“Good luck,” Brother Willim says then runs through the door.
The stairs spiral around three times before ending at the mouth of a corridor. It extends away from stairs and in the distance they can see where it opens up onto a dimly lit room.
“Hope that’s where we’ll find them,” Jiron says to Aleya as he enters the corridor.
“Should be,” she replies.
Moving forward at a run, they soon are approaching the room with the light. Movement is seen on the other side. From the amount of light coming through the partially opened door, there can’t be more than a single candle burning on the other side.
Jiron glances back to Aleya and finds her with arrow set to bow, ready. Reaching for the door, he pulls it back and races into the room. A single guard is sitting at the table, and before Jiron can cross over to him, an arrow flies past his ear and takes the man through the neck.
“No!” cries out Jiron as the guard falls to the ground dead.
“What?” asks Aleya.
“He could have told us where they were being held,” he tells her.
“Sorry,” she said.
He sighs. “Don’t be,” he says. “You did the right thing considering the circumstances. Just hold off a second next time.” Looking around the room, they find three doors which lead deeper into the dungeon, all of which are closed.
“Which one?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he replies.
Moving past him into the room, Aleya begins examining the floor before each of the doors.
“Now what are you doing?” he asks.
“Seeing if the floor may tell us which way to go,” she says. Then she kneels down before the door on the right and says, “This way.”
“How can you tell?” he asks coming to kneel beside her.
She points to a scuff mark on the floor. “This is more recent than anything else before the other two.”
Nodding, he gives her a quick hug and kiss. “I knew I brought you along for some reason,” he says with a grin.
She returns his grin and reaches for the door handle. Opening it up, they find a corridor lined with doors on both sides. Each of the doors is very stout, with a small window about two thirds of the way up, and a sturdy deadbolt lock.
The corridor grows dark at about the fifth set of doors and then remains so until coming to another light far in the distance. Jiron takes the lead and is about to enter when Aleya stops him. “How are Miko and Brother Willim to know which way we went?” she asks.
“It’s the only door that’s open,” he tells her with the expression that she should have known that.
Giving him a weird look, she takes the dead guard and drags him by the hand until he’s halfway in the doorway. Removing her arrow from the guard’s body she says, “Now there won’t be any confusion.”
Jiron rolls his eyes as she cleans her arrow on the dead man’s shirt. Muttering to himself, he sets off at a quick run toward the light at the other end of the corridor with Aleya right behind. As they pass through the dark area, a voice calls to them from behind a door on their right.
Jiron pauses and turns his attention toward the voice. A hand reaches out toward him as the voice again calls to him pleadingly in the Empire’s tongue. “Sorry,” Jiron says to whomever the hand belonged to then resumes his run toward the light at the end of the corridor.
“Shouldn’t we have done something for that man?” Aleya asks in a hushed tone.
“Don’t have time for everyone,” he tells her. “Got to save the ones we came for.”
She remains quiet as they reach the area of the corridor where the light from the end begins to illuminate.
Jiron slows down and starts walking on the balls of his feet in order to reduce the chance of his boots making a scraping noise. If there is anyone ahead, he doesn’t want to alert them that they are there. Moving closer to what is beginning to look like a room that the corridor opens out onto, they strain to hear if someone is there. Silence is all that comes from the room ahead of them.
When Jiron is no more than five feet from the end of the corridor, he motions for Aleya to wait while he moves forward to check it out. Leaving her behind, he keeps close along the corridor’s right side as he edges forward. The room is an interrogation room, or at least he thinks so. Within are several torture devices used in extracting information. One, a cage not tall enough for a man to stand erect has a decomposing corpse within it. Four torches held in wall sconces are the source of the light.
Jiron waves Aleya forward and she enters the room. Two other corridors extend from the room, one straight across from the one they just left, and another to their right. He moves to check the one across the room and gestures to Aleya that she should check the other.
The one down which Jiron checks is dark and quiet. Aleya moves to the entrance of the one to the right. Stepping a few feet into the corridor, she hears voices coming from further down. Returning to the room, she says, “There’s someone down this way. I can hear voices.”
Jiron crosses over to the entrance to the corridor just as someone bursts into the room from the direction they came. Startled, he pulls his knives as Brother Willim comes to a stop before him. “Miko needs help!” he exclaims.
“What?” he asks as he puts his knives back into their sheathes.
“Guards showed up,” he explains. “Lots of them. He’s holding them off.”
“Damn!” he says. Making his mind up quickly, he says, “He’ll have to hold out a few minutes longer. Follow me.” With there being no longer any time for skulking about, he sprints down the corridor toward the voices. Even before he reaches the end of the corridor he recognizes Korgan’s voice.
“…been too long,” Korgan says.
Whack!
“Tell me what I want to know and I’ll be merciful,” he says.
“You’ll get nothing from me,” Perrilin’s voice replies.
Perrilin? He would have thought for sure that Korgan would have been interrogating James first. No time to figure it out, he doubles his speed when he hears the sound of someone being struck again. As he draws close, he sees a guard standing with his back to the mouth of the corridor. Jiron pulls his knives, and when he emerges from the corridor, sinks one of them into the guard’s back. He strikes the man with such force his knife sinks to the hilt and wedges in between two vertebrae. As the man lurches forward from the blow, his knife is pulled from his hand.
“Jiron!” he hears Stig shout happily.
In a flash he scans the room. Sees Korgan standing startled before Perrilin who’s tied to a chair, three other guards in the room beside the one he just killed, and his friends shackled to the wall.
Reaching down, he pulls the dead guard’s sword from its sheath and turns to face Korgan. One of the guards pulls his sword and rushes Jiron, but is thrown backward onto a table by the force of Aleya’s arrow striking him in the chest.
“Stay where you are!” cries Korgan. Moving closer to Perrilin, he lays the edge of a knife menacingly alongside the bard’s throat.
Jiron stands there and contemplates his next course of action.
Thwock!
Another arrow flies from the corridor and takes Korgan in the shoulder above the arm that’s holding the knife. Perrilin cries out as the knife rakes across his throat when his captor is struck.
“Kill them all!” Korgan cries as he staggers back from the blow.
At his command, the two remaining guards rush Jiron.
“See to Perrilin!” Jiron hollers as Brother Willim enters the room. As his knife blocks the blow from one guard, he yells to Aleya, “Find the keys!” Bringing the sword in from the side, he causes the second guard to dart backward.
Brother Willim rushes past where Jiron is battling with the two guards and comes to Perrilin. Blood gushes from the severed jugular and he knows the bard has little time left.
