Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [101]
“Still in there, I guess.” Danyal shook his head in despair. “I told him to stay with me, to be careful, but he wandered off before we’d been inside for ten minutes!”
“I don’t know if we can afford to wait for him,” Emilo said ruefully. “It kind of puts the whole plan in trouble.”
“What choice do we have, besides waiting here?” argued the youth.
“Did you see how many men were gathered at the base of the bridge?” He gestured into the torchlight at the end of the little lane, where a small knot of bandits milled about.
“Yes.” Emilo didn’t sound concerned. “Actually, I don’t think they’ll be there long.”
“Why?” asked Danyal incredulously.
The kender made no answer. Instead, he cocked an ear to the side, clearly expectant of some noise.
Within seconds, a great boom resounded through the night, echoing back from the neighboring mountain as a cascade of orange flame leapt into the air from the far side of the manor’s walls. A heavy thud rumbled through the ground under their feet, and debris clattered around them while the fire flared into a brightness like false daylight.
“You did that?” Danyal asked, amazed and impressed.
“That used to be a shed just outside the stronghold,” Emilo said smugly. “See if they’ll ever store all their kegs of lamp oil in one place again!”
The band of men who had been guarding the end of the bridge now raced in a mob toward the scene of the explosioii. Flaming oil had been cast in a great arc around thfe blast, and several neighboring cottages and a haystack’were all crackling into a lively conflagration. The guardsmen were joined by others from the manor as everyone within sight labored to fight the flames, shoveling dirt onto the fire or, more rarely, casting a bucket of precious water on some particularly vulnerable outpost of the blaze.
“D’you think that will hold their attention?” asked the kender nonchalantly, leaning against the wall of the barn and trying to observe the gates of the manor. Flames soared into the sky, glowing like a beacon in the night.
“Let’s get to the bridge!” Mirabeth urged, pointing to the route that had opened before them.
Ducking low, staying to the shadows as much as possible, the trio scuttled past the outbuildings of the small village. Finally they reached the last hut, still twenty paces from the end of the bridge. The whole surface of the span was visible from the manor, though the illumination naturally was brightest at this end.
“No point in hanging around and waiting for someone to find us,”
Danyal said, after checking to see that Kelryn’s bandits were still busy with the fire.
The three of them raced onto the bridge, not daring to look back as they willed their feet to fly, and sprinted with all possible speed onto the surface of flagstones. In moments the deep chasm, black with night shadow, yawned to either side of them and the chilly air breezily washed away any trace of warmth that might have lingered from the fire in the village.
The first shout of alarm didn’t come until they were halfway across, but even that was disastrously early, Danyal knew. Knowing their flight had been observed, he urged his companions to redouble their efforts, intending to fall back and try to gain them time, holding off the pursuing bandits with his dagger. But Mirabeth apparently sensed his intention, for she seized his wrist and pulled him sharply along at her side.
Finally the far end of the bridge was there, and they raced off the span and onto the dirt roadway. But now they heard the sounds of an angry mob, shouts and cries and hoarse, communal cheers as the bandits left the dying fire at the stronghold to give pursuit. Danyal sensed the bloodlust of the band and knew the three of them wouldn’t live for a minute if they were caught.
“It won’t work. We can’t all make it!” he gasped. “Run!”
Again he tried to hesitate, to turn and buy more time, but Mirabeth pulled him hard. “You’re coming, too!”
And so he followed, the kender and the two young humans dashing into the shadows of the mountainside while dozens of murderous bandits charged onto