Chapter 165: A Magician Never Tells
The corridor left the last torch behind and bent into a covered gallery, where crates and barrels stood stacked three deep against the wall. There was no second guard post, which was encouraging, and no light nearby strong enough to cast a decent shadow, which was better still.
James caught Milagros’s eye over the guard’s shoulder. He locked gazes with her longer than chance required, and that was enough.
Neither of them said a word.
On the very next step James’s knees buckled, and he hit the floor hard enough to make the nearest guard swear under his breath.
The man caught him by the shirt and hauled him upright, more annoyed at having to drag a troublesome prisoner than worried.
That was the chance James had been waiting for.
With the chain loose, his hand came up and clamped over the guard’s mouth.
James pulled him down and inward, hard, before his companion could drag him the other way. The guard’s boots scraped against the stone while his hands clawed at James’s arm, but there was nowhere for them to go.
His eyes bulged, and spit gathered at the corner of his mouth while he fought for breath.
James’s wounded shoulder stung to the whole fight with considerable enthusiasm. He answered it with a low hissed curse, one with no polite part left in it.
"Bloody hell, you’re a heavy bastard."
It came out half a laugh, though there was hardly enough voice behind it to qualify as one.
The guard’s face turned a deep and ugly red while his fingers dug bloody crescents into James’s forearm, he fought desperately.
Then his strength vanished by the seconds.
His body went slack in James’s grip, suddenly heavy as a sack of wet grain. James lowered him carefully, not because he had discovered any tenderness for the fellow, but because dead men were considerably less troublesome when they did not make a noise on the way down.
Meanwhile, the second guard had given his whole attention to his partner’s peculiar and remarkably silent struggle.
This left him in no state to notice Milagros’s chain coming for him.
The iron caught him square across the back of the skull with a crack James heard even while he was still fighting for his own neck. The man dropped where he stood, all bones and no dignity, while blood spread dark and fast beneath the wreck of his head.
Milagros straightened with the chains still swinging from one fist.
She looked James over, and there was in her expression more admiration than shock. "Right, then. How in the name of every saint in this city you had your hands free this whole damned time, señor?"
James reached into his sleeve and brought out a small iron pick. He turned it once between two fingers, with the neat little flourish of some card trick.
Then the pick disappeared again, just as neatly as it had appeared.
"A magician never tells, lass."
She clicked her tongue, "Bollocks. Where does a man even hide that when he’s chained and searched down to his smallclothes?"
"Ask me again over a bottle sometime. I might perform the trick again, for a better reward."
She rolled her eyes so hard it looked like she would strain something, then held out her wrists instead of wasting time pressing the question.
James knelt and worked the pick into her lock. His hands hardly seemed to think about the motion anymore.
The iron turned and the lock clicked.
From there, they dragged the bodies through the nearest door and into a storeroom packed with the sort of rubbish every building hoards over the years and never quite finds a reason to throw away. Broken tackle, a crate of rusted nails, a barrel that smelled strongly of rancid tallow.
Nothing in the place was worth a second glance.
James kicked the door shut behind them and looked over the two dead men, "Well. Seems a shame lettin’ these good uniforms go to waste."
He stripped one guard down to his smallclothes, took the man’s cutlass, and pulled on the dead fellow’s coat and breeches.
He buckled the cross-belt, put on the hat, and used the blade as a mirror. It was not much of a mirror, but it was enough to keep him from marching out looking like a soldier who had recently lost a fight with a laundry line.
"Broad enough through the shoulder, bit generous everywhere else."
He turned once and permitted himself an approving look. "Although I confess, I cut a fine figure as one of His Catholic Majesty’s men. Long as nobody looks me too close in the eye, as me face is worth a fair sight more silver than any wages for their whole bloody lives."
Milagros required no persuasion.
She pulled the other guard’s coat free, taking the blade as naturally as if some dead men’s belongings were merely another sort of luggage.
It was only when she had pulled the coat halfway on and was tucking her dark hair beneath the hat that James turned to see whether she was ready.
Instead, he found her halfway through, shirt open and not yet laced, enough of her lean figure on display to catch his eye despite himself. Her small, pert chest was plainly outlined beneath the open shirt, while the fit of the trousers left little mystery about the shapely curve of her rearside.
Then she caught him looking.
"Bite your fucking eyes clean out of your skull, señor, and I’ll feed ’em to the gulls myself."
She snapped the shirt closed with one sharp hand. "There’s somewhere else worth looking, or has that Spanish uniform turned you into a damned lecher already?"
James laughed and averted his gaze.
"Fierce Bonny, was it? The one you were so keen on boastin’ about in front of the governor?"
Her eyebrow went up.
"Does she know her man’s eyes wander this free the moment her back’s turned?"
"Aye, and she’d mark me for it with her own teeth, no question."
James grinned, entirely untroubled by the possibility. "Fortune smiles on me, lass. I’ve always had a weakness for mad ones, especially the sort liable to put a knife in me one day."
Milagros let her tongue slowly brush across her lips, her gaze lingering on him.
"Well, lucky me, then."
Then, without waiting for him to reply, she pulled her coat into place, adjusted the hat over her hair, and slipped back through the door.
A moment later, the two of them were moving through the gallery as another pair of Spanish soldiers among however many the fort had on its books.
James let the joke go and turned his thoughts toward the trouble still waiting inside the walls.
Kit, Jim, and Sam were in this fort too, somewhere, and he had no better notion where to find them than a blind man had of the tide.
⚔ [QUEST UPDATED]
The Jailbird Sister > Nobody Left Behind
One woman’s freedom has apparently grown into everyone’s problem, yours included. Walking an entire fortress out from under a governor’s nose is the sort of ambition men are usually remembered for, usually with their names carved into a headstone.
Reward : 30 Fate > 100 Fate
Reward : ???
I confess some admiration for a man who cannot rescue one woman without personally endangering the greater part of a garrison. Do try not to disappoint me further than you already have.
James read it, grinned, and clicked his tongue.
"Well. At least a man’s gettin’ paid for the trouble now."
He tipped his borrowed hat toward the gallery ahead and set off.
Milagros fell into step beside him, and neither needed to say another word.