Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)(87)
They both slid down from the box seat and made their way over to the tree. For a long minute, they stood there staring at it. The larger guard took off his hat and scratched his belly.
“How lazy can they be?” Kaz muttered.
Finally, they seemed to accept that the tree wasn’t going to move on its own. They strolled back to the wagon to retrieve a heavy coil of rope and unhitched one of the horses to help drag the tree out of the road.
“Be ready,” Kaz said. He skittered over the top of the gully to the back end of the cart. He’d left his walking stick behind in the ditch, and whatever pain he might have been feeling, he disguised it well.
He slipped his lockpicks from the lining of his coat and cradled the padlock gently, almost lovingly.
In seconds, it sprang open, and he shoved the bolt to the side. He glanced around to where the men were tying ropes around the tree and then opened the door.
Inej tensed, waiting for the signal. It didn’t come. Kaz was just standing there, staring into the wagon.
“What’s happening?” whispered Wylan.
“Maybe they aren’t hooded?” she replied. From the side, she couldn’t see. “I’ll go.” They couldn’t all bunch up around the back of the cart at once.
Inej climbed out of the gully and came up behind Kaz. He was still standing there, perfectly still.
She touched his shoulder briefly, and he flinched. Kaz Brekker flinched. What was going on? She couldn’t ask him and risk giving anything away to the listening prisoners. She peered into the wagon.
The prisoners were all cuffed and had black sacks over their heads. But there were considerably more of them than in the wagon they’d seen at the checkpoint. Instead of being seated and chained to the benches at the sides, they were standing, pressed up against one another. Their feet and hands had been shackled, and they all wore iron collars that had been clipped to hooks in the wagon’s roof.
Whenever one started to slump or lean too heavily, his or her breath would be cut off. It wasn’t pretty, though they were so tightly packed together it didn’t look like anyone could actually fall and choke.
Inej gave Kaz another little nudge. His face was pale, almost waxen, but at least this time he didn’t just stand there. He pushed himself up into the wagon, his movements jerky and awkward, and began unlocking the prisoners’ collars.
Inej signalled to Matthias, who leaped out of the gully to join them.
“What’s happening?” one of the prisoners asked in Ravkan, his voice frightened.
“Tig! ” Matthias growled harshly in Fjerdan. A rustle went through the prisoners in the truck, as if they were all coming to attention. Without meaning to, Inej had straightened her spine, too. With that word, Matthias’ whole demeanour had changed, as if with a single sharp command he’d stepped back into the uniform of a drüskelle. Inej eyed him nervously. She’d started to feel comfortable with Matthias. An easy habit to fall into, but unwise.
Kaz unlocked six sets of hand and foot shackles. One by one, Inej and Matthias unloaded the six prisoners closest to the door. There wasn’t time to consider height or build or even if they’d freed men or women. They led them to the edge of the gully, all while keeping an eye on the progress of the guards on the road. “What’s happening?” one of the captives dared to ask. But another quick “Tig! ”
from Matthias silenced him.
Once they were out of view, Nina dropped their pulses, sending them into unconsciousness. Only then did Wylan remove the prisoners’ hoods: four men, one of them quite old, a middle-aged woman, and a Shu boy. It definitely wasn’t ideal, but hopefully the guards wouldn’t fret too much over accuracy. After all, how much trouble could a group of chained and shackled convicts be?
Nina injected the prisoners with a sleeping solution to prolong their rest, and Wylan helped roll them into the gully behind the trees.
“Are we just going to leave them there?” Wylan whispered to Inej as they hurried back to the wagon with the prisoners’ hoods in hand.
Inej’s eyes were trained on the guards moving the tree, and she didn’t look at him when she said,
“They’ll wake soon enough and make a run for it. They might even get to the coast and freedom.
We’re doing them a favour.”
“It doesn’t look like a favour. It looks like leaving them in a ditch.”
“Quiet,” she ordered. This wasn’t the time or the place for moral quibbling. If Wylan didn’t know the difference between being in chains and out of them, he was about to find out.
Inej cupped her hand to her mouth and gave a low, soft bird call. They had four, maybe five minutes left before the guards cleared the road. Thankfully, the guards were raising quite a noise shouting encouragement at the horse and yelling to one another.
Matthias locked Wylan into place first, then Nina. Inej saw him stiffen as Nina lifted her hair to accept the collar, revealing the white curve of her neck. As he fastened it around her throat, Nina met his eyes over her shoulder, and the look they exchanged could have melted miles of northern ice.
Matthias moved away hurriedly. Inej almost laughed. So that was all it took to send the drüskelle scurrying and bring the boy back.
Jesper was next, panting from his run back to the crossroads. He winked at her as she placed the sack over his head. They could hear the guards calling back and forth.