Chapter 12
From Toreas
The castle was enormous. It looked big on the outside but walking inside of it made it seem even larger. A true maze of corridors and stairs lead from one building into the next. Eric understood where he was very roughly and was sure he could backtrack, but he had lost his bearing a long time ago after all these twists and turns. Not seeing the sky was probably the main problem, he thought as he looked up and just saw rafters or plaster ceilings. Over time, many people added many different buildings and connected them through archways and small bridges. They stepped through a small arch to find themselves in a large hallway and then go down some wide stairs to come to a small door, leading into a corridor barely large enough for him to stand upright.
They passed a few servants who busied themselves with lighting lamps and candles. He wondered why they would start this early. By the time they were done it was probably pitch black outside he thought. Then he looked at his guides, Zara's army of maids and hoped he would arrive before it was that dark.
They told him that he was to meet the king at the audience chamber. Apparently it was high up as they climbed several stairs. He could see roofs and towers outside now. Since there only were a few large towers he could see, but no larger buildings, they must have crossed into the large building that stuck out among the others from the distance. Outside it was a maze of connecting and touching, slanted roofs, just as it was a maze of passages and rooms inside.
A large double door that was ornately gilded brought their journey to an end. On each side stood a guard, pretending not to notice them, while watching their every move. Eric knew the type, they would not hesitate to cut him down in a heartbeat.
"Go on in, the king and the princess are waiting and you don't let nobility wait."
With that, the door opened, the maids shushed him through and the the door closed behind him. The sound of the doors falling shut had a finality in Eric's mind he did not want to contemplate any further. He had a feeling of being trapped but dispelled it the next moment and told himself to be calm.
The room was not really large, but tall. To his sides were each two guards, and two more in the back, framing Zara and what must be the king, sitting on high backed gilded chairs. Besides that the room looked pretty cold in stone except for a couple of cloth decorations and the wooden beams overhead.
Zara waved him closer. He stepped forward until she gave him a small nod. He mustered the king as he approached then bowed slightly as he had seen the guards do before Zara at the gate.
He could tell the man was tall. His broad shoulders were filling out his garments very well. He probably had that mixture of muscle and fat that was really hard to guess at and in either way was dangerous in a fight. His eyes were sharp and his beard very neatly trimmed. It was impossible for Eric to read the mans face that was hard with a few deep lines in it.
"Father, this is Eric, the man who rescued me from those mercenaries."
Thomas of Lionor eyed Eric suspiciously. In front of him was a young man, with a short beard, growing unruly all over his face, and very short dark hair, brownish like one of his darker horses. He looked strong but in a lean way, not like a fighter, but someone who could put up a fight if need be. If he stood face to face, he might even be a fingers width or two taller than himself. The clothes he wore were obviously supplied by his court. They did not fit him in either cut or style. His daughter had already told him bits and pieces and that their attire had been damaged, although how she had left out. So this boy had rescued his daughter? He was not so sure, there must be more to this.
"Welcome to Lionor, Eric, if that is your name."
"Thank you your highness. That is indeed my name."
"You have no last name? That is unusual."
"The hunter who found me in the woods had no last name either, your highness, so he just gave me a first name."
"We could give him one, father", Zara said from the side.
Eric glanced at her. He was fine the way things were, why was that woman out to change everything. He felt very strongly that he wanted out of here, right this moment. But unarmed he stood no chance against the six guards in this room if the king decided to keep him here. And once he was outside, what then, this was a fortress. He dismissed the thought.
"Thank you, Zara, but I don't need a last name."
The kings brow furrowed. A displeasure was making itself seen at Eric's liberal use of the princess name, but it subsided again just as fast. It had not escaped Eric. They made him dress in these clothes and shoes that are useless, wash up, although that he could understand to some degree, bow and be nice and wanted him to use some proper titles. A feeling in the back of his head told him to calm down. It was not a very convincing feeling.
"It hardly would suit a lord", Zara began and was interrupted by her father.
"Lesser lord", he injected.
She just smiled at the king and went on.
"To have only a first name now, wouldn't it?"
The will to calm down was evaporating, another was telling him to leave, now.
"I told you I appreciate the thought but I have no desire whatsoever to be a lord", and with a quick glance at the king he added, "neither a lesser lord."
Zara went on unperturbed.
"You live in the woods mostly, right?"
"Yes, that is correct."
"Then your name should be Eric Woods, that would be very appropriate."
"No Zara, it would be very wrong, as I don't want to change my name."
"My daughter has suggested that the right reward for your heroic actions would be to make you a lord, somewhere close by to the south. You would get land, a noble title and of course gold to start taking care of your new possession."
"I have no desire for any of that, your highness."
The king was thinking hard, but Eric could see that he was getting impatient, even angry. It fueled his own anger at this whole situation.
"So what is it you want in return for rescuing my daughter, the princess and only heir to my throne? Speak!"
He sighed inwardly. If they were all like that he hoped to never meet a nobleman again.
"To leave now, your highness. I just came here to meet you on request of Zara. That I have done now, your highness and my only wish is to change into what's left of my own clothing and leave. That is all."
"But I told you my father would reward you richly, Eric. You would not have to work another day in your life. How can you refuse this?"
"Because I told you Zara. I don't want any of this", he grabbed his shirtsleeve and shook it towards her, "None of these clothing, none of these ways to talk or be talked to, none of the responsibilities, none of those titles, land or gold, nothing. I like my name the way it is and don't want to change that either. Did you even listen when I told you this over and over again Zara? It was not too difficult to understand, was it? Maybe it's some deafness on your part? Or did you bump your royal head a bit too hard on that log when we were almost drowning in the river this morning and I saved your life yet again?"
"Silence!"
The king shot up from his throne so it got shoved back slightly. All guards were instantly awake, after what had seemed like they were falling asleep over the proceedings. Their hands were creeping towards their swords. Eric's mind went ice cold. The world became a very sharp and slow place all of a sudden. This was a very bad sign.
"You will not talk like that to my daughter. You will refer to her as princess or your highness, you will refrain from using her name, like she is some sort of..."
"Maid? Funny you should say that, as that is how she introduced herself to me. She lied to me in her first words that came from her mouth after I rescued her and I hate being lied to."
"Maybe some time in our prison will teach you some respect. Guards!"
Before the king was finished speaking the command, Eric had turned and ran for the door.
Time slowed down to a crawl. The guards standing next to the only way out of the room became very clear to him. One guard was struggling with a stuck sword, his companion had his sword almost free, but he would be too late so Eric dismissed them both in his mind. On the other side one was still trying to comprehend the command, which made him disappear in his mind as well. The fourth guard did not try to grab his weapon, instead he just stepped to the side, trying to block Eric's path.
In the last moment, Eric changed his course. Instead of dodging the guard, he aimed right at him and jump one step away from him. He crashed into the man at shoulder height, with his knees on the mans chest. With the force of his run and jump, he crashed with the guard right through the middle part of the door and in the ante chamber.
Eric was thankful that he had correctly guessed that the panel was thin and rolled over the body of the man under him to his feet. He just barely registered the maids standing to one side and talking to the two guards and their bewildered looks as Eric ran by them.
Inside these rooms and corridors, he would have no chance, they would corner him or he might just as well get lost. A window to his left was half way open and the roof below it was close. He jumped over the windowsill and waved with his arm in thin air as he plummeted a story down on to a steep roof. A few tiles came loose, clattering down and dropping over the edge as he slid down the roof and just a foot from the abyss was able to come to a halt.
As he had seen, the roofs mostly interconnected and it would not be too hard to get from one to the other. Shouts came from above where he had jumped through the window. He wasn't going to wait for them to find anything to shoot at him with or someone following him. They would have a hard time with armor tough.
Carefully he walked across the roof and dropped to the next lower roof. It would be hard to make it to the ground. But that was not really a good idea either. An alarm will sound soon and the gates will be closed, so that was not the way to escape.
From his location he was higher than the walls and could overlook all of Lionor. The sight was stunning, but his eyes were looking for an escape route. He saw the outer wall going all the way down to the harbor and the harbor gates. It connected to a tower and then the wall ran along the coast to be the outer wall of the castle. As he kept following it, he noticed a couple of odd spots. After a couple of moment he realized what it was that he saw. The guards must have, out of laziness, built some bridges between the walls. They were just wide planks but now that he knew what to look for he could see a few of them. Quickly he looked for a way to reach the walls.
Someone had dropped to the roof as well and started shouting, as he had stopped to think and look around, so he started running. It was dangerous and the shoes he had did nothing to enhance his grip on the tiles. Dropping to the next roof, he stopped and threw the shoes into a courtyard below. Barefoot he had a lot better hold on the tiles and could run faster.
Making his way towards the wall, he now saw a hitch in his plan. There was a building against the outer wall whose roof would allow him to climb on to the wall. But between that roof and the one closest to it was a large gap. His target building was lower, but the gap was still pretty large. He tried to imagine the distance, then something clattered beside him on the roof. Eric did not take time to examine what that something was, in either case, his pursuers were too close for comfort.
Dropping to the last roof, he started running at the highest point of it as fast as he could. At the edge he coiled his body and pushed of as hard as possible.
He sailed through the air over a drop of at least four stories. But his sight was a tunnel, fixed solely on the edge of the roof he tried to reach. An arrow clattered on the roof where he had just jumped from. A bell was ringing in the distance, some alarm. Eric did not notice any of this. His entire world collapsed on one spot.
The distance did not seem to shrink but he was losing height fast. Just when he thought he wouldn't make it, he crashed into the roof, with his chest first, then his hips impacted the side of the building with his legs flailing uselessly. Scraping over the tiles, his fingers could not find any grasp and he felt he was sliding downwards. Suddenly the world expanded again and he grabbed the side of a slightly dislodged tile. He stopped sliding down. With a burning chest, he slowly pulled himself up to the roof. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him two more figures on roofs, and a few windows open that were trying to shoot at him in the declining daylight.
It seemed moments ago that he was standing in front of the king, now he was running from his guards.
He got up and climbed on top of the inner wall, standing up on the walkway. The next plank was to his left so he ran for it. Just as he got on to the plank, he could see some guard on the inner wall noticing him and running for him. As soon as he crossed it, he pushed the plank off. It tumbled into the space between the two walls and by the time it broke on the stones below, he was already running on the outer wall towards a tower that occupied the entire wall in the direction of the harbor.
The tower had three doors, one for each wall stretch that was leaving from it's circumference. Two were the outer walls of the castle, the third was the outer wall of the city itself which led down along the water front.
Standing in front of the door on the wall stretch he just came from, he saw that it had a lock and he heard voices inside. Going through there would be a bad idea. Taking a couple steps back, he looked up. There were footholds, form the large boulders and stones used in the construction of the tower, but it was too large to go overhead.
Eric heard a click. Panic welled up as he realized that was the door's lock.
Slowly a guard opened the heavy wooden door and took a good look around outside.
"Nothing. They just ring the small alarm at the castle. Maybe someone saw a ghost or the king is unhappy about someone. Once the princess is home this will all be a lot more calm. So anyways, whose turn is it?"
The door banged shut and another click proclaimed that it was locked again.
Eric was clinging by his fingertips and toes to the outer wall of the towers side. He could have tried the other way around, but he would also be spotted easier there. So with all his strength that he had left he clung on to the side of the tower for dear life and inched forward. Below him the ocean lapped at the cliffs Lionor was built upon. It was a long way down and Eric concentrated hard on not thinking about it.
With his fingers shaking, he barely made it to the outer wall that lead down to the harbor. He would not let himself rest, but pressed on, walking fast towards the harbor gates. There were a few places he could take stairs down into the streets of Lionor, but he knew nobody here, at least nobody that would help him, he thought bitterly. Escaping the city was his only plan and the streets were unfamiliar as they were already. With the dark of the night, it would be impossible to find his way.
He hoped to not find anyone on the walls, but he knew that at least near the gate he had seen soldiers on the wall before.
Luck was for once with him he thought as he could now see clearly the shine form the harbor gates beacon fires. When he looked at the wall in front of him again, he saw three guards with swords drawn coming towards him. So much about luck, he thought to himself, as his mind went cold again.
The first one made the mistake to try to talk. Eric was sliding between his legs and caught the blade of the second one on his wrist guard. He grabbed the mans wrist with the other hand and twisted hard, spinning the man towards the first guard. Together they collided and had to be careful not to fall down into the street below. The third man had watched all this and stabbed at Eric with a fast motion. Eric jumped to his left and into one of the gaps in the ramparts.
Angry the man stabbed in between, but Eric already had gotten a grip and swung himself around the stone to the next gap, coming out of it and on to the walkway behind the attacker. When the man noticed where his prey had gone, all he could see was Eric's back fast getting smaller in the direction of the harbor.
As fast as his feet would carry him, he ran. His goal was very close but he could see more soldiers ahead. This group would probably not be as easy to dodge, as the first thing they did was draw their swords and the second, go into a defensive stand. They had seen what had happened with the other guards and would not take chances even with someone seemingly unarmed.
Just behind the guards, Eric could make out the shape of the guard tower, that also contained the mechanism that let them move the large gates. They must have thought that he wanted to sabotage them.
Without slowing down, he jumped on top of the ramparts a few paces from the guards, taking long strides from stone to stone. The first of the guards swiped over the stones with his sword to cut his legs down. The sword only hit air.
Confused the guards looked over the edge and saw the attacker plunge into the darkness. It was impossible to see anything. All they could hear were the waves break on the walls bellow.
"You think he made it?", one guard asked nobody in particular.
"No, he must have hit the cliffs. Besides, even if he would have jumped into the ocean, this is pretty high, he wouldn't make it either way. I guess that's the end of this excitement. Go report to the castle that we had a jumper again and we will keep the wine warm for you."
Grumbling the guard moved to the next stairs. Just because some idiot wanted to kill himself, he had to walk to the castle to report on it. Why couldn't they kill themselves when it was day, or even better, when he was not on duty?
