Chapter Eighteen
The Way Out
DANTE, THE CLEVER THIEF, looked cautiously around a corner, careful to stay invisible in a shadow so as not to be seen in return. There were no guards. He held his breath and closed his eyes, and listened with his keen ears. No noises.
“Come!” he said back to the others, and so they – Rhoin, Paetoric, Seften and the Driadon, Rin – followed him silently down the hall. None could match the complete skilled silence of Dante’s slinking movement except Rhoin.
Down the hallway silently, again the same pattern of blunting a torch that cast light around the corner they were to scope and then take, so as to be bathed in hiding shadow. Dante, as many times before, surveyed the new hallway with a careful eye, and bid the others to follow him silently again. Up a staircase, take the hallway to the left, pick the lock—it was not a magic one this time—moving the old door so as to make it have no noise in movement, and continue, closing the door shut behind them, leaving everything as it was.
“Do you know where you are going, young thief?” Rin said in a gravely whisper.
Dante looked back at the Driadon, who was crouched over in an attempt to be as low to the ground as the others, despite his inhuman height. “No worries, my scaly friend!”
“No worries, indeed,” Rhoin echoed. “You memorized the path in, didn’t you?” He said, perceptively.
Dante only smiled thinly, but did not match eyes with Rhoin. Instead, he continued surveying the winding, ascending staircase. “Everybody has their talents…”
Seeming to perceive safety, Dante proceeded, the others following now, no longer needing his instruction to follow as before.
They quietly ascended the staircase, Dante leading. Dante stopped, and turned around, looking at the others, who had likewise stopped and were looking upon Dante for instructions. “This is it – the last entrance until we are outside. I must do one thing – wait here!”
Dante went back down the stairs, disappearing around its turn. There was an audible series of clicks and clanks, and moments later, Dante running up the stairs. “I locked the gate below and destroyed the lock itself – no one can come up behind us, now. This is it – the great escape!” Grinning excitedly and roguishly, He slapped Paetoric and Seften on their shoulders, which were broader and stronger than his own slender ones. He grabbed the dim torch that lit the stairway’s exit above, and dug it’s flaming head into a stone step’s surface, putting it out. He slowly, carefully, and skillfully slinked up a few steps, unseeable in the shadows he made by putting out the torch. He was at the entrance, and got full view of the inside of the prison castle that they were in. He craned his neck around to view any enemies: several posted guards upon the tower. A couple armed with crossbows. The ground before them was open, visible by the bright moon’s light. When he had initially snuck in, there were clouds which darkened the moon’s light. He looked to the sky for a possible passing cloud that would again hide the moon as before. The sky was completely clear. They could not double back to get disguises – it was too late, and under the circumstances which he quickly calculated, they had no choice but to move forward. “What now?” Paetoric inquired from further down the staircase.
Dante looked back. “What we need is a good distraction!” he concluded.
Dante suddenly heard heavy footsteps approaching from the right. He was luckily still within the shadows out of view from the approaching person, and thus invisible. He was quickly able to see that this person was not a soldier, but more like an escaped prisoner: he was large, with dark brown/red short hair, was completely unarmored, revealing both fresh and old wounds from torture; though by the brute size of his body was definitely not unfamiliar to heavy armors, and was brandishing a rather deadly and powerful-seeming halberd. He was running with all haste, a wild, dangerous look in his eyes, and Dante determined that he was not going to turn down the staircase his party was hiding in as he saw that these eyes of this man were focused ahead, into the center grounds of the castle.
As the large man barreled past them to the castle grounds’ center into plain view of the tower guards, he saw them reach for their crossbows, noticing him right away. “A prisoner has escaped!” one of the guards shouted out in alarm to the other guards. The man continued running toward the castle entrance, the tall doors wide open from recent entries, but two of the guards were working fast to cause the doors to begin creaking shut.
“That’ll work!” Dante smiled to himself. He quickly predicted that the immediate guards’ attention would be drawn to the escaped prisoner as he left the castle onto the outer castle grounds, and they would no longer be focusing at all upon the inside castle grounds. At this point they could cross and escape, before the castle’s great doors fully closed. But he knew that mere moments later more guards would appear from within the castle, and at that point they would lose their chance at invisibility.
“Come, now!” Dante said, no longer whispering in a secretive tone, but instead had yelled aloud with a definite urgency in his voice that aroused the two brothers and the Driadon instantly. They tumbled up the staircase next to Dante, who was now standing no longer in the hiding shadows, but in the moon’s revealing light. “This is our only chance to escape – run!”
The moon’s light did reveal the running figures of the three Me’Aer brothers, Dante and Rin. But as Dante predicted, eyes were cast momentarily in another direction, not noticing them. He looked at the guards briefly – they were turned to the outside of the castle, watching the escaped prisoner, firing bolts from aimed crossbows. Apparently missing, as they repeatedly reloaded and fired.
The closing doors stopped closing, held open. There were most likely to be horsed soldiers to come in behind them, to exit those doors, Dante determined.
And he did determine correctly – upon crossing through the castle gateway, he guided his party to angle to the left, pressing backs against the cold rough castle wall to hide from view above. A bare few seconds later, several horsemen came charging through, none noticing them, but were after and soon to catch up with the running prisoner they were pursuing
Paetoric gasped. “That prisoner!” he said in shock. “There ahead. That halberd he is holding – that’s my halberd!”
Seften looked, and as well became shocked. He wheeled on Paetoric. “Paet! That prisoner – that's Torius!”
Paetoric again stared at the escaping man. “It is! What in the Gods is he doing here!”
“Who knows, but now he is escaping, as we should be,” Dante commented hastefully. “And he definitely is heading in the right direction, though I must comment on his lack of craft in escaping,” nodding his head up at the overhead crossbowman and over to the horseman catching up on Torius quickly.
“Dante, Rin!” Seften yelled, distressed even further by the casual commentating of Dante. “Help me – we have to save him!” Seften sprinted after the distant horseman, Paetoric and Rhoin close behind.
“Well, Rin,” Dante said to the Driadon, as he began to follow the three brothers to the battle. “Guess we’re gonna have to fight this one out, aye?”
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