They could hear the sounds of the pitched battle at the gate—the mingled cries of the victorious and the shrieks of the dying. How many of those wailing voices were the cries of their friends dying? Styg understood Eilif’s consternation; he had been struggling for some time with the lock, growing more and more frustrated with his continued failure.
“There must be a key,” he said, trying to calm Eilif. “We will find it.” As he came closer to the cages, Styg recognized the one Haakon had faced in the arena—Zugaikotsu No Yama. The other one had to be Kim, the Flower Knight, the man Andreas had faced at First Field. Both had been brutally beaten, their faces swollen and their bodies crisscrossed with ugly scars and welts. Styg smelled sweat, piss, and blood, and knew these men had been in these cages since Andreas had died.
Kim started talking to the scarred fighter, his words slurred and thick. The scarred fighter responded, pointing to the two Shield-Brethren. Kim nodded, and pointed at the heavy locks on both cages, as if none of them had noticed them yet.
“Everything else about this place is made from sticks and bones,” Eilif groused, “but not these damn locks. They’re solid, and I can’t figure out how to jam them open.” He ran his hand through his hair, a helpless expression painted on his face. “We need a key, but I have no idea which one of the Mongol guards—”
The scarred warrior put his hands on Eilif’s shoulders and carefully pushed him aside. He stood before the lock on Zug’s cage, staring contemptuously at it as though there was nothing more loathsome in the entire world, and Styg could almost feel him feeding all of his hate, all of his rage, into this lump of rain-rusted iron. Zug had been talking to the warrior, but he broke off suddenly as the fighter raised his stolen Mongol sword and brought it down with all of his might on the loop of metal at the top of the lock.
Styg could see no change in the metal as the fighter smashed his sword down on the lock a second time. Within the cages, Zug and Kim were now considerably more animated than they had been, as if freedom were only one mighty stroke away. Styg caught sight of the fiery delight in their eyes, and he shivered. Yes, he thought, I want you to be unleashed too.
“Lakshaman,” Eilif said quietly, nodding at the scarred man. “He fought the Livonian. Do you remember?” Styg, eyeing the furious intent in the scarred man’s face, remembered. Lakshaman had fought against a better-armed and better-armored opponent and won. This man, with his scars and his knives, had taken that warrior with every advantage, and fed him his own preordained victory on the tip of his own rondel.
Suddenly Styg had little doubt the lock would yield.
There was a deafening clang and sparks flew, dancing across the dirt floor. Zug’s cage trembled. Lakshaman raised his weapon, and Styg noted how pitted and scarred the edge of the blade was, jagged like broken teeth. Styg was arrested, rooted to the spot as the whole world seemed to fade into the nothing but for Lakshaman and his jagged blade. Styg’s heart pounded in his chest as Lakshaman brought the sword down one more time, screaming in inchoate fury. Everything rested on the strength and fury of one man, battered and scarred by brutal masters, against a simple iron lock.
Lakshaman’s sword snapped, and Styg and Eilif ducked as a large piece of the blade bounced off the iron bars of Zug’s cage with a resounding clang.
The sword was not the only thing that had broken. The lock lay on the ground, snapped in half.
Lakshaman, breathing heavily, tossed aside the useless hilt of the Mongol sword. Zug tentatively touched the bars of his cage and slowly pushed the door open, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. The door moved, and a ferocious grin spread across his face. He was free.
Kim cleared his throat, and when he had their attention, he pointed at the lock on his cage. The look on his face was easy to interpret.
One more.
When Lakshaman raised his sweat-slicked face and looked at Styg, he shrugged and went to get another Mongol sword. He knew where a few were lying, no longer needed by their owners.
There was someone climbing the spikes Styg had driven into the wall.
Hans had found his way back to the spot where the Shield-Brethren had entered the Mongol compound readily enough—he knew every route through the broken alleys of Hünern, but instead of darting to the wall and scaling the spike ladder, he had ducked behind the same broken wall he and Maks had hidden behind previously. He had seen no one during his dash—not surprising, given the mood in the city—and so the sight of another person was startling.
More so that it was a Mongol warrior.
In fact, it was none other than Tegusgal, the captain of the Khan’s guard.