Interlude: Maneira: Between 5 and 6 Kythorn.
The Amnian cell was small and populated by rats. Maneira's head ached from the magically-induced slumber, and her wrists were already raw from the cuffs wrenching them behind her back. A speedy trial and execution would be their fate upon the morrow. The cold moonlight outside the bars of the window shining on the erect hangman's pole offered no mercy. Lamalha and Zeela were already dead and for their failures she and Telka would follow.
Telka's moaning had not ceased. Trampled by that fucking horse. Maneira had yelled for a healer until her throat was scratched, but they had not seen fit to provide one. What did it matter if an assassin died before righteous citizens could hang her? Blood soaked the thin tunic that was all they had left Telka to wear, stealing her precious armour. Both thieves had been more than thoroughly searched, their hard-stolen armament taken.
Nonetheless they had left Maneira her boots and the skeleton keys hidden in their soles. Was she a capable picklock or was she a capable picklock? She had nearly completed maneuvering upon the ground to spring the lock on the cuffs behind her; her wrists slippery with blood, at last Maneira heard the metal slide free. She sighed softly in release. Telka's keening hid at least that noise.
We serve the Iron Throne and our names were Telka and Maneira, independent thieves, Zeela and Lamalha, clerics of Cyric. The son of our leader is Sarevok and our mission was to murder a young girl he shows interest in for reasons we do not know. Also, we have family deep in Amn and the residence of Maneira's mother is the Street of the Fruitsellers in Athkatla... They could extract that information with ease, if they had the sense to do so.
Maneira bent over her comrade. In the same hiding place on Telka was another lockpick, and more importantly a small but much-sharpened razorblade she knew that Telka kept well concealed. She went to work on the cell-lock, ignoring the pain in her wrist; Telka's noise covered her clinks. It parted for her.
"I am escaping. Can you understand me, Telka?" she whispered; Telka moaned again. Maneira listened again for guards. In this small arse-end of a town, night-shifts would be inattentive. "Then I will give you Cyric's mercy."
No more moaning. Maneira arranged Telka's tunic to cover the new gap in her throat, making that blood seem at first glance as though it was from the horse's wounds. She waited to see if guards should notice the lack of noise; the night was dark and silent as Telka's stilling wounds. Nothing; she had noticed the shift passing outside the building, in front of the window every half an hour or thereabouts. She closed the cell door; concealed herself within the shadows; and walked out of the prison at exactly the right moment between the guard-change.