The Hekamon (27 page)

Off the bed, through the door and onto the stairs took
two seconds. The clumsy boots clattered and slowed her, but she was
down the stairs and through the hall in another three. Across the
store room, into the woodshed and to the back door, another four.

Fumbling with the handle, wasting precious seconds nine, ten, the
door open, eleven, she took two steps outside. The woodland ahead was
dense, but not so much that she could be lost among the trees in less
than ten seconds, the guards rounding the hut would see her.

Her instinct to get out and run from the approaching
danger had to be curtailed, and with huge effort, she did so.
Stepping back into the woodshed, Alyssa pushed the door to and
turned.

Leaping across the shed, she was at the hatch in two bounds,
the boots thudded on the stone floor. The last noises she could
afford make, she told herself. She needed to be quick and quiet now,
they would be very close.

The latch open, she went through the small hatch and crawled into the tunnel. Could the guards know about this way out?
If she saw a light ahead of her, the trap really was sprung.

Her beating heart
now seemed even louder than the heavy boots had been. It was joined
by another rhythmic thudding. It seemed to surround her and earth
fell from the roof of the tunnel. They were walking right above. They
were on the hill through which the tunnel ran. They were going to the
back door.

Alyssa
was fully in the tunnel now, but with the hatch still open behind
her. She placed the side of a boot
against the edge of the small door and dragged her outstretched leg
back in. It gave some impetus, pulling it shut, but it wasn't enough.
She heard the handle of the door rattle,
she
hadn't closed it,
the hinges creaked briefly and there was a draft of cool air. The
door was open, but so too was the hatch.

"Should we go in?" A man's voice said.

The hatch closed and gave a faint click.

"Yes," came the muffled reply. The woodshed
door creaked again, and was followed by the sound of boots on a stone
floor as the men entered the woodshed.

Alyssa remained completely silent, with only the sound
of her breathing and beating heart filling the dark earth around her.
She listened for any indication the hatch was about to open and
readied herself to scramble away if need be, but the sounds of
footsteps on a wooden floor told her that the guards had moved into
the store room. No sooner had she begun to relax than she was
startled by more noises, banging sounds, but just as quickly guessed
what they were. It was the guards who she'd seen going to the front
of the hut.

For the moment Alyssa felt safe and took the chance to
composed herself. As she lay there, she questioned her attempts to
escape the danger. Had she done the right thing? She had left the
back door open in her haste, that was a mistake, but probably made no
difference. The guards would have tried the handle and found it to be
unlocked anyway. Even trying to get out of the door had been a
mistake, it had been pure panic, and Alyssa knew that it was the
panic that closes the trap, that pulls the snare tight.

She cursed her clumsiness, but then again, taking a step
back can loosen the binds, enabling an escape. That had been quick
thinking. She forgave herself any mistakes she might have made, it
could have been worse, at least she was free of the hut. Now it was just a
matter of getting clear of the tunnel.

"Nothing upstairs," Teague said, descending
from the first floor.

"Are you sure?" Tregarron asked, he had been
checking over Tansley and establishing the man was alive. Now he
stood and moved into the hall to meet with Teague and Holcroft who'd
completed their search.

"Certain. There aren't many places a person could
hide up there; a wardrobe, a cupboard or under the bed. Nobody
there."

"In that case, start looking around and see what
else you can find."

While his men started a search of the hut, Tregarron
moved back into the store room, over to the two bound men and began
to inspect them. He could see that both were alive but the bigger of
the two was in a bad way. He could probably do with the help of Pryor
Jervay but would have to settle with what the fort had to offer. That
man, he didn't recognize. The younger one, he thought he'd seen
before but where, he couldn't be sure. He didn't seem that old,
eighteen, nineteen, no older than twenty.

From their appearance, Tregarron could see they were
Coralainians. Short black hair, white tunics and caligae boots. One
with a pugio dagger in a scabbard on his belt and one without. Both
men had black cloaks tucked into their belts. Could that mean they
had traveled overnight? It was possible.

He started searching the men and almost immediately made
a discovery that interested him greatly. Inside the older man's tunic
was a fur pouch. He had seen their like before and guessed correctly
at the contents, a number of small clay pots covered in mesh, each
with a distinctive odor.

"Interesting," Teague said, seeing the pouch.

"Yes," he replied, before searching the other
pockets of the man, where he found a keyring, which he placed in his
own pocket.

"Could this be something?" He heard Holcroft
say, from a position behind him and obscured from view. Tregarron got
up and walked over to a counter, behind which the guard was crouching
and indicating to a hole in the floor, and nearby, the tile that
would cover it.

Teague walked over too, and, seeing the hollow, made a
suggestion.

"Could it be robbery? Maybe they knew Tansley was
dealing with Fennreans and targeted him. Broke in, stole his stash
and then knocked the merchant out when he disturbed them."

"Then tied him up, then tied themselves up and
knocked each other out," he added dismissively. Suddenly, a
thought occurred to him, and he turned to Holcroft, "How did you
get in so quickly?"

"The back door was open when we got there."

"What, wide open or just unlocked?"

"It was ajar."

Tregarron went through the woodshed to the back door. He
tried the keys that he had taken from the bound man, and found one
fitted and worked the lock. At what point did the Coralainian take
possession of the keys?

He opened the back door, to let in more light
and inspected the woodshed. Logs were scattered around and there were
patches of blood on the floor. There was a short length of rope,
while scratches and drag marks suggested at least one of the men had
been incapacitated here and dragged inside. He continued to search,
and near the far wall, between two piles of chopped wood, he saw a
glint of metal. He reached for it and found it to be the other pugio
dagger. So the bigger of the two men had entered here with his dagger
drawn and yet had still come to grief.

After inspecting the woodshed, Tregarron joined two of
his men who had gone outside. Both Teague and Holcroft were standing
silently, peering through the forest before them. Pearson joined
them outside, too, before moving around the side of the trading post
and toward the highway.

It seemed to Tregarron that all four of
them were of the same mind. He stood still and listened for anything unusual. The
forest wasn't completely quiet but there were no suspicious sounds
either. None that he could detect anyway. So instead he began
searching the ground near the back door.

"Whatever happened inside that trading post, there
must be at least one man on the loose," Teague, said
scanning the trees.

"Yes." Tregarron replied, looking at the
exposed soil and patches of leaves, as he did, he started seeing
signs of disturbance.

There was a well worn path that lead around the
building, but that didn't interest him so much. He suspected that
whoever had absconded from the scene, hadn't gone toward the highway but
instead had run further into the forest, keeping the hut between
themselves and the approaching guards.

The assailant must have seen them approaching.

He
recalled the movement he had glimpsed through the upstairs windows.
There
had
been somebody here, and they had made their escape. Realizing this,
Tregarron began searching in the direction he anticipated the man
would have headed.

Just two paces from the back door, on a patch of
bare earth, he found a broken twig. It was embedded in what looked
like a fresh footprint. The imprint was of boot, too big to belong to
the merchant who lived here, and though the size was similar to his
own, the pattern was not. It was different to the standard issue
boots worn by his guardsmen. Nor was it a caligae print. He knew
those Coralai boots all too well, he'd been a tracker in the war.

He tried to find the next impression. Might there be a
trail for him to follow? Was a tracker needed? He felt his heartbeat
quicken at the very idea. The memories were not far below the surface
and he could feel them rising. He looked more closely. Did he want to
find a trail? Because if he did, his reaction would be instinctive,
he could feel it already.

He searched for the next steps, there must
be other footprints here, but if there were, he couldn't see them,
they seemed to be lost among the fallen leaves.

He scoured and sifted
through the detritus, walking further from the hut in his search,
pacing back and forth, trying to pick up the scent. From what he
could tell, there was no trail, at least, not an obvious one. It
would be a challenge. It would take a certain kind of skill, the
ability to read the mind of a fleeing enemy. It needed a tracker.

All he had to go on was the direction that the man had
started off in and how they might use the terrain to stay out of
sight. It wasn't much, but it was something. It was enough.

Standing, Tregarron turned and threw the keys of the hut to Holcroft.

"Go back to the High Gate and wait for the men
coming up the lane from the priory. When they arrive, bring them
here. I want these three incapacitated men taken to the fort. Keep
them tied up for now, someone's done that part of the job for us.
Teague you're with me."

"Where are we going, captain?" Teague asked.

"Hunting."

Tregarron started through the trees, and after a few
dozen paces, came to an embankment. Moving over the camber and into
the ditch beyond, he started to quicken his pace, "Keep up,"
he called back to Teague, he was on to something.

He could see that
this way would make for an ideal escape route.

He ran alongside the
embankment and beside a small stream that flowed with it. He was
entering the foothills of the mountains and the forests of the
glades. There was no trail to follow, just his instincts. He wasn't
only reading the ground, but the mind of the assailant, too.

Alyssa began to crawl through the tunnel and away from
the trading post. Her relief at escaping the guards replaced by
frustration.

Tansley knew the whereabouts of her necklace and she
could have got more details from him, but not now. Then there were the
two men. They didn't know it yet but the object of their interest was
in the possession of her brother, might they still find out?

She
would have preferred to have kept in control of the situation as much
as possible, but now the Demedelite guards were in charge, of those
three men anyway. At least she'd avoided that fate.

Reaching the end of the tunnel, she stood up in the space
below the trapdoor. She waited there a while, catching her breath and
deciding what to do. Should she stay here until nightfall? The
thought was an alluring one. She would feel safer returning to the
marshes by the cover of night but she dismissed the idea. She wasn't
heading back to Ochre Hill, not yet anyway, not without her necklace.
It was too important to leave in the hands of others.

There was another reason she couldn't stay here, the
guards at the trading post. They would already know someone was
missing, the three men couldn't have tied themselves up, at least,
not entirely.

How thoroughly might the guards search? The hatch to
the tunnel was well disguised but not impossible to find.

Then there
was the trapdoor above her. She had entered that way. It was
uncovered and it was much easier to see without its blanket of leaves
and earth. A search of the area might reveal it, and a search of the
area was the kind of thing the guards might very well do.

There was nothing else for it, she had to move from her
vulnerable hiding place.

Easing the trapdoor open, Alyssa looked around as best
she could, before climbing out of the darkness and into the light and
fresh air. Once out of the tunnel, and with nobody in sight, she
carefully closed the door and brushed some leaves over the exposed
wood.

Moving along the embankment, through which the tunnel ran, she
crouched and started to scamper deeper into the forest. Her priority
was to remain quiet and to attract no attention. If that was at the
expense of speed then so be it, she would adapt this strategy if need
be.

Alyssa hadn't gone far when it seemed a change of plan
might be already called for. She could hear voices. They were
indistinct and muffled by the trees, but the distance and direction
suggested they were from outside the hut. It sounded like the search
had begun. Now would be a good time to press on and put some distance
between herself and the searching guards.

Alyssa was following the same route she had with her
brother the night before, and confident in her sense of direction,
she started to run. She held back from running at full sprint though,
the boots she was wearing prohibited it anyway. Instead, she settled
into a steady pace that she could maintain for miles if necessary. It
was both reassuringly fast, while quiet enough, too.