The Sorcerer's Ascension (31 page)

The squatters’ district was not far from the docks and the warehouse where Andrill suspected the slavers were holding their prizes. Even moving carefully through the streets, it took him less than thirty minutes to reach the rendezvous point. Azerick was not surprised to find Bran already waiting and looked as if he had been here for some time.

“Have you looked at the place yet?” Azerick asked, confident that Bran had.

“Yeah, I’ve been watching the place for a couple hours. I couldn’t stand just sitting around waiting,” Bran said a little sheepishly. “I made sure I wasn’t seen though.”

“So what have you found out?”

“Come on, let’s get closer and I’ll show you,” his friend said and led him towards the warehouse.

From a dark area between two buildings, perhaps thirty yards away, Bran showed Azerick the warehouse and explained what he had seen so far.

“You can see the main doors there,” Bran said, indicating a large door that slid on metal rollers and rails. “They lit the lanterns as soon as it got dark and my guess is they’ll stay lit until morning. There is a small side door on the side and another larger set of doors at the rear. One man guards the small door while the big doors have two each, and that is just on the outside. I have no idea how many are inside, but I have seen at least four men enter and three leave and one was not one of the ones that went in. Two men take a walk around the outside of the warehouse and sometimes they’ll walk around some of the surrounding buildings.”

Azerick blew out a breath in a soundless whistle. “This is a big operation. It sounds at least as big as a thieves’ chapterhouse. Azerick understood why Andrill did not want to have a direct confrontation with the slavers.

“So how are we going to get inside?” Bran asked.

“You say there is no door on the other side?”

“No, just a solid wall.”

Azerick nodded, a plan forming in his mind. “All right, that is the way we will go in.”

“You got a saw in that bag? It’ll make way too much noise.”

“We won’t be cutting our way in but we will need to create a distraction.” Azerick looked at a few of the surrounding buildings and inclined his head towards one. “Let’s get over there.”

Azerick and Bran walked swiftly between the buildings, keeping out of sight of the warehouse until they had circled around and hid in an alley that opened opposite of the solid side of the warehouse where Azerick planned to breach the wall.

After a quick check on the guard standing in front of the smaller single door, Azerick pulled two flasks out of his rucksack and concealed them under bits of rubbish several feet in from the end of the alley and close to the walls.

Azerick handed Bran a small metal vial plugged with a cork. “When I say ‘now’, pour that into the flask. As soon as you pour it in, we need to get our butts over to the back side of the warehouse.”

“What is it?” Bran asked, shaking it next to his ear.

“It is a catalyst for the stuff in the flasks. As soon as you pour it in, those flasks are going to smoke like a bonfire made of green leaves. It should bring most of the guards over to investigate and give us time to get into the warehouse,” Azerick explained.

Bran nodded and stood next to one of the flasks while Azerick stood near the other. “Do it.”

The instant the liquid from the vials was added to the contents of the flasks, thick, white smoke billowed from the two flasks. The two boys darted further down the alley and around to one side of the warehouse just in time to see the smoke blowing out of the alley.

The smoke quickly gained the attention of the guard on that side of the building. The man looked left and right before running across the street and trying to see the source of the smoke. Assuming the smoke must be from a fire; he ran to the corner of the warehouse and called for help, shouting that the alley was on fire.

One of the other guards shouted something through the door, probably a warning, before running towards the source of the disturbance.

Azerick and Bran ran around the building they were hiding next to until they reached the backside of the warehouse. They paused before darting across the narrow throughway that lay between them and the warehouse wall. The two boys pressed their bodies against the rough, worn wood as Azerick pulled out another glass flask containing a liquid with the viscosity close to that of lamp oil.

Azerick unwound the waxed cord sealing the glass stopper in place and sloshed the substance onto the warehouse wall. The wood began giving off an oily, acrid smoke almost immediately. Bran watched in amazement as the wood dissolved as if it were aging decades in mere minutes—aging in a swamp. The wood quickly became spongy and began crumbling into a sodden pile of pulp.

“Watch that stuff!” Azerick warned as Bran impulsively stuck his head through the growing hole. “You definitely do not want to get that stuff on your clothes.”

Azerick used a stick to knock a larger hole into the wall, large enough for them to walk through if they hunched over. Dim lamplight showed through the hole from lamps that barely lit the interior. There were several large crates stacked haphazardly about the massive interior but little else.

They heard the sound of voices and whimpering cries coming from their right near the far wall. Using the crates as cover, Azerick and Bran stole stealthily towards the sound of people. Peering around a crate, they saw four adults, three of them women and none more than twenty-five years old or so, but there were also close to a dozen children ranging from perhaps five or six to sixteen years old but the light was too poor to tell if Andrea was among them.

Rope or leather cords bound the captives and the oldest had gags in their mouths. All sat with their backs pressed against the wall, looking fearfully at each other or the three men playing dice using an empty crate for a table.

Azerick looked at Bran and pointed at the sling he carried looped through his belt then at the light crossbow he himself carried. Azerick had seen his friend hit rats and pigeons at thirty yards or better with unerring accuracy. The twenty feet or so that separated them from the three slavers would be no problem for him.

Bran quirked an eyebrow at Azerick, jabbing his finger at their two weapons then pointed at the slavers and raised three fingers. Azerick pointed to the knife that hung at his belt. The blade had never failed to take the life of anyone he used it against so far and hoped his luck would hold.

Bran nodded once, stepped out from behind the crate, and whirled his sling over his head, a heavy lead shot fishermen used to weight down their nets cradled in its leather pouch. All three men turned to look at the whirring sound Bran’s sling made just as he released the lead ball. Just as Azerick had expected, the heavy bullet struck one of the men square between the eyes with an ominous thud and crack of splitting bone.

Azerick sprang up from the other side of the crate and put a quarrel in the second slaver before the one Bran brained thudded to the floor. Azerick was no expert with a crossbow, but as close as his target was, missing would have been a difficult feat. The bolt struck the man just below and to the right of where his heart struggled in its losing battle to keep beating.

Azerick dropped his crossbow and ran at the third slaver; pulling the knife he had acquired the night Harlow murdered his mother.

As sudden and efficient as the ambush had been, there was simply no way to prevent the man from shouting for help. Azerick grimaced, his hopes that the man would freeze for just a moment in panic, dashed. He hurled his knife at the slaver and watched it tumble end over end. The blade struck true just above the man’s heart, severing the aorta, but not before he was able to shout for help.

Azerick kept running at the dead man and retrieved his knife as Bran ran towards the prisoners, looking for Andrea and calling her name. His gut churned every time Bran called her name but got no answer, his cries becoming more pained and desperate with every recitation.

Azerick yanked his blade free from the slaver’s chest and ran back for his crossbow. He could hear the pounding of feet across the wooden floor of the long warehouse and they were quickly drawing nearer.

Without pausing, he scooped up his crossbow and rucksack, taking a position near one of the crates, and set the two items on top. Azerick pulled another glass flask from the rucksack as several men charged out of the dim light towards him and Bran. He could just make out swords, clubs, and knives gripped in their filthy hands.

He hurled the bottle towards the men, aiming for a point several yards in front of them. The bottle burst, splashing its noxious-smelling contents across a swath of the floor. The putrid odor struck the men like a fist to the gut, immediately causing them to clutch their stomachs and wretch violently onto the floor. A few continued to stumble forward, gagging, but intent on not allowing their captives to get away.

Even with those not completely incapacitated, it gave Azerick enough time to cock the crossbow, load another bolt, and send it flying into the lower gut of one of the men that still came on. He sent a second quarrel into another man’s hip, spinning him to the ground.

“Bran, we need to get out of here!” Azerick shouted, pulling a heavily scented piece of cloth from his pocket and pressed it against his nose and mouth as the rancid stench continued spreading.

Bran came running up behind him. “I got everyone cut loose but Andrea isn’t here!” he cried, tears of anguish and fear streaming down his face.

“I’m sorry, Bran, but we have to get out of here, now.”

Azerick could tell Bran wanted to stay and kill every slaver he found, but it would be suicide to attempt it. They needed to get going. Azerick retrieved another flask, this one full of lamp oil, and threw it against the wall where one of the lit lamps provided some of the meager light inside the warehouse. The flask shattered near enough that the oil caught and set the wall aflame.

“Come on, get them through the hole,” Azerick ordered and began herding the captives towards the hole they had made to gain entry.

Azerick and Bran urged the captives to move faster as they heard the doors slamming open and men shouting in anger. There were shouts and curses of surprise when the pungent smell of Azerick’s foul concoction reached their noses, but it was dissipating fast enough for it to cause little more than inconvenient heaving and burning eyes.

Azerick was the first one to duck through the hole in the wall and saw a slaver as he rounded the corner of the building and began shouting at the runaways and to his comrades. Azerick fired his crossbow at him but he missed and the quarrel skipped harmlessly off the side of the warehouse wall just over the slaver’s head. It did serve to chase him back around the corner, but the arrival of nearly half a score of men bolstered his courage.

“Come on, people, move it!” Azerick shouted anxiously, fearful that his plan was falling apart.

The captives fled through the hole and followed Azerick while Bran followed behind them shouting warnings of more men joining in pursuit. The rescuers led their freed captives down the small alleys created by the warehouses and fisheries that comprised the majority of the dock ward, desperately trying to lose their pursuers, but the shouts of men continued getting closer and came from beside as well as behind them.

“Bran, get up here!” Azerick shouted, frustrated at not being able to lose their pursuers, largely because they were limited to the speed of the youngest and slowest child. The adults were carrying the smallest but they were still slowed enough that he had to do something, or many of them would soon be caught especially those that would not leave the smaller kids behind and save themselves, and he knew there was going to be at least one of those—himself.

Bran ran up next to his friend and gave him a worried but determined look. “Bran, I have to try and slow them down or lead them away. I need you to get them to safety. Find a patrol or run all the way to a Watch office.”

Bran wanted to argue but he knew Azerick was right. If one of them did not do something soon they would all be caught and at least a few would die fighting or as examples to the others. Bran nodded his understanding and hoped his friend would be able the buy them enough time to get away.