Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Harpy's Wild (48 page)

“They’ll get through quick enough,” Ilbei pronounced as he stepped into his basket. “These folks are lousy with diggin tools. A few heaps of gold and some lead boxes ain’t no obstacle.” He glanced right to Mags, who was still studying the boom apparatus, figuring out how it worked. He looked left to Meggins, doing the same. “You two ready?”

Mags got the rope off the crank handle and, after a frantic search, found the small iron pin that locked the boom itself in place. She called out to Meggins, showing him where the pin was. “Right!” he called. “Got it. Ready.”

“Ready,” Mags said.

“Go on, Kaige,” Ilbei said as he pulled down on the rope and hauled his own basket a half hand into the air. “Swing us out over.”

Mags reached up, nearly on tiptoe, and pushed on the long, weighted arm that reached across the room. She grunted and stretched, and Ilbei thought she might not be able to move it, but at last she did. He and his basket companion, Ivan Gangue, swung out over the hole. He couldn’t help but look down over the rim. A shudder ran down his spine.

“Get in, let’s go. It’s a long way down hopin that door will hold the while.”

Mags looked over the short distance between the edge of the hole and the basket. “It’s too high,” she said. “I can’t get in. Go down a little.”

Ilbei lowered the basket, hand over hand, until the basket’s edge was nearly level with the floor. Mags still looked tentative. “I’m going to have to jump,” she said.

“I’m ready,” Ilbei replied. He braced himself, teeth grinding together, and waited for her to land. She did so gracefully, and he was relieved that the weight was not too much. He heard, more than he saw, when Meggins jumped into the other one, Kaige’s grunt audible.

“All right, let’s stay as even as we can. Let’s go.”

And so they went, down and down and down. Ilbei worried about their weight as they went, but he realized that neither the ropes nor the pulleys made a sound. He actually managed a laugh. “How about that? First time I wasn’t too stout fer the furniture.”

That got a chortle or two from Kaige and Meggins. Were it not for the drumming racket of the men pounding on the door above, anyone listening might have thought they were at the descent for fun.

They’d gotten perhaps midway down when a loud crash sounded, followed by the metallic clatter of falling coins, several of which tumbled down the hole. One landed in the bottom of Ilbei’s basket, just missing his boot. Another thudded loudly on the plank connecting Cavendis to Gangue. Meggins cursed as one bounced off his armor, right above the split where he’d been burned, and a fourth one struck Cavendis in the head. He grunted, and Jasper, taking his orders and Ilbei’s threats seriously, did just as he’d been instructed and stabbed Cavendis in the side.

Cavendis gasped, a muffled sound, and pitched forward, nearly knocking Meggins out of the basket. Kaige caught him, but in doing so, the basket slid down nearly a full span before he miraculously, brutally, stopped it with just one hand. That drop, however, jerked Gangue forward and over the edge of his basket, which nearly tore Mags out as well. She caught herself and, with a desperate reach, managed to catch Gangue by the elbow as he tumbled out.

The whole escapade had them swinging back and forth, and for a time at least, the ropes actually did protest, though not nearly so loud as Gangue did. The sounds of his terror chilled them all.

“I can’t hold him,” Mags said.

“I can’t hold him either,” Kaige said. In addition to those in his basket, he was now holding up the bulk of Gangue’s weight as the man dangled at the end of the yoke opposite Cavendis. Cavendis, in turn, barely held on, kept from falling out only by the fact that Meggins had recovered enough to grab him around the waist.

“Cut him loose, Jasper,” Meggins said. “Use my knife. Cut the yoke off, quick.” He sounded nearly as worried as Gangue.

“I can’t.” Jasper’s voice was high and meek.

“Why not? In the name of plunging death, Jasper, cut it.”

“It’s still in him.” Jasper was staring at the spreading red stain of Cavendis’ blood, which had begun to drip into the bottom of the basket near his feet.

“Well, pull it out. Cut the rope at his neck.”

“Just push them both out,” Kaige said. “I can’t hold us all day.”

“Mags,” said Ilbei. “Can ya pull him back? Can ya try?”

She tried, but in doing so, she tipped the basket toward him, making it worse. She had to stop. “I can’t,” she said. “I really can’t.”

Gangue’s eyes were huge, and the frenzy of his pleas was setting everyone on edge.

“Can ya get to his hands?” Ilbei asked, doing his best to keep his voice calm.

“What do you mean?”

“Can ya cut the ropes on his hands? He can pull hisself back in.”

She glanced up at Ilbei, frantic. He tried to nod encouragingly, not knowing that all she could see was the white of his beard moving in the near dark. It was enough.

She looked back down, looked into Gangue’s eyes. So full of fear, so dependent on her goodwill. She glowered back at him. “I should just let them cut you loose,” she said. But she leaned into the basket and fished around for the knife where it had dropped when she’d nearly fallen out. She found it and then dared to reach out far enough that she could, by pulling Gangue closer and reaching precariously down, saw at the bindings around his wrists.

The moment the ropes were severed, his wrists came apart, sending his left arm, the one that Mags held, swinging up toward her and the rest of him dropping away the length of his reach. She fell backward with the temporary release, but then his weight hit the end of his outstretched arm, and she was nearly dragged back out of the basket again. She held onto him only by his sleeve.

“Come on, you guys,” Kaige said. His voice was strained. His basket dropped another half hand with the motion of that change in positioning. “Sarge, I’m going to have Meggins push him out. I’m sorry, but I can’t hold it no more.”

“Mags?” Ilbei asked, the question deadly urgent. Time to decide.

Gangue was reaching for her with his other hand, but his back was to her now, the arm she held nearly twisted out of joint. His terror was palpable.

“I can’t get him,” she said. “I really can’t.”

“Cut him loose, Meggins,” Ilbei said. “Do it now.”

Gangue’s eyes flew as wide as dinner plates, and his mouth opened dark spaces above and below the line of his gag. “I’m sorry,” Mags said. “I’m so sorry.” Then, his brows lowered a little, his eyes a little less wide, and he looked away from her. He looked up, saw Meggins pull the bloody knife out of Cavendis and move it to the rope around the nobleman’s neck.

“Be ready to let him go soon as this cuts loose, Mags,” Meggins warned. “Do you hear? Say you will.”

“I will.”

“Here he goes.”

She looked back down at Gangue. He was looking down the hole. He looked back up at her. And smiled. He reached up and pulled off the gag. His weight against the yoke rope was half strangling him, but he began to chant.

“He’s casting something,” she shouted.

“Three … two …,” Meggins said, his voice wavering with the motions of his knife. He paused. “If I didn’t have to worry about cutting this bastard’s throat …,” he said, shifting the knife and sawing madly. “Okay, three … two … one ….” Gangue vanished just as Meggins said, “Let go.”

The plank fell away as soon as Meggins cut the rope, tumbling down, bouncing off of the smooth sides of the shaft and sending wooden echoes up at them as it fell, until finally it was lost in the glare of the light below. But it didn’t matter anymore.

Though the cutting of the rope had cut him as well, and the coarse rope had gouged him beneath Gangue’s weight, Cavendis still managed to laugh as he watched the empty yoke fall away. He mumbled something incoherent from behind his gag. By the tone and cadence of it, it was derisive and full of ridicule.

Chapter 34

T
he descent through the shaft became a race, a race to get the baskets to the bottom before the men above broke into the room and hauled Ilbei and company up, or worse, cut the ropes. Despite the great strength of both Ilbei and Kaige, there was also the matter of fatigue. Everyone present understood the possibility of failing strength, and the entire company fell silent and let the two men work. All that could be heard was the sound of their breathing, the measured huffs of exhalation here and there, as the two brawny soldiers went hand under hand under hand.

Here and there along the descent, Cavendis made some snide remark, tossed aloft some insult rendered inarticulate due to the gag in his mouth, but likely enough on the subject of lowborn men, low stations and lower intellect. No one cared. The work was at the center of everything. Everyone in the baskets, Cavendis included, strained to hear the last crash as the door barricade failed, which would be followed by voices shouting down the hole.

And of course, those voices did come, and too soon, for the baskets were still some forty spans from the cavern floor when men began shouting down. Fortunately, the distance was great enough, and the dark was dark enough, that the men at the top could not make out who it was going down. Not a gaggle of geniuses by any means, they actually—despite having had to step over the corpses of several of their dead comrades—called down to inquire, “Gangue, is that you?”

“Uh, yes, it is,” Meggins shouted back. “Give me a moment, boys. I’m on the heels of a burglary.”

A pronounced silence ensued. Ilbei, whose work had him looking up the whole time anyway, saw the silhouetted shapes of the men around the opening turn toward one another as they discussed the possibilities. In the interim, Ilbei and Kaige managed five spans more.

“You ain’t Gangue,” one of them called down. And right after, an arrow whistled past. It struck the stone wall near Kaige’s basket, sounding like a tossed stick as it hit, but it flew harmlessly by. Then came another, and three more after that, plus a few coins someone kicked in, likely on accident. Only one arrow found a mark, grazing Mags down the side of her calf. She made no noise, and Ilbei only knew she’d been hit by the way her eyes narrowed and her breathing changed. They’d descended another five spans.

Two more arrows came down, one so close to Ilbei’s arm that the fletching bristled across his elbow like a soft brush. A third thudded into the bottom of the basket between his feet.

Jasper cried out and fell to the bottom of his basket screaming that he’d been hit. “Oh, oh, oh,” he screamed, so loud it unnerved everyone and set all their hearts pounding even faster than they already were.

Ilbei somehow found strength to quicken the pace, his aching arms and cramping hands revived by his concern for Jasper. “Meggins,” he called. “He all right? Where’s he hit?”

Meggins leaned down to look at Jasper. “Straight through his wrist, back to front,” he reported.

“He gonna bleed out?”

Meggins was a moment in responding, not wanting to lose pace in handling the rope, adding his strength beneath the work of the mighty Kaige. If Kaige let go or slipped, Meggins wanted to at least serve as a brake. Seven spans lower and two more arrows down—one of which ricocheted off the hard leather of Meggins’ pauldron while the other glanced off Kaige’s breastplate with a clank—Meggins was able to reply. “I think not, Sarge. It’s plugged itself for now.” By the volume of the screams that Jasper let out, Ilbei would have thought poor Jasper was on fire. But he supposed the young man had little experience with pain, having come to the army after living a sheltered life.

There came the familiar
tink
of an arrow striking a metal plate straight on, and nearly in the same instant, Kaige let out an “
Argh
!” His basket dropped two full spans, and Meggins grunted right after, but brought it to a halt. It hung there for less than five heartbeats, then began descending again. Ilbei could hear Kaige’s teeth grinding, and a quick glance across the intervening space revealed an arrow sticking straight up out of the man’s giant bicep like a feathered weed.

Ilbei gritted his own teeth and tried to increase speed even more. Mags gasped, and he looked to her. She was holding her head. She pulled her hand away, and it was red with blood. “Bad?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “I’m fine.”

An arrow clanked off the head of Ilbei’s pick, and another gold coin spun down, emitting in its revolutions a tinny whine.

He glanced over the edge. Less than ten spans.

Five spans.

“Shite!” Kaige rasped, and his basket dropped precipitously, fast enough Ilbei lost sight of it below the edge of his own. It landed with a thud and four gasps, the impact silencing Jasper’s cries.

Ilbei let his basket drop the last span, and it too landed with a thud. “Get out, get out. Out of the line of fire!” He and Mags leapt out of the basket and rolled away. He got to his feet straight off and turned to where Kaige’s basket lay. Kaige and Meggins were dragging Jasper out of the line of fire. Cavendis had seen to himself and was running for the creek that ran along the wall, headed for the exit Ilbei and his party had used.

“That’s not gonna happen,” Ilbei shouted. He ran after the fleeing nobleman, his short, bowed legs eating up the ground between.