Realms of Infamy - James Lowder [59]
The whinnies of a nervous team and the shadow of a wagon told Pinch that at least one of the thieves had come through. He wormed through the crowd and into the alley where Corrick and his wagon waited.
They were all there-Sprite, Corrick, and Brown Maeve. She was soothing the horses, which had been made skittish by the crowd. Pinch slapped her on the rump as he squeezed past. "Keep watch," he ordered before turning to the others. Corrick sat on the seat, reins ready, while Sprite hung over the cart's rail, munching an apple he'd no doubt lifted from a peddler's basket. Sprite never paid for anything that wasn't locked down. "All's done?" Pinch demanded.
Corrick gave a peg-toothed smile and waved to the cart and team. "Best I could get, Pinch," he bragged. The team was actually nothing to brag about-a scrawny pair, spotty with mange, their necks callused with years in the collar. At least the wagon was sound. The back was covered with a patched canvas awning where they could hide. Somewhere, Pinch guessed, there was a rag-and-bone man trying to find his wagon.
"Well, Sprite? The sewers-how close can we get?"
The halfling threw aside his apple core and climbed onto the wagon's seat. He pointed over the heads of the crowd to a shop across the square. "Better'n I thought. See the weaver's? In line with that, maybe a stone toss from the triple tree." At this distance, the weaver's and the gallows were no more than a hand's breadth apart.
"Can you guide us once we're in the tunnels?"
"Marked it out this morning, Pinch."
Pinch suppressed the urge to congratulate himself. The job wasn't done yet. "Well done, boy." The master signaled his accomplices to join him, and join him quick they did. "Maeve, you two, listen wise, 'cause here's the plan.
"We're body collecting. Maeve's already spread it through the crowd that a group of wizards are wanting the body for dissecting." The wizardress mock-curtsied slightly at mention of the part she'd played so far. "That should suit the crowd out there fine. Saves them the fear of anyone resurrecting Therin after he's dead."
Sprite scowled-he'd always been picky about grave-robbing and the like-but Pinch added, "That's just so we can get the wagon close. Then, just before the drop, Maeve'll use her spells to whisk Therin out of the twined hemp. When that happens, Corrick will whip the team into the crowd. We'll all make for Sprite's bolt-hole and be out of here before they know what's happened."
"That's your plan?" Sprite asked incredulously. "I think old Corrick here was right-we should have been huggering this out in another town."
"Well, we're 'ere and there's no point 'uggering now, Sprite," Corrick croaked. "I say we give Pinch 'is due. Don't 'is plans always work?"
"There's no time to waste," Pinch barked. "In the cart, all of you." With easy grace, he swung into the back, then helped the less-agile Maeve alongside. Sprite tumbled in beside them and pulled up a span of canvas to roughly cover them. From the shadowed interior, the three had a narrow view of the still-vacant scaffold.
A roar went up from the crowd as a crier mounted the gallows platform, the writ of execution rolled under his arm. The official swung his bell in a futile attempt to get silence.
"Go, Corrick."
The ancient gave a flick of the reins, and the horses got the cart moving with a rough lurch. The passengers bounced in the back as the wheels rolled down the cobbled street.
A wild cheer, part savage, part joyous, rose from the crowd as the cart entered the square. The roar died down as quick when the mob realized the covered wagon was not the executioner's cart. With a vigorous application of the whip on the horses and the crowd, Corrick was able to