FSE

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*****

Each fur has their own individual way of preparing for an important operation.

In the case of Aethelwulf, he was impassively sorting, counting, resorting and piling his lead ammunition. Meadow carefully checked her equipment. I hadn't noticed before, but her cloak had what appeared to be well over a dozen pockets concealed on the inside.

As for me, I tried to remember every prayer to Fuma that I'd ever been taught. In the three or four hours between mid-afternoon and dusk, I think I ran through at least 200, which was more than I would have guessed I remembered.

We all had a quick meal and a pull on our water bottles. We also had a carefully rationed nip from the flask of good liquor we had, ahem, "liberated." A tiny bit of artificial courage. As the sun began to drop out of the sky, we quietly left the gutted building we'd been hiding in, and assembled in the alley-way. The other two concealed themselves in the dark, and I took the added precaution of shielding myself from any using glamer detection spells.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually all three of us agreed that the light had become dim enough. A quick check looking both ways along the street revealed no patrols, so we darted across.

I tested the concrete around the bars with my thumb. It was still soft and pliable from the night before. As I removed most of the bars, Aethelwulf and Meadow each attached a rope to the bars at the ends, which we were keeping in. At the last second, I remembered to tighten up the concrete around those bars! It would have made for a somewhat embarrassing drop had I not done so.

There was just enough room for the big canine to slip through, thankfully, though I did hear him grunt a bit. I had to adjust the concrete where his stomach had pushed it aside a bit. Meadow, of course, slipped through easily, and I had no problems.

I carried the bars with me, and as I clung with one paw to the rope and braced myself with my hooves, I inserted the bars back into the soft stone. There was no sense in making things easy for any patrol. That done, I rappelled down the wall, and dropped to the floor.

As before, I made the head of an arrow glow blue to give us some minimal light, and checked our surroundings. We were in a hallway. One side of the hallway was the outside wall of the building, pierced by a few of the half-moon windows like the one we came through. The other wall contained stout doors, through which there were pierced small holes covered by sliding hatches.

Meadow crept down the hallway to our right, while I crept down to our left. Aethelwulf guarded the two ropes indicating "our" window. I proceeded very slowly, since I had a suspicion that there were wards at least somewhere in the area. I had only gone a third of the way around when I met the mouse-femme padding silently toward me. She leaned very close to my ear.

"This is it. There's no level down that I can see, and there's only one entrance to this level. You're just short of it. A flight of stairs leading to a big iron door. I count 18 cells. Six each on the long side, and 3 each on the ends."

I squeezed her shoulder in acknowledgement, and we crept back, at a faster pace, to Aethelwulf. We agreed that Aethelwulf would check the 6 cells facing the outside wall, Meadow would check the three facing the stairs and around the corner, and I would take the remainder. I gave each a blued arrow for light.

It took us some minutes, and they were nerve-wracking ones while I, for one, imagined that every drip of water was a foot-pad of a guard coming to do the rounds or deliver dinner. Of course, I did have my doubts that the captors were likely to provide a menu.

We gathered together at the same place, and compared notes. Aethelwulf's cells were either totally empty, or appeared to hold nothing but junked equipment.

My cells were similar, with the exception of one cell. That cell was occupied by Piers Hollow, in a certain sense. The way he was sprawled on the floor, however, indicated to me that he was well past rescue. I said another prayer for him, and muttered something under my breath about repayment.

It was Meadow who had the luck. Two of her six cells were occupied, and we padded softly to them. I could see clearly into one: I guessed that the chipmunk I was looking at was Hugo Chestnut largely from the context of the fact that he was alive, and under tight security. The presence of Piers Hollow was another clew. As for the other cell, while the figure was shrouded under a pile of blankets, one could hear ragged breathing.

Meadow was about to go after the lock on the door when I grabbed her wrist, hard. She looked at me with a mix of puzzlement and more than a bit of fury, and then comprehension dawned when I moved to the side, and gently cast a detect magicks spell. Within a few seconds, I could see a rather nasty glyph traced onto the lock of the cell. Meadow winced, and nodded at me.

It was Aethelwulf who pointed out (silently) that the cell doors swung outward. It's always a good argument as to whether you want cell doors to swing in or out, and I was thankful the long-ago fur who'd designed the Armoury had decided to make 'em swing out. It was more problematic that the hinges of the door were fastened deep inside the wood and the surrounding stone by thick nails.

I borrowed one of Meadow's lockpicks, and motioned the two of them away a few paces. I removed my belt and slid it across to Meadow, and made sure that I had nothing else made of iron or steel on my furson. Once that was done, I muttered under my breath.

As with the Polar Star above

Little metal within my glove

Be like a lodestone, tough and strong

So I may pull this metal, ere long

The first two attempts, while it allowed the pick to stick to the hinge, did not work the way I wanted, and it was quite an effort to pull it from the face of the hinge the second time. I therefore repeated the spell an even half-dozen times, and gripped the pick tightly.

At first, there was a faint flaking and crumbling, and then the heavy iron nails began to pull, with a soft moaning sound. In a few more minutes, I held the six nails in my paw, and Aethelwulf, digging in his claws, shifted the door very slowly. With the door fastened by its lock, it couldn't be opened much at all, but it was just enough for Meadow to slip through. In a minute, she returned with the unconscious form of the United Cities' Chief Burgomaster.

Aethelwulf fitted the door back into its slot. It was not necessary to actually drive the nails home: for our purposes, we merely fitted the nails back into the hinge's holes sufficiently so that a casual inspection, especially in this light, would not reveal anything amiss.

Oh, yes, and I did demagnetize the pick. We had another lock, after all, to examine. While doing my belt again, I examined the second door. It was not warded, so I motioned to Meadow to do her work.

Using a cloth pad, she muffled the sound of the squeaking, rusty lock and popped it open. As Aethelwulf did the honours with the door again, it was I who slid into the cell with my lit arrow to check on its occupant.

The figure, as I said, had been huddled under a pile of blankets, so it wasn't until I removed them that I found the other figure was a squirrel. This one was wearing the torn remnants of an Imperial Army uniform, so it was more likely than not this was the attaché that Meadow had referred to. I rolled the figure over, preparing to lift it up.

It was thus that I came face to face with Sir Jasper Chitterleigh.

Not that he recognized me, as he was unconscious. His face had taken quite a battering, both of his eyes were swollen shut, and there was a thin crust of dried blood on his nose as well as down his chin. On my part, though, there was no mistaking him.

I admit it took me a minute or so to gain my composure, and it required the assistance of a hissed query from Meadow before I snapped out of it, picked up the Captain, and bore him out of the cell. I don't know why I looked for his heirloom sword, really, but it wasn't there. No doubt someone was doing something disgraceful with it.

Meadow closed the cell door softly as Aethelwulf picked up the Burgomaster and I continued on with my burden to the window.

We had a hurried conference, and agreed that we would construct a stretcher once we got across the street to the alley-way. Aethelwulf would carry Sir Jasper to the top, and I would carry Chestnut. Meadow would take care of the bars, and keep a watch. Before she went up, I gripped her arm and whispered.

"Why in Fuma's creation didn't you tell me it was Sir Jasper here?!"

She jerked her arm free and glared at me, whispering back.

"Because if you'd known he was here, you'd have done something stupid, you ass."

She had me there. Truth is a complete defence to libel.

She shinnied up the rope in an eye-blink, and removed the bars. Slipping through the window, there was a long pause until a paw was thrust through the window and gave us a sign.

Aethelwulf suggested that I take the Burgomaster, first, and then help him with Sir Jasper. We switched burdens, and I slung the unresisting chipmunk across my back. It was slow going, but I was eventually able to reach the top, and Meadow gently got him by his torso and slid him through.

I thanked Fuma for having had the foresight to pick a big canine for the job, since even Aethelwulf was having some difficulty climbing the rope with a large, unconscious squirrel draped around him. I held onto my rope, braced my feet, and used one paw to steady and support the duo until they nearly reached the top.

I slid through the gap in the window, and while Meadow was carefully keeping look-out, Aethelwulf and I managed to shove Captain Chitterleigh through the portal. With another audible grunt (which made Meadow visibly nervous), the big dog ploughed throw the window. We each untied a rope, and I motioned the two of them to take our charges across the street, while I fixed up the scene.

I was focusing very diligently on inserting the bars correctly and re-hardening the cement, so I almost missed the sound of approaching footpads. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a bull's-eye lamp playing along the side of the Armoury's wall, and actually pausing briefly at the other windows. There was a very large, suspicious wolf on the other end of the lamp.

Bless us for having gotten an early start. A few minutes later, we'd have been caught red-pawed and then we would have been for it. As it was, though, there was a very good chance that I was about to cop it.

I did the first thing that came to mind. I flattened myself against the wall, and gently whispered a spell, tracing my fingers over myself. In a few seconds, I felt a bright beam of light shining through my closed eyes, and passing all over me, before moving on.

I waited until the guard had passed well down the street before I bolted across to the alley-way.

Meadow made me the recipient of a tight hug, which was briefly interrupted when she did a violent double-take and looked at me. Her surprise, I suppose, was warranted. How many times has anyone ever seen a deer that seemingly had fur the colour and texture of granite all over?

Aethelwulf had temporarily sacrificed his sling-staff and his cloak to prepare a stretcher. I gave him my short-staff to complete the fabrication, and we soon had Sir Jasper tucked under my cloak.

It was decided that the canine would carry the Burgomaster, and that Meadow and I would bear the stretcher. We started out of Sainted Oaks just as the first flurries began to fall out of the cold night sky, to start the ten miles or so back to Lark's Rise and then the relative safety of Mossford.