Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of the characters from the anime. I own the plot and the Tide Whisperer.
Dedications: This is to S2Teennovelist, just because I can. ^_~ You'll know why, Teenie.
Enjoy! Review!
Chapter Fifteen – Arrested
Seto and Atemu stepped out of the lifeboat that they used to get to shore and tied it off at the docks. Although it was dark, people were still bustling about trying to wrap things up before heading home for the night. The two pirates wore long cloaks, Seto's black, Atemu's burgundy, to hide their weapons from the public eye. They moved like phantoms up the street, and they came to a corral where an older man was busy trying to bring in the pigs.
Atemu came up alongside the fence of the pig pasture and whistled for the man's attention.
"You've got any horses we could buy off of you, good sir?" He called out, much to Seto's amusement. He thought it strange that Atemu had such homeboy manners.
"Horses? Yeah, I've got them, but I don't think you could afford them." The man replied in a gruff tenor, laced with a prominent Spanish accent.
"Let me be the judge of that, good sir." Atemu replied, "Let me see."
The man mumbled something under his breath about wasted time, but obeyed Atemu's command and led the two pirates to the horse barn.
There were two fine horses that fit Atemu's interests, a sixteen-hand-tall medium bay gelding and a sixteen-hand-tall pale chestnut mare.
"Those two will do." Atemu commented, sounding bored. "How much do you want for them?"
"For those two, seventy-five pieces of silver."
"Ah, no. How about thirty-five."
"Ha!" The old man barked, "Fifty-five."
"Forty-five and not a shilling more." Atemu drew out a small, silk pouch from inside his cloak, tossed it slightly into the air before catching it in his palm. The coins inside jingled together, and the man's chocolate eyes were glued to the pouch immediately.
He stuck out his hand, "Done."
Atemu shook on forty-five and then continued, "An extra five pieces of silver for the horses' tack."
"Fine." The man was practically salivating over Atemu's money.
"Saddle them up, good sir, and this is all yours." Atemu coaxed.
The older man quickly complied, and when he was finished, Atemu dropped the pouch into the man's grimy hands, "Pleasure doing business with you."
Atemu hated waiting.
Seto had called a halt at a seedy tavern called O'Leary's. He insisted that they get a few hours of rest to recharge before they went on ahead. Obviously, with Atemu so close to Yugi, the boy put up one hell of a fight, but Seto's damnable logic won out as he pointed out that Yugi would be in just as much danger a few hours from now as he was right then, and that if they charged in half-cocked, all they would achieve is getting themselves killed.
Both were hungry, both felt a bit drowsy, and both knew that going up against Louis and his guards required a solid plan. Anything else was plain suicide.
So instead, they rented a room above the tavern to rest up for a bit before continuing.
"Every one of the king's guards wears armor that I made personally. There is one flaw in each of piece man's breastplate where if you hit it with just the right amount of force in the correct spot, it would shatter the armor and would leave their abdomen vulnerable to injury."
"And you deliberately gave each suit of armor such a glaring flaw because…?" Seto questioned.
"Just in case." Atemu shrugged and waved a hand dismissively, "But that's beside the point."
"Not really. I'm curious as to why a blacksmith would do something like that, and threaten their reputation purposefully." Seto cut the boy off.
Atemu groaned, exasperated, "I had a hunch that it would be needed one day."
"A hunch?"
"You're certainly a wealth of confidence." Atemu commented drily.
"I'm trying to figure out what goes on inside that head of yours."
"At times, I get these…feelings…that something bad is about to happen. That's why I asked Mahado to teach me how to fight, why I spent my apprenticeship as a blacksmith…how I knew you would come and release me from my prison."
Seto looked as though Atemu had just sprouted a second head.
"Well, you asked." Atemu snapped.
Seto blinked, "I'm sorry. I'm still waiting for the punch line."
Atemu punched Seto in the arm, hard, and Seto growled at the sting of the blow.
"Moving on," Atemu prompted, "So, getting through the soldiers won't be a problem. I made it so that fifty-five pounds of pressure would break the armor. If you used the pommel of your blades or even a bullet, it would cave and not only would the weapon that was used to break the armor injury the soldier, but the steel would fold back into the soldier's body and shred their spleen." Atemu pointed to a spot to the right of his navel to show where this weak spot was.
"Well now that that's settled." Seto continued, "I memorized the layout of both the upper bailey and the perimeter around the palace and I familiarized myself with it the last time I had been there. There's a passage hidden inside the garden located in the front courtyard. The escape hatch is concealed beneath a hedge that had been cut into the shape of a tiger. That hatch leads to an underground labyrinth that branches out in five directions." Seto pulled out a piece of stationery and began to draw as he spoke, "The first path, here, leads to the forest beyond the lower bailey. The second path goes to the buttery, the third to the grand ballroom, the fourth goes to the royal suite, and the fifth leads to the dungeons."
Seto took a moment to illustrate each path, roughly showing how the labyrinth is constructed.
"Now, if I were Louis," Atemu shivered at the thought, but Seto ignored that and continued, "Since his first boy toy was taken, he'd put Yugi somewhere less accessible to anyone. That leaves us with two options, the royal suite and the dungeon.
"In my case, if I had a courtier that had recently been taken, I'd put Yugi closer to the royal suite so that I could keep a close eye on him, and the various guards within the royal wing of the palace would help. Then again, the dungeons are fairly secretive as well, and not very many people know how to get to them without former knowledge, so it too would be ideal to keeping intruders away from Yugi."
Each time Seto associated Yugi with Louis, Atemu's rage built a little higher until it was almost unbearable. The only way he kept it reined in was that he knew Seto only talked that way to get inside Louis' head.
"Louis would go for the safer route. He knows that last time the intruder theoretically killed the prince's boy toy, and so he'd want Yugi secure, but far enough away from his chambers so that nobody could turn their attention to him if they somehow got to Yugi." Seto tapped the tip of his quill to the square that represented the dungeons at the end of the fifth trail, "So this is where Yugi is. We'll leave the horses tied up out inside the forest, and we'll retrace our steps from the dungeon back to the first path to get outside the castle boundary."
"So then we'll take Yugi back to my father's cottage and then return after my brother is safe to finish Louis and Phillip." Atemu added, and Seto nodded.
Seto and Atemu slept for three hours. When they awoke, the saddled their horses, mounted up, and rode out toward the looming structure of the castle silhouetted beneath the light of the waxing third-quarter moon. They tied off their mounts a half mile out into the forest and continued on foot. They had left their cloaks in the horses' saddlebags so that they wouldn't get in their way when the time came for them to fight. Both men were dressed in dark clothing, and both were near to impossible to see in the dark unless one knew exactly where to look.
The security around the upper bailey had increased dramatically.
Seto and Atemu were laid prone along the ground, effectively shielded from sight by a pasture of towering wheat grass as they took in the scene before them.
Seven guards were in each tower, two more paced along the wall between the northern and western towers, and it would stand to reason that the other towers had the same setup. Nineteen more soldiers were patrolling the perimeter on the ground, and two more were stationed on either side of the lowered drawbridge on either side of the moat.
"I'm impressed." Seto murmured, "Louis has more brains than I'd originally thought."
Atemu nodded in agreement, but didn't verbally reply as he continued to study the situation.
He counted each man's steps, recorded how long one man took to make a full circuit. He minded the fact that each man bore a sword and a pistol, and they all wore his armor.
"Seto, do you know how to get up to the towers?" Atemu whispered.
"There're several grottoes made into the base of the wall inside the moat, each have ten titanium bars blocking the entrance inside, and they bury four inches into the brick and seven inches into the ground. But the fourth grotto on the eastern side of the wall has two bars that have come loose. I can't fit through the space, but you might be able to."
"All right." Atemu acknowledged before removing the belt the housed his sheathed cutlass and holstered pistol. "The mode of each circuit is a minute and four seconds, with the range between fifty-eight seconds and two minutes twenty-three seconds." Atemu mumbled, "Four men are bow-legged, one has a disabled left arm, two have prominent limps. Louis might've had the right idea on increasing the security, but he stocked up on the majority of cripples." He then cocked his head toward one of the men up on the wall, "That man's blind in his right eye and the other is so finicky that it would be simple to get past them."
"Fine then." Seto replied, cataloging the boy's observations for his own benefit, and watched as Atemu slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and moved into a crouch. He was still obscured from the guards' sight by the wheat grass.
Just as one man turned the corner, Atemu lurched into a sprint, keeping low, and he slid into the trench of the moat just as a second man rounded the corner. Seto held his breath as the man approached Atemu's hideaway, and let it out as the man passed the boy. The boy jumped up out of the trench, grabbing the soldier from behind, one hand clamped around the man's mouth while the other slit the guard's throat with his dirk. Atemu dragged the dead soldier into the water of the moat and continued on.
When the next man came around the corner, Atemu didn't even bother to hide. He lunged for the man, again one hand covering the guard's mouth an he nearly decapitated the man. Atemu led that dead man into the water to join his equally deceased companion, and finally Atemu disappeared behind the corner of the tower.
His heart pounded as his adrenaline spiked. The feeling of his blade sinking deep into warm flesh, the heat of their freshly drawn blood as it trailed down across the backs of his fingers, hearing the strangled gasp of their final breaths before he saw the light fade from their eyes as death gripped them tight and dragged them to hell.
It was borderline climactic.
Atemu barred his teeth in some semblance of a smile as he continued to span the perimeter of the wall. These men kept Atemu away from Yugi; for that they all deserved to die.
Before Atemu could be pulled down into that frigid half-insanity he knew would love to come out and play, he had to focus solely on Yugi. It wouldn't do for his little brother to see him as the malevolent demon that Atemu had become, and with that knowledge, he held on to the last shreds of his conscience.
Following Seto's instructions, Atemu slid into the trench of the moat once he got around to the eastern side of the wall. He took several deep breaths before he dove down into the pungent, humid water and searched for the grotto that Seto had told him about. He had to come up for air once before he finally found the grotto. He pulled the bars out of their settings and squeezed through the space, needing to turn his shoulders diagonally for him to fit. Once on the other side, Atemu cautiously peered out of the water to make sure that there weren't any guard around. It would seem that Seto and Atemu had been wrong about Louis' intelligence.
The prince-turned-king had been wise to pump up on his guards, but he had stationed them all on the outside of the upper bailey. Only two guards were on the inside, and they were flanking the inside of the drawbridge, too far away to see Atemu.
The boy pulled himself out of the putrid water and made for the stairwell up to the tower.
There were only three guards in this tower, and it didn't take much time at all for Atemu to take care of them. He grabbed a long coil of rope and started across the wall. He slid his dirk into the soft flesh of one guard's underarm, directing the blade to the man's heart. He hadn't even seen his death coming before it had already been too late.
He continued on, and the second guard was killed just as quickly as the first, the last thing the soldier saw as Atemu drew a line across his throat were Atemu's cold, crimson eyes, blank expression, and malicious grin.
Atemu gently guided the dead man's body to the floor. He was too close to the northern tower for the boy to allow the armor to clatter and give away his position. Atemu tossed the rope over the side once he saw the coast was clear, and he watched as Seto sprinted toward the wall and grabbed hold on the other end of the rope.
Atemu slowly pulled Seto up the wall. He had to pause for a moment when one of the guards had come around the tower and walked directly beneath Seto. As the guard moved on, Atemu breathed a sigh of relief and then continued to pull Seto up until he touched down on the wall.
"Nice work." Seto commented, "Let's go."
The two ran back toward the eastern guard tower and down the stairwell before racing across the courtyard toward the garden. They slid beneath the tiger hedge and were safely hidden beneath the ground without even once getting caught.
"This way." Seto instructed as he pulled a torch from its holder and started down the fifth path leading to the dungeon.
Yugi coughed throatily into his bound wrists and tried yet again to get as much warmth as possible. It was difficult when one didn't have free rein of one's arms, but he had to make the best of what he had.
He moaned miserably, but comforted himself by thinking that Yami would soon come. Then he could go home, have a hearty meal, and a long, good night's sleep. Yugi closed his eyes and somehow managed to drift off into a fretful slumber.
He thought he was dreaming as he opened his eyes at the sound of brick scraping noisily against brick. He looked to the source of the sound and watched as four of the bricks were pushed out of the wall and moved to the side, and a tall, strange man climbed through the hole that it made, followed close behind a slightly shorter and far more familiar man.
"Yami?" He called out, blinking several times to make sure that he really was awake. A brilliant, joyous expression lit up his cherubic face, "It's really you!"
"Hush Yugi." Yami gently reprimanded, "Yes, it's me. We'll have you out of here in no time."
Yugi nodded enthusiastically as the stranger came forward to pick the lock on the door to Yugi's cell. He had just barely gotten the door open when Yami rushed inside, pulled Yugi to his feet, and held the boy in his arms.
Yugi burrowed his face into Yami's tunic, breathing in his brother's scent, and he knew then and there that he was safe.
Yami pulled back and ran his hands over Yugi's face, shoulders, his arms, searching for any injury. When he got to the stalks, he drew his dirk and snapped the lock open before tossed the block of wood aside.
"Are you hurt? Did Louis touch you in any way?" Yami demanded worriedly.
"No, he didn't." The relief on Yami's face was tangible.
"Come on, we don't have much time." The stranger spoke with a grumbled baritone, and Yami nodded agreement.
He hefted Yugi into his arms, the boy wrapped his legs around Yami's waist and wound his arms around his neck, and the stranger led the way back through the hole without bothering to replace the brick.
They had just reached the front of the labyrinth when Seto heard something coming from up ahead. He's pushed Atemu back into a dead end and leveled his cobalt eyes to Atemu's crimson.
"Somebody's coming. I don't know how many, but I'll go find out. Stay here and if anything goes wrong, get yourself out."
"Seto-"
"No arguments." He hissed, and then he nodded his head toward Yugi, "He's your first priority. Remember the plan. Get him to safety and then you can return. Am I being clear?"
Atemu narrowed his eyes at Seto, "Perfectly."
"Whatever you do, get Yugi out of here, cabin boy."
Without waiting for a response, Seto turned on his heel and started back toward the mouth of the labyrinth alone.
He found seven royal guards blocking his path, each with their pistols drawn, cocked, and pointed directly at Seto.
He briefly considered the possibility of getting out of this alive if he retaliated, but his thoughts were cut short when he felt the cold metal of a pistol press between his shoulder blades.
"Drop your weapons, Leandro." A nauseatingly familiar voice commanded.
"Louis." Seto said, "It's been quite some time. How is your darling father these days? How about those charming brothers of yours? Oh, and when have you developed the taste for kidnapping young boys against their wills to become your little pleasure slaves? Doesn't your lovely wife keep you company well enough?"
The barrel pressed further into Seto's back threateningly, "Perhaps you hadn't heard me correctly? I said, "Drop your weapons." Or has all those years out on the sea erased your understanding of royal dialect when my father exiled you and that bastard brother of yours?"
"Don't speak ill of my brother, guttersnipe." Seto snapped.
While Louis had his distracted, one of the guards had come forward and forcibly disarmed Seto, and then for good measure patted the pirate down for extra weapons and found his dagger and palm knife hidden in his clothes.
"In the name of King Louis I of the house of Bourbon, you are under arrest for piracy, murder, blasphemy against the royal crown, and thievery of the King's possessions."
Seto ground his teeth at the implied insult to Atemu and his brother, but before he could so anything, he felt the cold clasp of metal snap around his wrists.
"Take him." Louis ordered, "And prepare him for questioning."
"As you say, sir."