Dalmas, John – Yngling 02 – Homecoming

So the eyeless barbarian dreamed. Yitzhak viewed briefly until the mind settled back into its even and featureless hum. It would be interesting to know what Draco had in mind for that one. The patrol commander who’d found him had made a serious mistake, putting out his eyes. It was commonplace to blind a fugitive slave out of hand. Blind him or her and let the creature wander sightless about the streets, pushed, dragged, worked over with knife tips, fists, whatever orc ingenuity and humor came up with until they died of shock, pain and exhaustion.

But only a fool would blind a personal prisoner of the consul.

He’d stop at the Square after watch, Yitzhak decided, and see if the stupid bastard was still alive. Maybe there’d be enough consciousness left to be worth watching. Probably not though. The common soldiers generally got carried away and lost whatever finesse they had when given a patrol commander to play with.

(Yitzhak got up and sauntered into one of the cell-block lanes. A man needed to move around now and then.)

He wondered what Draco would do to the cerberus on watch if the Northman died. Or suicided! The hardened captain shuddered. (Absently he unlocked the door to Nils’s cell and, sword in hand, stepped in to peer cautiously at the large covered body, the ruined eyes sunken in discolored sockets. When he backed out he somehow forgot to turn the key before withdrawing it.) If the Northman suicided on his watch, he told himself, he’d quickly follow him. But it would not happen.

Next he looked in on the star man, who lay curled in a ball, staring as unseeingly as if he’d been blinded too.

The weight from the big wall clock hung down about three decimeters, and he wound it back up. After midnight. A mental glance into the guard quarters found them all asleep, with no dreams worth watching. Briefly he considered waking them for an attack drill, but no, the man who really needed to be alert was the guard at the upper door. Yitzhak walked to the lower door and pulled the lever. When it had raised he walked thoughtfully up the three long flights of stairs. He had never before checked the upper door guard—that was the responsibility of the corridor patrol. But it was his bones if the man was caught off guard and someone else got hold of the speaker tube and tricked his way in.

For a moment he stood at the door, mind screened, hand on the latch lever, then threw it and pulled. The door swung open abruptly and the guard outside leaped back from it, fright in his eyes and ready sword in hand. The two orcs stared at each other, the guard recognizing the captain but uncertain and still ready to run him through. Standard procedure was to signal from below and inform him through the speaking tube.

What am I doing? Yitzhak thought suddenly. “You’re awake I see,” he said. “Good thing. If I ever catch you sleeping here . . . ”

The guard leaked no thought, but his eyes . . . Yitzhak screened his embarrassment as best he could. Ahmed was dead, and no one else would engineer a breakout! What had he been thinking of? He’d made a fool of himself to the door guard!

Engaging the lock behind him, Yitzhak clopped back down the stairs. He needed a drink. The escape of a few nights ago, and the murder of the watch, must have thrust him deeper than he’d realized. The door guard thought he was a fool. He’d have to shut the dog’s mouth before he spread the tale around. Maybe Hassan the Shark . . . Hassan owed him a favor, and he’d enjoy paying it in such a way.

By the time Yitzhak had returned to have his wine and make his plans, Nils was well inside the air duct that opened into the guard room wall. He didn’t know where it led, except out of the dungeon. And there’d been the problem of getting into it. He’d had to jump from the heavy table at an opening he could see only through Ilse’s psychic sight, and he wasn’t coordinated to operate well that way. Then, with only a hand-hold to start with, he’d had to pull his bulky body into the small opening.

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