Break the Chains

Chapter Thirteen

Enard walked in front of her, his narrow back stiff with apprehension. She wanted to tell him to relax, that being so anxious was a sure sign of their deceit, then changed her mind. Every sparrow on the Remnant was tense. Confidence was the only thing that truly stood out here. No doubt that was why she had drawn so much attention with her first scuffle.

They shuffled down the line to the trash chute, overfull plates of foodscrap in hand. A single guard minded the line, but he seemed far more concerned with cleaning his nails than paying attention to what the inmates were doing. Complacency, lack of training. These were weaknesses Ripka had learned to spot in her staff, because they could be easily exploited by the right mind set on doing so.

Checking to be sure the guard wasn’t looking, Enard dumped his scraps, then wedged the clay plate into the chute sideways. He strolled away, keeping his steps slow, and rubbed the back of his neck as if he couldn’t wait to seek his bed. Probably that was true, but Ripka had other plans for their evening.

She tossed her scraps down the chute and swore as a goodly portion of them splashed back out at her. She kicked food filth from her shoes as those behind her in line chuckled.

“What’s the problem?” the guard said, feigning interest.

“Blasted pipe is clogged.”

He shrugged. “Not my purview. I mind the dish cleaners.” He tipped his chin to the stack of soiled clay plates on a wheeled cart beside him. “Better get someone from waterworks up to fix it.”

“You can’t do anything?” She gestured to the pile on the floor, to her shoes. “This is a mess, I’m not waiting around with my feet in filth… Hey!” She whirled, pretending to get a good look at Enard for the first time. “You’re waterworks. Get over here and fix this.”

“I’ll fix your pipes, girl,” someone from the back of the line called. A chorus of chuckles went up. Ripka clenched her jaw, but otherwise didn’t react. Any reaction would escalate the taunts.

Enard let out a big, heavy sigh. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, slinking back over to the pipe.

“How am I supposed to know?” She tapped her farm badge. “This is your job.”

He rolled his eyes so hard Ripka feared they’d never come back around.

“Fine,” he said, and gave the blockage a few ineffectual prods. “It’s clogged, all right, but I can’t see the blockage from here. Going to have to weed it out from the other side.”

“Oh no,” the guard said. “I’m not letting you out there without an escort.”

“Suit yourself. But if that pipe doesn’t get cleared, then you’re going to have one pits cursed time cleaning all the food-covered plates tonight, not to mention the floor here.”

“I can’t believe this shit.” The guard waved down another guard passing through a nearby row of tables on his rounds. “Hey, get your ass over here and watch the line. I gotta run this waterworks grunt out to clear a blockage.”

“Excellent,” Enard rubbed his hands together. “I’ll need an extra set of hands for this, I’m sure. Good thing you’ll be along to help. Got gloves on you?”

The guard blanched. “No way am I sticking my hands in that heap. You–” He jerked a thumb at Ripka, who had made certain she was lingering conveniently close by, trying to scrape the garbage off her shoe against the wall. She looked up at his summons, feigning confusion.

“What?”

“Come on, farm girl. You’re the one who made a stink about the problem, you can help waterworks here muck it out.”

She screwed up her face as if she’d never heard a more disgusting proposition in her life. Silently, she thanked Detan for teaching her to let her expressions over-react to cover any unconvincing note to her words. “You kidding me? I already got garbage all over my shoes.”

“Then more won’t hurt.”

She grunted and shuffled forward to take up position alongside Enard as the guard fumbled with his keyring and heaved open yet another heavy, iron-banded door. In his haste, the guard didn’t bother to pat them down as he shuffled them through and locked the door behind him. Ripka struggled to hide a scowl of distaste. What in the blue skies was the warden of this cage thinking, keeping such lazy sods on staff?

The hallway was much like the one she’d passed through to go out to her farming duties. Knapsacks of equipment lined one wall, and three doors studded the other. Enard grabbed a bag without hesitation and slung it over his shoulder. He snatched up another and held it out to her.

“Best take one of these, might need the extra set.”

She eyed it. “I don’t know what to do with half that stuff.”

“Just listen to my direction, all right?”

“Hurry it up,” the guard growled. The exterior door already stood halfway open.

Sighing as if put upon, she took the bag and hoisted it over her shoulder. Its weight, and the heavy metal clanking of the tools within, jarred her. Whatever waterworks needed, it was a lot more substantial than the small kit given to the gardening crews. So far. She supposed there was time enough to have heavier work foisted upon the gardeners – they hadn’t gotten to harvest yet, or planting season. She hoped to be long gone by the time that happened.

The guard herded them down a packed dirt path the mirror of the one she’d shuffled along that morning. Her hard-soled leather shoes made not a sound against the dirt, even as she scuffed to test how loud she could make them. She allowed herself a small smile, face turned toward the ground so that the guard wouldn’t see. It was going to be easier than she’d hoped to sneak around the island, as long as she could shake the guard’s attention.

Dark burgeoned, the sun little more than a red smear against the horizon, a chill breeze rolling in off the sea to wash the day’s heat away. They hurried down the path toward the open mouth of the pipe and the heaping pile of compost at the foot of it.

Up close, Ripka could better see the hollow dug into the ground alongside the wall of the prison proper. The thick grey wall extended all the way down to at least the bottom of the pit, and no doubt deeper. There would be no digging to freedom for the inmates, even if they could find a secretive place in which to do so.

The refuse pile mounded toward the mouth of the chute, slumping at the edge farthest from the wall. Metal ladders had been screwed into the wall on both sides of the pipe, presumably for maintenance access. A set of stairs slashed the ground on the opposite side so that the farmers could get to the refuse with ease even when the pit wasn’t full.

But what truly made the clearest impression upon Ripka, was the stench.

“Ugh,” she said, not having to pretend disgust.

The air was redolent with the fecal-sweet aroma of rotting plant material, heavy with the pungent scent of decay. It was far worse up close than it had been that morning.

“I think something might have died down there,” Enard said.

“Could be a dead rat blocking the pipe.”

“Or a rat king.”

“Sweet skies,” the guard said, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth and nose. “Get this over with, will you?”

“Go on down the stairs at the other end,” Enard said. “I’ll tell you what to do from there.”

Ripka nodded, a little queasy, and skirted the pit to the steps. The heap wasn’t small by any stretch of the imagination, but it had yet to completely collapse at the base, making it a high, narrow pyramid wide enough to hide two widths of her body. She climbed down the steps while Enard swung up the ladder on the opposite side. He was in full view of the guard, but the heap did well to hide her.

“Right, now,” Enard said loud enough for the guard to hear. “Take your wrench and pry open the first bolt on the clog trap – no, no, the other one.”

Ripka hadn’t done anything, didn’t have any intention to, but Enard kept on talking and giving direction like she were throwing herself to the task. With care she hung her bag from the lowest rung of the ladder and twisted the strap around so that it would unwind itself and clank against a nearby metal flap. She then crept up the stairs on hands and knees.

Her hands sunk into the dirt on the lower steps, the soil there slightly muddy from having been covered in midden at one point or another, and suppressed a shudder. There’d be plenty of time to wash in her cell, later. At least they didn’t need to be stingy with water on this skies-cursed island.

When she crested the top of the steps – the time she was most vulnerable to view – Enard banged on the pipe with his wrench, swearing at it, doing everything he could to draw attention to himself. Breath held, she scurried forward into a nearby stand of scrub, concealing herself behind a thick pricklebrush.

The thorns grabbed at her jumpsuit, raked across her cheeks, but she held firm, waiting to hear a cry of alarm. Nothing but Enard’s mutterings met her ears.

She took a deep breath to calm herself and crept forward, away from the midden heap, angling toward the path that led out to the grain plot she’d worked. The path would be dangerous, she’d be visible from the top of the prison’s walls every second she walked there, but it was the fastest way – and time was of the essence. Enard could only keep up his antics for so long, and Ripka had to know what was amiss with that building. Its hunkering form was a lodestone lodged in the back of her mind.

If Nouli were within it, they’d have to figure out how to get themselves sent over there as quickly as possible.

She paused at the path’s edge to catch her breath and listened, turning her head slowly, scanning for any sign of another person nearby. She saw no one, could even make out the silhouette of a guard at the top of the wall turn toward the rec yard, his eyes on the largest congregation of prisoners. They apparently didn’t bother looking outside the walls too often on a night with no work details set.

She waited, counting, to see how long it took him to glance toward the fields, then turn back to the courtyard. Two minutes. She’d have plenty of time.

The second he turned away she burst onto the path, sprinting down the hard soil on silent feet, air burning in her throat as adrenaline kicked in, all the while counting down the seconds until he’d turn back toward the outdoors.

She leapt sideways, hit the ground between rows of grain at full speed and tucked, rolling across the dirt. She’d be filthy by the time she got back to the midden heap, but she suspected the guard wouldn’t find anything amiss in that. He probably wouldn’t bother getting close enough to see if she smelled as foul as she looked.

Hidden by the bowing rows of grain, she ran to the end of the plot and peered at the building. No one was about. Not even a warm light dotted the cracks around the shuttered windows. Smoke curled from the narrow mouth of a chimney, smearing the sky with a grey haze. The ground between her and the building was rocky, uneven. Pocked with twisted brush and gnarled trees. Not good ground for running on, not in the growing dark.

Moving as fast as she dared across the uneven terrain, she slipped up close to the building, pressed her back against the wall perpendicular to any line of sight from the prison’s walls, and crept toward one of the shuttered windows. Heart hammering in her ears, she reached up, ran a finger along the underside of one of the shutters, searching for a latch. Maybe it was her nerves, or the light playing tricks in the gathering dusk, but she could have sworn she felt a slight tingle, saw a faint shimmer halo her fingertip. Then it was gone.

“You.” The voice was so close beside her that Ripka jumped, dropped into a defensive crouch and reached for a weapon she didn’t have.

Misol, the guard who had appeared from behind the tree, stood a bare two paces away, her dark face expressing more amusement than anger. Her bald pate gleamed in the fading light, but not as bright as the steel-tipped spear she cradled in one arm. Ripka straightened, slowly, brushing dust from her jumpsuit but finding she only ground the grime in deeper.

“Aren’t you interesting,” Misol said, pursing her plush lips in thought. “Most the time, I find someone creeping around the island after work hours, they’re looking for a way out – a way off the island. But not you. You’re looking for a way in, aren’t you?”

“What is this place?” Ripka asked, forcing her voice to calm. Misol had shattered her concentration. She’d lost her count of the guard’s rotation, and that bothered her. More than likely, she wouldn’t need it now, but the way this woman unsettled her… It was off. Wrong. Not even the most depraved of souls she’d thrown behind bars or led to the axemen had disturbed her in this fashion. Her skin crawled to be close to Misol, a familiar sensation she couldn’t quite pin down.

“What I don’t understand, is, why do you want to know, hmm? Most sparrows, they come in wanting to do their time, keep their heads down, and get off this rock if they can. But you – you’re poking around like the Remnant’s a puzzle to be solved. You’re looking for someone, aren’t you? You a songbird who can’t find her nest-mate?”

Her jaw clenched. “I’m no songbird. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Thing is, lil’ sparrow, I don’t have to. Pity you won’t share your reasons with me. Makes you my own puzzle then, doesn’t it? But, if you won’t share, then I gotta do my job.”

Misol paused, giving Ripka a chance to reveal her intentions. The very idea rankled. Maybe Misol could be of some help – certainly she held the key to the secret of the yellowstone building – but Ripka could not be certain. And the more Misol danced around telling her the truth, the more Ripka suspected it must be holding the very thing she sought. Nouli may have been disgraced, but he was still a genius. They wouldn’t leave him to rot without protection in the Remnant.

Possibly they were even slaving him to tasks they needed done.

“I guess you gotta, then,” Ripka said.

Misol sighed her disappointment. “Have it your way–” she squinted at Ripka’s dyed name, “–Enkel. Keep your hands where I can see ’em, now. We’re going to go visit the warden, and see what he wants to do about you, little wanderer.”