The wall had a slight overhang, necessitating Melcorka to hang backwards with her head further out than her body. She remained like that for a moment, then vaulted onto the battlements and rolled through a crenel, swearing inwardly when the hilt of Defender caught the final merlon with an audible click.
'Who's there?' The nearest sentry spun round. 'Who's that?'
Leaping forward, Melcorka clamped a hand over the sentry's mouth. Without drawing Defender, she jabbed her straight fingers into the pressure point nearest his throat. When the man stiffened into paralysed silence, Melcorka pulled the dirk from under her arm and thrust it into his heart. Tossing the body over the wall, she dropped the rope for Kosala and looked around, just as clouds covered the moon, obscuring her view. She barely had time to see starlight glinting on helmets and spear points before Kosala joined her.
'Now what, Melcorka?'
'Now this.' Melcorka unfastened the rope and tossed it over the wall. 'There is no going back, Kosala. Either we succeed, or we die here.'
'That is the warrior's bargain.'
'Take me to the guardhouse above the gate,' Melcorka said.
Nodding, Kosala set off at a trot. Stairs descended from the interior of the outer wall to an internal courtyard, with the squat bulk of the keep rising beyond. Guards patrolled both the wall and the courtyard, some looking efficient, others evidently lulled into slackness by a sense of the fort's impregnability.
Kosala led them around the shadowed rim of the courtyard, dodging into a dark corner as a patrol tramped past. 'That doorway leads to the interior of the fort.' Kosala nodded to an iron-studded door outside which two guards were lounging, one chewing betel nuts and the other crooning a song of love and lust.
'The guards don't look very alert,' Melcorka whispered.
'Why should they be? Nobody has captured this fort in a hundred years.' Kosala shrugged. 'Only a few weeks ago, they swatted aside a Chola assault with the loss of only two men.' He moved on another twenty paces and ducked into a recess. 'If you plan to go inside the fort, we will have to use that door.'
'Where are the slaves held?' Melcorka asked.
'Through that door and down in the dungeons.' Kosala's eyes darkened. 'I'm not going back down there.'
'Bradan might be there,' Melcorka said.
'Are we not here to open the Seagate?' Kosala asked.
'Yes.' Melcorka stiffened against the wall as another patrol shambled past. 'I'm also looking for Bradan. He is more important to me than the fate of the Chola Empire.'
Kosala nodded. 'He is a fortunate man to have a woman such as you.'
'We have had many adventures together,' Melcorka said. 'I hope we shall have many more. Do you have any suggestions for getting through that door? Or is there another way into the keep?'
'No.' Kosala shook his head. 'The fort was designed for defence, not comfort. Everybody uses that gate.'
'How about the catapults? They could not have been carried through that small gate.'
'The boats brought them in pieces from the mainland and engineers assembled them here.'
'Where is the anchorage for the boats?' Melcorka's mind was three steps ahead of Kosala's.
'Over that way.' Kosala pointed left. 'Down those stairs.'
'Is there access from there to the dungeons?'
'Oh yes. The Thiruzhas took us directly from the boats to the dungeons.'
'That's our way then,' Melcorka said.
'I did not think of that,' honest Kosala admitted.
The fort was built around an inlet in the cliffs, which industrious engineers had widened into a harbour at some time in the past. Melcorka stood watching for a moment, but the harbour was quiet, with a single-masted vessel berthed alongside a stone platform. A pile of sacks sat beside the ship, together with a few score leather bottles.
'Which way is it to the dungeons, Kosala?'
'Over there.' Kosala sounded tense.
Set into the wall of the cliff, the door led to a flight of stairs that descended into stygian blackness. 'I'll go first.' Melcorka drew Defender. 'What else is down there?'
'A nightmare,' Kosala whispered, gripping his sword. 'A place that makes you wish to die rather than live.'
'Are there any guards?'
Kosala nodded. 'Sometimes they visit.'
'The security on this island is very lax,' Melcorka said. 'I thought it would be much more stringent.'
The stench hit Melcorka even before she reached the dungeon. The gut-wrenching, stomach-heaving stink of unwashed humans held in close confinement after hours, days and weeks of constant hard labour. The slaves were confined in a single colossal chamber, chained together at the ankles as they lay on bare, weeping stone. A single guard leaned on a short spear, his head nodding in near-slumber. Without a word, Kosala thrust his sword through the man's throat.
Melcorka watched the guard slump to the ground.
'I remember him,' Kosala said, shuddering at a bitter memory. 'He was a brute.'
Fighting her nausea, Melcorka peered into the unlit chamber. The slaves lay side by side, a dark mass of exhausted men and women. 'Is there a torch?'
'No torch. No light,' Kosala said.
'I want to find Bradan,' Melcorka said. 'How can we free them?'
'Simple. The slaves are attached to a mutual chain.' Kosala pointed to a key at the guard's belt. 'That key fits a single lock that releases everybody.'
'Release them,' Melcorka ordered.
'A couple of hundred slaves charging around the place will alert the garrison that we are here,' Kosala warned.
'I can think of no other way of finding Bradan,' Melcorka said. 'Besides, could there be a better diversion to drag the defenders away from the guardhouse?'
'The guards will slaughter them like sheep,' Kosala said.
'Some might survive, and better a quick death by the edge of a sword than a lingering death as a slave.'
The key turned with an audible click. Some of the slaves looked up with dread in their eyes. 'You are free,' Melcorka said. 'Go and attack the guards. Kill your tormentors before they kill you.' She raised her voice above the increasing hubbub. 'Bradan! Is Bradan the Wanderer in here? Has anybody seen a pale-skinned foreigner?'
There was no
