Whalestone Jail rose through the nighttime fog three-storey stone walls looming up from the shore of a narrow river. The veritable castle of imprisonment looked out over both the river and the sea, for the fog was rolling in from the coast—which lay just past the Jail from the pair of dark rowboats. Tirak had glimpsed the moon lighting the mist aglow before the other mercenaries had pulled the black blankets over the top of the rowboat.
At the sound of clanging metal, the rowboats started to move. The commotion inside the prison had begun—and hopefully the guards would be distracted. Sergeant Naram’s squad would seize the front gate of the prison, while Adrix’s squad went over the wall and started opening cells. Marako was out there somewhere, in the brush across the river, ready to cover the mercenaries with his bow.
Crouched in the darkness beneath the blankets, Garn was nearly invisible. “You a good climber?” he asked Tirak. “Fast?”
Tirak shrugged. “Why don’t we find out if you can keep up?” he returned. He was winding himself up for the challenge, ready for whatever would come. He imagined the fog passing around them—he felt the dampness on the black covering above his head. He imagined the cold stone walls growing quietly nearer, ready to be grappled.
The creaking of the rowboats was overcome by a shouted voice. “Ho! Who’s down there?” It was a guard.
The next sound should have been a dull thud—arrow hitting flesh. Instead…a wooden clatter. Marako’s shot had missed.
“Attack! There’s someone attacking the west wall!” another voice shouted.
Then the rowboat groaned across watery rocks and came to rest upon the river bank. The black covering was thrown off. “Charge!” roared Sergeant Adrix. Tirak dashed for the wall, feet thundering across the ten paces of grass. More arrows flew—but down at them! Tirak heard someone grunt, but couldn’t look back until he reached the base of the stone wall.
Diggs had fallen to his knees, an arrow protruding from his shoulder. He fell to his side on the grass, clutching the arrow shaft.
Adrix and Brellik threw up the first grappling hooks. Marako, somewhere off in the bush, released another arrow at the guards above, but it was unclear if it was of any use. A bell had begun to ring, echoing the pounding blood in Tirak’s ears.
Just as Brellik got a few paces up the wall, rope gripped in his hands, the rope went slack. He landed on his feet, hard, and started cursing. “My ankle! Gods!” he roared.
Adrix, who was about to start his own ascent, froze. He glanced at the others, glanced up the wall, then shook his head. “Back to the boats! Back! Ralist, grab Diggs!” Tirak followed, dashing back to the boats. They hauled the wooden vessels up onto their sides. Another pair of arrows thumped into the bottom of the boats.
“It’s not good,” Ralist muttered, hands stained red with Diggs’ blood. The latter was conscious, but hardly lucid. Tirak had seen the daze of injury many times before, but had only experienced it once. He did not envy Diggs—that arrow had gone deep.
“Damn it,” Adrix cursed. “Naram will send help—he has to. As soon you hear him, we lift these rowboats and get back up to the wall. They’re our shields.”
More arrows punctuated his orders. Marako was taking fire now too, seeking out larger trees for cover. Tirak counted to ten, then started again. It was taking too long. That bell would call all the guards up to the walls—the diversion inside Whalestone would be wasted.
Then—at last—shouting rung out from the wall again. Wordless curses were exchanged, and then bloodied cries. “Hurry on up, Adrix!” someone called down from the battlements.
“Move, move, move!” Adrix roared.
Tirak hauled the bow of the rowboat up over his head and pulled forward as the others behind him complied. As soon as they reached the wall, the boats were turned aside. Diggs slumped down against the wall—he had half-limped and had been half-dragged along with them. Tirak had noticed that Brellik had been limping as well. He watched for danger above while the others hurled grappling hooks up and over.
Marako was splashing through the river. “I’ve got Diggs!” he called. “Get up there!”
Adrix nodded and led the way up. Tirak was second up the other rope, following Ralist. Three East Storm mercenaries were crouched against the battlements—Tirak clasped hands with a man he had never met before. There were three dead guards up here too, and one had an arrow from Marako in his neck.
“We’d best get back to the gate,” one of Naram’s men told Adrix, and hurried off. The sounds of fighting were picking up—prisoners and soldiers were clashing within the jail already.
Adrix turned to his squad. “Ralist, Garn, Tirak—as soon as we get downstairs—start opening cells. The rest of you, with me. We’re going to do what we can to keep the guards distracted. Brellik—how’s the ankle? Fine, go with Ralist and the others instead.”
Brellik nodded. His ankle was badly swollen after the climb.
They hit the bottom of the stairs in a rush, turning into an adjoining corridor of cells and hammering locks off doors. Instead of damaging his favourite axes, Tirak used the short sword he’d been given from the Company to pry the locks off. The first two prisoners he freed were already at their door, ready for freedom. The third was malnourished and barely stirred when his cell opened. Tirak figured some of the other prisoners could carry those in need, if they wanted.
They passed a flight of stairs leading down to more prison cells. Ralist glanced at the others and ordered, “You guys keep going up here. I’ll take some of those we’ve freed down below to get started.”
“I’m coming with you,” Garn said, and hurried down the steps with Ralist. The more eager of the prisoners had found scraps of metal or had broken chair legs off to use as weaponry.
Clang! Another lock broke off. The ringing bell had stopped, thankfully. At one point, Tirak glimpsed Adrix and Zelra fighting a pair of guards across a wide courtyard in the middle of the prison. They had it under control, so he pressed on, freeing another pair of prisoners. Some of the prisoners thanked him—others walked out like they owned Whalestone itself.
Then Tirak and Brellik rounded a corner and found five guards facing them, armed and ready. Tirak glanced at his comrade, gave him a nod, and leapt forward.
The first guard went down with a stab to the gut from the short sword, but the second put up a better fight. Tirak felt the climb in his joints now, but his muscles were ready for this fight. He ducked and hacked, dodged and swiped. When his second adversary stumbled back against the wall, Tirak followed with fury—stabbing with his sword, maiming with his axe. He turned to see two prisoners fighting another of the guards, while a third looked for an opening. The prisoners had already killed one and so had Brellik—but now Tirak’s comrade was leaning against the opposite wall, with a concerned prisoner holding him by the shoulder.
The two remaining guards would overcome the ragtag prisoners, no doubt, but Tirak strode to Brellik’s side first. “How bad?” he asked.
Brellik was wrapping his torso up with a length of bandaging cloth—it was the proper material, but he was rushing. A long gash ran up his side, then continued at the crest of his shoulder. It would require a score of stitches but wasn’t immediately life threatening. “Damned ankle,” he muttered. “Threw me right off.”
Tirak nodded, but then advanced into the fray once more. While the first fight had felt more like a trade for trade of move and countermove, Tirak found his flow for the second bout. While the prisoners kept harassing one of the two remaining guards, Tirak targeted the second. He approached quickly, forcing the armoured man to make jabs at him. He side-stepped each with lightning-fast reflex, then hooked his axe at the man’s spear, catching the point and angling it away. His short sword clanged off the man’s plate-clad chest, glancing away. When the man quickly backstepped to jab his spear at Tirak once more, Tirak had already moved out of the way. He closed the distance quickly once more, every footstep in the right spot, every muscle grounded and wound up, ready. Then, like a spring, he released his attacks again, drawing blood at the guard’s forearm and eliciting a grunt from the soft opening under the other arm. The guard dropped his spear from numbed fingers and Tirak finished him off with a stab to the neck.
By then, the prisoners had—with casualties—finished off the other guard.
Tirak returned to Brellik, feeling the energetic bounce in his knees. This was his place in the world—connecting metal, man, and mind. He grabbed one of the nearby prisoners and passed him the short sword. “Open up the rest of these cells,” he told the man, and marked the convict by jet-black hair. “I’ll find you if you run off and fail to do what I ask.”
The prisoner nodded fearfully and accepted the weapon.
“Let’s find Adrix and see what the plan is,” Tirak decided.
Brellik nodded. “How many guards can be left anyway? I’m right behind you,” he muttered. When Tirak grabbed his shoulder to help him ease weight off the bad ankle, he corrected the phrase: “Er, beside you.”
Together they returned down the corridor and found the courtyard was now full of freed prisoners. Mercenaries from both East Storm Company squads were scattered throughout the crowd, but Tirak and Brellik found many of them had converged on the side closest to the gate. Brellik’s side was wet with blood, but he didn’t groan as he walked, and his eyes were still clear of the daze.
“What happened to you?” Adrix called, when he saw the two coming through the throngs of freed prisoners.
Brellik groaned. “Had a real unfortunate run-in with someone’s hedge-trimmers. It’ll heal.”
“And leave one wicked scar,” joked Zelra, who was loitering nearby with Ralist and Sergeant Naram. Zelra only sported a bruise on her forearm.
“What’s happening?” Brellik asked.
Adrix sighed. “When Sergeant Naram sent some of his men to help us, the guards set upon them at the gate. We think all our people are fine, on one side or the other. But the gate is firmly under control by the guards.”
“Should we charge them?” Naram asked. He spread his hands toward the growing mob of prisoners. “This lot seems more than ready for it.”
“Could work…” Adrix murmured. “But our goal is to get them into the streets, not get half of them killed.”
“How many guards are we talking?” Brellik asked.
Adrix grimaced. “Another ten or fifteen yet…at last count.”
“We don’t outnumber them, but it’s close enough to a fair fight,” Naram pointed out. He was, of course, talking about the mercenaries. There were easily more than fifteen prisoners in the gathered crowd. “The prisoners would tip the scale…but you’re right, it’s costly.”
“Then let’s not choose,” Ralist chipped in, looked past Zelra at them. “Make the guards choose.”
That set Adrix’s eyes ablaze. “Right, right. Tirak, Zelra—all of you. Let’s pass the word. Gather at the other end of the courtyard, just down from the gate.”
Tirak shared a glance with Zelra. She was as eager for a fight as he was, but if they could resolve this mission without extra risk…it was the right call. Once they had passed the word, Tirak returned to Brellik’s side. He would make sure Brellik got out with head on his shoulders, no matter what came next.
Once the mob had moved closer to the gate, Adrix marched out in front of them and spread his scarred arms. He shouted to the guards, “Got a whole lot of angry prisoners down here, friends! I don’t think we could stop them if we tried. They’re seeing those streets tonight.”
The guards were listening. Some glanced around nervously. Those closest to their commander held their resolve.
“Now…we could fight this out. A whole lot of widows will be made this evening,” Adrix explained. “Or—you can step aside, and we can all walk away from something truly tragic.”
The guards were shifty enough. Some were even starting to back away while others looked to their commander. Their muttering could be heard from where Tirak stood.
Adrix started to advance—and the mob moved forward with him. “Well, what will it be?”
At last, the commander hung his head. He spoke to his subordinates, though his words did not carry all the way to Tirak’s ears. Then he raised his voice. “You leave us be!” he bellowed. “Or we will retaliate.”
The prisoners hurried toward freedom, but the mercenaries moved cautiously. Adrix warned them, “Be ready for anything.”
Tirak could scarcely imagine it working. His grip on his axes tightened. These guards would likely face severe punishment for letting the prisoners go—often a punishment so severe they might death as an alternative in the heat of the moment. Nonetheless, the guards moved down an adjoining corridor, watching the mob exit the gate with caution. Finally, even Tirak had made it out of Whalestone Jail and back into the foggy streets of the waterfront.
“Let’s get back to the boats. The district gates will be under heavy guard tonight,” Adrix told his squad. The prisoners were splitting off quickly, hurrying off to whatever hiding spots or homes they had in the district. Some thanked the mercenaries, but the hardened prisoners walked out without a word to their saviors.
As they returned the rowboats to nurse their wounds and retreat to safety, Zelra and Garn bantered about why the guards would stand down. From the sounds of it, Tirak still had lots to learn about the dynamic between law and coin, in Eastpoint. The East Storm Company was a better fighting force than most any of the other warriors employed in the city. Giving severe punishments for failure to face a Company mercenary would be a waste of money—money invested in loyal guards.
Tirak could hardly care less. He had proven himself again—and the mission had been completed despite its initial difficulties. He grabbed an oar as they clambered aboard the rowboats and enjoyed the cool night air.