Page 8 of Thorns & Fire
Together, the Warswords descended into the dry dock in silence, using the yard’s clutter and shadows to their advantage.They had to be fast and silent.Queen Reyna’s life would depend on it.
‘No blades,’ Torj instructed his friend in a low voice.‘Don’t want to alert whoever’s inside that we’re coming.’
Wilder simply nodded.
They crouched behind the cover of a crumbling facade.Torj’s gaze fixed on the four visible guards walking the length of the wall in pairs.He held up three fingers, then two, then one.On his signal, the warriors sprang into action.
Torj darted towards the two guards on the left, his footfalls softened by the damp silt.The first guard barely had time to turn before Torj’s arm snaked around his throat, cutting off his air and, with a single jerk, snapping his neck.
To his right, Wilder had already taken down one guard and was silencing the next.Torj’s second target reached for his sword, a shout of warning on his lips, but Torj was faster, lunging and clapping a hand over his opponent’s mouth.The man’s eyes bulged, his fingers clawing uselessly at Torj’s iron grip before he went limp.
With all four guards taken care of swiftly, Torj and Wilder exchanged a look of grim satisfaction.Neither had broken a sweat.They dragged the bodies behind several stacked pallets, concealing them from view before turning to a rusted side door in the towering wall.
‘We take them out quickly and at a distance where possible.They might have those strength-muting manacles,’ Torj reminded Wilder.
‘And if the manacles are on the queen?’Wilder asked.
‘We take her anyway.Someone at Drevenor will find a way to remove them.’
‘Someone?’Wilder prodded with mock innocence.
‘Time and place, Hawthorne,’ Torj growled in warning.
‘Right.’
Torj rummaged through his pockets.‘Masks,’ he said, thrusting a fresh piece of material at Wilder.
‘Thanks,’ his friend replied, placing the material over his nose and mouth and tying it at the back of his head.
With his own mask in place, Torj rose to his feet, hammer at the ready.‘Let’s go.’
To his surprise, the rusted door made no sound as it swung inwards, revealing more of the vast dock beyond.They met no resistance at the immediate entrance.The only sound was the dripping water that ran down the walls.Skeletal shadows of hanging tools danced in the weak afternoon sun and the air hung heavy with the stench of rot.
Peering around the corner, Torj loosed a breath.‘It’s empty,’ he murmured.
‘Then why the guards outside?’Wilder’s eyes narrowed as they followed Torj’s gaze across the neglected space.He pointed.‘There’s a tunnel.’
‘Then that’s where we go.’
The Warswords followed the perimeter until they heard voices drifting towards them and the distant sound of waves crashing.Daylight filtered in from further down.
‘The dry dock was just a holding area,’ Torj guessed as he saw movement.‘A place to store supplies, to hide hostages until they were ready...’
Sticking to the shadows of the walls, the two warriors crept closer, at last able to make out the scene before them.
Boats.
And a unit of traitors preparing them.
‘We can take them,’ Wilder said.
‘Not before we find the queen,’ Torj murmured, scanning the cavern.A group of rebels bustled about, piling crates, coils of rope and sheets of canvas into vessels bobbing on the water just below.Torj counted two dozen men, but his view of whatever platformsat beneath was obscured, and there was no telling how many could be down there.
Amid the clutter, he saw something that made his blood run cold.‘Do you see that?’
Beside him, Wilder squinted.‘Is that...’
A few yards away, a crate lay on its side, an array of what looked like bones spilling out across the wet ground.
