The plan was a house of cards, and Bora felt the first tremor the moment they moved.
He crouched behind the half wall of the cloth-dyer’s workshop, the acrid smell of vinegar and pigment a stark contrast to the familiar scents of the stable. Across the narrow service alley, the side entrance to the garrison barracks loomed. A scarred oak door, reinforced with rusting iron bands. The crack in the fortress.
This was the moment. Imara was in position near the main gate with his cart of hay. Dimbwi stood beside him, a hulking figure of potential energy, a heavy iron pry bar held loosely in his rope-burned hands. Bora’s role was to watch, to listen, to be the nerve center.
A flicker of movement from the alley’s mouth—a hand signal from Imara. The patrol had passed. The clock was ticking.
Bora gave a single, sharp nod.
Dimbwi moved with a shocking, silent speed for a man of his size. He jammed the iron bar into the gap between the door and the stone frame. He leaned his weight into it, the muscles in his neck and shoulders cording like knotted rope. For a heart-stopping second, nothing happened. Then, with a splintering crack that seemed to echo off the very stones of the alley, the lock tore from the aged wood.
The sound hung in the air, a blatant confession. Bora froze, his every sense screaming, listening for the shout, the alarm whistle, the pounding of boots that would mean their end.
Nothing.
Only the distant, muffled sounds of the city and, from the direction of the main gate, a sudden rise in confused shouting—Imara’s diversion, right on schedule. The sound of the breaking lock was swallowed by the chaos it was designed to create.
Dimbwi pulled the door open, revealing a yawning darkness that smelled of coal dust and damp stone. Bora slipped in first, Dimbwi at his heel, pulling the broken door as shut as it would go behind them. The silence inside was profound, broken only by the frantic drum of Bora’s own heart.
They moved like ghosts down a narrow, descending staircase, their steps feather-light on the cold stone. Bora’s mind, sharpened by years of listening, was a live map. He led them not by sight, but by instinct and the ghostly echoes of guard gossip about the barracks’ layout.
The detention level was a long, low-ceilinged corridor lined with heavy oak doors. A single guard stood at his post halfway down the hall, very much awake, his head tilted as he listened to the distant commotion from the main gate.
Bora and Dimbwi pressed themselves into an alcove. There was no way forward but past him. Dimbwi met Bora’s eyes, then gestured with the heavy pry bar. He pointed at the guard, then made a choking motion with his hand. He then carefully handed the iron tool to Bora. The weight of it was solid, cold, and final.
Bora gave a tight nod.
Dimbwi stepped out of the alcove and began walking down the corridor with a calm, unhurried pace, as if he belonged there. The guard turned, his hand going to the hilt of his short sword.
“You there! Halt! This is a restricted—”
Dimbwi didn’t halt. He closed the last few feet in a sudden, explosive surge. His left arm hooked around the man’s throat, cutting off the shout. His right hand clamped onto the back of the guard’s head. The man’s eyes bulged, his hands clawing uselessly at the immovable forearm. His struggles were frantic, then weak, and finally ceased. Dimbwi held him until he was a dead weight, then lowered him to the floor.
“The uniform,” Dimbwi grunted, his voice a low rumble.
Working quickly, they stripped the unconscious guard of his tunic, helmet, and leather gorget. Bora pulled them on over his own clothes. The tunic was too broad in the shoulders but would pass in the dim light. The helmet obscured his face.
“You’re the prisoner,” Bora said to Dimbwi, his voice muffled by the helmet. “Walk in front of me. Keep your head down.”
Bora stepped to the side, and the big man moved ahead of him, playing the role of a subdued captive. They moved down the corridor, Bora checking the small, barred windows in each door. Most cells were empty. The silence was a palpable weight. They turned a corner into another, identical hallway.
And walked straight into two more guards.
The lead guard, a sergeant by the stripe on his arm, frowned at the sight of a lone guard escorting a massive prisoner. “Transfer? I didn’t get any paperwork.”
Bora kept his head down, the helmet’s brim shadowing his face. “Captain’s orders,” he grunted, trying to mimic the bored tone of the guards he’d overheard for years. “Interrogation detail.”
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. “Whose orders? Let me see the chit.”
There was no chit. The silence stretched a second too long.
The sergeant’s hand went to his sword. “Helmet. Off. Now.”
It was over.
As the sergeant drew his blade, Dimbwi, the “prisoner,” moved. He spun around, driving a fist like a maul into the sergeant’s solar plexus. The air left the man’s lungs in a pained whoosh. The second guard lunged, but Bora was already moving, swinging the heavy iron pry bar in a short, brutal arc. It connected with the man’s helmet with a dull, metallic clang. The guard staggered and dropped.
Dimbwi finished the sergeant with a precise chop to the neck, catching him as he fell. They dragged both unconscious men into the nearest empty cell, locking it from the outside with the key taken from the first guard.
Their hearts pounding, they resumed the search, the urgency now a sharp, cold knife in their guts. Bora once again directed Dimbwi to walk ahead. Finally, at the end of the second corridor, Bora looked through a barred window and saw him.
Roho sat on the edge of a stone bench, staring at the opposite wall. His face was a map of healing injuries—a yellowing bruise around his eye, a scabbed cut on his cheekbone—but he was clean. The cell, while bare, was not the foul pit of despair they had imagined. The General’s order for a physician had been obeyed. He was an asset, preserved.
At the sound of the lock turning, he looked up. His single good eye held a flat, weary resignation, expecting a beating or another summons to the chamber of questions. Then he saw Bora pulling off the guard’s helmet, and Dimbwi behind him. The resignation shattered, replaced by pure, uncomprehending shock.
“Time to go,” Bora said, his voice a hushed, urgent command.
Roho didn’t need to be told twice. He pushed himself up, his movements stiff but steady. There were no emotional reunions, no wasted words. Survival was the only language that mattered here.
Bora quickly reassumed his disguise. He motioned for both Roho and Dimbwi forward, the two men walking ahead of him as his prisoners. They retraced their steps, a silent, desperate procession. Up the stairs, through the coal-storage room, to the broken side door. Bora peered out. The alley was clear.
They slipped out into the noon light one by one. The moment they were all in the alley, Bora ripped off the helmet and gorget, then shrugged out of the guard’s tunic. He bundled the attire into a ball and shoved it deep into a pile of refuse and rotten timber against the wall. The disguise had served its purpose; now it was just evidence.
Now just two laborers helping an injured friend, they melted into the labyrinthine backstreets. They did not run; they walked with a purpose that dared anyone to question them. The city, bustling and distracted, swallowed them whole.