but even old man Bryer here couldn’t help you. There’s no way out but up!”
He rang his sword against the metal bars of the landing gate, and the clatter that it made echoed in the narrow dungeon.
The older of the two, sharp-faced Bryer, caught the other guard a lazy backhand. “To your post,” he growled. “And you! Keep still and keep to yourself. That goes for all of you. I’ve never yet earned the lord protector’s ire, and I don’t intend to do it over such a sorry lot.”
Corin shrugged again and settled back against the wall. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kellen’s nervous expression. Corin made calming gestures, all composed, then closed his eyes to slits and, minutes later, started snoring.
It was a good snore, starting low and irregular but building over time. Soon the stone walls growled with it. Corin kept it up for five minutes, maybe ten, then cut the snores abruptly short. Silence fell across the dungeons, broken only by a relieved sigh from somewhere down the line. The pirate let the silence spin out, heartbeat after heartbeat, then he smashed it with a snnrkkrt.
Warden Bryer snapped. He bellowed, “Cut that out!” and hurled a battered tin cup at Corin’s head. Its handle clanked against the bars as it was passing through, or it would have caught Corin just above the ear. Instead, it skipped off the ground with a whining ting and leaped right into his cot.
“No more snoring!” Bryer yelled. “No more! If I have to carve your flesh to keep you awake, I will. I swear by postulates and proofs!”
Corin blinked as though through bleary eyes and offered his jailer an apologetic shrug. Then he shifted in his cot, sinking down to a more comfortable position—wrapping his body around the tin cup as he did so—and pretended to settle into a gentler doze.
The snore was mostly meant to rattle nerves, and it had certainly done that. It was a trick he’d learned from Sleepy Jim and, with time enough, it almost always drew a similar effect. The tin cup had merely been a lucky break. Luckier still that Bryer’s aim had damaged it, because Corin had little trouble prying at the cheap, twisted metal of the handle until it came loose. That gave him a tool. With time and care, he could make a decent lockpick of the thing or sharpen its edge into a decent shiv.
For now, Corin simply needed the weight. He snuggled under his cloak, pulling it tight around him, then reached into the lining of his cloak and worried free the end of a long, thin wrapped wire that Ephitel’s jailers had overlooked. He drew it out, inches at a time, until he had a cord most of four paces long.
He tied one end around the weight of the cup’s handle, then looped some of the rest around his wrists, a crude disguise to imitate the elven knot. The larger loops he tucked beneath his arm where the cloak would hide it well.
Then he judged it time to act. He struggled upright, swayed for a moment, then found his feet. With his hands close together, near his waist as though they were still bound, he moved to the cell door and shouted. “Jailer!”
The younger one met Corin’s eyes and gave a lazy blink, but otherwise they made no response.
“Jailer!” Corin called again. “I would have a word.”
“You would have a bruise,” Warden Bryer barked. “Take a seat and get back to your rotting.”
Corin cursed. There was nothing he could do from this distance. While he was still searching for some plea that might draw a jailer over, Avery shouted from down the line. “His hands are free! Look, guards! Use your eyes! His hands are free now. Stop him!”
That caught their attention, but not in the way Corin had hoped. The younger jailer grabbed his sword and dashed toward Corin’s cage, but old man Bryer held his place at the outer gate. He reached beneath the table there and brought out a loaded crossbow.
Corin cursed. He’d hoped for shock, a quick attack against one guard that might have won him a hostage. But Avery had helped—gods bless him—and now Corin had one blade coming at him and a heavy crossbow bolt on its way. He had to act. He stabbed his arms between the bars of his cage and snapped his wrist, casting the little bit of tin out in a tight arc behind the charging