Dlyvuk: Chronicle the Third
By: Dustin Mitcham
Staff Writer
Dietrich hated prison, and he hated it even more when it was a prison in a foreign, unfamiliar country where he and the guards could not even understand one another. He had been thrown into this Spanish prison in Barcelona for “resisting arrest”, a charge commonly used for when the authorities have no real reason to arrest someone. Not one week ago, Dietrich was a free man working with Les Loups de Paris, a renowned mercenary group known throughout Europe for their efficiency.
Last week, after Dietrich and his colleague Izotz failed to finish a mission in France, Dhakwan Harrak, the leader of the group, was told of a job in Spain. This job would have paid enough that each and every member of Les Loups de Paris could retire in comfort. However, this job turned out to be a set up by the Spanish police.
As soon as the group arrived in Spain, they were all arrested, all with the same charge, “resisting arrest”. Basically the Spanish government was afraid of the group’s success rate, and began to worry that they might start taking jobs internationally. So they lured the group in with a high paying job, and then threw them into prison with a false charge until they could think of a real charge to press.
Once they got to prison, all of their weapons and supplies were confiscated, and so were the horses, including Dietrich’s horse, Lüdwig. They were all sent to different cells, and Dietrich wound up sharing his cell with Dhakwan Harrak himself, an average height Moroccan man with more scars and muscles than skin and bones. They also had another cellmate named Yuri Malakhov, a massive Siberian man with storm grey eyes who was so tall that he wouldn’t even have to raise his hands all the way to touch the ceiling. He had been arrested for single-handedly beating forty-seven Spanish soldiers within an inch of their lives upon entry into the country.
When asked, Malakhov said that he had seen one of the soldiers attacking a local woman at the marketplace. He had rushed to defend the woman when two other soldiers attempted to hold him back. He began to defend himself against the soldiers, but more and more began to come at him. He said that he remembered going into rage, and the next thing he remembered was standing over the unconscious bodies of the soldiers. An arrow pierced his shoulder, and he woke up in prison.
They woke up in the morning the sound of clanging metal. One of the guards was knocking on the bars of their cell, telling them it was time to come downstairs for breakfast. Dhakwan and Dietrich were the first to get out of their bunks and leave the cell, but the guard had to come into the cell and dump a bucket of ice water over Malakhov’s head.
“I’m a deep sleeper,” Malakhov explained on their way down the stairs, “they have to wake me up that way every morning.”
They got to the bottom of the stairs and found that Izotz, a Basque war veteran whom Dietrich had worked with in the past, and the rest of Les Loups de Paris were gathered around a chessboard. Two men sat on either side of the board, a young British man about Dietrich’s age, and a dark-haired Spaniard of about forty years, whom Dietrich recognized as Izotz’s cellmate. It appeared that the Irishmen was about to receive a heavy victory, still having most of his pieces while the young Brit had only his king, a knight, and a handful of pawns.
Izotz explained, “They are playing to see who will organize our escape from this place. So far, it looks like Ricardo is going to win.”
Ricardo decided to speak up, noticing the Englishman’s confused appearance, “You may surrender now if you want to. I would not judge you for doing so.”
The young Brit smirked, used one of his pawns to take the Spaniard’s rook, and, exchanging it for a queen, said, “Checkmate.”
Dietrich stared dumbfounded at the board. Sure enough, the Spaniard would be unable to move without sacrificing his king. Everyone around the table stared wide-eyed, as they had all been confident that the Englishman would lose.
“Who is he?” Dietrich asked of Izotz.
Izotz responded, “His name is Henry Fisher, odd of a name as that is. He claims to have been a scholar at Oxford University, and had been arrested for witchcraft. Although he says that what he was attempting was merely ‘alchemy’.”
“So he will be organizing our escape then?” asked Dietrich
“It would appear so,” Izotz responded, smiling for the first time since Dietrich had known him.