The King with Six Friends

A Stone's Throw

Another ten soldiers marched up in an attack formation to arrest Pétur. He picked an unconscious man up by the back of their armor and launched the soldier like a ragdoll into the squad. While the soldiers scrambled around, Pétur ran past them- just slow enough so that they could keep up with him but not yet catch him.

"Come on!" Pétur taunted, "Blocky runts!"

The soldiers forgot about Edge and pursued Pétur. Edge stood stunned for a moment before he started making his way to the barn.

~ ~ ~

Ingrid had to bite down on her lip to keep from guffawing. Pétur was never one to keep things subtle, and she was counting on it. It was hilariously comedic to watch him play keep-away with the soldiers as he sidestepped, looped, and evaded them around houses and trees.

When the soldiers were far enough away, she crept along the wooden shingles of her house toward the barn. From where she was she could see several lines of chain secured around the doors. The barn was hazardously exposed to the center of the village, so she had to get in quickly.

Hooking the crossbow at her belt, Ingrid lowered herself and dropped down from the eave, landing lightly on her toes. The dead leaves and gravel crunched noisily under her weight. It was harder to sneak around her home than in a high-security castle.

Ingrid snuck to the barn doors. Several padlocks were hooked onto the chains. Upon examination, she found that the locks were new and uncorroded, meaning she couldn't force any brittle weak spots open.

Ingrid pulled her lock-picking tools from her coat and tested the inner mechanism. There was a secondary metal flap she couldn't get past without a key, but there was no time to find one. There was no window to break into either; her mother didn't want any curious children spying in on her work.

"Ingrid," whispered a voice behind her.

Startled, she whirled around and threw a knife at whomever it was. The knife hit Edge on his helmet and pinged off. He flinched a moment too late and ducked down after the knife had hit the ground.

"Don't do that!" Ingrid hissed annoyedly. She turned back to the lock to jimmy it open with a knife.

Edge glanced around and straightened back up. "Sorry." He noticed her struggling with the padlock. "Do you need any help?"

"No," she grunted, trying to shove the tip of the blade into the gears.

Edge waited impatiently, tapping his hand against his armor. The sounds of the soldiers chasing after Pétur were growing closer.

"They're coming back," he muttered.

"I know," Ingrid grunted, ditching the knife for a tiny pouch of gunpowder and shoving it into the keyhole. Torchlight cast shaky shadows of men off of a longhouse wall.

"They're getting closer," Edge said, agitated.

"Please stop talking." She stepped back and kicked the lock with her heel, exploding the gunpowder with the sound of a gunshot. The padlock limply fell to the ground. A small victory, but there were still six more locks clinging to the chains.

She grabbed a few more gunpowder bags, but Edge beat her to it and already had two locks in hand. He grabbed his hatchet and wrenched the shanks apart. The padlocks broke open and he moved on to the next two.

In the two minutes Ingrid had taken to blow apart one lock, Edge had cracked open six. When he opened the barn door for her in a sarcastically formal manner, she muttered, "Show off," and slipped inside.

Pitch-black darkness engulfed them inside the barn. Ingrid felt along the wall to find a lantern. Her hand grazed a cold, waxy block of a candle. She drew a match from her coat and lit the wick. It burned an off-green glow, giving everything a sickly, rotted look.