"Your having a laugh aren't you."
He said slumped in his now habitual corner of the cell.
"We don't have time for banter." Thaulka muttered as he inspected the guards for keys.
There weren't any and Scar laughed.
"That Bastard."
He coughed from the exertion. He had developed a fever. He had been running in place in his cell the past few nights trying to shake it, but it was no use. His body didn't have the nutrients needed to fight it off.
He watched Thaulka as he inspected the bars closely.
"Just get out of here."
His voice was gruff. He hadn't been drinking water. The only water he had was the water that dripped off the cell blocks. One drop every ten seconds or so.
He had lifted a bowl early in his imprisonment, from one of the guards meals.
He still remembered the day he'd stolen the bowl. It had a few shreds of chicken left, and two peas. He had licked the bowl clean.
"Patience Scar, we're almost there."
He glared at him with bitterness.
"Almost there huh? There's no keys Thaulka. Just leave me here, and don't bother coming back."
He turned his head away pressing his sweat shined head into the cold brick. For a moment the cold greeted him like a friend and then the heat swelled behind his eyes again and his brain pounded behind his skull.
When would it end?
Tonight? A week? A month? A year of this even?
Thaulka took out a long silver string and wrapped it around the bars before pulling the ends of the string together. A sound like metal on porcelain rang loundly through the dungeon. Thaulka was quick to bring the shining string to the top of the bar.
Scar thought he was seeing things as the loud noise reverberated the cell again. The string was cutting through the metal poles like butter.
"Did you coat a string in Dreamartin metal?"
Thaulka nodded hastily moving from one bar to the next. They would have company soon.
Scar chuckled, "Your a smart one Thaulka. Very smart."
Dreamartania was a city over the ocean that harvested precious metal. It could cut through anything, but it was incredibly hard to get your hands on. For Thaulka to use it on a string instead of lining a weapon blade. It was completely unheard-of.
Thaulka had made the sixth cut when Scar threw a knife in his direction. It planted itself smugly into a man's head and Thaulka tucked away the fishing wire that was coated with Dreamartin metal, and pulled forth a orb of black. He popped it into the air and it hovered above Thaulka until it expanded. As it covered him Thaulka stepped through the cell and began helping Scar to his feet.
"It won't last long, but it will make us unseeable to the human eye."
"What of the eyes of a sorcerer?" Scar said motioning Thaulka to wait while he pulled a knife from the man's head and wiped it across his pants.
Thaulka shook his head and him and a weakened Scar began the accend up the concrete stairs. The heavy wooden door swung open. Four lackeys came rushing past them as they swung left and clung to the wall.
The men scattered like rats when they noticed the empty cell. One climbed into the cell to inspect the bars the second was checking for a pulse on the guards Thaulka had killed while the other two panicked and headed back up the stairwell. Thaulka and Scar slipped through the open door and began making their way through the hallways of the lower level part of the mansion.
They peeked the corners to check for the old Sorcerer. They made it to the front of the manor before the orb ran out. Thaulka tucked it away into a pouch that seemed to flatten it, and him and Scar ducked into a bush against the manor wall.
Scar breathing like a beach logged whale and Thaulka crouched like a cat of the night prowl.
Men milled about the courtyard in disarray.
"I suppose you found a way around the wall."
"Nope."
There was thick silence between them as Thaulka observered Snakeyes men through the foliage of the manors front gardens.
The four story wall they were referring to towered above them in every direction. All though they lost sight of it behind them because of the giant eighty room Manor that was done in teracata and white brick. It was three stories and two basement levels. The top level was all arches and windows before you reached the half of it that was snakeyes rooms and office. The building was only three stories so reaching the wall from the roof in any direction was impossible.
If they could even make it to the wall.
Scar pushed himself forward and Thaulka handed him a water skin before turning back to his observations. They were about thirty feet from the front gate. The men patrolling the wall stopped as a group of lackeys ran up on the inside.
Faintly they made out their shouting.
"The prisoner has escaped!"
"There's a moat around the back half of the manor. That's how me and my men got in last month." He paused. "Or has it been longer?" His shoulders rose and fell dismissively.
"It was easier getting in because the water pushes through large spread bars into the small private pond. Getting out might be possible if we can manage the water."
Thaulka looked at him skeptically. "Do you think you can manage the heavy water in your condition?"
"What other choice do we have?"
They stared at eachother for a moment.
"Alright, we'll try it. You'll have to make it. If you don't I doubt you'll have any strength left to scale the wall."
Scar nodded. "Scaling the wall is a death sentence anyway." He coughed. Trying to keep quiet and failed. Thaulka cast a little blue orb into his mouth with panther like quickness and his mouth became silent.
His eyes went a little wide and then he raised a brow respectfully at Thaulka.
He gave a grin and mouthed, "Screw you,"
followed by him dissolving into silent laughter and wiping tears from his reddened face.
Thaulka's usually expressionless lips tilted in a smile.
"Get ahold of yourself that one wears off particularly quick."
Scar brought himself under control and tested his voice with a whisper. No noise escaped his lips, but a couple of seconds later, "...ing."
He smirked at the soft husk of his own whisper leaving his mouth and continued "We should start moving to the back of the manor. Its already swarming with the Sorcerer's lackeys. Not to mention that if we dont move soon I doubt we'll make it out."
Thaulka nodded, silent in his crouched position within the bush. He was intensely watching the crowd of panicking men. His eyes fell upon a man that was calmly scouting the area.
"Watch out for that one."
Scar leaned into the brush and scowled with hatred.
"I should have been. The easiest man to keep an eye on is a dead one."
Thaulka raised a brow.
"Rat. He betrayed me. Got dozens of people killed, and for that, his days are marked."
Thaulka nodded and made his way quietly along the side of the manor.
Scar followed, his brow beginning to sweat with fever and his legs felt weak as he forced them into a soundless, moving crouch.
The fever made his entire body shiver and ache, but he commanded obedience from his muscles. Controlled and tight he made his way to the back of the manor with Thaulka.
"Shitting dick biscuits. What the hell is that?"
A giant grate had been welded onto the wall. The water pushed angrily through it and bubbled into the little brook beyond.
A flash of memory assaulted him of his group of men emerging from those waters, deadly, silent, and dripping with water. He didn't realize until now that he'd heard its construction from his cell. He had thought they were rebuilding the third level of the nanor when he'd heard it.
"Well now what? How'd you even get in?"
"I climbed the castle walls. It wasn't hard getting down on a rope. The rope is still up, but it's been discovered."
"What about your little dissapearing trick?"
"I haven't mastered that magic yet." He muttered scanning the crowd as they slithered back around the corner of the manor and into an open window. "It takes a great deal of energy. If I were to use it again I would need another day at least."
The room they were in was empty. Except a few carts of laundry and a pile of blankets in the corner that nearly stood taller than Scar himself.
Scar stared at the cart. They did their laundry in the back of the prison cells.
With everyone panicking over the escaped prisoners nobody would be worried about laundry.
"Come on this way." He pulled Thaulka back to the window and the other elf looked at him curiously.
"Where are we going?"
"Back to the dungeon to wait in the darkness."
Thaulka raised a skeptical brow and followed him back the way they had come.