Raya sat with her back against the cool stone wall and inhaled deeply. Benn had insisted on picking the lock, despite Ailo’s offer to do the deed himself. He fiddled quickly, his eyes focused and a layer of sweat on his brow. It felt like it was taking too long—guards were patrolling ten feet over their heads, after all.
The jail they had chosen for their first group of rescued slaves was a small square building, half shrouded by the smoke of evening torches and the shadows of the cloudy night. The streets of Massed Alley were empty at this time, especially these days. This part of the Alley was a vague divide between Domeran’s properties and the streets of the Delivered.
Despite all this, Raya and her comrades had seen only one guard up top. She wondered what it meant for their heavily-discussed plans.
Axar had suggested a stealthy entry at night, followed by the slaying of any conscious guards and the blockading of those residing in sleeping quarters. According to him, the guards were living in the prison now, though they had once worked there. Separated from their comrades on the City Watch by the contested streets of siblings or parents of the men and women they kept under lock-and-key, the sentries were sleeping and eating and passing the sunny hours inside this square stone block.
When Raya had pointed out how aggressive a plan that seemed, murdering the guards on duty and all, Axar sneered. “How do you think someone finally killed the Mage Kings? Plenty of innocent bystanders and slaved died that day. The Revolution of Ith failed because the revolutionaries didn’t want to get their hands dirty.”
Benn had been opposed to the idea as well, and started forming an idea with Dondar. They suggested that, while it was dangerous to reveal their identities in the public streets of Massed Alley, a public urging of assault on the barracks could stir up a riot. It would vindicate Raya’s name, if successful, and bring the most support to her potential faction. Benn had even pointed out that with a riot on their doorstep, the guards within might yield instead of fight.
“Mobs are impossible to rightly control,” Axar had said. “In all likelihood, we could lose control of that situation easily.”
Inclined to agree, Raya had drawn the conversation out. Eventually they had agreed upon their current plan—diversion. Assuming they found empty rooms within, they would start a fire. Ailo was concerned at how quickly the group would react, converging on the prisoners, but had to agree that it was the most likely to afford them time to free the prisoners and cause chaos for the guards.
“Got it!” Benn said, and Raya snapped out of her gasping recollection of the words that had brought her to this moment, sitting with her back against a defended fortress. Her friend eased open the side-door, revealing a line of torchlight against the other side of the alley they sat in.
The sellsword Ailo went first, easing through the gap and into the narrow hallway beyond. Next went Dondar, and then Axar. Benn and Raya took up the rear. The hallway was empty and led to an intersection. The adjoining rooms were storerooms, each occupying a corner of the small stronghold. Inside the outer stone-wall were wooden materials, thankfully. Ailo and Axar wordlessly began piling kindling from the storeroom, while Raya and Dondar crept further down the initial hallway.
The center of the square prison was a grassy courtyard, with steps on each of the four sides leading down to the story beneath. The surprise to find a courtyard instead of a block of cells was compounded by the spotting of a group of men crowding together in its center. Raya realized with a sickening in her gut what was happening. In the midst of the crowd were two wrestling men, with scrawny arms and shirtless, bruised torsos. The guards were watching two prisoners fight; a loud chuckle went up as the brawlers rolled a different direction and bets were raised.
A few guards stood on the ramparts, but the fight had their attention too.
Raya turned back to Axar, who waited at the doorway of the storage shed. She gave him a nod. “We’ll head for that stairwell,” she whispered. “In pairs.” She pointed out the pairs.
They waited for the crackling to begin, as smoke began to pool in the hallway and funnel out a window into the courtyard. The prison cells had to be located underground, given this design. Axar went first, once the smoke obscured their position enough; he ran as quickly as he could, hunched at the waist.
“Smoke,” called one of the guards, as Axar made it to the stairwell. “Smoke!”
The fight ring exploded with commotion. One man, a commander of sorts, barked out orders, “You two, start barrelling water! Get to the walls, the rest of you! We’re under attack!”
Raya and Benn rushed across the yard as soon as the scattering guards fanned out enough. The two prisoners, dazed and exhausted, stared at the two invaders blankly and without response. Despite the certainty that some guard must have seen them, no one called out. Raya and Benn appeared like the guards, confused and rushing toward some duty.
Then, at the top of the stairs, they looked back for Dondar and Ailo. As the two hurried through the smoke, a cry went up from the top of the wall: “Assailants! They’re going for the cells!”
A guard, his helmet fumbled in his hands, came stumbling up the stairs toward Raya, Benn, and Axar. Dondar, dashing down the first few layers, landed his sword hilt in the man’s forehead, hard, and lay the man out. Raya hurried down the last of the steps with her friends. “Benn,” she said, “let’s get these open.”
Axar nodded sternly to Ailo. “We’ll hold them off.”
Dondar tossed aside his scabbard from his now drawn blade, while Axar unsheathed his own steel.
Benn hauled open the first prison cell—they were blocked with a beam of wood in a metal brace. A confused man inside sat up, before Raya grabbed Benn and pulled him away. “We should start near the fire,” she blurted.
They sprinted down a narrow corridor to a corner—smoke was already rolling across the ceiling. With a rumble, they watched the roof give in down the hall. Flames, sparks, and slabs of charred wood plummeted to the floor. Raya ran down the corridor anyway, ignoring the heat and singing embers. She yanked up the bar on the door closest to the spreading blaze. The hot wood seared her hands, but she threw it aside and pulled open the door.
A middle-aged woman stumbled out, wiping sparks from her hair. “Gods bless you,” she whispered, her eyes stretched wide.
A clang of steel resounded down the halls as Benn opened the second door. A screech followed the metal bang, followed by another. Dondar and Ailo were engaged with the guards, but fortunately the stairwell could be blocked by two men shoulder-to-shoulder. It was out of sight from here, but the din of howling wind and slashing blades echoed toward them. The man who emerged from Benn’s cell picked up the wooden bar that had once imprisoned him and jogged down the corridor toward the corner.
The woman Raya had freed pushed back her greyed hair and followed suit.
Raya and Benn were nearly blinded by sweat before the next minute passed. They pulled up bar after bar, freeing a prisoner every breath, it seemed. Some cells were empty, but many more were presently emptied.
They must have freed fifteen, and when they rounded the corner they found the next set of cells already thrown open. The prisoners had helped each other. Shoulder-to-shoulder, the grimy people living underground fought for the light of the cloudy night sky. The guards pushed back.
At the back of the group, Benn and Raya could scarcely see the front of the fight. If Dondar and Ailo still fought, they could not say. Axar’s rumbling air spells continued, pushing back enemies or dazing them with noise. Over the ruckus, Raya heard shouting…
“More behind us!” shouted one of the prisoners. Raya spun around. Of course—there were four stairwells they had seen. Raya picked up a wooden bar, like the slaves carried. Benn drew his long dagger, and they followed the detachment of prisoners toward the corner. With a sudden chorus of bellowing, the guards charged around the wall. One prisoner got a spear to the gut, groping the wall a blink-of-the-eyes-later with a red handprint. Raya slammed the man who stabbed him with her plank, knocking him against the wall. Another man jabbed at her, but she ducked, nearly losing her balance and landing on her backside. One of the ex-slaves behind her got the spear instead, but Benn wounded the man with a lunging stab toward his shoulder. One of the prisoners picked up the spear in the process; unable to turn it in such tight proximity, the butt of the weapon became a resounding hammer, cracking off the solid corner stones of the cells or snapping the bones of the men struck by it.
In the embroiling skirmish that followed, Raya found herself shoved against the backs of the first group of prisoners. They were surrounded by guards. There couldn’t have been more than twenty, but they were hard to defeat. Many men that Raya sent reeling with her bar rejoined the fight moments later, but some stayed down.
Then, as though a wind that once pushed on the curtain had suddenly turned direction, the fight went out of the guards. Only a few were left at each end of the trapped prisoners. Realizing their situation, the remnant turned tail and ran. With gasping and cheering, the slaves and prisoners spread out again. They had done it. This prison was theirs now, though the fire continued to blaze above.
Raya wove between the joyous men and women toward the first staircase. As she stepped around a stretching young man, a woman that was close to Raya’s own age, likely, slammed her blunt bar down on the head of a moaning guard. She followed it with another strike, and then a third gut-wrenching blow. Raya reached out to try to stop her, but Benn stopped her. The young killer looked at Raya boldly. “He deserved to die,” she said, and spit on the man’s corpse.
Before Raya could protest further killing—another man had descended on an injured guard with his fists—Ailo shoved through the packed corridor. “Let them be,” he said. “Many of these men would rather be dead than spend their remaining years unable to walk or bed a wench.”
“There’s no good choice in that,” Raya murmured, but looked away from the furious man and followed Ailo toward the stairs. She doubted she could have stopped the prisoners’ vengeance.
Dondar sat on the ground, with Axar kneeling in front of him. Benn blurted, “Again?” before realizing the pained expression on Dondar’s face.
The veteran warrior looked at Benn and Raya and scowled. “Yes, again,” he said.
“Be still,” Axar instructed sternly. His hands were pressed against the bloody stomach of Dondar’s tunic.
“He’ll be fine,” Ailo muttered, and climbed the steps beside a free prisoner.
As Raya and Benn followed him up, one of the ex-slaves from below, the woman who had killed with a door bar, grabbed her arm. Raya flinched, but the woman smiled. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice hoarse. All the prisoners paused their tending of wounds and embracing of fellows; they all looked up at her.
“I’m Raya Ganner,” replied Raya. “And this is Axar the magician. We are doing what we have always tried to do… to help those we can.”
“What about the Mage Kings?” one of the men questioned.
“They’re dead,” Benn said. A sigh went through the crowd. Someone whooped happily. “We’re trying to keep the peace now.”
“I have a family,” explained one of the older men, maybe even the first that Raya had freed. “Where can I find you after I visit them?”
Raya blinked. It was just what she had hoped. Some of these men and women would want to keep the peace too. “We’ll be staying at the Blue Evening Inn now,” she told them. The inn was on the border of Pranan’s Hill and Massed Alley, just where Raya’s friends had decided to target their group. “You are all welcome there.”
“I got no family,” muttered the young woman, tossing aside her blood-stained bar. It thudded on the steps. “I’ll go with you now.”
Raya smiled. “That’s great,” she said.
Of the twenty-five slaves they had saved, many walked with them that night. They left the smouldering prison behind them as the cloudy sky gave them shelter through the tense streets to the warmth of a large common room. That night was a night of celebration—a glowing reminder of humanity in the midst of Ith’s anarchy.