Today's Art-ifact (Patreon)

Final piece!  Because if you're in jail, the best thing to do is break out.  Including the line art of the scorpion piece, this is the tenth illustration.

Chapter 7- Restrained Resolve

Iron bars slammed home, flakes of rust peppering the stone below.

Xyk took his time getting back up, his body wracked with aches and stabbing accusations of misconduct.  After that tussle, his cuts were likely bleeding through their bandages.

Even through the dusky yellow light, Xyk could see the frown painting their jailor's face.  The glowering fox jammed the key in the lock and twisted it like he was making an irrefutable point.

"Fenworth-" Rosa started.

"You idiot.  Junior's gonna go crazy- like he wasn't enough already.  And I'm the one who let you in!"

"Yes. You are rather doomed,” Rosa said. “At this point, facilitating my will is your only-"

He took a step back from the bars and spat at her.  "That's the last door I open for you."

The guard turned and stormed around the corner, the clack of his spaulders receding down the dim basement passage.

Rosa withdrew from the bars gingerly, as though she had become frail.  Xyk could no longer contain his curiosity.

"Rosa.  In the pendant- was that it?  Was it the ring?"

The whispered question stole away on soft echoes, waning until it resembled the discourse of spirits, and then nothing.

No answer.  Rosa seemed to be staring beyond the bars, beyond the sullen candles spotting the hall, beholding some bleakness beyond perception.  She leaned against the cell wall and slowly, slowly slid to the floor.

"Rosa?"

Great.

“Well, you relax for a moment there, and I’ll mastermind a way out.  Buck up, I’ve been through tight spots before.”

Rosa showed no signs of bucking.

Hell with it, he’d bust them out on his own.

Inspecting the cell was quick work.  Scarcely eight feet by eight, it was empty save for a wooden bucket and some moldering heaps of hay.  The chamber was cut into the living sandstone, floor and back wall solid.  Side walls of mortared stones, heavy timber ceiling, and a front wall of firmly secured iron bars.  Rusty but stout.

With a few days and some makeshift tools, he could try loosening mortar or the fittings on the bars.  But all he had were those flimsy wooden chopsticks.  Too weak to dig, and too broad to be of any use picking the lock.

And they didn’t have a few days.  Gods, that little psycho could be down here any minute, ready to share new and inventive forms of torture.   Or maybe he'd just dice them up and deliver their remains to Varron as a statement.  Junior didn't seem the type to employ subtlety.

Xyk got to his knees and started sweeping through the hay, looking for anything.  A stray nail, baling wire, set of keys...

"Psst, Rosa...  You wouldn't happen to have any hairpins?"

Again no reply.

Particles of dusty straw tickling his nose, Xyk tried to suppress his irritation. Rosa was going through a very difficult time...  and would be going through a very execution kind of time if she didn’t snap out of her pity party.  The coyote gave his head a shake and refocused.

Picking the most rigid bits of hay he could find in the weak yellow light, Xyk twisted and shaped them.  One bit almost made a serviceable pick, and he could use his fingernail for a tension wrench, maybe.

And if this didn’t work, next he could try breaking through the wall with his face.

Slouching casually with his arms through the bars, Xyk worked the straw into the lock, probing for the tumblers.  It felt something akin to flossing with a noodle.  He inhaled deeply, forced his tail to stop flapping, and tried to grow accustomed to the materials.  Get a feel for the pliancy of the twisted hay fiber, the-

The guard strolled into view, hand on the hilt of a dagger.

Xyk continued slouching, picking lazily at some grit under his claw.  Fenworth kept walking.  A few steps took him out of sight.  Xyk waited a full minute after the last footfall faded before he dared touch the lock again.

That fox was afraid and angry.  Vigilant.  He'd be back.

The coyote resumed work with the twist of hay, mashing it up into the mechanism, trying vainly to get just one tumbler to wiggle.

A dark shape lunged around the corner, and Xyk leapt back with a yelp.  Steel clanged across the bars where his fingers had been a moment before.

It was Fenworth, candlelight silhouetting his armored frame, brandishing a dagger.

"Stupid thief, you take me for a fool?  You'd better-"

Rosa's huddled form struck like lightning, white arm snapping past the bars to pull the fox off balance.  Motes of hay spun into the air at the explosive motion and meandered slowly around the scene, like flakes in a darkened snow globe.

Xyk blinked, trying to process what had happened.  Fenworth was pulled up hard against the bars, fidgeting, Rosa clutching him close, cradling his arm.  No, she had him in a wristlock, his splayed fingers allowing her to commandeer the knife. She had it angled just underneath the armor plating, where it could slide into his armpit.

Blood was trickling out.  Fenworth gave a muffled cry and tried to pull back, but it only tightened Rosa's hold.  She gave a soft tug.

"Silence.  Unlock this door," she said.

"Junior'll kill me!  Rosa-AHH!"

Still as a pearl statue, the cat spoke tenderly amidst the slow-motion drift of the dust.

"I will sever your brachial artery, watch you bleed out, pluck the keys from your corpse and open this door myself.  Unless you would be gentlemanly enough to open it for me.  Now."

"Were...  Were you using me as bait?” Xyk asked.  He fumbled through the bars, pulling Fenworth’s katana away from his wandering free arm.

Rosa gave the dagger a fractional twist.

"AH-HAAUGH!  Alright, alright, gods, stop it!" cried the fox.

"I almost had that lock picked, you know,” Xyk said.  “Maybe next time clue me in to the plan?”

“I thought by over-acting, I was making it obvious.”

Rosa allowed Fenworth the mobility to reach down to his belt.  Then, keys jangling like a bell, he unlocked the door.

She was out in a heartbeat, withdrawing the dagger in the same motion.  Before he could scream an alarm there was another snapping motion and the fox collapsed to the floor, stunned.

Xyk stepped over the groaning body and trotted after Rosa- she was already slipping through the shadowy stone halls.  She levered the dagger into door of a locked alcove, jamming it open as the blade bent.  Awaiting within were her war fan, throwing knife, and other accouterments, which she swiftly reclaimed. After she declined it, Xyk tossed Fenworth’s katana into a locked cell. His past was nothing but bad luck with the damn things.  If you weren’t the best, it was an open invitation to be killed by whoever was.  He felt a twinge, remembering an old companion who had thought themselves unbeatable...

"Rosa, hey!  Good job, but, what's the plan now?  Are-"

"Now Junior dies."

The conviction of those three words precluded any arguments or appeals to reason Xyk might have tried.  And he now had no doubts about what she'd seen in that pendant.

She moved with the animate precision of utter focus, mounting the stairs like an avenging goddess.  Nothing would stop her.

Spiraling higher into the Tenshu, Xyk scrambled to keep up.