The shouting behind the barred door was swallowed instantly by the roaring draft of the sulfur fire bowls.
Tomas and Nessa ran along the raised timber boardwalk. Their boots hammered the wet oak planks with urgent, rhythmic strides. Below them, in the holding pens, hundreds of stranded wagon drivers looked up from their fire bowls. They watched the two figures sprint toward the eastern levee ditch where the willow trees grew thickest.
From the high watchtowers above the wooden wall, brass alarm horns began to blare. Three short, wailing blasts that signaled an escaping prisoner: toot-toot! toot-toot!
“Crossbows on Tower Two!” Nessa shouted, her sound horn swinging wildly from her neck as she ran.
Tomas glanced up. A sentry on the narrow high walkway sixty yards away was winding the iron crank of a heavy guard post heavy steel crossbow, slotting a black-fletched quarrel into the brass groove.
“Drop to the ditch!” Tomas shouted, catching Nessa by the collar of her oilskin coat.
They leaped off the edge of the boardwalk, dropping eight feet into the steep, weed-choked slope of the drainage canal. They hit the cold mud in a sliding crouch, the soft silt absorbing their impact with a dull, wet thud. A split second later, the crossbow quarrel screamed through the air where their chests had been. It slammed into the oak piling of the boardwalk with a violent, splintering crack.
