the stones. He tied a harness and tested it before transferring his weight to the rope; Eleanor braced herself against the wall to support him as he started to climb.
“Wasn’t that easier?” she asked as he swung his leg up and r
olled onto the ledge.
Daniel nodded, but said nothing.
“Sorry I didn’t think of it earlier.” She wound the rope around her arm and dropped it onto the ledge. “We can leave that until we get back. Come on.”
The tower door was locked, but it was a simple latch and yielded quickly. Eleanor pushed it open slowly, looking for traps or guards, but saw none. She stepped inside, looked around once more, and waved for Daniel to follow her. She led him down towards the cell where she and Raf had been imprisoned: that their captors had chosen to put them in a room together, with all the risks that entailed, probably suggested that they didn’t have too many cells to choose from.
Eleanor was sure she knew the way back through the familiar corridors, but something was different. She held her breath as she opened the door to the torture chamber, but found only an empty room. Likewise, the cell where she’d spent so many nights was now unlocked and deserted.
“Looks like I made you struggle with that climb for nothing,” she said. “They’ve cleared up. They must really be using the new citadel.”
“Are you sure this is the place?”
She glared at him. “It’s not the sort of thing you forget.”
“What?”
“Look, this was where they tortured us, okay?” She pushed the door open again with a bang, abandoning any attempt at stealth now she was sure the tower wasn’t being used. The sound echoed around the empty chamber. “This room’s going to be seared into my memory forever – every flagstone, every brick, every piece of equipment that they’ve now moved somewhere else. I only have to close my eyes to see it as it was.”
Daniel nodded, though she was fairly sure he didn’t really understand. There was no way he could imagine it when he’d never experienced anything worse than the academy’s interrogation classes.
“Come on, then,” she said. “No point in hanging around here when we’ve got work to do.”
“The new citadel,” Daniel said. “We must step into the jaws of the trap.”
Eleanor held the rope again for Daniel to abseil down the wall, then lowered herself part way before releasing the rope and climbing the remaining distance.
It was easy to find the new citadel, gleaming as it was above the rest of the city, but there was no obvious angle of attack. Armed guards patrolled the walls, and several watch-towers looked out over the streets.
“Looks like you were right,” Eleanor said. “They really are paranoid.”
“This is a good sign.”
“How, exactly?”
“Their defences are all on display. In which case, we need only to devise a plan and follow it.”
He said it with such finality as to suggest that was the end of the matter, but Eleanor wasn’t reassured. Stating the need for a plan didn’t bring them any closer to having one.
“Do you not see?” he asked when she didn’t respond. “If they are so unsubtle, they will not be expecting subtlety. We have them at a disadvantage.”
“Okay, then, what do you propose?”
He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her towards him. “Let us walk,” he said. “Pretend we are enjoying an evening stroll, and we will see what we can see.”
They wandered slowly through the streets which marked the citadel’s perimeter. Despite the late hour, this part of town was bustling with activity: hawkers and hookers loitered on the corners, inviting passers-by to sample their wares. Eleanor didn’t need encouraging to put a possessive arm around Daniel’s waist as they walked.
“This area was all houses last time I was here,” she said, looking up at the sleek grey walls which now towered above them. “And it’s only been a couple of years. That’s fast work.”
“Your escape must have really upset them.”
“A couple of kids breaking out of a cell isn’t exactly cause for a building like this. Anyway, it looks pretty unassailable, which is all I care about right now – we can’t climb up with so many guards looking out.”
“I am not looking for a climbing route.”
“What, then?”
“Supplies must go in somewhere, as must the staff. If we do this right, they will show us inside.”
They eventually found the service entrance at the back of the citadel, a low door set into the inland-facing wall. Even in the dark, a small convoy of carts waited in a line outside the gate.
Daniel fished around under his cloak, pulled out a small bundle, and threw it hard against a nearby wall. It burst into blue flames with a series of popping sounds, sending sparks flying across the street.
“Now!” he said as all eyes turned towards the fire. He gripped her arm and pulled her towards the nearest produce cart. The crates were easily large enough to conceal a person... if only they weren’t full of waxy-skinned fruit. Daniel prised up the nearest lid and started to shovel fruits from the crate into the street, kicking them to make them roll down the hill and out of sight. Eleanor scrambled up onto the cart and followed suit with the next crate, scooping out just enough space for her to slide inside. She pulled the lid down and lay still, breathing quietly. She could feel her body beginning to crush the fruit beneath her; juice seeped into her clothes and the acidic smell filled her nostrils. Daniel had also stopped moving around, and for a while she could hear only the popping and crackling of the distraction firecracker, and the alarmed shouting of foreign voices. It wasn’t long before that, too, faded into silence, and shortly they felt the cart begin to move beneath them, rattling down towards the citadel.
The crates bumped uncomfortably as they were unloaded and Eleanor braced herself against the wooden walls, trying not to squash any more tell-tale juice from the fruits. Once the room finally fell silent around them, she pushed the lid from her crate and clambered out. Hers was on top of a stack of half a dozen similar boxes, and she dropped to the ground before looking for Daniel. A quiet thudding from inside a nearby stack drew her attention.
“Daniel?” She knocked on the slats of the crate. “Are you in there?”
He grunted his assent.
“Okay, stop struggling, there are a couple of boxes on top of yours. I’ll move them.”
She heaved the first one down; the corner splintered as it hit the flagstones and powdered spices spilled out across her feet, throwing a fragrant cloud into the air. She pulled the second crate down on top of the first, and reached across to lift the lid from above Daniel’s head.
“See?” Daniel said, a smug smile creeping across his features as he swung himself to the ground. “It was simple.”
“Now we just need to figure out where they’re holding her.”
“The plans showed dungeons beneath the east wing.”
Eleanor stamped her feet, trying to clear the spices from her shoes, but succeeded only in making another dust cloud. “And you suddenly trust those plans?”
“No – I think that is the last place we should look.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much, then. Let’s see where we are, and then we can try to be systematic about it.”
As it happened, the cells and the food stores were both in an underground segment at the back of the citadel, and it didn’t take them long to find where Gisele was being held. There weren’t even guards on the corridor; apparently they were putting all their faith in the outer defences. Gisele was manacled to the wall, but the locks on her iron cuffs were crude and Eleanor popped them open with minimal effort.
“Gisele,” she said, shaking her by the shoulder. “Gisele, wake up.”
She clicked her fingers in front of Gisele’s face, slapped her cheeks, and shook her again, harder. Gisele’s eyelids fluttered, but she made no real response.
Eleanor draped her friend’s arm over her shoulder and hauled her to her feet, but Gisele couldn’t support her own weight and there was no chance of holding that position with any stability. Eleanor lowered her to the floor again, hoisted her by the armpits, and edged towards the door where Daniel was waiting. For all that she tried t
o be gentle, Gisele’s body bumped along the floor and she moaned.
“Sorry,” Eleanor said. “It’s not far.”
Daniel came across to see what was happening. “Can I help?” he asked.
“You’re supposed to be watching the door. What if someone comes?”
“You sounded like you were struggling.”
“Well, if you want to swap you can get Gisele out of here and I’ll take over the watch,” Eleanor said. “See if you can figure out what they’ve drugged her with, and whether you’ve got anything to make an antidote.”
Daniel bent over Gisele’s limp body and he started to count her pulse as Eleanor went outside to check the corridor.
“Are we carrying any stimulants?” he called.
“I haven’t got any drugs,” Eleanor said. “Unless you count whatever you’ve used to dope these darts.”
“Assassin’s hand and sleepfast,” he said. “Well, assassin’s hand is a convulsant – that might drag her out of this stupor.”
“I thought it was fatal?”
“Oh, it is, when you administer a whole dose into the vein. But if she is heavily sedated already, a drop on her tongue may just work to wake her. Pass me your darts.”
“Are you sure? We don’t want to risk hurting her.”
“Trust me.”
Eleanor watched nervously as he held Gisele’s mouth open and squeezed a tiny drop of the poison from the tip of one of the darts. Gisele coughed and spluttered, looking for a moment as if she might choke, and then her eyes flew open. It took her a moment to focus, and when she saw where she was she was gripped by pure horror. Eleanor forgot all about the watch duties she’d promised to take on, and hurried across the room to take hold of her friend’s hand.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Gisele. It’s me. Don’t panic, we’re going to get you home.”
“Eleanor?” Gisele blinked, confused. “Am I dreaming?”
“You’re not dreaming.”
“Where are we? And what’s happened to your hair?”
“I’ll explain later – first, we have to get you out of here. How are you feeling? Do you think you can walk?”
“I’ll try.”
Gisele struggled to her feet, and with Eleanor and Daniel supporting her on either side she managed to take a few wobbly steps forwards before stumbling. They caught her and kept her upright, but walking out of the citadel was going to be a lengthy process.
“If we meet anyone, we’re going to have to put you down quickly,” Eleanor said. “And if we do, you just need to keep your head down and stay out of the way. Okay?”
Gisele nodded. They led her forwards a few more steps, through the door and into the corridor, and caught her as her knees gave way.
“You’re doing fine,” Eleanor said as they propped her up again. “We’ll just take it really slowly.”
As they turned the corner, though, they came upon a pair of guards – and going slowly ceased to be an option. They ran for the store room, dragging Gisele behind them, and pushed her to the ground behind a pile of crates. Daniel and Eleanor crawled after her and readied their weapons.
“Stay down,” Eleanor whispered as the guards came into the room, calling out and challenging in Tarasanka, one banging his staff against the flagstones.
Eleanor stood and loosed stars from both hands, then ducked out of sight again as Daniel stood to take his turn. But although one of the guards fell, the room was too small to keep any kind of distance in the fight. By the time she stood to make her aim again the remaining guard was close beside them, blowing a series of short bursts on a whistle he held clenched between his teeth.
Eleanor leaned on the top of the nearest barrel to topple it, then sent it rolling towards the guard’s legs. He jumped from its path straight into range of Daniel’s knife, and fell to his knees as Daniel finished him off with a neat cut across the throat.
“Let’s get out of here,” Eleanor said, wrestling with the first of three thick iron bars which closed the supply gate. Daniel stepped across to help her while Gisele leaned against a stack of crates and watched, still too weak to be of use. They were about to start hefting the second bar when heavy footsteps in the corridor warned them of a dozen guards arriving at a run.
Eleanor slid knives from her wrist-sheathes, but before she could loose a single blade the guards had already grabbed Gisele by the arms. Daniel and Eleanor dashed forwards together, ducking and slashing, but the guards swung their staves like clubs, raining heavy blows and making it impossible to get close without getting hit. A glancing blow to Eleanor’s temple was followed by another staff crashing down on the back of her skull; if they struck her again it was after she was already unconscious.