Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) (18 page)

As she struggled to think of something else of value that
she had to offer, she felt a wave of panic at her lack of forethought.
But she pushed it down effectively, and said a prayer to the Divines
to guide her and give her plan the chance it would need to work.
She didn’t expect a response, or for it to actually help anything, but
she reasoned that maybe it couldn’t hurt.
First things first
, she thought.
Catelyn needed to get into the rooms undetected, a feat
given the age of the house and the heaviness of the doors. She
could tell from the muffled sounds coming from behind them and
the smell of the wood, that the Dane was behind a pair of heavy
doors, two massive slabs made of carved oak which she knew
would not be easy to get open noiselessly. Catelyn extended her
bubble directly in front of her, trying to get a more complete
picture of what lay on the other side of the door. Reaching out, her
fingertips lightly grazed the surface of the wood, feeling the hewn
grain of the wood, smooth to her touch.
She planted her feet cautiously as she sidled up to stand at
the pair of doors, stepping them straight down as she moved to
avoid scuffing her feet and causing any stray noise, as well as
ensuring that if the floor was squeaky, she could withdraw each
foot quickly before she committed her weight to each step. It was
slow going, moving so cautiously, but she couldn’t afford a single
mistake here. She was just a young girl and although she was
skilled in her own way, she possessed no training in martial
matters, in a house full of muscled professional sell-swords who
could cut her throat before she even knew what was happening.
The three individuals inside the room were sleeping
soundly behind the double doors, each one with their own distinct
breathing pattern. She heard them clearly as she placed her fingers
along the edge of the door frame, which was set solidly and carved
with symbols and embossed with ornate panels. Catelyn tested the
seal with a slight push and confirmed that the doors were latched
shut.
She felt along the joints and ran her hands up and down
the height of the doors, feeling the airflow. There was a good
amount of exchange, so she knew that opening one of the doors
would not disturb the pressure inside, and she could also tell that
there was no swelling that would cause the doors to stick.
Everything told her the doors were built well, and would open
easily, with enough weight put behind the effort, but she wished
she had remembered to pocket the jar of grease she brought for
ensuring that the hinges wouldn’t squeak. But unfortunately, it
was one of the oversights of her having rushed into this job.
She ran her hands over the handle of the right side door, a
simple round metal knob that was cool under her fingers. She
leaned down and smelled the handles, checking for rust or oil.
Nothing stood out to her keen sense of smell, and she breathed a
sigh of relief as she stood back up and gave the knob an
experimental turn.
The noise it emitted when it clicked open sounded like
thunder to her honed senses, but she knew that it was very likely
almost inaudible to anyone else. Catelyn felt slightly nauseous, but
it was a feeling she knew well. When Catelyn focused her hearing
and smell to this fine a degree for this amount of time, it usually
caused her to feel ill like this. She really didn’t know what it was
about using her talents that caused her to feel this way, but she
hadn’t spent time dwelling on it. She just adapted to it as a
predictable side effect of her abilities, and was something she had
learned to live with.
She ignored the queasiness she felt and turned the handle
smoothly and as carefully as possible, and the door latch came free
of the jamb. Catelyn tensed, ready to flee at the first hint of
commotion, and she expanded her bubble back through the house
to check on the guards, but she sensed nothing unusual. When no
commotion followed, she refocused her bubble on her immediate
surroundings and pressed against the door with her body, leaning
into it slowly, and the door, despite its weight, swung inward
smoothly and with no discernible noise. The sleeping people inside
remained undisturbed.
Catelyn slipped her hand into her tunic pocket and
retrieved the small wedge-shaped hunk of burnt wood she had
brought with her. As deftly as she could, she wedged the wood
under the door when it was just wide enough for her to slip
through. She could smell the acrid tang of the block and knew she
would easily be able to locate it again if needed.
She stood and stretched up on her toes as tall as she could,
then edged her way through the slender gap and into the room, not
touching either of the doors with her body. Once inside, she turned
her bubble to encompass the entire room, and the mental image of
her surroundings bloomed in her mind, filling in the gaps where
her senses had been muffled by the heavy doors. Almost
immediately, the room became as clear to her senses as it would be
to someone who was seeing it with their eyes.
The room was about six paces on the long end and four on
the short, and was windowless, which was not a surprise to Catelyn
based on where it was in the house, though she still found it odd
that the Dane had chosen a windowless room for his bedroom.
Catelyn could only assume there was a reason for it, but she didn’t
know what that would be. It complicated her plans, in that she
would have preferred exiting the Dane’s room without needing to
return to the hall again, but she would adapt, like she always did.
There was furniture along each wall; dressers, tables and
shelves, although Catelyn wasn’t sure which was which...she could
only ascertain their rough shape without feeling them with her
hands, but she didn’t bother to do those things since those things
were not of interest to her. Instead, she turned her focus on the
large four post bed that stood in the center of the room.
It stood on a slightly raised section of floor, directly in the
center of the room, like a stage or a platform. Catelyn wished she
wasn’t imagining the variety of entertainments this bed was
designed to showcase but she began to theorize why there were no
windows in the room. What happened here was clearly for a very
exclusive audience.
As she stood just inside the open door, taking in all of this
information, one of the sleepers stirred, and she froze, tensing
herself in case she needed to bolt back out and return again later.
The sleeper shifted and moaned slightly, but did not fully wake.
However, Catelyn heard something she hadn’t heard on the other
side of the doors and the sound of it made her break out into a
light sweat. It was a distinctive metallic sound she identified easily,
the jangling of metal against metal. She knew that only one thing
made that sound: heavy chains.
What made her sweat and react with such dismay was that
the sound had come from the same spot where the sleeper had
roused.
Have I made a terrible mistake? What if this isn’t the
Dane’s sleeping chamber?
she thought, panicked.
What if these are slaves, or prisoners?
Catelyn briefly considered backing out of the room and
fleeing, but quickly realized that even if her fears were confirmed,
this wouldn’t change very much about the specifics of her plan,
only the amount of time needed to locate the Dane. He had to be in
the house somewhere. If not here, perhaps he was the lone sleeper
down the hall. She decided to check this trio first, if for no other
reason than to rule them out.
She had not originally planned to wake Dane Callum,
hoping that she could simply get close enough to administer the
dose of powdered brown seaweed that she’d brought with her in a
sack attached to her belt, then drag him somewhere for a private
talk, away from his comforts and when they were not surrounded
by his men. That was another reason that Catelyn had chosen to
approach Dane Callum for this - she knew that he was a slight
man, barely taller than Catelyn herself, and not as great a physical
threat to her. She could, with effort, dose the Dane into deep
unconsciousness and carry him out of his bed chamber and up
onto the roof. But if the Dane wasn’t here and she needed to search
additional rooms...
Catelyn ran over all the scenarios in her head, and none of
them were good. She sighed, and thought to herself.
How had
everything gotten so complicated?
Catelyn didn’t contemplate her dire predicament long,
though. She needed more information before making a move, so
she stalked towards the bed on silent bare soles. She tuned her
hearing to the slow, rhythmic breathing of the sleepers, and then
focused on their movements as they slept, trying to determine the
location of the chains and how they were arrayed and where they
were attached.
She reached the side of the bed and reached out to feel the
wood of the bed frame. She ran her sensitive fingertips over its
surface. It was as rough-hewn and as ornately carved as the door
and the details stood out to her highly-trained sense of touch. She
moved her hand and held it out, suspended over the bed, feeling
the air just above where she knew the legs of the sleepers would be,
testing the vibrations and currents of the air as it shifted beneath
her fingers. The air was as palpable to her hands and feet as water
was to other people.
It was the slight change in temperature which alerted her
to the proximity of the chain, stopping her hand before coming
into contact with the cold metal. She used both hands and,
following the line of cold, she traced its length down from the bed
to a notch in the floor.
She could only guess, as it was too great a risk to confirm
with her hands, that the other end of the chain terminated in a
restraint of some sort, locked around neck, or wrist, or ankle.
Perhaps even all three.
But however it was attached to the person slumbering
right beside her, it became clear that at least one of these sleepers
was there against their will. The thought of that sent a spark of
anger into the center of Catelyn’s calm, but she simply
acknowledged it and did not try to fan it into a flame of emotion.
She turned and squatted down, crabbing her way across
the floor on all fours now, feeling her way around the bed, and
confirmed the presence of another chain, similarly coming from
the sleeper to the right side of the mattress, and ending in an
identical notch in the floor. Two captives slept on either side of the
bed, both chained to the floor. And in the middle of them both, the
third figure. None of the three were large, but Catelyn couldn’t tell
with certainty if the Dane was among them.
She sniffed deeply, trying to smell every detail. She
crinkled her nose at the smells coming from the bed: sweat mostly,
and other bodily fluids. Just the smallest hint of blood. She
extended her hearing as well, but apart from the breathing of all
three sleepers, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She had a
decision to make.
A snore erupted from one of the captives. She knew
immediately where it had come from, but it hadn’t been enough
for Catelyn to determine the sex and disposition of the owner of
that noise. Her instincts told her that it was a man, and an adult,
but she couldn’t be absolutely sure given the conditions. Catelyn’s
pulse pounded through her entire body, and she could feel sweat
pouring from under her kerchief and at the small of her back. She
knew that her options were very limited now, and so she made her
decision, and prepared herself for what she was about to do.
She inhaled sharply, crouched herself low, and sprang,
pushing with all the strength in her legs to pounce onto the bed.
Although she could not tell everything about her three targets, she
knew from the sound of their breathing exactly where each of their
mouths and noses were, and that was enough for what she had
planned.
As she landed on the bed, she twisted her right leg
sideways beneath her, and extended her arms to the sides. Her
right knee impacted exactly as she had seen it in her mind, wedged
into the space below the middle sleeper’s jaw, cutting off the
airway before a sound could escape it.
She knew she was taking a risk in concluding that the
figure in the center of the two captives was Dane Callum, and that
he slept in between his two captives, but her instincts were usually
very accurate and this seemed like a reasonable risk, based on all
of the evidence her senses provided her. With her arms extended,
she clamped down hard on the mouths of the two captive sleepers
beside him. All that escaped from them were frantic, muffled
moans, while the center sleeper who she could now confidently
identify as a man because of the scratching of his beard against her
skin, struggled for breath as Catelyn’s knee was compressing his
throat, preventing him from taking a breath with mouth or nose.
He flailed with all his strength, but he was not much heavier than
Catelyn and he was unable to throw her off. Her conclusion, and
for this she did thank the Divines at least in principle, had been
correct: She was straddling Dane Callum.
Catelyn also now had additional information about the
captives. As soon as her hands had found the mouths of the two
sleepers, she confirmed that they were young children. Upon
realizing this fact, Catelyn had no compunction pushing all of her
weight into her knee, and she could hear the choking of Dane
Callum intensify, as he tried to extract the leg that was choking
him before he lost consciousness or worse.
The two children struggled as well, but as Catelyn had
anticipated, the metal chains prevented them from moving too
much. Unfortunately the chains were also beginning to rattle
across the bed and floor noisily. Catelyn knew she had very little
time now.
“Shush” she hissed to the children. “I’m not here to hurt
either of you. I’m here for him” and she nodded her head towards
the struggling Dane Callum.
Almost immediately, and to Catelyn’s surprise, her words
had the desired effect. She felt the two children settle, although
they still fought against her grip clamping down on their mouths,
and she knew eventually they would win, given that most of her
weight was being used to put behind her choking of Callum, who
was still fighting back and trying to gain the power to fight off her
attack. She needed to pacify the children so she could focus all of
her energy on restraining the Dane.