The Path of the Sword (72 page)

It was Kurin himself who saved the moment. He rolled his eyes and blew out a huff of air.

“Either stab him or don't,” Kurin said. “But if you do, can someone please catch me before I hit the ground again?”

Slowly, hesitantly, steel withdrew.

“Are you all right Kurin?” Jurel asked.

“I'll live. I just need a moment to gather myself,” the old man said with a weak smile.

And so it was. After Kurin drank some water from a skin hidden beneath Daved's cloak, they moved forward until they reached the door. Quickly, they passed through an office, little more than a cell like the one Jurel had just vacated with the exception of a plain, rickety desk, a slightly more tolerable smell, and a second door. And a torch—oh what Jurel would have given to have had a torch in his midnight hole. Gaven said this was where he was posted, this was where his own sentence was carried out.

They hesitated briefly, glancing at one another with uncertainty. Once they crossed the threshold of the second door, they would technically be out of the dungeon, though Gavin informed them the next two levels were largely unpopulated, home only to the rats and the cockroaches who scavenged in the various store rooms.

“I'll go first,” Gaven offered.

“What, so you can alert the first guard you see? I don't think so,” sneered Mikal.

Gaven trained a heated glare on the swordmaster but it was like an angry antelope trying to stare down a tiger. “I'm with you. I've had enough of this place. If you don't believe me, then go ahead and stab me.” To prove his point, he stepped forward and puffed his chest out and placed his hands on his hips. “Go ahead, then.”

It was such a ridiculous situation that Jurel laughed. Years ago, a lifetime ago, Trig had done a surprisingly good imitation of Valik, exaggerating Valik's self-importance. “I am the great Valik,” he had cried with a piping falsetto voice, standing over Darren and Jurel with an expression so haughty it was ridiculous, “I have bedded a million women, and I have poked a million men with my sword. But...I don't own a sword. So what'd I poke 'em with?” Jurel had laughed until tears streamed from his eyes and his ribs hurt. And Gaven stood in exactly that pose now, trying so hard to be impressive, trying his level best to look courageous until it was a parody.

“Let him lead Mikal,” Daved said. “He knows that if he betrays us, it'll be the last thing he ever does.”

“No,” Mikal warned, pointing one blunt finger at Gaven. “The last thing he'll ever do is bleed.”

They pressed themselves against the walls as Gaven pushed open the door and sauntered out as if he owned the place. The door closed and the only sound was the fizzing of the torch on the wall.

Even though Jurel felt stronger with every passing moment, he was still dizzy and his guts clenched and unclenched like a fist. Would Gaven betray them? Would they suddenly hear the door crash open and see a dozen guards storm into the tiny room with swords drawn? As if hearing his thoughts, Mikal drew his sword, a long rasping sound that shredded the silence and grated his ears. Gaven was his friend. He had to be. They had shared a great deal on their trip north and even though Jurel knew he had betrayed the young Soldier, he knew that Gaven was a good man, a man of honor. If he had helped Daved and Mikal, if he had not died in the line of duty on Mikal's sword—or Daved's for that matter—then that meant he would help them get away. Right? He held his breath and hoped, trying not to wince at the frailty of his logic.

The door creaked open and Gaven stepped in.

“Come on,” he said. “The way is clear at least until the next stairs.”

They entered a hallway much like the last one. Rough stone surrounded them still streaked with mold, doors marching into the darkness on both sides, and torches were spread apart so that their guttering flames still did little to alleviate the gloom. It still stank too but where the previous hall smelled like suffering and death, this hall smelled rotten, like ancient wood and spoiled food. Random doors stood open but mostly, the rooms beyond were too dark to see into as if, instead of rooms filled with forgotten stores, he looked into the nothingness that the legends said existed under the world.

They hurried, nearly running down the hallway and once again, a door loomed ahead, barring their way, hiding any obstacles that lay beyond. As before, Gaven went first to scout the way and he returned quickly with good news.

“Still clear,” he murmured. “But we'll have to be careful from here on. The next floor is more used.”

They climbed the narrow steps and Jurel felt as though the walls were pressing them close, closing in on them until he thought that perhaps the very structure they were in was alive and it was angry that they were making good their escape. Stifling his panic, he tried to push away the image in his mind of the walls growing narrower and narrower until finally they met in a cusp that would tolerate no further progress. Of course the walls, though close, never got any closer but still, when they reached the door at the top of the stairs, Jurel breathed a sigh of relief.

They continued on, with Gaven in the lead, passing door after door in this new place that was better lit, better cleaned, and hope began to blossom in Jurel's chest. They had not met a soul so far. Perhaps they could make it out. Perhaps they would reach the final door and fall into sunlight. Or was it night? It did not matter. They would be in the clean air of the world again.

Gaven abruptly raised his hand and halted. Echoes of footsteps reached them around a sharp bend in the hall and voices, low and gravelly accompanied the irregular beat of their feet. Without warning, Gaven disappeared around the corner and Mikal hissed an oath.

“Hey boys,” Gaven called. “You coming to relieve me?”

“Bugger off,” one of them growled at him and the footsteps did not slow. “You're not to be relieved for another shift and you know it.”

“Of course,” Gaven said and laughed wryly. “I should have known the sergeant wouldn't send down four of you to relieve me.”

There were four soldiers ahead and Gaven had told them.
Even with the deadly danger ahead, Jurel could not help but grin as a wave of relief washed through him. Gaven
would not betray them. Gaven was still his friend. For some reason, that was almost more important to Jurel than escaping.

“What are you doin out o yer hole?” another guard asked.

“Just getting a breath of fresh air. Stinks down there you know. Besides, it's not like anyone is going to escape.”

The guards were close. Maybe no more than a few paces away though it was hard to tell. The echoes bounced and rebounded so many times that sometimes it seemed they could have come from behind Jurel's group. And then Gaven's plan came clear to Jurel: the young soldier was making pointless talk so that as the men answered, they unwittingly told the escapees where they were.

“Trying to shirk your duty again I warrant. Get your useless ass back down there before I decide Sarge needs to know.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry. I just wanted to breath something other than shit for a minute. I'm going.”

As soon as Gaven rounded the corner, eyes wide and sweat beading on his forehead like crystals on a crown, he spun and gripped his sword by the hilt and even in the gloom, Jurel could see the white of his knuckles. One step, two, then...

“Now,” whispered Gaven and drawing his sword rounded the corner again followed closely by Mikal and Daved.

When Jurel rounded the corner gripping his own weapon, two of the soldiers were already on the ground, motionless, a third was gaping down at Gaven's sword which was buried to the hilt in his chest, coughing up blood. The fourth stumbled back a step as Daved lunged.

“
ESCAPE!
” he shrieked and his voice echoed up and down the hall so that it seemed that a hundred more voices took up the call.

Daved's blade buried itself and the guard shuddered and slid lifelessly to the ground. But the damage was done. That one shriek threatened them more than the swords that the guards had not even had time to draw.

“Quickly now,” Mikal hissed. “Get these bodies out of sight. Hurry!”

They dragged the bodies, grunting with effort, leaving bloody streaks on the stones into a nearby room as rats squeaked and scurried under piles of moldering sacks and rotting furniture. Closing the door behind them left them in utter blackness and Jurel had to fight the urge to scream, the memory of his cell too fresh in his mind. Sweating, trembling he bit down, clamping his teeth together with such force he thought his jaw would break.

“It's all right Jurel,” Daved whispered in his ear. “You're here with us. Forget about that place.”

Bless him. Bless him for his uncanny ability to know what Jurel was thinking.

“You did good,” Mikal said.

Jurel thought he was the target of the praise but it was Gaven who responded, “Thank you.”

They waited. Surely, someone had heard the guard's call. Surely the hallway would fill with
countless soldiers all looking for blood. Time stretched with nothing but the sound of their coarse breathing to fill in the gaps and it became a physical thing, a pressure that squeezed them like a
vice as it pulled them to tautness until they vibrated like a struck drum. They waited but heard no other sound. They waited and no one came.

When Mikal was satisfied that they had waited long enough, Gaven gingerly opened the door a crack, wincing when it squealed. It was a quiet noise but in the darkness, in the silence, it sounded like a stuck pig.

Down the hall they went, weapons drawn and held ahead of them, a sharp end to a human battering ram, and up the next set of stairs, quietly, quietly, for they knew that though the guard's shriek may have been missed, they may not be so lucky the next time.

The door opened into a much wider hallway. The polished floors gleamed under the gray light that filtered through windows set high in the walls above tapestries that lined both sides depicting images from various stories in the Holy Writs: There was Gaorla standing over the dark lord of the underworld, victorious as he banished the Lord of the Dead to his realm after the War of Sun; another showed Saint Shoka, the first Grand Prelate, the man who had established the priesthood dedicated to Gaorla, and a hundred more that marched along the walls to disappear into the distance.

Save for the ubiquitous doors that broke up the line of tapestries along the walls, there was nowhere for them to hide. As they hurried down the corridor, their steps echoing faintly from the ceiling that rose to a cusp twenty paces above, they watched and listened and prayed silently that they could get to the next door. Only the next door. They did not dare hope for more beyond that. Not yet.

But they reached the door and furtively passed through after another check by Gaven, into an even broader hall with a coffered ceiling that rose seventy maybe eighty paces above them,
buttressed by marble pillars as big around as trees, etched and engraved with all manner of swirling designs that merged and diverged, and Jurel thought his eyes would water if he stared too long. A gathering hall, or
an audience chamber then, he surmised, but one which, considering the lack of furniture, was not used often. They scuttled, hunched over as though they thought they might be less visible that way and they passed close along the pillars.

Halfway through the huge chamber, they heard a noise, no louder than a pin dropping and they stopped glancing warily in every direction. As if from nowhere, a dozen guards then a dozen more materialized from behind pillars and closed doors, pikes drawn and aimed at the small party. They pushed closer and closer, surrounding them, hemming them in and they remained out of reach at the end of their pikes so that not even Mikal with his deadly sword could approach.

“Well then,” said a grating voice somewhere behind the soldiers. “What have we here? Mice escaping the cat's den?”

Despair gripped Jurel in its talons, grief wrenched him, and he mourned the lives about to be lost. His life. Kurin's and Mikal's. His friend who wore the same uniform as his enemies. His father. He looked to each, especially Daved, tried to firmly imprint the memory of their faces in his mind as if he could take those memories with him on the long journey he was certain they were all about to embark on. Perhaps his memories of them would ease the way down the dark path and through the gates of the underworld.

The soldiers parted and a burly man with a livid scar running across his forehead and down his cheek as though at some point in his illustrious career someone had tried to peel his face off, stepped through taking care to keep clear of the swords that were drawn against him and his men. He grinned cruelly as he surveyed them. His eyes lit on Gaven, and he paused, his expression dropping to a stony frown. But still plenty of cruelty.

“I knew you'd be trouble, you little asswipe,” the sergeant growled.

“Sergeant, I hereby tender my resignation effective immediately,” Gaven responded with too much bravado for it to be considered real even for an instant.

“Shut up. The only resignation you'll tender will be on a traitor's gibbet. Shackle them.”

The men drew closer, poking with their weapons until Jurel and his friends were shoulder to
shoulder.

“I suggest you drop your weapons. My men will follow their orders and I don't care whether you're breathing or not when they do.”

With no room to maneuver, no room to twist let alone swing a sword, they complied and the hall resounded with the clang of steel on stone. Men stepped forward carrying thick black chains and efficiently, as men with years of practice, wrists and ankles were bound. When the soldiers stepped back, Jurel noted that his party had the defeated look of a sinking ship's crew.

“There's someone that wants to speak with you,” the sergeant said and with a gesture to his men, turned and strode purposefully from the hall.

The men followed in straight lines of two on either side of the group so that they looked like a parade on the training grounds, their boots clomping in unison, their pikes on their shoulders and rising in a forest whose canopy was glinting steel. They marched on, through hallways that increased in grandeur and opulence until everything around seemed to take on a satiny shimmer or a golden sheen, climbed stairs that were wide and polished with scarlet carpets running down the center like a waterfall of blood, until they reached a set of huge doors with banners of Gaorla's cross, scarlet red on snow white, flanking either side. They stopped as one and the sergeant barked an order to the guard that stood at attention in front of the wide doors.