He brushed at a fly buzzing past his face, and the chains clanked furiously. “You won’t get an argument out of me. My future as a mercenary doesn’t look promising.”
She glanced around. The stockade was filled with the sounds of men grumbling and cursing, of chains clanking, and of booted feet passing on the catwalk overhead. The air was dry and hot and still, and the smell of unwashed bodies, sweat, and excrement permeated everything.
She adjusted her stance to sit crosslegged before him, setting the food package on the ground between them. “How about something to eat?”
She unwrapped the food, and her brother began to devour it hungrily. “This is good,” he told her. “But what are we doing, exactly? I thought you might have thought of a way to get me out of here.”
She brushed back her thick red hair and smirked. “You mean you haven’t figured that out for yourself? You got yourself in, didn’t you?”
“No, I had help with that.” He chewed thoughtfully on a piece of bread. “Do you have anything to drink?”
She reached inside her robes and produced a flask. He took it from her and drank deeply. “Ale,” he announced approvingly. “What’s going on? Is this my last meal?”
She picked at a cut of roast pheasant. “Let’s hope not.”
“So?”
“So we’re killing time until Hawk gets things ready for our departure.” She took the flask back from him and drank. “Besides, we may not have time to eat again once we set out. I don’t expect we’ll be stopping until after dark.”
He nodded. “I suppose not. So you do have a plan.”
She grinned. “What do you think?”
They finished the meal, drank the rest of the ale, and sat quietly until Rue Meridian was satisfied that enough time had passed for Furl Hawken to be ready and waiting. Then she rose, brushed herself off, gathered up the remains of their feast, and walked toward the shack that served as the stockade commander’s office. On the way, she dropped their leftovers in the stockade compost heap. You did what you could to care for Mother Earth, even here.
She walked into the commander’s office without knocking, closing the door behind her. The commander was leaning back in his chair against the wall behind his desk, dozing. He was a redfaced, corpulent man, his face and hands scarred and worn. Without slowing, she walked around the desk, the dirk in her hand, and hit him as hard as she could behind the ear. He slumped to the floor without a sound.
Racks of keys lined the wall. She selected the set with her brother’s name tagged to the peg and walked back to the door. When she caught sight of a guard passing across the compound, she called him over. “The commander wants to see my brother. Bring him over, please.”
The guard, used to obeying orders from almost everyone, didn’t question her. He took the keys and set off. A few minutes later he was back, herding Big Red at a slow shuffle, the wrist and ankle irons still attached. She stood aside to let them enter, closed the door, and flattened the guard with a blow to the neck.
Her brother glanced at her. “Very efficient. Do you plan to dispatch the entire garrison this way?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.” She worked the keys into the wrist and ankle locks, and the chains dropped away. He rubbed his wrists appreciatively and looked around for a weapon. “Never mind that,” she said, gesturing impatiently.
She took a sheet of paper from the commander’s desk, one embossed with the Federation insignia, and wrote a brief note on it with a quill pen and ink. When she was finished, she eyed it critically, then nodded. “Good enough. You’re a free man. Let’s go.”
She slipped the dirk back in her boot, and they walked out of the command shack and across the yard toward the gates. Her brother’s eyes shifted about nervously. Prisoners and guards alike were watching them. “Are you sure about this?”
She laughed and shoved him playfully. “Just watch.”
When they reached the gates, the two guards she had given her weapons to on entering were waiting. She waved the insignia-embossed paper at them. “What did I tell you?” she asked brightly, handing the paper to the first guard.