Hadrian heard Royce sigh. There was a silence, and then he said, “She already named our children. Elias if we had a boy—or was it Sterling? I forget—and Mercedes if a girl. She even took up knitting and made me a scarf.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”
“She wanted me to go, remember? She said I had to protect you. I had to save your life.”
Hadrian looked over at him. “Good job.”
Chairs moved in the outer office, footsteps, a banging door, agitated voices. Hadrian caught snippets of the conversation.
“… black sails … a dark cloud on the ocean …”
“No, someone else …”
A chair turned over and hit the floor. More hurried footsteps. Silence.
“Sounds like the fleet is in.” Hadrian waited, watching the door to their cell. “They left us for dead, didn’t they? We told them this would happen. We came all this way to try and save them. You’d think they’d have the decency to let us out when they saw we were right.”
“Probably think we’re behind it. We’re lucky they didn’t just kill us.”
“Not sure that’s lucky. A nice, quick decapitation is kind of appealing right now.”
“How long do you think before the Ba Ran find us?” Royce asked.
“You in a hurry?”
“Yeah, actually. If I have to be eaten, I would sort of like to get it over with.”
Hadrian heard the sound of breaking glass.
“Ah, well, that didn’t take long, did it?” Royce muttered miserably.
Footsteps shuffled in the outer room. There was a pause, and then the steps started again, coming closer. There were sounds of a struggle and a muffled cry. Hadrian braced himself and watched the door as it opened. What stood in the doorway shocked him.
“You boys ready to go?” Derning asked.
“What are you doing here?” they both said in unison.
“Would you prefer me to leave?” Derning smiled. Noticing the riveted manacles, he grimaced. “Thorough buggers, aren’t they? Hang on. I saw some tools out here.”
Royce and Hadrian looked at each other, bewildered.
“Okay, so he’s not a beautiful princess. But it works for me.”
There were sounds of slamming and an “Aha!” Then Derning returned with a hammer and a chisel.
“The Ghazel fleet arrived and Drumindor isn’t working, but it didn’t blow up either, so I guess we have you to thank for that,” Derning told them as he went to work on the manacle pins.
“Don’t mention it. And I’m not just saying that. I really mean … don’t mention it,” Hadrian said with a wince.
“Now half the folks—the smart half—are running. The others are going to try to fight. That means we don’t have much time to get out of here. I have horses and provisions waiting just outside town. We’ll take the mountain road north. I’ll ride with you as far as Maranon and then I’ll be going my own way.”
“But I still don’t get why you’re here,” Royce said as Derning finished with one of the metal bracelets. “Don’t you work for Merrick?”
“Merrick Marius?” Derning laughed. “That’s funny. Grady and I were convinced you two worked for Marius.” Derning finished cracking open the manacles on Royce, then turned to Hadrian. “We work for Cornelius DeLur. You might know him—big fat guy, father of Cosmo. He pretty much runs this country—or owns it, depending on your viewpoint. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I checked in and found out you worked for Melengar. DeLur got a big kick out of that. The old fat man has a sick sense of humor sometimes.”
“I’m confused. Why were you on the Storm?”
“When the Diamond found a message from Merrick, Cosmos thought it was important enough to relay to his daddy, and Cornelius sent us to check out what was going on. Grady and I started as sailors and are still well known on the Sharon. We were so sure Royce killed Drew, which is why we thought you two were mixed up with Merrick. We thought it had something to do with that horn comment that Drew made.”
“Bernie killed him,” Royce said simply.
“Yeah, we figured that out. And, of course, that horn thing had nothing to do with Merrick. That was all Thranic’s group. When we heard you had been arrested, it wasn’t too hard to find ya.”
He finished freeing Hadrian, who rubbed his wrists.
“Come on, most of your gear is out here.” He pulled Alverstone out of his belt and handed it to Royce. “Took this off one of the guards. I think he thought it was pretty.”
Outside their cell the tiny jail office was empty except for two guards. One looked dead but the other might have just been unconscious. They found their possessions in a series of boxes set aside in a room filled with all manner of impounded items.