Chapter 13 | Part 4

Elion was already at the bars when Drusniel reached him.

“You came.”

“I’m opening your cage. Stay quiet.”

Drusniel put his hand against Elion’s lock. Rust came away on his fingers.

The pins were spaced differently from his own. He had to feel for each one again.

He narrowed the draft through the keyway. His arm began trembling before the second pin lifted.


The third dragged.

Drusniel changed the angle.

Pressed.

Click.

The door opened.

He released the air and could not feel his fingertips. Elion caught his wrist before his hand slipped off the bars.

Elion did not move.

His grip stayed on Drusniel’s wrist, though nothing held him in the cage now.

“Elion.”

His eyes found Drusniel.

“Move.”

Elion stepped out.

They crossed low between the wagons.

Nine prisoners remained in the third cage.

Drusniel looked once.

His fingers still would not close properly. From the fire came the scrape of a man getting up.

He kept moving.

At the fourth wagon, the smell of lamp oil was strong enough to sting.

A hooded travel lantern hung from the side rail.

Elion took the lantern while Drusniel grabbed a waterskin, ration satchel and rolled blanket.

Elion loosened the stopper on the first oil container. Drusniel tipped it with both hands, spilling oil across the wagon bed.

Elion looked at the lantern.

Then at the oil.

“Fire.”

He tore the hood open and threw the lantern into the wagon.

Glass broke.

Flame ran through the oil.

A guard shouted.

One guard ran toward the fire.

The other raised the alarm.

Men woke behind them.

“Run.”

They ran.

The wagon flared high enough to throw hard shadows across the road.

Guards ran toward the burning supplies. One stopped to check the cages and shouted for the others to follow the fugitives.

Drusniel was already beyond the firelight.

Elion reached the stone formations first.

“This way.”

“Memory?”

“I think so.”

They entered the rocks.

Elion led left through a narrow gap, then down between two tilted slabs.

Elion moved without hesitation for twenty paces, then stopped.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“I don’t remember this turn.”

Drusniel listened. Boots scraped stone behind them; a man shouted for a light.

He looked at the ground.

Fine black dust lay untouched in the right passage.

The left showed old scuffs.

“Left.”

They ran left.

Another fifty yards and Elion recognized something.

“Here.”

They climbed behind a broken ridge and dropped into a shallow hollow.

The fire behind them was still visible.

Drusniel let the supplies fall.

His hands shook.

“How much of that route was memory?”

Elion sat against the rock.

“Enough to get us lost faster.”

Drusniel laughed once despite himself.

“Can you call the rest back?”

“No.”

“Then stop trying. Listen for the guards.”

Elion turned his head toward the road.

“I can do that.”

He held out the waterskin without looking back. Drusniel took it with both hands.

The fire lit the rocks above their hiding place. They stayed below it until the shouts receded.

End of Chapter 13.4 —> 13.5: The One Who Walks Free: The Aftermath