The Caldera Page 15

  “Please, Captain,” the young man said in a whining voice, “can I go back to my room now?”

  “I’m not a captain,” Junius began brusquely. Then he stopped and studied the person before him more closely. “Just a minute! Aren’t you . . . weren’t you in . . . ?” He looked to the heavy wooden door that led to the large detention cell. “How the blazes did you get out?”

  Wulf shrugged, looking nervously around him. “Someone didn’t lock the cell door, so I sort of . . . left,” he said. “But then I thought I might get into trouble, so I decided to come back and report myself.”

  Wulf superbly played the part of a nervous prisoner seeking to avoid further punishment. After all, he and his brother had spent their lives fooling and confusing people who couldn’t tell them apart, and they were past masters at prevarication.

  Actually, not to put too fine a point on it, they were expert liars. He stood now before the corporal, eyes down and hands fiddling with his watch cap. Junius recognized that cap. He had admired it when the prisoner had been arrested several hours previously. He had even been tempted to requisition it for himself. But he felt a surge of panic as Wulf waited, eyes cast down. If what he said was true, and the door had been left unlocked, there was only one person who might have left it so—and that was Junius himself. He shuddered as he thought of the punishment that might have been meted out to him if the unlocked door had gone unnoticed. The Empress was not lenient when it came to punishing men who had neglected their responsibilities. Thank the gods for this simpleton before him, he thought.

  Junius rose and came out from behind the counter, seized Wulf by the elbow and hastened him toward the door leading to the cells. Wulf stumbled along awkwardly. The corporal opened the door and shoved Wulf through. Ahead of them was a large open-fronted cell. The wall facing them was constructed from iron bars, with a large, barred door in the center. Thankfully, Junius saw, it was firmly closed.

  “It’s not open now,” he said.

  “I closed it behind me,” Wulf told him, then, raising his voice, he shouted out in Skandian. “Stay out of sight, brother! They think I’m you!”

  Junius rounded on him suspiciously. They had been speaking the common tongue and he had no knowledge of Skandian.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  Wulf shrugged. “It was a prayer of thanks to our god Loki,” he said. The Skandian god of deception was, in fact, Wulf’s favorite god, and he and his brother were two of Loki’s favorite disciples.

  Inside the large cell, surrounded by at least a dozen other prisoners, Ulf slipped furtively behind the bulk of Olaf as he saw his brother being shoved unceremoniously through the barred door. The door slammed shut with an echoing clang. Junius waved a fist at the returned prisoner.

  “And this time, stay there!” he ordered.

  “Yes, Captain. That’s what I plan to do,” Wulf told him.

  From the rear of the cell, he heard his brother’s unmistakable snigger.

  chaptertwenty-two

  As Corporal Dall shoved Wulf inside, the sail handler pretended to stumble and fetched up against the burly form of Olaf, standing a meter or so away from the door. He looked up and, facing away from the jailer, he grinned.

  Behind him, he heard the door clang shut and the lock turn. This time, the guard shook the door several times to make sure it was securely locked, then he turned on his heel and headed back to the outer room.

  Ulf stepped out from behind Olaf, his face wreathed in a smile. “What are you doing here, brother?” he asked.

  Olaf shook his head doubtfully. “Looks like you’ve decided to be a prisoner too,” he said.

  Around them, several of the other prisoners, noticing the fact that Ulf and Wulf were identical in every respect, started to mutter in surprise. Wulf turned to them, his finger raised to his lips in an unmistakable sign for silence.

  “Be quiet, if you want to get out of here,” he demanded.

  Olaf raised an eyebrow. “Get out? How do you plan to do that? You’ve only just got in.”

  But Wulf continued to grin at him as he undid his belt and pulled up the tail of his woolen shirt. Underneath it, strapped to the small of his back with a length of material, was a small canvas wrapper. He rolled it out to reveal the lockpicks that Jesper had been instructing the twins with.

  “Oh, wonderful!” Ulf cried as he saw the two small pieces of metal. Then he held his hand out, clicking his fingers in an imperious gesture. “Give them here.”

  But Wulf snatched the picks away from his brother’s outstretched hand. “I’ll do it,” he said pugnaciously.

  Ulf’s smile faded. “Better if I do it. I’m quicker than you.”

  “So you say,” Wulf replied. It was amazing how the twins could work together in such easy harmony when they wanted to confuse the jailer, yet how quickly they reverted to bickering when their common enemy had gone.

  “Come on! Let me do it!” Ulf said, his voice rising, and the anger showing in it.

  “I’ll do it,” Wulf repeated stubbornly.

  Finally, Olaf had had enough. He grabbed them each by the shoulder and pulled them close to each other. “One of you had better do it,” he said roughly. “Or I’ll bang your heads together.”

  They didn’t know Olaf well enough to judge whether this was an empty threat or not. The two brothers exchanged a look and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Ulf nodded to his brother. “All right. Go ahead,” he said.

  Wulf shook off Olaf’s hand and moved to the door. He reached through the bars with the first piece of the picks and tried to insert it into the keyhole. Then he stopped, frowning.

  “It’s all back to front,” he said. He glanced at Ulf. “Could you do the turning part while I feel for the tumblers?” He felt it would be easier if he had to concentrate on only one part of the lockpicking process. Ulf stepped up beside him, took the flat-ended piece of metal and reached through the bars, bringing it back to the keyhole. Like Wulf, he hesitated.

  “You’re right. It’s back to front. It’d be easier if we were on the other side of the door.”

  “If we were on the other side of the door,” Olaf put in, his voice heavy with sarcasm, “we wouldn’t need to pick the lock.”

  Ulf didn’t notice the sarcasm. He nodded agreement. “Quite true,” he said. Then, frowning with concentration, he inserted the pick into the lock and turned it slightly.

  He grinned at his brother. “You just have to think backward,” he said.

  “Something I’m sure you’re good at,” Olaf said.

  But they ignored him, engrossed now in the problem of picking the lock backward. Wulf took the curved pick and reached through the grille beside his brother, inserting it in the lock. It was easier for him as he didn’t have to turn it one way or the other. He slid it along the top of the bolt, holding it with his thumb and forefinger as he raked it lightly across the tumblers. The other prisoners had begun to mutter in anticipation of being set free, and Wulf turned angrily on them.

  “Be quiet!” he ordered. “I have to be able to hear.”

  “Hear what?” demanded one of the prisoners, a shifty-looking type who had undoubtedly seen the inside of this cell on numerous occasions. The man next to him, a rough-looking thug with a scarred face, added a scornful comment.

  “What’s to listen to?” he demanded. “It’s a lock, for pity’s sake, not a tin flute.”

  Wulf shook his head in exasperation and looked to Olaf for help. The big former commander took a step toward the two prisoners.

  “If the lad says he needs silence, he needs silence,” he told them. They eyed him nervously. He was big and well muscled and was an obvious warrior. They edged away.

  “I was just saying . . . ,” Scarface began, but Olaf’s big hand shot out and grabbed the collar of his jerkin, twisting it quickly to cut off th
e man’s breath. Scarface struggled for a few seconds, his face growing red as he tried to breathe. But Olaf twisted harder still, and the man found himself choking.

  “I’ll use words you might understand,” Olaf said in a grim tone. “Shut . . . up. Is that clear now?”

  The man, deprived of breath, gurgled incoherently. But he managed to nod desperately until Olaf relaxed his grip. The prisoner drew in a long, shuddering breath, then hastily waved his hands in apology.

  Olaf turned to Wulf. “Go ahead.”

  Wulf went back to the task. Ulf, who had relaxed his twisting force on the flat pick, turned the lock slightly. As before, Wulf held the curved piece lightly, running it across the tops of the tumblers. Almost immediately, a faint click could be heard, and he grinned triumphantly at his brother.

  “Got one!” he said. But if he was expecting praise, there was none forthcoming.

  “Then get the other two,” Ulf told him.

  Wulf curled his lip at him before going back to work. Thirty seconds passed, and there was another small click. Then, within seconds, Wulf, now more familiar with the feeling of the lock, tripped the third tumbler and the door swung open.

  Immediately, there was an excited surge for the door from the other prisoners, but Olaf barred the way.

  “Stand back!” he ordered. His voice was low, but it carried to the back of the cell and was filled with undeniable authority. The movement toward the door ceased.

  “How many guards are there, beside the one at the counter?” Olaf asked the group in general. One of the prisoners held up a hand, and the Skandian signed for him to speak.

  “There are usually a dozen or so,” he said. “They’re in a guard room on the first floor.”

  “But there’s just the one turnkey outside?” Olaf asked.

  The man shrugged. “Usually, yes. So far as I know,” he added hastily. He didn’t want the big Skandian to blame him if he was wrong.

  Olaf nodded and looked to Wulf. “All right. Go out there and bring him in. Tell him the door has unlocked itself again.”

  Wulf nodded, grinning. He enjoyed confusing the gray-haired jailer.

  As he stepped to the door leading to the outer room, Olaf waved the other prisoners back.

  “Make sure there’s no one else out there,” he told Wulf.

  Wulf nodded and eased the door open a crack, peering into the large receiving room. He could see a staircase in the far corner, obviously leading to the guards’ room on the next level. Junius Dall was relaxing at his counter, his chair tilted back and his feet propped up on the scarred wooden surface. There was no one else in sight. Putting on his meekest look, Wulf slipped through the door and approached the counter.

  “Please, Captain,” he said in an apologetic tone, “it’s happened again.”

  The corporal came awake at the sound of his voice, letting the front legs of his chair drop back to the floor.

  “Gods of Chaos!” he said. “Not you again!”

  Wulf gestured to the door behind him. “The cell door came open again, sir. It wasn’t my . . .”

  Before he could finish the sentence, Dall had risen and come out from behind the counter, hurrying toward the door and grabbing Wulf by the arm to drag him along.

  He threw the inner door open and stepped inside, seeing the cell door hanging open and the prisoners gathered back against the far wall. For a moment, he wondered why they hadn’t come out of the cell. Then a hard-muscled arm slid round his neck from behind, cutting off his air and making it impossible to breathe. He struggled briefly, but the grip was relentless and unbreakable. Gradually, his struggles grew weaker and his eyes slid shut.

  Olaf lowered the guard’s unconscious form to the floor. He glanced quickly into the outer room, an idea forming. Then he waved the prisoners out of the cell.

  “Come on,” he said. “Get out of here while you can!”

  As they surged out of the cell, he grabbed Ulf and Wulf and shoved them through the door, dragging them behind the high-set counter where Junius Dall usually held court.

  “Get down out of sight,” he told them. The three of them crouched underneath the counter, unnoticed by the other prisoners, who shoved and struggled as they fought to be first out the door. The thud of footsteps and the clatter of running feet from the street outside was clearly audible in the guard room upstairs.

  “What’s going on down there, Dall?” a voice came from above.

  Olaf waited until the last three prisoners were shoving one another aside in their efforts to get out the door, then shouted out, “Help! The prisoners are escaping!”

  As he said it, he ducked under the counter, where the twins crouched in hiding. There was a small nail hole in the front of the counter and he put his eye to it as he heard a clatter of booted feet on the stairs.

  The first of the guards appeared as the last of the prisoners escaped through the main door. The guard yelled to his companions to follow. He was buckling his sword belt around his waist as he ran after the escapees. Another ten guards followed him, in varying states of preparedness—some armed, some half dressed, all carrying an assortment of weapons. Like the prisoners, they bunched together in their efforts to be first out the door. They shoved and jostled one another, cursing their companions for getting in their way. Then, after a few brief hectic moments, they were out the door, running after the fast-disappearing prisoners.

  “Split up!” Olaf and the twins heard a voice call. “Some of you go after that bunch. The rest with me!”

  Obviously, the escaping prisoners had the presence of mind to head off in different directions. The three Skandians heard the shouts and curses of the guards as they ran after the escapees.

  “Stop!” one of them shouted. “Come back!”

  Beneath the counter, Olaf shook his head in wonder. “Why do they always say that?” he asked, of no one in particular. “Do they really expect them to stop and come back to jail like good little boys?”

  He waited another fifteen seconds as the shouting and the sound of running feet receded into the distance. Then he crawled out from behind the counter, the twins following him.

  His sword belt was hanging from a peg behind the counter, as was Ulf’s belt with his scabbarded saxe. The guards confiscated weapons carried by prisoners and sold them in the market. It was one of the perks that came with the job. Olaf swung the sword belt round his waist with the ease of long practice, and passed Ulf his saxe knife.

  “All right,” he said, “I think we can go now.”

  He slid the door open a few centimeters and peered out at the street outside. There was no sign of guards or escaping prisoners. A few passersby glanced at the three Skandians with idle interest as they exited onto the street and set off at a brisk pace for the harbor. A whistle came from the alley opposite the jailhouse, and they saw Hal, Thorn and Stig waiting in the shadows. They crossed the street quickly, and their companions handed them long, flowing robes they had bought in the market—the type of clothing worn by the locals.

  “Put these on,” Hal ordered. “And let’s get out of here.”

  chaptertwenty-three

  Heron was ready for sea. Her slim bow was facing the open water of the Golden Reach and there was only one mooring rope, looped round a bollard on the pier.

  “Get aboard,” Hal said tersely. “Ulf, Wulf, take your positions.”

  The twins scrambled for’ard to their workstation beside the mast and sail. Stig hurried to the stern rope, ready to cast off. The other crew members stood ready. One or two of them nodded to the twins, in recognition of the fact that the escape plan had worked.

  “Starboard sail,” Hal called, and Ingvar, Jesper and Stefan heaved on the halyards with a will, sending the starboard yardarm and sail soaring aloft. The yard thumped into the retaining bracket at the top of the mast, and the sail began to fill with the wind coming in over the po
rt bow.

  “Sheet home,” Hal called, and the twins brought the sail under control, so that it formed a smooth, bellying curve. Then he turned to Stig. “Let go aft.”

  Stig let the mooring line run through his fingers, gathering in the loose coils as it slid free. Heron surged away from the dock, going from a standstill to full motion in a matter of seconds. Hal felt the pressure on the tiller against his grip, and noted that the ship was making considerable leeway. He waved to Thorn by the mast.

  “Let down the fin,” he ordered. Thorn leaned his weight on the bladelike fin keel and slid it down into the water. Instantly, Hal felt the increased grip on the water, and Heron stopped crabbing sideways. She pitched and buffeted her way through the uneven chop set up by half a hundred wakes going in different directions, then steadied on her course for the open sea.

  A six-oared boat from the harbor patrol was moving diagonally to cut across their course. The rowers cursed as they realized that they had underestimated the departing ship’s speed and redoubled their efforts.

  Hal made a gesture to the twins. “Ease off a little,” he said, and they let the speed fall off so that the guard boat could run alongside them. The skipper of the guard boat, who was manning the tiller, shouted across the gap between them.

  “You’re leaving port,” he shouted, and Hal nodded. “Do you have your clearance papers signed?”

  “Darned bureaucracy,” Hal muttered. “We’ve paid harbor fees for three days and we’re leaving after one. What’s their problem?”

  “They’re pen pushers,” Thorn said. “They have to justify their existence somehow.”

  Hal nudged the tiller so that they ran a little closer to the patrol boat. Wedging the tiller under his arm, he cupped his hands and called to the other skipper.

  “Just testing some new rigging,” he said. “We’ll be back in an hour.”