Free Prince Thief by David Tallerman Page A

way to judge whether the palace troops were closing on us. Likely we’d only know when arrows or sword blows started raining upon Saltlick’s back – and given his resistance to complaining, perhaps not even then.
    “Can’t you go a little faster?” Estrada asked him, though it was obvious he couldn’t.
    Saltlick’s expression was pained beyond measure. He shook his head, and even that slight gesture brought dust shivering from the ceiling.
    Estrada considered only briefly. Then she bellowed up the line, “Run, all of you! Prepare the boat... we’ll catch you up!”
    We ? Was Estrada’s plan that hacking their way through Saltlick and me would keep the palace guards occupied long enough for her and the others to make their escape? Right then, I’d have put nothing past her.
    Soon the nearest lantern was only a distant glow, leaving us travelling in thick darkness. I was briefly amused, and then horrified, by the thought that if the next man in line got too far ahead we’d have to depend on our pursuers for light. However, even as the glimmer shrunk to nothing, I realised we were past the point of needing to rely on it. The walls were charcoal now, not black, and lightened ahead. Somewhere in that direction was natural light.
    When the passage opened, finally, it was both sudden and dramatic: one moment the dark around us was the closeness of stone-chiselled walls, the next a cavernous space, the outlines of which I could barely distinguish. We’d come out in a huge cave, its domed ceiling descending to a distant line ahead, where it gave way to the faded blue of an early morning sky. We’d travelled through the entire night.
    The shale beneath our feet ran down to a wooden jetty, and from that a wide pier extended towards the cavern’s distant mouth. The rest of the party were already upon the pier, and nearing its far end – where the means of our deliverance lay, chopping slightly in the creased grey water.
    To call it a disappointment was an understatement. I’d feared that the boat might be absent, or left to rack and ruin beyond any hope of saving us.
    It had never even crossed my mind to worry that there might be two of them.

CHAPTER FIVE

    How had it not occurred to anyone? Of course there would be two boats. This was the Ans Pasaedan royal family. There was no way Panchetto could have fled a revolution with anything less than a boatload of servants; what would he have done if he needed his nails trimmed three days into the voyage and the Head Nail Trimmer wasn’t there to do it? Now that the evidence was before me, I was amazed he’d stopped at anything shy of a flotilla.
    Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t cursing his name. One boat for us, one for our pursuers, and no hope of escape. Unless...
    “Saltlick, could you sink that second boat? Punch a hole in its side or...”
    But there was no point even finishing. Saltlick, dragging himself from the passage mouth like a cork popped from a bottle, could hardly even stand upright.
    In any case, Mounteban’s thugs were already busy at work on the second craft. Both vessels were moored at bow and stern and gang planks had been left on the jetty, which the party had already hurried to set in place. Now, the city guardsmen were dashing to ready the boat to my right, preparing the sails and fitting oars into oarlocks, while a half dozen of the buccaneers worked with wicked-looking knives on the cables holding the other. Even as I watched, one of the aft ropes split and coiled away.
    By then, I was nearing the end of the jetty, with Estrada just ahead of me. It occurred to me that a flung oil lamp would make short work of the second boat; but the men had already extinguished their lanterns, I was hardly about to take the time to relight one, and knowing my luck there was a real chance I’d miss anyway.
    Instead, I spared a moment to glance behind me. Saltlick was now halfway between the tunnel mouth and me, struggling to close the gap between us.