Page 54 of Storm to Victory
“Getting knocked out from the crash, then sedated will do that.” Prince Edmund rolled his head on his neck, as if trying to work out kinks. “But it doesn’t appear either of us was hurt worse than that. Thanks to your magic, no doubt.”
Pip nodded, as she performed a more thorough assessment of herself. Both feet were working. As were her legs. All her fingers moved, and breathing didn’t hurt. All in all, she was in far better shape than she had a right to be after falling from the sky.
She glanced around, but she and Prince Edmund were alone. “Where are Fieran and Prince Farrendel?”
“I don’t know. I woke up only a few minutes before you did.” Prince Edmund shifted again, as if trying to find a more comfortable position with his hands shackled.
“Then…should I…” Pip gave a small tug on the shackles. They were metal. She could easily release both herself and Prince Edmund. “We can—”
“Not in Escarlish,” Prince Edmund cut in, speaking in dwarvish with only a trace of an accent. “I’m guessing none of the Mongavarians will know this language. They might have afew soldiers who learned elvish over the past seventy years, but likely not dwarvish.”
“You speak dwarvish?” Pip replied in the same language, gaping at Fieran’s uncle. No wonder he’d been a part of the diplomatic mission to Dalorbor. If she were to guess, he hadn’t let her family know he spoke the language.
“It seemed prudent to learn.” Prince Edmund shrugged. “I have a knack for languages, and thanks to my heart bond, I have plenty of time to make a hobby out of it. How’s my accent?”
“I can tell you aren’t a native dwarf, but I wouldn’t necessarily pick you out as Escarlish just from your accent.” Pip gave a shrug of her own, which rattled the shackles.
“I’ll have to keep working on it, then. I haven’t had any dwarves to practice with.” Prince Edmund lifted his hands, making his own shackles clank. “As to your question, yes, you might as well remove our shackles so we can talk more comfortably.”
She’d been thinking more on the lines of escaping rather than talking. But talking through a plan was probably wise instead of just diving out the back canvas flaps, running pell-mell in a random direction, and hoping for the best.
Easing her magic into the shackles, she gently opened the metal so that she could free her wrists. Something told her that she shouldn’t destroy the shackles too much, in case she and Prince Edmund wanted to put them back on, for some unknown reason.
After taking just a moment to rub her wrists and shake out her arms, she reached over and freed Prince Edmund’s hands as well. “So…what’s our plan?”
“Farrendel does not take to captivity very well.” Prince Edmund rubbed his wrists and settled into a more comfortable sitting position. “As we haven’t heard any explosions and screaming, I’m guessing Farrendel and Fieran either aren’t hereor are still unconscious. We can’t make a move until we’ve discovered which it is.”
Right. If they were here but unconscious, it would be up to her and Prince Edmund to rescue them as part of their escape plan.
“All right.” Pip swallowed and hugged her knees, despite the stiffness in her muscles and bones. “And if they aren’t here, then we escape?”
“Not necessarily.” Prince Edmund held up two fingers, pointing to the first finger with his other hand. “We have two options. We can escape, but then we’ll spend the next days and possibly weeks on the run in a foreign kingdom. Trust me, it’s terribly uncomfortable. No food. No supplies. Nothing but the clothes on our backs and whatever we manage to steal along the way.”
That did sound rather unpleasant. Her chest twisted. She wasn’t cut out for this. She was a mechanic, not a spy used to being hunted. “And our other option?”
“We stay where we’re at.” Pointing at his second finger, Prince Edmund said it as if it was perfectly logical to remain captured when one could escape. “The Mongavarians will nicely provide us with transportation to wherever they’re taking us. We’ll be fed, probably given blankets at night, and hopefully they’ll treat you reasonably well.”
“Me? Not you?” Pip dug her fingers into the grimy fabric of her trousers.
“I’m the most wanted man in all of Mongavaria. I don’t think treating me nicely will be on their priority list.” Prince Edmund was far too nonchalant about that.
“More wanted than Prince Farrendel or Fieran?” Pip hugged her knees tighter.
“By the basic soldier on the ground? Probably not. By the Mongavarian empress? Oh, yeah.” Prince Edmund gave anotherrolling, elven-style shrug. “Which is why I’m reasonably sure they’ll take us to Landri. She’ll want to oversee my execution herself.”
“So we’ll escape before then?” Pip eyed Prince Edmund. Surely he had escape somewhere in his plans.
“No, not unless Farrendel and Fieran are here somewhere. I won’t leave Farrendel captured if I can help it.” Prince Edmund met her gaze. “But if they aren’t here, then Landri is exactly where we need to be. We’ll just have to be clever about it. It’s where Farrendel will head once he gets free of wherever he is, and we’ll have help arriving in about a week and a half.”
That mysterious second half of the plan. The part she and Fieran hadn’t been told. It seemed that she would find herself tagging along with crazy Prince Edmund.
“We have one big advantage.” Prince Edmund nodded his head toward her. “They clearly don’t know about your magic.”
That was true. They’d locked her up in a metal box with metal shackles.
“Do you think they realize I have magic?” Pip gestured at their surroundings, the canvas stretched tight over the metal ribs arching overhead.
“I doubt it. Yes, being shackled like this would make it difficult for your average elf warrior to escape.” Prince Edmund stretched his legs out in front of him. “But we’ve also been left alone, without a guard. They’re pretty confident in our inability to escape. Something tells me they wouldn’t be so confident if they thought you had magic of any kind.”
