19. N #3
She felt grateful that the guard didn’t really enter the cage anymore, but he also didn’t act as if he thought she was going to lunge for him as soon as he opened the door.
He treated her with the sort of casual disregard that would have rankled not that long ago. Now, it just came as a relief.
Still, at some point she would need to escape, and the easiest way would be to go through him or over him as he opened the door.
She needed to keep in mind that building his trust served a purpose, her escape.
When the time came, she would need to be merciless, if she wanted out.
She now had three hefty bronze rods. Each would make for a blunt but heavy spear, or club.
Thrown or swung with enough force, they could kill.
Escaping would likely mean killing him. She was surprised that it bothered her.
He was a nice lad. Not the sharpest sword in the arsenal, but open and trusting.
The Triana of not very long ago would have shrugged and done what needed to be done.
“You’re going soft,” she murmured. Then, “Maybe there is another way.” Doubtful, but … think about it. She got her equipment together. “Ready, Rock?”
The last two rods came out more quickly than those before.
Either she had mastered the technique, grown physically stronger, or Rock had aided her somehow.
Likely a combination of all three. The work might have been concluded that same day had it not been for a lot of noise and commotion outside the stables.
Triana had quit as soon as that had started, fearful that someone might poke their head into her prison, just to make sure she wasn’t up to something.
She had lived in nervous anxiety for the duration, until it quieted, and Gelbert came in with her supper.
“What was that all about?” she asked him, as he slid the bowl into her cage and took the soiled clothing. He frowned a bit, “Can’t say. Shouldn’t say. Big secret.”
“Oh,” she replied dryly. “Yes, I’m in constant contact with my nest of spies and confidants.” She made it a point to turn a full circle in the cage. “Who exactly am I going to tell?”
Gelbert laughed dryly. “Good point. Lord Haldeen’s taking delivery of some kind of new weapon. They brought it to the Beast gate. The noise is a group of fabricators working to smith together some kind of carts for them. I heard they are supposed to be used to help with the Great Work.”
Triana could hear the capital letters. “Great Work?”
“Yes,” Gelbert replied. “They are building a road that connects one of the other cities to a giant Ring out in the middle of nowhere.”
Triana felt a sudden chill. She knew exactly what that Gate was, and where it went.
“Why?” she asked.
Gelbert shrugged. “Dunno. I heard that it is a weapon that will put down the Monsters once and for all. But, if that’s the case … I guess they took their own damned sweet time deciding to use it.”
“I guess,” Triana agreed. She considered how to proceed. “Did you hear anything else about what it might be?”
He glanced at her then, his brows knitting together and expression growing cagey. “I’ve said too much. Best you forget all about it. Seriously, forget about it. Focus on shoveling your shit.” His tone had turned harsh, enough that it surprised her.
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I overstepped.”
He got up quickly and moved away, as though remembering his role … and hers. “Best you have the ash bucket filled. I can’t cut you any breaks.”
He left briskly.
She watched him go, then scratched her chin with a thumbnail.
“Well, Rock. It was definitely something I said. We learned that the stables are near a large gate in the estate’s wall. Large enough for carts anyways. Maybe large enough for you.”
She turned to look at Rock. “I know why I’m here. I mistook a dessert fork for the salad fork. But, what are you in for …?”
Rock, being Rock, said nothing. He started to mooch around the hopper where another few cartloads of soiled straw came tumbling down. “I agree, big boy. Formal dinners are such a bitch. Let’s get you something to eat.”
Once she had fed Rock, she waited for the noise to settle down before she went back to her labors.
The fourth rod, well loosened by her previous exertions came free, releasing a torrent of a vile smelling ichor.
The smell burned her eyes and lungs, and she reeled away coughing and unable to see.
She felt Rock heave, actually shift and press and she opened her streaming eyes to blearily see him expel a thick, greasy sludge that spattered on the floor and gave off an unholy reek.
She coughed again, trying to clear the stuff out of her burning lungs.
Rock surged then, against the hopper that held the straw, striking it hard.
Distressed metal groaned and thick timbers napped like kindling.
Triana scrambled to keep her purchase on top of Rock, but without getting near the disgusting black smears that covered his back.
He shifted again, striking the hopper. Triana slid a bit, her heart in her throat as she came close to sliding off.
He turned again, and she nearly overbalanced and fell into his path.
“What has gotten into you!” she snapped, frightened and confused by the sudden change in his placid behavior.
Then she saw as he turned that he had tried to scrape out the last bronze rod.
Rock had sheared it hard enough to have bent it nearly a third of the way over.
She knew from the others she had removed that it would be sunk too deeply and set too well for him to succeed.
He wouldn’t get the rod out, but his thrashing might cause her to fall into his path.
She would be a red smear on the floor if she fell into his path.
“Stop, stop, stop, stop!” she called out, thinking the words as hard as she could on the off chance that he was somehow reading her mind, as some of the humans were said to be able to do. “Let me try. Maybe I can do it. I did the others.”
The thrashing and heaving eased. She had no idea if it was the tone of her voice, or her words or even thoughts that did it, but the earthquake movements along Rock’s back eased.
She made her way along his back, still avoiding the stinking fluid, as close as she dared to the final rod.
He had bent it certainly, but had also cracked the carapace around it.
Provided that Rock felt pain, she could only imagine how much the impact would have hurt.
She looked at the wreckage of the hopper, sized up what it could provide.
The wooden cradle lay smashed, while the bars that held the soiled straw had been bent like hairpins.
She gave those a hard look. Their shape reminded her of something.
She sat on top of Rock, thinking, before she recalled.
Kyrtian had a picture that showed how one part fit inside another.
The two parts had been connected by some kind of wire or bar.
Perhaps if she could take the bent bars, she could work them around each other to make a lever that might draw out the last bronze rod faster.
Mark after mark of frustration followed as each contraption failed more spectacularly than the previous.
Finally, sore and frustrated, she simply stood on the remains of Rock’s food hopper and pulled on the damned rod as hard as she could.
She felt a slight movement. He had knocked it loose!
She swore sulphurously, a long steam of creative profanity, at the realization of the wasted time.
She hauled on the bronze rod with all her strength, while Rock obligingly shifted away. The rod shifted a handspan at a time. Working together, they managed to draw out most of its length, with her nearly being pulled under him only a few times as he shifted and took her off her balance.
In time, they had most of the rod out, until they hit a sticky bit, and refused to budge.
She braced herself for a final pull, putting all her strength into it.
She heard a small sound, like a cracker breaking, and felt something shift.
The final rod’s last arm length came out with no resistance whatsoever.
The mighty tug overbalanced her and she tried to stop her fall, her arms windmilling as she tried to stay upright.
The effort failed and she fell over backwards into the hopper.
The last rod had been removed, Rock was free!
She sat up, picking soiled straw out of her hair, and prepared to give Rock a piece of her mind. It wasn’t really his fault, of course, but swearing at herself didn’t carry the same edge.
Her mind flooded with a sense … of a butterfly flitting from flower to flower. Not how it looked, and not an image, but how it felt to be a flitterwing, free to bob and float, lapping up the sweet nectar on a sunny day.
Triana felt herself nearly swept away by the tide, the sheer vastness of the sensation, as though she were a small child standing next to a vast drum, where every beat thrummed and thumped against her tiny body.
She felt lost for a moment, swept away and drowning in the waves of feeling and sensation that washed over her, and exaltation. Pure freedom.
“Rock?” she gasped, trying to gather her composure.
Another tide of feeling, a more complex emotion, swept her away again.
She tried to push back and ward her mind, but it was like trying to hold back the sea with her hands.
The engulfing feeling and the sheer vastness of the emotions swept away her feeble defenses.
She shifted her legs around so that she could stand and gingerly stepped out of the ruined remains of the hopper that held the soiled straw.
She took a look around the ruins of her cell.
Several bars had bent under the weight of Rock’s efforts to loosen the last bronze rod.
The metal and wooden hopper had been smashed to bits, and long sprays of black noisome fluid congealed on the floor.
Triana suspected she had long since gone noseblind from the smell of the manured straw, but the stench of this stuff sliced right through it all.
She got a whiff, then covered her nose with her sleeve to try and keep from retching.
She might have gotten Rock free, but the destruction would surely give the game away the moment the guard entered.
She turned to face Rock, who appeared to be swaying a bit, in time with the walls of sensation that crashed down on her.
She focused on the words she wanted to say. She took a couple of steps forward.