T
he woman cloaked in red dropped her hood. It was Princess Clarice.
“What are you doing here?” Abraham asked.
“Rescuing you, uh…”
“Abraham,” he said.
She stepped around him and looked at the fallen wall of steel bars. Bewildered, she asked, “What did you do that for?”
“To get out.”
She picked up the bucket and turned it upside down. A key was attached to a claylike material on the bottom of it. “Easy peasy?”
“Ah. I thought the water—”
The jailer’s dungeon door opened.
“Let’s go!” Clarice whispered. She grabbed his hand and led him to another dungeon passage. At the end of the passage, a stone wall was partially split open.
Abraham pulled free of her grip. “You go. I’ll catch up. I have to deal with him.”
“But…”
He took off back to his cell. He stepped inside, lifted the wall of bars up, and fit them back into the frame. Metal scraped loudly against the stone fitting.
“Har! What is that racket?” Carlton jogged on heavy feet to Abraham’s cell. By the time he made it to the cell, he was lathered in sweat and puffing for breath. With his hands on his knees, he eyeballed Abraham. “What did you do?”
“Me?” Abraham asked innocently as he leaned into the dungeon bars, holding them nonchalantly in place. “Sorry, I dropped the bucket. It made such a clatter. Did you hear that?”
“The deaf in Burgess could have heard it.” Carlton eyed his surroundings. “What are you doing? You have a sneaky look about you.” He eyed the bars and the lock. Rubbing his flabby chin, he said, “Something stinks down here.”
“It’s been a time since I last bathed,” he said even though Carlton smelled so bad it could knock over someone with unprepared nostrils. “Sorry.”
Carlton pulled his short sword. “Step back.”
“Why?”
“Do it!”
Slowly, Abraham stepped two steps back, thinking he could have handled the situation better. But he needed to fool Carlton. Otherwise, the guard wouldn’t hesitate to alert the soldiers of his escape. He didn’t want to kill the man either. Why didn’t I just knock him out?
“Step back further, to the back wall!” Carlton said. The moment Abraham moved back, Carlton grabbed the bars with one hand and tugged on them.
The bars teetered.
“Huh?” Carlton said.
The cell’s bars tipped all the way over and crashed down on Carlton, pinning him underneath.
Carlton let out a loud scream.
Abraham jumped over the fallen cell bars and said, “Sorry, Carlton, but I have to go! But try to keep it down, will you?”
“I’ll get you! Guards! Guards!”
Abraham didn’t wait around to see if the guards showed up. He dashed down the dungeon hall and into the secret passage.
Clarice met him on the other side of the wall. She closed the passage door and dropped a locking bar behind it. “Well, that was a stupid idea,” she said. “Come on.”
Moving quickly, he followed her through the darkness with her hand fitted in his. The narrow passage wound through the castle’s interior in an endless maze.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Shhh, the walls can be thin in spots.” Clarice hustled onward. “We’ve known about these networks since we were children. I think most have forgotten about them. We go outside. Horses wait for our escape. There is a ship ready at the port.”
He pulled her to a stop and said, “No. We go to the Stronghold. That is the first place they will look. We have to warn the Henchmen.”
“But it will be certain death,” she said.
“That’s why they have to know. Besides, we are Henchmen. We take care of our own.”
They made it outside into the pouring rain and stood underneath the northernmost wall of the castle by the sea cliff. It was night, and the waves crashed hard against the rocky shores below.
“Where are the horses?” he said.
“I’ll show you,” she replied.
Loud brass horns and moaning whistles erupted from inside the castle walls. The clamor of soldiers running along the castle walls began to grow.
Abraham could hear the grinding of the front gate opening. Horses and riders by the score rode out of the castle with hooves sounding like thunder.
“Blazing saddles! They are heading to the Stronghold. I know it.” He let out a regretful sigh. “We’ll never beat them there. God help them. God help me.”
