Chapter 16: Abetted

Zoltan sat at his desk yanking the ends of his moustache in thought.

Tybalt remained standing in front of the desk. His hands were clasped behind his back, as though he was a soldier standing at ease. He waited for the man to finish his thinking, to give him his reward, and to allow him to get one step closer to a connection with Mercury Transport.

“So you know this man,” Zoltan asked. He pointed to Stanimir, who stood at the back of the room.

“Only just met him -- sir.” Tybalt tacked on the appellation after a brief hesitation. He tired of waiting for the man’s answer.

Zoltan made a noise of dissatisfaction.

“And he helped you get my cargo back?”

“That’s right.”

Zoltan made another grunt. This time, his annoyance erupted ever more clearly.

“Fine, take your share.” Zoltan pushed a stack of coins across the table. Tybalt picked up the stack, split it in half, and gave one portion to Stanimir. The bouncer made each of the coins disappear with a flawless motion of his hands. Neither of the men could ascertain where he had stashed his money.

“Alright, now, you told me about these others. This man and the two beggar-brats. The men at the pub were a nice bonus and will be of use shortly. As it stands, however, before Mercury arrives, I need a few more hands. Do you think you can break the rest of that useless bunch from jail?”

“Corvus?” Tybalt inquired.

“Aye,” Zoltan said. He smoothed his moustache with the ends of his fingers, trying to pacify his mind.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know where the jail is,” Tybalt said.

“I can be done,” Stanimir interjected. “I can get them out before the day is through.”

“Good, because you only have the day. Mercury arrives late this evening and I need every useful gun at hand. They might not be a clever bunch, but they can at least kill.” Zoltan turned away from the men in his room, as if to think about the foolish error he made in trusting those men in the first place. His caravan dying had been a pathetic turn of events.

He turned back to the men.

“You’re still here? Go!”

* * *

“Not quite what you were expecting?” Stanimir asked Tybalt.

“Not at all.”

“A bit of a notorious character that one. You don’t know how hard it was to swallow the fact that I helped you get his things back.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you some day. The point is, though, that I’m back in his good graces. If can help you break out this gang of men and make the Mercury hit, then I’ll be laughing. It’ll be really nice to be back in his stead.”

Tybalt looked at the street around him. The whole city had been in furious movement. People bustled from every quarter to their daily needs. Women went out to buy food for evening meals, distracting themselves with an array of fine fabrics for sale, wishing their fathers or husbands or brothers would give them a little extra on some day in order to make something spectacular with it. Men moved about their business, transporting goods, heaving boxes, plying their various trades.

“You ready for our jailbreak?” Stanimir asked Tybalt, who had been admiring the work of a street-side cobbler.

“You tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it.” Tybalt knew he was simple man. He only needed a clear goal and a handful of instructions. Everything else could be easily dealt with.

“Good, good.” Stanimir stopped at a concession stand and began to chat with the old man behind the stall.

“Ah, Stanimir, my favourite man. How are you, my friend?”

“Fine, Bartek. How’s the wife?”

“She is excellent, my friend. No complaints. I am a happy wed man.”

“You give the rest of us inspiration,” Stanimir said with a laugh.

“And you, and you?”

“Ah, she has long left me.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” said the old man. He frown and shook his head low. “She was a good one, I admit it. Okay, to business. Yes?”

“Yes. I need access to the kennels.”

“The kennels?” Bartek exclaimed incredulously. “Fine, you follow me now.”

The old man bustled about his shop and began to close up. His selection of fine steel and iron implements rolled into a neat cylinder of fabric, and was tucked beneath his arm. He left everything else as it was. He made his way into one of the alleys.

Stanimir and Bartek kept their conversation and catching up to a minimum. Before too long, the old man turned the corner and stood at the cusp of a root cellar. He pulled open the doors with a strength which surprised Tybalt. Despite the man’s advanced age, he still possessed a deceptive amount of energy and exuberance.

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Without checking upon his followers, Bartek stepped into the cellar, prying an electric lantern from a ceiling hook. He shook the lantern into action and proceeded into the tunnel that lay before them. Tybalt shot a look at Stanimir who merely smiled at his companion.

Tybalt stepped into the cellar and continued deeper into the tunnel that ran below the city.

“Where are we?” he asked Stanimir.

“The Tunnels,” he replied.

“I see that, but, like, what? Who made these?”

“There are many secrets in a city like this. The older a place, the deeper its secrets run. There are many things that only a select few know. And, even with us, I am sure there are many more secrets that we ourselves our ignorant of.”

Tybalt looked into an alcove that the men passed. A tin placard had the name of the store above it.

“Why would these stores need these tunnels,” Tybalt asked.

“You assume they know about them.” Stanimir pushed Tybalt gently. The two of them needed to keep pace with the older man his light. As the old man hurried forward, the light he held in his hand followed him, casting shadows elsewhere in the tunnels. If they didn’t pick up the pace soon, they would be plunged into a more total darkness.

When they caught up to the old man, he had been standing near an alcove wider than the rest. He manipulated a ladder into place and propped it against the wall. Bartek climbed up the ladder and pushed open the hatch, carefully looking through the thin crack. At the moment he felt comfortable, he swung the hatch open, which clattered loudly in the room above it.

“Carrion Hill Penitentiary,” Bartek said with his whistling voice. “You have thirty-minutes”

“No, you have thirty-minutes, friend,” Stanimir said moving pass the old man. “But we’ll be done in much less time.”

The old man held out a small organizer with an assortment of slender metal tools. Stanimir took them and climbed the ladder. Tybalt thanked the old man and followed the bouncer up the ladder.

When he had exited from the hatch, he realized that he had indeed stepped foot inside the Carrion Hill Penitentiary. Not only that, but they stood in the basement of the building, a storage room for an assortment of prisoner needs. Stanimir pushed through the door and into the main corridor of cells.

“Which one of these are yours?” he asked Tybalt.

Tybalt moved in the dankness of the penitentiary’s holding cells. He saw several emaciated individuals in the holding cells. As though he were the source of life, these thin figures pushed themselves closer to their bars, stretching out their hand trying to touch him. In their minds, if they could get his attention, he would be able to free them.

As hard as it was, Tybalt ignored them. He had nothing more to do with them than to see if they were the members of Corvus.

Finally, he reached their cells. Erik sat with his legs cross, waiting, biding his time, thinking. He did not even notice Tybalt’s presence.

“Hey,” Tybalt said in a whisper.

Erik lift his eyes to meet the man’s gaze. In the dim light of the prison, it took a few moments for Erik to recognize Tybalt. When he did, he sprang to his feet and made for the bars.

“Tybalt! You have to get us out of here. Now!”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Stanimir gently prodded Tybalt away from the keyhole. He pulled out the little organizer that Bartek had given him and started to work on the lock.

Erik watched the man’s deft hand movements make short work of the lock. By this time, Sten, in the adjacent cell had watched intently. He had been the only one of the three who kept awake. Njal, by comparison, still lay sprawled along the floor of the prison, snoozing. For the others, the prison had no been so bad, but, with the cramped quarters, Njal could not stand at his full height nor pace around his cell. Instead, he took to sleeping. He had plenty of sleep to catch-up on.

Stanimir unlocked the cell and began on the next on. As he worked on it, a voice echoed from above.

“Yeah, I’m going! Relax!”

Erik returned into his cell, while Tybalt scanned his options to hide. He couldn’t find a good place to position himself, so crouched with one knee on the ground and unholstered his revolver. He leveled it at the entrance on the far side of the corridor. He saw a foot, then another, the body of a man slowly appeared. It was a young man, a little paunch for his age, with patchy whiskers on his face. He did not seem to be much of a threat. Tybalt did not allow his body to relax as the man noticed them with a shudder.

Stanimir turned around a look at the guard.

“Hello, Werther.”

“Oh, it’s you. Hi, Stan.”

The young man walked forward and witnessed Stanimir fumble around with his picklocks.

“What are you doing,” Werther asked.

“I need to free these guys.”

“Ah.” Werther looked at Erik, who, relieved walked out of his jail cell.

“You can put your gun down,” Stanimir said to Tybalt without looking at him. “Werther is on our side.”

“And what side is that?” Werther asked. He remove his hat and scratched his greasy scalp.

“Zoltan,” Stanimir said, his picks finally unlocking the next cell door.

“Ah, Zoltan. Okay, I’ll put it on his tab for favours. Do you want the key for the next one?”

“That’d be lovely.”

Werther went to Njal’s cell, pulled out his keys, and unlocked the cell. Erik and Sten went in to wake their behemoth of a friend.

“Anyone else you need?” Werther asked.

“Nah, that should be everyone, buddy.” Stanimir wiped his pants from the dirt accumulated from kneeling on the ground.

“You’re just going to let us go?” Tybalt asked incredulously.

“Well, I’m not just letting you go. It’s an election year.” Werther said. He adjusted his uniform to look a little more official. He straightened his back.

“It’s a good season to trade favours,” Stanimir said. He held the cell open while Erik and Sten walked Njal out of his cell. The big man was still incredibly groggy from his non-stop sleeping. He stumbled one foot in front of the other.

“Can you free them for us?” Tybalt said, pointing to the withered persons in the other cells.

“All of them!?” Werther exclaimed. “Does Zoltan need all of them?”

“No, he does not,” Stanimir reprimanded. “Let’s go.”

Stanimir lead the three men of Corvus to the storage room and the hatch in the tunnels, while Tybalt hung back with Werther.

“Can you at least free this woman here?” Tybalt said, pointing to an old woman in the nearest cell to him.

“I thought Zoltan had no need of anyone else.”

“Do it as a favour for me?”

“And who are you, exactly?” Werther rubbed his eyes with back of his hand. He wasn’t enthused about the idea, but he knew how the system in this city worked.

“Soon, I’ll be someone really powerful. And I don’t forget my friends.”

Werther raised his shoulders in indifference.

He unlocked the cell where a spindly woman with long grey hair emerged. She fell to Tybalt’s feet repeated a flurry of thanks.

“Okay, I have to go back and record these escapes.” Werther touched his forehead in a lazy salute and went back up the stairs leaving Tybalt and this old crone.

“Come, I’ll find you something to eat and I’ll let you go on your way.” Tybalt reached down and helped the woman to her feet. She kept muttering thank-yous to him as they walked to the storage room.

When they entered the room, Stanimir looked at them quizzically.

“Not my type of woman, but there’s no judging for matters of taste. Come on, down we go.” Stanimir helped the woman down the ladder first, but, before Tybalt could start, Stanimir placed his hand on Tybalt’s chest. “Be very careful with the way you extend favours that are not in your name.”

Tybalt peeled his hand from his chest.

“I don’t need your advice. And the favour was in my name.” Tybalt went down the ladder and into the tunnel, joining Bartek and the others in the tunnel system.

Stanimir closed the hatch and locked it from inside the tunnel.

“All good, friend?” Bartek said, swinging his lantern into Stanimir’s face.

“Good enough, friend.”