Chapter 21 #2
Getting those back through Edmund’s window required unfolding them and passing them through one at a time. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to run with all this,” the scholar said.
“I just need to find us some food, and maybe some packs. Then I can come out the front door if I have to.”
The next door had bars on the window, and the Dervish recognized it from their brief imprisonment. Edmund’s patient was still inside, staring at the ceiling with the air of the immensely bored, and the Dervish crouched below the level of the bars as he snuck by.
He located, in short order, a kitchen, a pantry, and a scullery.
To his annoyance, he recognized one of the pots in the scullery as the one Edmund had been traveling with.
He reclaimed it and helped himself to the best knives while he was at it.
The dishes were mostly earthenware, which would be an annoyance to travel with, but there were a few metal cups, which he liberated in the name of the people, or at least in the name of the Dervish.
The pantry was large but the actual contents were minimal.
Tail end of winter, the Dervish thought.
Edmund would probably have fretted that people would go hungry, but having been handed over to a dragon without even a last meal, the Dervish was not inclined to be so charitable.
He filled the pot with more wax-coated rounds of cheese, a crock of honey, some salt pork, and a ceramic jar that appeared to be full of either eyeballs or pickled eggs.
At this point, he was starting to run out of arms, so he draped a string of onions around his neck and closed the pantry door behind him.
I really hope nobody sees me. If I have to drop all this, it’s going to make an unbelievable mess.
Fortunately, the second-to-last door opened into a bunkroom.
Four beds with chests at the foot. Presumably this was where the guards slept when they weren’t off fighting fires or plowing or whatever they did in a small farming community where guarding prisoners was not a full-time occupation.
The Dervish dumped out the contents of a leather pack by the door and filled it with the food, then opened each chest in turn, revealing socks, shirts, spare boots, and in one puzzling case, a large jar of mustard.
He took two shirts and several pairs of socks, but decided to leave the mustard where he found it.
At this point, the Dervish knew that he really should have turned around and made for the front door, but he was grimly aware that without money, they weren’t going to get far once they reached more civilized areas. He juggled the pot—now filled with socks—to his left arm and tried the last door.
It was locked.
This immediately piqued his curiosity. If he was right, that room was another with slatted windows. And why would you lock a door in this place, unless you were keeping something valuable inside?
The Dervish was hoping for money, but if he was being honest, he was also hoping to find Edmund’s books. The scholar hadn’t complained, but the Dervish knew that he had to be mourning their loss almost as much as the accursed mule.
He hurried to the front door, which was ajar, poked his head around it, and saw no one, though he could smell smoke. In the distance, the blaze of orange made it obvious that they’d given up on saving the outbuilding and were probably just trying to keep the fire from spreading. Time to go.
Edmund looked up, clearly ready to bolt, then relaxed when he saw it was the Dervish. “Any luck?”
“Lots. Let’s get this lot under cover before they start coming back.”
Edmund had used the rope to rig a makeshift sack, but it was still an unwieldy burden. The Dervish kept looking over his shoulder and picked up the pace when he saw figures going to the large barn, leading horses. “Come on…” he said under his breath. “Come on, just a little farther…”
Luck was with them, or perhaps the horses were so keyed up that their handlers had no time to notice two shadows slipping away across the fields. The men reached the shelter of the woods and made their way deeper in, until the flicker of firelight was lost in the trees.
Edmund started giggling.
“Uh,” said the Dervish. “Are you okay?” He’d never heard Edmund make a sound like that before.
“Ah … ha … yes. No, I’m fine. I mean, yes, I’m fine.” He put his hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry. I’ve never done anything like that before. It was fun.”
The Dervish grinned. Apparently Edmund’s life as a scholar hadn’t involved a lot of breaking and entering. “It was, wasn’t it?”
“I mean, at the time I was completely terrified, but afterward…”
“Who knew? Scratch that scholarly exterior and find a delinquent.”
“No, no. I would never … not unless they deserved it … and it’s not stealing if you’re taking back what’s yours to begin with…” He coughed. “Still, I’m starting to understand why Mistress Slate became a burglar.”
“Mistress Slate was the old friend of yours, right? The one who, ah…”
“Pulled my head out of my ass, yes. At least partway. I won’t swear it’s not still there.”
“I don’t think any of us ever get all the way there.”
“She’d like you,” Edmund said, in the tones of one bestowing a high honor.
“My friend Angharad Shieldborn would like you,” the Dervish said.
The words came out much too sincere, with no protective irony around them. It was too dark to make out expressions, which was probably a good thing. He’d teased Angharad a thousand times about being too earnest. She’d have been delighted to see him equally stricken.
It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not as if he’s my type.
Dog Violet found them about twenty minutes later. “Would have been sooner, but a gnole can hardly smell anything but smoke,” she said, wiping repeatedly at her nose. “Ugh.”
“Any luck with the animals?”
“Yeah, yeah, once they smell fire, all the horses want to run away.” She led them off in another direction, pine needles crunching, until they reached a sheltered clearing, where Large Francis sat, with—
“Sweetness!” Edmund dropped his blankets and hurried to the mule. “Oh, sweetheart, I missed you.” He pressed his forehead against the animal’s neck, which she bore philosophically. “Thank you, Dog Violet. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
“Eh, humans rescue a gnole, a gnole calls it even.”
“It-is-good-to-see-you-both-unharmed.”
“Ancestors,” said the Dervish, spotting the other inhabitant of the clearing. “Did you ride the mule or just put her on this monster?” He stared at an enormous bay draft horse, who didn’t even have a halter but was standing placidly next to Sweetness. “For that matter, how did you even steal him?”
Dog Violet snorted. “Giant horse wanted to follow mule, a gnole isn’t going to argue. Giant horse can go anywhere he wants.”
The next few minutes were spent rigging a makeshift halter for the draft horse and even more makeshift saddlebags for Sweetness, a task made no easier by the darkness.
The mule tolerated this. The draft horse lowered his head and accepted the halter politely, like a large man receiving a daisy crown from a small child.
“I-did-not-know-that-horses-came-in-that-size.”
“I’m not entirely convinced that they didn’t cut the antlers off a moose.”
“Good haul, knife-man,” Dog Violet said, inspecting their prizes. “Won’t freeze, won’t starve.”
“Yes, but that’s about all we can say.” The Dervish rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s actually another room I couldn’t get into because it was locked. I’d like to see if we can get into it. That might be where they keep the settlement’s valuables.”
“Are you sure?” Edmund looked up from Sweetness with a frown. “That fire’s going to be burned out soon.”
“And hopefully they’ll be so exhausted that they won’t be keeping an eye out.” He looked over at Dog Violet. “What do you say, my lady gnole? Want to make one more quick raid?”
The gnole’s teeth were white sparks in the dark. “Knife-man can lead the way.”
Edmund plodded through the dark, trying not to feel rejected.
It was ridiculous. He knew it was ridiculous. The Dervish was absolutely right to take Dog Violet. The gnole was sneakier than Edmund would ever be in his life.
It was just that earlier, when he’d been the one the Dervish was relying on to get him out of trouble if it came … well, he’d felt useful. Not like a burden who couldn’t fight and couldn’t hunt and couldn’t do much but make soup and deliver spontaneous lectures on parakeet adaptation.
This is useful too, he told himself. Somebody has to get the animals away.
And that was true, and he knew it, it just wasn’t very daring and it wasn’t taking place near the Dervish.
Many-Armed One, I’ve got to stop this. If I get any more lovestruck, he’ll start to notice, and how awful would that be?
He kept plodding forward. Sweetness had better night vision than he did, and so long as he kept her aimed generally west, she did most of the work.
Large Francis had hold of the draft horse’s halter, although Edmund suspected that the beast was obeying mostly out of politeness and because it meant that he got to follow Sweetness.
Dog Violet would be able to track their scent and find them once the pair was done with their raid. Assuming they succeeded. If they got caught, the villagers would know who had torched the grain storage, and were likely to be extremely angry about it.
“Is-something-wrong, friend-Edmund?”
“Just twisting my whiskers.”
The pillbug’s legs tapped inside the music box. “But-you-do-not-have-whiskers.”
“No, no. It’s a gnole expression.” Edmund smiled in spite of himself. “It means when you keep fretting about things you can’t do anything about. But you still do it, and you keep yourself upset.”
“Ah. We-say, ‘You-cannot-roll-into-a-ball-to-escape-yourself.’ Perhaps-it-is-similar?”
“I suspect so.” Edmund made a mental note to write that one down when he had better light.
“Do-you-worry-for-our-companions?”
“That’s some of it, yes.”