prissi

The music for this chapter is for obvious reasons later in the chapter the title theme for the French game show "Le clefs du fort Boyard" in the medieval cover from Elthin.

Having been used to rising well before sunrise over the past few days, I awoke just after midnight tonight, at least according to the few stars visible above the courtyard. Even though the claws were in, my stretching and moving made the floorboards squeak, which woke Prince John. He yawned and looked at me. Although, in the faint starlight that filtered through the canopy of the vines, even I was unable to see much more than a silhouette.

"Countess, are you going somewhere?" And yawned again. "You can relax."

"No relaxing. We needing Mage Tarik." I hesitated. "So I going to Nuncipal and seeing mage."

"Now? Tonight? Hmm."

"Tomorrow, they knowing we coming."

"Countess, we really should not do anything alone."

"Then asking others. I not feeling good waiting. No, not good waiting with mage with Nuncipal, uh, cannot saying, but thinking not good." I sighed.

"I'm awake now. So let's get Coan and meet Larina. No clerics." There had been no hesitation.

"No clerics, yes. So we going for guard?"

"Yeah, maybe. Can you see enough not to hit a wall?"

I took his hand and led him through the pitch-black corridors to the next room. But even I could only find the entrance by touch. He went in and touched the guard on the shoulder, who immediately woke up and followed him, his gear in his hands. In our room, he got dressed and was quite enthusiastic about paying a surprise visit to the nuncipal.

Next was the creaky staircase down to the ground floor. As there was a thick carpet at the bottom, I decided to jump. It was a heavy landing, I was out of shape, or perhaps my legs had bulked up again. But the landing was still quieter than the stairs. The prince and the guard descended the stairs normally, and even for them, it creaked awfully loud. We waited for a moment, but nothing moved.

Then we went to the stables. Luckily, Larina's private stall was next to the entrance. She woke up quickly too.

"The countess wants to go to the nuncipal and free the mage," Prince John opened our war council.

"Now?"

"Now, not waiting for us. Tomorrow, I waiting, I thinking."

"I agree with the countess," said the guard. I have never heard him speak much. "So how do we find the mage?"

"First going inside. I climbing wall. Easy wall."

"And what would you do after you entered?"

"Yes," Larina added, "I'm sure there'll be lots of guards on the other side."

"There are more likely inquisitors," said the prince, "but that is even worse. So what do you want to do?"

"Many sleeping. I just opening the gate. Then you going in. All silent."

"Hmm." The guard was not convinced. "I'm not so sure. They must have heard us coming from the city gate. Perhaps there will be more inquisitors patrolling than usual. I would certainly do it in their place."

"Yes, but not knowing I can climbing their wall."

The prince sighed. "Countess, your eagerness to fight surprises me."

"No, not fighting, getting Mage Tarik without fighting."

"I'm afraid that might be wishful thinking. At least you have your dagger. But let's take a look before we do anything.

"If we are to surprise them, we must be silent and quick."

"But my hooves will be loud," Larina sighed.

"Waiting!" I went to our luggage, which still lay by the entrance and took out the four ex-waterskins that had served as my paw shoes. Then I looked for some dry straws and stuffed them into each of them. Larina put them on and took a few steps. She could walk silently now, almost eerie to have her huge warhorse body go so silently. So we slipped out of the inn through the stable, unnoticed.

Larina smiled broadly, almost dancing with her hoof silencers. I had to be much more careful than her to tiptoe without extracting my claws, and not to clack my hard palms on the uneven, higher cobblestones.

* * *

Tonight was the first day of the new moon, so it would be dark until dawn. Now, in the middle of the night, we were alone, no one stirred in the street apart from a few rats and cats. The windows, or rather the canopies of the houses, were all dark, but night insects were chirping in great numbers, masking the sound of our footsteps.

Thanks to the earlier tour, we knew the way and went straight to the street that led to the gate. The inner wall was even higher than the outer, and no houses touched it on the outside. And it was a stone wall. But in the end, it was only five metres of vertical wall, nothing to worry me.

A lone light shone through a slit in a window on the top floor of the gate tower. We watched it for a while from the far corner, but no silhouette appeared in it. It was dark everywhere else, just chirping and faint snoring.

"Seeing you on the other side," I whispered and then I was at the wall. The wall was rough enough to be hardly a challenge, even in the dim starlight. I found enough pawholds even without looking. I was used to it for my hind legs anyway, for them I had always relied on feeling the cracks that would hold me. And even if it was the enemy's stone wall in the middle of the night, squirrel-me enjoyed climbing again.

I was noisy, much noisier than I liked. My claws scratched loudly in the cracks, silencing the insects around me. Moreover, twice a stone was not strong enough for my weight and crumbled and mortal and small stones tumbled down. I hung just below the parapet for a while, waiting for the insect to start chirping again.

Obviously, the guard in the tower was asleep because nothing happened despite my ruckus. One last jump and I was on the parapet walkway.  The walkway ended at a door in the tower. But the size of the door did not look like I could easily fit through. A few metres in the other direction on the parapet walkway were straight and steep stairs made of planks sticking out of the wall. Another not very inviting route. Further down the walkway was the next building with a similar small door as the one in the tower. However, it was too dark to make out details in the courtyard five metres below to risk a jump.

Still, given the choice between squeezing through a tiny door into an unfamiliar interior with likely guards and, at best, a narrow ladder to other levels, the stairs seemed the lesser of two evils. Even if they had no railings and the steps were worn and uneven. After two metres down, my hands clinging to the cracks between the stones on the wall to my right, and my paws clutching for support with each step, I risked jumping down the last three metres.

My paw toes were soft, but I also had hard plates in my palms for walking long distances. The yard echoed with four pat pat pat pats, ringing in my ear like gunshots. 'The elephant squirrel has landed,' I grinned, then tiptoed to the inner gate of the tower.

It was locked from the inside! There was no lock or bolt to open it from this side. Who also locked the access to the defence tower from the inside? I pushed again and the gate creaked but did not give way.

What to do now? Wasn't the faint reflection of torchlight on the wall across the courtyard getting brighter? Should I climb the wall again?

I hesitated too long. The tiny door in the tower leading to the parapet opened and almost at the same time another door on the next inner building to the parapet opened and two more figures appeared. The parapet was now manned by three inquisitors or guards, I did not care which. Two with bows. It might be difficult for them to see me, their lantern blinding them more than they were lighting up the courtyard. But just one step around the corner of the building and I froze in front of a row of five inquisitors, the three in the middle with pikes and the two on the side with a torch in one hand and a sword in the other, their faces hidden in the shadows of their cowls.

My body may have been designed by Tarik for fighting. But no one had ever taught me how to rip a man to shreds with my claws. Or how to disarm five with one blow. And certainly not with this overgrown squirrel at the helm. I just froze, not even thinking about my dagger.

When they formed a circle around me, I put my hands behind my back, suppressed an instinctive snarl and sat down. And waited. The inquisitors shouted commands at me that I could not follow. "I give up," I said. And in Loma: "Hello, yes, no, please", the four words I knew in Loma.

They only hesitated for a second before my hands were tied behind my torso and two ropes held my paws together so that I could only hobble very short steps. Well done, big hero.

They tugged on my leash, so I hobbled behind them as fast as the ropes would allow. We descended into what must have been the dungeon.

* * *

The dungeon was probably the coolest place in Lomaho. Which exhausted the positive aspects of it. I had to squeeze through a door into a high cell. Two inquisitors had also entered, they cut the ropes that bound my paws and the one behind my back that bound my hands. Then they left, closing the small door behind them.

They didn't take anything: I was wearing my jacket, and they'd even left me the dagger, just as the grand wessir had told me. It could have been worse.

There was a small hole in the high vaulted ceiling, showing a tiny section of dawning sky. I could easily climb up, but I would barely be able to get my hand through the opening.

The skylight was the only ventilation. So while the temperature would make this dungeon cell my preferred accommodation, it was also one of the wettest places I had been in the last few days and the stench from the lack of both ventilation and sanitation cancelled out any remaining appeal.  I tried to sniff around to see if Mage Tarik had been here, but the overwhelming stench made it difficult to detect even only the inquisitors.

Soon these inquisitors returned with my breakfast. Just some bread and a waterskin.

Not much later, a ray of sunlight shone through the skylight, illuminating the filth around me. I chose the dirtiest corner to relieve myself, the same choice as a previous inmate, and shoved all the rubbish left in this cell into the same corner.

Time enough to let my mind wander. First, of course, Count Radel. The poor count fought for our marriage. I was so proud of him. Which I was not of myself, having been caught at the first attempt. I hope I can meet him again. 'Hey, Kiara,' I scolded myself, 'that was supposed to be a distraction to more positive thoughts.' And now to Freya, what would she do now? Maybe work as a midwife? Somehow Freya and infants did not go together in my mind, so it was not a good distraction. And finally, the others from our group. They would be back at the inn. I was sure the clerics had a plan too. A completely different one, of course, involving snail-paced politics, I guessed. Well, this introspection only revealed how much I had failed at positive thinking.

The bright spot from my skylight moved slowly through the cell. Almost no sound came down here, not even my big ears caught much. Hours passed. Then my skylight went dark and the afternoon downpour began. The skylight turned into a cascade that splashed into the middle of my cell. At first, I was happy, washing away the sweat and dirt, and then I drank my fill. But there was no drain, the water rose so that the rubbish and filth began to float until the water reached the height of the doorstep. I stood on my hind legs with my back to the wall to minimise splashing and limit the dirt to my lower hind legs.

The water drained very slowly through the cracks between the stones. By sunset, only a slimy layer remained on the stones. I used a twig to brush some of the slime into the lowest corner before the light went out. I stood on my hind legs until it was too dark to see. The occasional stars in the skylight did not provide enough light, even for my eyes. With only the skylight for ventilation, the cell did not dry, only the rotting stench returned. My stomach was still growling.

I tried to sleep standing up. But of course that did not work. So I tucked my tail under me and slept on my forepaws, as always, my nose deep in their fur. But my whole underside was in the slime that had been left in the cracks. Not having done much, I was not tired and the sleep was light.  In the night I heard squeaking. I roared as I had done when I had driven the wolves away on the journey from Ratern to Krenburg, and there was silence again.