Chapter 33: Rescue

Logan took his horse into the stable and untacked it, listening to Gallas's knights talk. Maybe there would be some sign, some indication, or where Jubilee was. He was fairly sure she was in the dungeons, but it was possible that Julian was keeping her in his rooms for his convenience. He heard nothing but the usual conversation, however, until two soldiers left their horse's stalls and paused for a moment in the narrow corridor between the rows of stalls.

"…so do we get her tonight?" one man asked his companion.

The other man snorted. "Not sure why you'd want her," he snorted disdainfully. "She's not much to look at anymore; and after the way they had her racked yesterday, she's probably going to lie there like a dead fish. You'll have more luck heading down to the Keg and Key and getting yourself a handful of one of the wenches there."

Logan's heart skipped a beat. Racked! He remembered the stretching pain of the rack; remembered how it had made him scream. Dear God, if this was Jubilee they were talking about…He exited the stall quickly, almost bumping into the two men, who were on their way out of the stables. One of them stared at him. "Who are you?"

Logan thanked God that neither one remembered his face; maybe he did look different with the gray in his hair. "New conscript," he said gruffly. "Drafted yesterday."

The man sniffed disdainfully. "Gallas must be pretty desperate to be drafting people like you in the Knights," he made a face. "Oh well, since you're here." He turned to Logan. "Gallas has a girl down in the dungeons. She came here as a squire to one of the enemy King Richard's knights; he escaped, but she didn't. Gallas was so furious that he ordered her broken, and now he's just waiting for her to die. The knight she came with obviously doesn't care about her, or Richard would have sued for her return. So she's ours. Maybe you want to take a turn with her before they hang her tomorrow?"

Logan rolled his eyes with a casualness he didn't really feel. "If she's as bad off as you say, why would I want her?" He pushed past the two knights, heading in the direction of the dining hall.

As he strode toward the dining hall, he thought quickly. They had planned on his having a few days to acclimate himself to the castle and figure the best time and place to break her out. He had planned on having plenty of time to choose where to have his horse waiting to carry both him and Jubilee out of the castle; those plans would have to be scrapped. He cursed himself for waiting the extra day before heading out; if he'd left when he had meant to leave, he would have gotten here yesterday, and had time to plan. "Plans at a distance never go right," he grumbled to himself as he sat down at the table.

He barely even tasted the food; it was all so much cardboard and ashes to him. He kept thinking of Jubilee in the filth of the dungeons, probably hungry and thirsty and in pain, and he couldn't swallow. He picked at the food and drank sparingly of the ale, searching frantically for an excuse to go to the dungeons this evening…and coming up blank.

Gallas's knights were much less restrained and much more ill-mannered than Richard's knights. Logan watched as the men consumed cups of ale like a fish drank water, even some of those who might have to stand guard duty that night. Getting past a man that drunk should be easy. And if any of these men were supposed to be on guard duty in the dungeons, then getting past them would be easy too. All he had to do now was come up with a way to get down there.

As the nobles stood and left the hall by the door at the rear of the hall and the knights gathered themselves, one man in commander's colors (his tunic was a deep forest green, rather than the grayish blue-green that the regular soldiers wore) pointed to three soldiers. "You, and you," he indicated the first two soldiers, "Outside the dungeon door. I hear King Gallas wants to make a visit to the prisoner down there one last time before she's hanged tomorrow morning. "You," he pointed to the third man, "You got duty inside the dungeon."

The man grinned. "I get to play with the girl, huh?" he swayed on his feet, staggering a little. "Great! I'll give her a last present." He laughed uproariously, leaning forward to grab his cup. He lowered his head to take a last gulp from it.

Logan was sitting across the table from the man. Furious with the man for saying something so crude, and disgusted with his drunken behavior, he hooked the man's ankle with his own foot and pulled the other knight's legs out from under him. The man pitched forward, striking his head on the table. He slumped over the back of his seat, and didn't move. Logan was alarmed for a moment, wondering if he'd inadvertently killed the man…then was reassured by the sound of a loud, raspy snore.

The commander sighed. "A sleeping man can't stand guard duty, can he?" he muttered to himself. He looked up and down the table, apparently looking for a knight that wasn't too inebriated to stand up, and his eye fell on Logan. "You! You're new, who are you?"

Logan stood. "Vince," he said, unable to think of another name so quickly. He hadn't expected to be addressed. "Just arrived. I was conscripted."

The commander threw up his hands. "How come no one ever tells me these things?" he snapped at the other soldiers at the table. "This is the third conscription we've had this month that I wasn't notified of!" Without missing a beat, he turned to Logan and said, "You're on dungeon duty tonight. You're allowed to make use of the prisoners, any of them you wish, just make sure that when you hear King Gallas come down you speak respectfully, right? Go on, now." The other two soldiers grumbled and headed off for the door to the dungeon, which Logan remembered well. He followed them, opening the door as they relieved the two soldiers already standing there, and descended the narrow steps into the dungeon.

Everything was the same as he'd remembered; the same stink of fear and pain and filth, the same nondescript bodies in the same places. Few of the prisoners turned to look at him, most doing their best to not catch his eye.

He went down the row of cells, finding the one he and Jubilee had been held in, but the cell now held a thin, almost emaciated old man, not the short-haired girl he was looking for. "Hey," he said.

The man cringed further in the corner of his cell, still refusing to meet Logan's eye. Logan took a deep breath, realizing that his voice had spoken rather sharper than he intended. He softened his tone. "Look, I'm not here ta hurt ya," he said, a little more quietly. "I'm one of Richard's knights. I'm here to rescue my squire."

"But not us." The man's voice was bitter. "Just your precious lad."

"If I can free ya, I will," Logan said. "But I have ta find her. She's one o' the Queen's spies. I'll unlock the cells fer ya if ya can tell me where she is. She ain't that much shorter than me, maybe a head or so, and she's got dark hair, black, cut like a boy's."

The man turned to look fully at Logan. "You're Logan, then," he said.

Logan was surprised. "Yes, I am," he said. "How do you know?"

"You're the one she calls out for in her dreams," the man said. "We can hear her sometimes, when the night is quiet and she has bad dreams about what they've done to her during the day. She calls your name. I asked her once, when they brought her back to the cells to recover, who 'Logan' was. She said 'Logan' was the knight she was captured with, and that he'd left her." He looked at Logan. "Did you leave her?"

"Yes," Logan said. "Yes, I did…but I had to, don't you see, I had to, because I had to warn the king…" he trailed off as the man shot him a venomous look.

"I was in the courtyard when you broke out," the man said accusingly. "I didn't see you clearly; you got on the horse immediately. She called out to you to wait, to take her with you…you paused, and the guards ran out. You didn't even try. You ran." The man's voice was bitter. "I was running an errand for one of the nobles that night. I saw her saddle your horse and lead him out. I saw the whole fight. You had a chance, Sir Logan. She could have gone with you. But you didn't. You said she had betrayed you…but I couldn't see how, you were the one who betrayed her, leaving her here."

"But I'm here now, I'm here ta get her!" Logan bit his lip hard. The man's words cut deep, leaving a bleeding wound in his heart. He had betrayed her, by leaving her here.

"Yes, you are here, aren't you?" the man said. "She said you would come back. I tried to tell her you wouldn't, that you'd left her to rot like the rest of us…but she insisted you'd come back, insisted that you would never leave her here. And she was right…but she'll never know that, will she?" He turned away from Logan.

"Why? Where is she?" Logan was almost frantic now.

"They've kept her alonein the torture chamber for the lastfive days with no food and water. They didn't even bother torturing her, they've just teased her with water and food without letting her eat or drink.She's got to be pretty nearly gone now. The last time Gallas and that traitor knight left the chamber they said she was too far gone to be of any use to them and they were going to execute her tomorrow if she was still alive."

Logan flung himself away from the cell door and hurried toward the torture chamber. The door was exactly as he remembered it, but he had barely a thought to spare for his own memories; he was too wrapped up with thoughts of what he would find on the other side of it. He pushed the door open carefully.

The smell of blood and terror wafted out, and Logan held his breath as he stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness inside the chamber, because the fire in the small, closed off room was down to just a few embers…but when his vision cleared, he saw a huddled, nude figure on the floor. He went halfway toward it before he identified it by the short dark hair. Jubilee!

He fell to his knees at her side. "Jubilee! Jubilee, it's me, Logan…" his voice trailed off as he turned her limp body over.

A sick horror filled him, and he sucked in a sharp breath, ignoring the stench that filled his nostrils. Her skin was pale, and so thin he could see the tracery of bluish veins under it. She had lost a lot of weight…too much weight. Every bone in her body stood out in sharp relief against her parchment-like skin, and the dark bruises looked like inkblots on a white rag. She was barely moving, and it took a long moment of staring before he could spot the tiny telltale up and down movement of her chest. Still afraid, he pressed his hand against her upper lip, and after a moment felt the faintest brush of breath against his palm. So she was still alive…but from the looks of her body, not long.

Her hips and shoulders were grotesquely swollen; Logan remembered the soldiers talking about a prisoner who had been racked and knew they had been talking about Jubilee. Her hip and shoulder joints had dislocated from the strain of being stretched on the rack and then had swollen before being snapped back into place. The pain alone must have been hideous; they hadn't really had to give her the beating that spread fresh bruises across her face and body. He leaned over her, cupping her chin gently and pushing the tangled hair back from her forehead. "Jubilee. Come on, wake up, it's me. Logan." He reached for a pail of water that sat near the wall, taking the dipper and filling it with water. He gave it a quick taste, to see if it was clean, and when he ascertained that it was, he held the dipper to her lips. "Jubilee, come on now, wake up. Water, Jubilee, here's water. Wake up, please, you have to wake up…"

The liquid ran over the parched, cracked, dry lips, filled her mouth, and spilled out the corners. She hadn't swallowed. Logan felt a cold rush of fear set in. Maybe he was too late. Her swallowing reflex wasn't there, and it should have been. He tried again, spilling the water between her slightly parted lips again. "Jubilee, please," he whispered. "Please don't die, I'm sorry, God, I'm so sorry…"

He saw the muscles in the throat flex, and the water disappeared. A moment later Jubilee coughed weakly as the water went down the wrong way, and she tried to roll over as she got the water out of her lungs. Weakened by the fit of coughing, she sagged back against the floor, but Logan refused to let her slip back into unconsciousness. "Jubilee," he said urgently. "Jubilee, wake up."

She turned her head wearily, saw him hanging there over her shoulder, and closed her eyes as her head sank back onto the hard stone floor. "Go away," she whispered hoarsely. "You're just a dream. Logan won't come for me, he hates me. He won't come back for me. Go away."

"No!" Logan grasped her arms and pulled her upright, ignoring her gasp of pain as he tugged at her swollen shoulders. "Jubilee, it's me, it's Logan, I've come ta take ya home. Here." He held the dipper up again. "The water ain't a dream. I'm not a dream. I'm really here. Jubilee, we gotta go. Wake up, Jubilee, please!" He shook her gently.

She moaned, her face creasing with the pain in her abused shoulders, then opened her eyes fully. "Logan?" she whispered. "Is it really you?"

"Yes," he whispered, hugging her tightly. "Yes, Jubilee, it's really me. I'm here, I'm gonna take ya outta here. I shouldn't have left ya in the first place, I was a fool not ta have seen ya was tellin' the truth. Come on."

She raised her hands, so swollen that they were almost useless, and tugged with numb fingers at the iron collar around her neck, and at the chain that ran from it to the wall. "I can't," she whispered, still hoarse. "I'm chained. You can't get it off without a key. The torturer has it. I can't get out. Go, Logan. Get out of here before they find you here…only…Logan, Duke Gilbert is the traitor Duke. You have to tell the King and Queen. Duke Gilbert's been passing information about our strength and movements on our side of the border."

"You'll tell the Queen herself," Logan said, his fingers searching every link in the chain, and the lock on the collar, for some weakness that would enable him to open it. "We're both leaving."

"No, Logan, we can't! I can't go anywhere…you have to go. You have to go and warn—"

"Well, well, well," came a voice from the door. Logan spun, staring at the three men he'd never even heard entering the room. "The knight returns for his squire. Good. We may have some sport at the hanging tomorrow."

Gallas, Julian, and a sway-backed, bent old man who Logan recognized as the torturer strode into the room. "I didn't expect to see you here," Gallas said, his eyes narrowing. "How did you get in, if I may ask? How did you get past my guards?"

Logan rose and turned slowly on the balls of his feet, tensing all of his muscles in preparation for a quick draw of his sword. He kept himself between Jubilee and the men who had tortured her so cruelly, watching their every move. The torturer he dismissed; the man had no fighting skills that could prove a threat, and the only other thing the man had that could interest Logan was the ring of keys at his belt. He needed those keys.

Julian wasn't carrying a sword either; he had no weapons, not even the belt knife all knights carried as a matter of course. That left Gallas; the would-be usurper had his sword slung at his hip. It was a showy thing, its hilt of soft gold and crusted with faceted jewels that would cut the wielder's hand if it were to be used in combat. No king would carry a jeweled sword like that into combat. However, this wasn't a normal battlefield, and a jeweled sword, however showy, could still kill if the wielder caught his opponent off guard.

Logan had no intention of being caught off guard.

Gallas smiled. "So you've come back. Do you know, I actually thought you might not? So much time went by, and I didn't hear a single thing about her. And when Richard withdrew from the border, taking his entourage with him and didn't so much as demand to know what had become of the little squire, I thought perhaps you'd told them that she had died, and there was no use suing for her return. I had no inkling that you would try a rescue mission yourself." He drew that sword, and Logan drew his own in response. "You are on your own, are you not? Or is there someone outside waiting for you to emerge with the girl?" He smiled. "No matter. Once I have you I will get the guards to go out and check."

"You won't get me." Logan stated flatly.

"I had you once," Gallas said vindictively. "I can get you again. Do you remember how you screamed in this very torture chamber? I couldn't get you to beg…but maybe this time I can, with the girl too. Now that I know your little lover's quarrel with her is over, maybe she can get you to beg. Maybe seeing some of the things I want to doto her will loosen your tongue. How about it?"

Logan snarled, "You'll never touch her again. Neither you or your arrogant little traitor nor your pet torturer either. Before you set one finger on her again I'll kill her myself, to save her from you."

Gallas grinned. "Oh, no, I think I'll have to prevent that. That would be too easy. She begged for death, did you know that? Begged me to kill her, yesterday, after we hadtempted her with water only to withold it from her again. Of course, I didn't oblige. I had planned to have her killed in the morning…Four horses in the village square, pulling on all of her limbs…how long do you think she would last?" He turned to Julian. "Eh, Julian? How long do you think she would last?"

Logan's eyes flickered sideways to Julian, and in that moment Gallas struck. His sword came up in a flashing arc, intending to catch Logan's sword with his own and disarm him. Logan, however, had seen the sudden movement, and brought his sword up in time to parry the blow.

There was very little clear space in the torture chamber; most of it was taken up by complicated apparatus. Gallas's sword struck sparks off the metal in the room, and rang off the stone walls, as well as thudding into the wooden posts around the room. Logan's sword, more often than not, struck sparks off Gallas's sword.

He kept a careful eye on the king, watching the way the other man handled his sword. There was a particularly fine jewel, a large red ruby, set in the pommel. It seemed to be troubling Gallas somewhat, because he kept readjusting his grip on his sword to avoid having the sharp faceted edge of the jewel cut into his palm. And he only readjusted his grip when he had to slash left. Gallas was right-handed.

Logan feinted over to the left, and Gallas had to readjust his grip yet again. Logan saw the tiny wobble in the sword-tip, and met it with his own blade. Steel sparked off steel as Logan's blade struck the guard of Gallas's sword, and for a moment both men strained against each other. Gallas, however, had been in mid-shift when Logan's sword trapped his, and Logan hadn't given him time to adjust his grip. And Gallas's palm was damp with sweat, and that made all that shiny, soft gold slippery. With a sudden grunt of effort, Logan twisted Gallas's sword out of his hand, and as the sword went flying as Logan's own blade buried itself in Gallas's chest.

The man staggered backward, staring almost in disbelief at the sword protruding from his chest. "What…" he croaked as he fell to the floor in a helpless heap. Logan stepped over to retrieve his sword from Gallas's chest.

"Logan! Look out!" Jubilee tried to shout a warning, but with her throat in ruins from days of screaming she couldn't get more than a croak out. But Logan heard her, and wrenched the sword out of Gallas's chest as Julian came at him from the side, swinging the golden sword over his head in an arc that was supposed to slice Logan's head off his shoulders.

Logan caught the sword's downward arc on his own blade. Julian was a much better swordsman than Gallas, but the sword he held was an inferior, show piece of steel only. It hadn't been forged and tempered with combat in mind, and when Logan raised his own battle-tested steel blade and brought it down with all his strength on the other weapon, the other sword broke. With a shriek of sundered metal, the King's Sword snapped in half, the top third of its blade sheared away.

Chivalry decreed that Logan should give Julian a chance to surrender. He was about to open his mouth and speak the formal phrases when Julian lunged to the side, slipping under Logan's right arm and falling to his knees beside Jubilee. He grabbed a handful of chain in either hand and pressed it to the girl's neck. "Me or her, Logan," he snarled. "You make a move…and I strangle her."

Logan didn't even pause. He raised his sword.

The chain against Jubilee's neck dug deep into her throat, and she choked, thrashing against Julian's greater bulk. Logan took his sword in a two-handed grip, the blade pointing downward, and stabbed Julian in the shoulder, the blade snapping the other man's collarbones like dry twigs, and plunged into the chest cavity. Julian died without saying another word, and with a very surprised look on his face. He hadn't expected Logan to make a move like that.

Logan unwound the chain from Jubilee's neck. "Are ya okay?" he asked. "I'm sorry, I had ta, he woulda tried ta strangle ya anyway. But he wouldn't have been able to kill you before I killed him."

A soft whisper of movement behind him and a soft whine, and Jubilee's frightened, hoarse cry, were the only warnings he got before a line of fire traced across his back. He bit back his yell of pain and stood, looking around for the source.

The torturer was standing there, with a vicious thonged whip in his hand. From the look on his face, he seemed to expect that Logan would fall to the floor in pain from that vicious stroke. He looked surprised and a little fearful as he tried to raise the whip again.

Logan never gave him a chance. He charged the man, grabbing the end of the whip and jerking it savagely from the man's grasp. The little man stumbled backward as Logan collided with him, but even when Logan pulled himself up short the torturer, off-balance, continued to stagger backward…until he came up hard against something. He turned to see what it was, and looked quite surprised to see the beheading blade slicing forward at his neck. The surprised look stayed on his face as his head fell to the floor with a peculiar dull, thud, and the body, spouting blood from its stump of a neck, fell over on the floor. With a few last twitches, it was still.

Logan was still blinking at the suddenness of it when he heard a harsh, croaking sound behind him. Jubilee was backed up against the wall, her blue eyes wide and terrified in her thin face, screaming in horror. At lest, she would have been screaming if she could have made any sound other than a harsh croak. Logan took a quick step forward, trying not to step in the spreading pool of blood, and snatched the keys from the corpse.

"Stay with me, Jubilee," he said gently as he returned to her side. She was swaying, white with shock at the blood and carnage around them, and he knew with the condition her body was in it was likely that she would slip into shock. He tried all the keys in her collar, one by one, until he found the one that fitted.

The iron collar fell away from her neck, and she brought her hands up to feel her suddenly bare throat. "It's gone," he said quietly. "Come on. We need to get out to the stables and get my horse. You're light, he'll carry us both."