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Bread Thief in the Night

Edward Rowgar opened his eyes. He didn’t bother to move his head or sit up despite the fact he was in total darkness. He could feel the stone of his cell under his back and the piece of straw that poked him in the leg. He could hear Jack the bread thief snoring softly one cell over. How many days had he been here now? He had no idea.

Listening to Jack’s snoring, he realised this was one of the rare times he had not been awakened by a hot iron or a beating. Remembrance of the previous days of torture came flooding back to him and with it, sudden bursts of pain, which he tried to quell. He could feel the burns pulling on his arm and the ache of his finger joints in his left hand. Rolling to his side – as if to prove to himself he was not imagining these hurts – he groaned when the bruising on his body sent a wave of fresh pain through him. Sitting up, he reached for his face, but stopped. He knew by the dull ache that they had taken his left eye, and that he had not dreamed the horrors of the previous weeks.

Rowgar shuddered as other images entered his mind. He was tied to a rack, the torture room thick with the smoke from the burning lanterns when they brought the first body to him. It was Night Soil and he was punched through with many quarrels. The prison guards had reveled in his reaction, but not for long. The lead inquisitor was quick to come at him with a renewed slew of questions. At first Rowgar had told them nothing, but more of his soldiers were brought in. They burned and beat him, and the questioning continued.

“Who are you?”

“Who are they?”

“Why are you here?”

“Are there more on their way?”

And on and on the enquiry went. Then they stopped bringing the bodies of his command and started bringing only their heads. Ulas, Annette, Vigor, Redford, Bellings: Men who had been alive only hours ago; men who had trusted him to lead them. He felt his façade crack a little with each finger they broke, his rock hard demeanour melting with each burning prod of the red hot iron. Finally his resolve snapped. He told them everything they wanted and more. And then when he had nothing left to tell, they had taken his eye. One last reminder he was impotent against their will.

Days later they had come to his cell and kicked him awake. There were three men standing in the weak torchlight and Rowgar recognised Etan, the man who had taken his eye. He fought to control his rage. He knew he could do nothing from behind these bars.

Etan threw a rolled up newspaper into the cell with him. “Read,” said Etan in his broken Vellian accent. “It’s from your capital.” Rowgar did not budge, his eye never leaving Etan’s face. He thought he could see a flash of anger cross the Ponceman’s features, but it was hard to tell in the weak light.

“Maybe he doesn’t read so well with only one eye,” laughed the man to Etan’s left.

Etan ignored the comment. “Allow me to paraphrase then,” he said slowly. “It is your very own Cassadian Chronicle. It states that an unprovoked attack on the Ponce fortification of Chateau Gibet has been committed by rogue elements of the Vellian king’s army.” He watched Rowgar’s face for signs of emotion. “It says the men who assaulted our prison are traitors to their country and that reparations are in order for the unwarranted molestation.” He waited for Rowgar to respond, but the soldier remained silent, unwilling to acknowledge the other man.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to talk about it,” continued Etan at last. “I would be upset too, if my country denounced me. Don’t worry, though. I will not let you die a traitor’s death at their hands. I will make sure you rot here for a very long time instead. Much better, I think; yes?” He had turned from the cell, taking his lieutenants with him.

“You are awake, my friend?” asked Jack in whispered tones.

Rowgar realised he had groaned at the memory. “Yes,” he replied.

“That is good…I guess. Your fever has broken. You have been on the edge between life and death for many days.”

“Why did they keep me alive?” asked Rowgar, his throat scratchy with the need for water.

“I imagine you are a bargaining tool. No different than any other prisoner here. I think they want you alive only so that you will suffer.”

“My men,” moaned Rowgar, “Did any of them…survive?”

“No. I am sorry. They have brought no one else.”

Rowgar was silent for many minutes and Jack didn’t pressure him to speak. Eventually he crawled toward Jack’s cell. “Do you have water?” he asked. His groping fingers located the bars separating them.

“No,” replied Jack, “but if you go to the back of your cell, the wall is moist stone. Feel along the base of it, there will be pools there.”

Rowgar did as the man told him and his fingers found a tiny collection of water. He sucked it down in one slurp and moved along, looking for more. “Why did they let you live Jack? You were an escaped prisoner.”

“They never knew I left, Chief.”

Rowgar realised Jack did not know his name, but must have remembered what one of his Ravens had called him on the day they infiltrated the prison. “How could they not know you escaped?”

“They come but once a day with food – if you can call it that – and I made sure I was back when things went to hell.”

“How did you get loose in the first place?”

Jack grunted in irritation. “Two years I worked that bar. Everyday, I’d saw at it with only one thing on my mind – my little girl. That and the fact that I would be the first to escape this hell hole.”

“You sawed through the bars with your spoon?” Rowgar recalled an image of Jack working the bars of the lower cells.”

Jack chuckled. “That was one of my tools. I was lucky enough to find a nail at the bottom of my straw pile during my first days in here. It didn’t take me long to choose a rusted bar at the back of my cell to work on. Day after day, I scraped at that miserable heathen. Eventually, I started to make some progress. The only problem was my nail wore down to a nub. When there was barely an inch left I hammered it into the handle of my spoon. It was easier to work with it that way. Once I got through the bulk of the iron frame, I used a chunk of rock to bash the weakened bar from the outside.”

“That took you two years?”

“To the best of my reckoning. I was evaluating the lower cells when you and your men happened upon me.”

Rowgar located a slightly bigger pool of water and drank it down. Leaning against the rock, he felt weaker than he ever recollected. “I don’t suppose either of us is in the cell you escaped from?” he asked.

“No,” whispered Jack. “They moved me here to nurse you. They let me in once a day to change your bandages.”

“And I’m also guessing you don’t have any more nails?”

“Nope,” agreed Jack. “What would be the point anyway? The explosives you and your men planted took care of the lower tunnels. Even if we could get out of here we’d have a full garrison of angry Poncemen to face.”

“I have a score to settle,” growled Rowgar. The image of Gilk’s severed head popped into his mind; he forced it away, focusing on the cold damp present.

“You’re in no shape to fight anyone,” said Jack, “even if I could get us out of here.”

“You’re right, but I won’t just give up and die. Those bastards will pay.”

“I thought that might be your attitude,” said Jack. “Happily, I have already started on this bar between our cells.”

“Rowgar turned to face the man’s voice. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply. He crawled to Jack.

“Who needs a nail when I have this ingenious knife I found. I hope you don’t mind that I stripped it from one of your soldiers before I returned to my cell.”

“Let me see it,” pleaded Rowgar, hope daring to flare in his belly. Jack hesitated and then Rowgar felt the man’s groping hands come through the bars. Accepting the offered tool, he felt along its familiar edges. It was indeed a Svindenbom knife.

“It will take many weeks to saw through the bars,” said Jack excitedly, “but I thought if we took out this middle one by working together, then we could both work on a second bar together from whichever cell is easier.”

“Save your strength,” advised Rowgar. “I can use this, to pick the locks in a matter of seconds.”

“Really?” asked Jack in wonder. “Of course you can.” He laughed out loud, his mood triumphant.

“Calm down. We’re not going anywhere right now,” said Rowgar. “As you have pointed out, I am in no shape to face the prison guards in my condition. We will need to make a plan. We can use the knife to pick the locks. Then we’ll see if we can locate some tools. When the time is right, and we have a plan and some weapons, we will make our move.”

Jack thought on Rowgar’s words. “I’ve been here for over two years. What are a few more weeks?”

* * * *

The cells were dark again and had been for over two hours. Jack had told it truly, and they received a daily visit by a thin round shouldered man who brought them two bowls of gruel. The man never spoke to them or answered their questions. Retrieving the empty bowls, he would leave two full ones and disappear into the depth of the stone tunnels. No one came to ask them further questions or to tend to Rowgar’s wounds. And this was the way the two prisoners liked it.

When the jailor left, he would take the only light these cells ever saw with him. In the blackness, Rowgar might as well have lost both eyes. It didn’t matter to the pair of inmates though and they now knew their way around the tunnels better than the rats.

Rowgar grunted with the exertion of his last few pushups. He rolled onto his back. He allowed himself to rest for thirty seconds and listened to the shallow echo of Jack’s breathing beside him as the bread thief did his own sixty pushups. Without saying a word, the two men moved together, each sliding his feet through the bars of his cell and under the bum of the other man as they went into a set of sixty situps. When finished, both men recovered for a minute.

“Your turn,” said Rowgar, handing the Svindenbom knife to his counterpart. Jack accepted the utility and exhaled three times as Rowgar counted down, “three, two, and one.”

Jack sprang into action, his hand sliding up the outside of his door until he located the lock. Inserting the lockpick portion of the knife into the lock, he began to jiggle it. “One one thousand,” counted Jack. “Two one…”

Click, the lock popped open.

“Very nice,” praised Rowgar.

“Not bad,” agreed Jack, popping Rowgar’s lock as well. He held out his bowl of gruel and Rowgar took it alongside his own. The soldier exited the cell and took a left toward the lower levels. The pair stopped at each cell and Jack repeated his lock picking exercise on each door. The most difficult lock took thirty-eight seconds. Once the lock was picked, Rowgar made his way into each of the first eight cells. Going to the pile of straw at the back of the chamber, he removed a stick of wood that had been hidden there on previous excursions.

Descending two levels into the dungeon, the men were not concerned by the total darkness. They knew exactly where they were headed, their nightly excursions long ago becoming routine. The place was empty: no guards, no prisoners, only Jack, Rowgar, and the rats.

Jack’s assessment that Rowgar’s explosives had sealed the lower levels was correct, but the men had been able to clear the rubble at each of the blockages they came to. That is, until they had reached the fifth level of the dungeon. Here the massive stones of the mountain had completely filled the tunnel. Nothing short of a dwarven mining crew was going to clear the passageway here. Rowgar was quick to point out that it was probably for the best, and that it most likely saved them from a six hundred yard freefall to the beaches below Gibet.

Beside Rowgar, Jack counted his footfalls. When he reached forty-three, both men turned to their right and continued along the new passage. Stopping before the last cell on the fourth level below the chateau, Jack picked the final lock and handed the knife back to Rowgar. “You’ll never guess what I stole from the guard room last night, Chief!” said Jack in excitement.

“Nothing to rouse their suspicions, I hope,” said Rowgar, making his way to the back of the cell and dumping his armload of wood into a cleared spot on the floor. He felt along the straw pile and removed a tiny leather sack. He measured an amount of the bag’s contents at the base of one of the steel bars and adjusted his knife so the flint was exposed. Striking the bar until sparks ignited the gun powder, he blew on the glowing straw and added more tinder until a flame sprang to life.

“Naw, they’ll never miss it.” Jack held out his hand. “Knife.”

Rowgar added wood to his tiny fire and flipped the blade to Jack. Jack went to an adjacent cell and popped the door open. Locating an undersized crate, he didn’t need to angle the contraption toward the light to tell it was full. “Got a nice one here,” he called. Stabbing the rat with the knife, he opened the trap and dumped the dead rodent onto the stone. Using his bowl of gruel, he baited the trap again and moved on to the next cell.

Rowgar had his fire blazing now, a column of smoke climbing the walls and disappearing into a blackened fissure. The bread thief returned to his friend and dropped three rats beside the flames. Catching Rowgar’s face with his right hand, he angled the man’s head toward the light as he assessed the empty eye socket. “Looking better,” he informed.

Rowgar pulled free and scooped up a rodent to gut it. “Are you going to tell me what you found?”

“The most important of things my friend!”

“Information,” said Rowgar knowingly. He finished skinning the rat and moved on to the next.

“Damn it, Chief. How come you never let me have any fun?”

“Alright,” conceded Rowgar. “Tell me.” He smiled at Jack and made a slit along the rat’s tiny leg. Grabbing at the fur on either side, he jerked his hands apart pulling the hair back.

“I crept up to the guardroom, right after the change of shift. I heard them playing dice as usual. One of them was that skinny piece of dung, Dom. I also heard Buckner and Toma. They were talking about recruits coming in from the north. Apparently, a war is not totally unavoidable as of yet, but the Ponce king is deploying soldiers all along the border.”

“No surprise there,” grunted Rowgar.

“I caught the answer to a couple of our questions,” continued Jack. “It’s just like you thought. They’ve emptied the prison of all civilian captives. Pulled them inland, they did.”

“Civilian captives?” asked Rowgar, showing surprise. “Why am I still here? And for that matter why are you still here?”

“I was left here to tend to you, I believe.” Jack hesitated as he grabbed one of the rats and skewered it on a chair leg that had been shaved down to a point. “You are to be made an example of.”

“An example of? How so?” Rowgar assisted in skewering the remaining two morsels and adjusted them over the flames.

“Etan has returned,” said Jack “He must have been escorting the other detainees to their new facility.” Jack watched Rowgar out of the corner of his eye.

“You are sure?” hissed Rowgar.

“Yes,” admitted Jack. “I never forget a voice.” He watched Rowgar’s fists clench and the soldier’s face twist in rage. He knew it was Etan who had taken Rowgar’s eye. Rowgar turned away in an attempt to hide his anger.

“You and the other war criminals are to be made an example of. Butchered no doubt and displayed to the Vellian troops.”

“Others?” snapped Rowgar, his good eye settling on Jack.

“Apparently, one of the balloons crash landed on the cliff tops during that misguided first assault. There were several soldiers captured. They are being held in the eastern wing of the compound.”

Rowgar thought on this. He rotated the dangling rats. “Did they say when this example would take place?”

“No, but I have a feeling it will be soon – within a week, two at most. They talked about baiting the Vellians into another irrational attack. You know how the Poncemen feel about us. They think they have the advantage here in the prison.”

“They do,” said Rowgar, “but not if I have a say in the matter.”

“Does this change our plan?”

“Not really, we just have to make an additional stop to free our boys. We wouldn’t want them to miss the fireworks would we?” S~ᴇaʀᴄh the Find ɴøᴠel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“I suppose not,” agreed Jack. “This could complicate things, Rowgar. We don’t know what shape those men are in.”

“I won’t leave a man behind,” said Rowgar firmly. His tone softened and he laid a hand on Jack’s arm. “I know you’ll work their release into the plan somewhere between lighting the fuse and stealing the griffons. I have full confidence in you, Jack.”

“I don’t think so,” warned Jack, reading between the lines, “I agree we’re not leaving a single man behind, Chief, and that includes you.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be at the stables at the appointed time. There’s someone I want to say goodbye to.”

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