Siege of Pailtar (11 page)

Aspen nodded, and took a position a couple feet back from the window, where she could see out it but not be seen by anyone who accidently walked by. Kiana noted and appreciated the silent and smart way Aspen moved.
The girl has skills
, she thought to herself.

This guard was on time, and the door to the courtyard opened almost to the second of Kiana’s internal clock. Aspen gave the nod, and Kiana quietly opened the door leading the group down the hallway, she turned up the main hallway and led them to stairs down to the basement. The group made their way down the stairs with no incidents. The timing of the guards’ routes had been perfect.

At the bottom of the stairs was a narrow hallway. They followed the hallways until they got to a  thick steel gate. At the bottom of the gate was a small opening for food. They had found the home of the troll. Already the smell of the air was changing. Upstairs the odor had been pleasantly floral. Vases of fresh cut flowers, throughout the castle, gave off the pleasant scents. Down here, the smell was unpleasant, strong, musky, and almost foul.

As Kiana inspected the lock on the steel door, Aldwin whispered to her, “Have you any ideas on how to deal with the troll? I have never encountered one.”

“No, but Mom did make me read three books on the Western Isles. She insisted that myths were only myths to the people who didn’t encounter strange things. She said that I needed to know as much about the different beasts and creatures of the world as possible. I thought the books were bogus, I certainly hope the information in them was correct,” replied Kiana as she started picking the lock. The lock itself was a simple one, just particularly thick and strong steel. Obviously they were not worried about the troll picking the lock.

“Aspen, can you make a butterfly illusion?” asked Kiana.

The girl nodded, “Yes, I can do three maybe four butterflies and control them, but only for about ten minutes, then they start to fade.”

Kiana nodded, “That’s fine. If my plan works I will only need a minute or two. When I open this door we are going in. Osmond, you are our sentry. If someone comes down the stairs, you close this gate behind us and hide in the corner. It is dark enough you won’t be seen. Just make sure the troll doesn’t come through this door, okay?”

Osmond nodded, he was perfectly fine with not going into the troll's den.

“Aspen, when we find the troll and the vault you are going to distract the troll with butterflies. Trolls are terribly dumb creatures, but they love butterflies according to ‘The Traveler's Guide To Western Mythology.’ If that book is correct, the troll will be so enthralled with the butterflies that we will be able to walk right by and open the vault.” Kiana paused, took a breath, looked at Aldwin and continued, “You and I will sneak past the troll, no point taking an unnecessary risk, and then we will see how tricky this vault is. I need you to check it for magic before I start trying to break in.”

Aldwin, in his cheery way, replied, “This sounds like it might actually work, let’s do it.”

Kiana opened the gate, and the three of them entered while Osmond stood back, guarding the gate. Inside the gate the room was a disaster. Broken furniture, hay, and an assortment of animal bones littered the floor. At least Kiana hoped they were animal bones. They came to a corner; the air was dank and rather gross now. They could hear movement around the corner. Kiana took out her mirror, and used it to peek around the corner. She saw the biggest, ugliest creature she could have ever imagined sitting on the floor, gnawing on a meaty bone. The beast looked like someone had drawn a man and then added the facial features of a boar and the body of a bear. The troll chewed on the huge bone the way she would a tooth pick.

Kiana looked past the troll. There was a smaller room with no door. Inside that room, she could see the huge vault doors. It was an intimidating sight. The narrow room would be a killing ground, if the troll caught them there. Kiana nodded to Aspen. It was show time.

Aspen stood at the corner beside her; Aspen closed her eyes for a moment then opened them and raised her hand. Kiana watched as a small butterfly appeared in front of the troll. At first the troll watched the butterfly but then went back to chewing on its bone.
Great,
thought Kiana,
food outweighs its interest in pretty things.
Undeterred, Aspen added a second butterfly; she had the pair dance and flutter in front of the savage beast. Finally, the troll dropped its bone and focused on the pair of fluttery butterflies.

Kiana and Aldwin slipped along the opposite wall making their way into the small vault room. Aldwin went directly to it, checking for magic traps while Kiana stood at the door keeping an eye on the troll. So far it was completely focused on the butterflies. Aldwin gave a thumbs up, signifying that the vault was not magically booby-trapped. Kiana gave a small sigh of relief. She had been terrified that after all this effort they would encounter a magical trap and she would be helpless to complete the mission.

Kiana switched spots with Aldwin, leaving him to keep an eye on the troll while she tackled the vault. Kiana eyed the vault up, hard steel with a large dial and a simple handle. Kiana sat beside the vault and pressed her head against the door. She started to turn the dial. Like a regular lock, the vault had a series of tumblers that had to be clicked in order. But one couldn’t pick a vault door, she had to feel and hear the right combination of numbers to get the order correct to unlock the door. A series of steel shafts was attached to the handle, making the door almost impossible to open if you didn’t know the combination, or blow the whole thing up. Blowing up the vault, only to anger the distracted troll, sounded like a bad idea to Kiana.

As she spun the dial she could hear the faint clicking and slight change in pressure on her fingers. She changed direction and started to turn the dial in the opposite direction. She found another spot, and then another. Within thirty seconds of starting, she had the combo and was opening the vault.  Aldwin turned and watched. His eyes were big with anticipation and curiosity, as he waited for her to open the large vault door.

Kiana opened the door and looked inside. The large vault was almost completely empty! The only thing in it was a small intricately carved wooden box the size of a shoe. Kiana opened the box. Inside she found four small diamonds and a note. She grabbed the diamonds before reading the note.

Congratulations on being the first team of students to break into the Trollope estate vault. The diamonds are your reward for a job well done.

Sincerely James Goodwin

Kiana gave a quick smile. She would celebrate when they were out of the castle again. She left the wooden box in the vault and closed its door. Tucking the diamonds and the note away, she headed back to Aldwin. The troll was still occupied by the butterflies, but from the look on Aspen’s face they did not have much time left before she lost control of her illusion. They hurried past her to the door where Osmond waited.

Aspen backed out of the room while keeping the butterflies in front of the troll. When she too reached the door she turned to them. “Thank goodness you’re done. I couldn’t go much longer. Did you get what was in the vault?”

Kiana smiled and nodded. “I will show you when we are safely back out of the castle.”

By Kiana’s mental clock the first guard should be at the courtyard door, this gave them a clear path to walk back down the hallway and out the door.

As they walked Aldwin spoke softly, “Not to be a downer, but aren’t we forgetting a wizard somewhere? I would hate to almost get out, only to be burned by a crisp by an angry wizard.”

Kiana smiled, thinking back to the couple in the second bedroom. “Actually I think we are okay, as long as we don’t trip any alarms. The wizard is otherwise occupied.”

Aldwin gave her a funny look but just shrugged and carried on
. Kiana has done well for us so far,
he thought,
why doubt her now
.

The group made it out of the castle with no issues. They passed the sleeping dogs and went out the magical gate. Aldwin used the ridiculous magic phrase to reclose the gate and off they went into the night.

While they walked back to the city Kiana gave each of them their diamond and told them about the note. They were all exuberant with triumph. Aldwin was in tears, he was so happy to succeed after so many years of trying.

“Kiana, we wouldn’t have done it without you. I will owe you forever. All of you, it was a great team effort and I will never forget it,” said Aldwin with passion. The group exchanged hugs and went off to their own homes. They would see each other again soon.

It was well past midnight when Kiana opened the door to her house. She was not surprised to see her parents still awake. She was however surprised to see Keyon with them.

As Kiana walked to the table to join them both her parents stood up and hugged her without saying anything, and then her mother whispered in her ear. “I am so proud of you.” Kiana was so happy she could almost scream. After enjoying the moment, Kiana stepped back and looked at Keyon.

The man smiled, and gave her a knowing look before saying, “Congratulations and welcome to the Thieves’ Guild.”

Kiana Clairmont, Thieves’ Guild thief, it has a good ring to it
, she thought to herself.

12

At Sea

“SAIL HO” SAID THE sailor sitting in the crow’s nest.

Quinton and Sharon stood next to the captain, who was manning the helm. “Do you think we can catch them?” asked Quinton.

Captain Singleton glanced up at his main sail. “With fair winds we can overtake them.” They had spotted the Darcarion ship three days ago and had been tracking it down, but each night the ship had veered off and lost them. They were heading in the general direction of the Western Isles, home of the Isle of Darcaria, but were not following a straight course. They knew they were being pursued. However, today was the first day that the enemy ship had been spotted early enough in the day to gain significant advantage in closing the distance.

“What have you in mind, young mage, for when we do catch up to them?” asked Captain Singleton.

“I have an illusion spell that I’ve been preparing,” said Quinton. “It will make us appear as a smaller vessel and much further away. We should be able to get within attack range before they realize the illusion is not real. That should give us an advantage.”

“Good,” replied the captain. “I want to have a good look at that ship before we attempt to board her. If they are carrying mages, especially fire mages, we will have to be very careful.”

Quinton nodded, fire mages were especially deadly against ships. “We’ll keep our eyes peeled, Sir.”

Quinton turned to Sharon, “You still want to do this? It’s not too late to change your mind. None of the men will think less of you for not wanting to join the boarding party.”

Sharon smirked at Quinton. “Liar, they would scoff and go back to calling me the pretty little thing, and I would have to kick their asses all over again. I’m a warrior now, Quinton, I’m not going to shirk away now that danger is coming. This is what we train for.”

Quinton laughed at Sharon’s smirk. He had expected her to make a face when he suggested she could avoid the conflict. “I thought you might say that, but I had to ask. I worry about you more than you worry about yourself.”

“That is because you are a good boyfriend, and if we weren’t at sea and chasing down Darcarions, I would kiss you for it. However, you shouldn’t worry about me. You need to focus on keeping your skinny butt alive.”

Quinton looked over his shoulder to examine his buttocks. “It’s not that skinny. Rather shapely I would say.”

Sharon broke out into laughter once again.

“Just hope we don’t fail in our attempt to capture the Darcarion vessel,” said Captain Singleton. “Some of the Darcarions would probably enjoy a young boy with a shapely behind.”

Sharon frowned, “They had better not get any ideas. I’ll skin them alive.”

“Relax, Sharon, we all know they would be much more interested in your behind than mine,” said Quinton.

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better about it?” replied Sharon.

“Just make sure we are successful, and both your butts can remain safe,” said Captain Singleton.

“Aye, Captain,” said both Quinton and Sharon.

It took several hours, but the winds were favorable and the Lady Hawk was faster than the Darcarion ship so they made good progress. Quinton cast his spell over the ship. It took a fair bit of magical energy to cast such a large illusion, but Quinton had one of Nathan’s bloodstones to draw on, giving him additional magical energies at his disposal.

They were within a few hundred yards of the enemy ship now.

“Remember, my illusion makes us appear farther away, but it doesn’t make us sound further away.” Quinton reminded the captain.

“Right,” said Captain Singleton. He turned to the first mate, “Notify the crew, no loud noises. We run silent.”

“Aye, Captain,” said the first mate as he went off to tell the sailors to be silent.

“I’m going to bring us fairly close along their starboard. That way we can get a good look at her and then veer in to board her if she’s the one we’re looking for. Quinton, you stay with me. Sharon, you join the boarding party.”

Sharon nodded at the captain and gave Quinton a wink. She then moved to the port side where the other men were hunkered down peering over the edge of the rail watching the enemy ship.

As they came up on the ship, Quinton got a good look at the crew. He could see the tattooed bodies that marked the sailors as Darcarions. He also saw several mages identifiable by the distinct dark robes they wore, and the staffs they carried instead of weapons.  They were standing together at the prow of the ship watching the Lady Hawk. They had not yet recognized that an illusion was affecting their view.

“Darcarions, and they have mages,” Quinton said to Captain Singleton.