Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“If you want to kill me and yourself by falling into the river with irons on, go ahead. But if you’re going to kill me later in some other way, I’d rather die with an empty bladder.”

The clasp of his belt was the only possibility—the tongue of it was hard enough iron. But was it long enough? Could he unfasten it one-handed?—for he assumed that Talisco, under water, would prevent him from being able to use both hands. Could he then use it to pick the lock without dropping the belt? Because there was no chance he’d find it again, in the murk of the river.

After a few minutes, the soldiers came back in and left the door standing open. Then they stepped outside.

“You’re a royal all right,” muttered Talisco as they stood up. “Think you’re going to control everything, even your own assassination.”

As they passed through the door, one soldier took Rigg firmly by the free arm and the other held Talisco. Other soldiers stood by to watch. They were determined that there’d be no escape attempt this time.

As if I wanted to escape from the boat, thought Rigg. Didn’t Father tell me to find my sister? You’re taking me where I want to go. The only escape I want is from this assassin. “He’s planning to kill me, you know,” said Rigg softly to the soldier holding him. “If we have an accident, you can be sure it was murder.”

The soldier said nothing, and Talisco’s body shuddered in silent laughter. “Do you think I’m the only one wants you dead?” he murmured.

“Um,” said Rigg aloud to the soldier holding him. “How do you propose that I open my pants? If I’m just going to pee all over myself I could have stayed inside.”

In answer, the soldier—never relaxing his grip—forced Rigg’s left hand down toward his crotch. There Rigg reached under his overshirt and one-handedly unfastened the belt of his trousers. They were loose enough that they dropped from his waist—but by spreading his legs widely apart, Rigg kept them from dropping right to the deck.

“He doesn’t even have a butt,” one of the rivermen jested.

“Silence,” said a voice that Rigg knew. General Citizen—so he, too, had come to watch Rigg pee.

The soldier on Talisco’s side asked him, “Aren’t you going to pee, too?”

“I don’t need to.”

“Come on, this is your chance, we’re not going to do this again for hours.”

“I don’t need to,” said Talisco again, a little more softly and grimly, and the soldier took the hint.

Rigg tugged on his right hand, trying to reach it toward his crotch. Talisco yanked it back. “Use your left!”

“I’m right-handed!” Rigg shouted back. “

I can’t aim with my left!”

“It’s the river!” shouted Talisco. “You can’t miss it!”

“I don’t want to get it all over my clothes!” Rigg shouted, letting his voice rise a little higher in pitch, so he sounded more like a little boy.

“Royal bastard,” muttered Talisco, letting Rigg drag their manacled hands down toward his crotch.

“Probably right,” Rigg murmured back. Then he deliberately aimed a stream of urine onto the back of Talisco’s hand.

Talisco’s reflex was quick and unthinking. With a roar he snatched his hand back.

Rigg used the momentum of his grab to propel Talisco’s own wrist, with all his own strength added, into a smashing blow of the fetter against Talisco’s forehead. That was the surprise Father had warned him needed to be enough.

Assuming that it had been enough to stun Talisco, Rigg instantly made a great show of losing his balance, flinging his left arm free of the soldier holding him and getting behind the now-unconscious Talisco so no one else could grab the man. With another shove—disguising it as best he could by crying “help” and flailing his arms—he got Talisco’s limp body over the rail, which dragged Rigg over as part of the same movement.

He could feel that he still had his pants, though they were around his ankles now. Before they hit the water, Rigg was doubling over to lay hands on the belt, and as they splashed into the brown stream, he was already working the tongue of the clasp into the keyhole of the lock.

The weight of the leg irons dragged them straight down. By the time they hit the bottom of the river, Rigg’s right hand was free. He doubled over and freed his ankle.

But that was not enough. He was not making an escape the way Loaf and Umbo had done. Nor did he want Talisco to die—if he could bring it off, he had a use for him. So he continued to hold his breath as he opened Talisco’s leg and wrist fetters, letting the iron drop. Now both of them were weighed down only by their clothes. Rigg stepped on one of his trouser-legs and pried his legs free. Then, being a strong swimmer, he dragged the limp man up to the surface.

When his head bobbed up into the air, Rigg gasped a quick breath and then worked to get Talisco’s head above water. “Help!” Rigg cried. “Talisco’s drowning!”

The boat had already stopped and the rivermen were poling it upstream. In moments Rigg had Talisco at the side. General Citizen sharply commanded them to forget Talisco and get the boy.