The Adventures of Master Konig
The cell bars closed abruptly behind Rössman, who landed on the stinking straw mattress serving as a bed for detainees after being pushed by the guard. With feigned dignity and changing his expression to a mischievous smile, he stood up as quickly as if he had bounced, looking at his two gloomy cellmates.
“You’ll stay there until the marshal comes, scum,” said the guard after locking the door.
Konig leaned against the bars, distractedly watching the guard leave the room and then turning to the other two characters.
“They’re always this friendly, but don’t worry. I’ll be out soon. After all, I haven’t done anything.”
One of the guys, the one with the longest beard and the most emaciated face, chuckled hoarsely at those words, showing the gap in his toothless mouth. Rössman laughed too, and soon the last inhabitant of the small prison, more reluctant, joined the general merriment. The three of them were reveling in absurd complicity when Konig approached the second prisoner, leaning on his shoulder, trying not to collapse from the laughter attack. But suddenly he became very serious, as if he had abruptly closed the laughter flow with a tap, and stared into the eyes of that guy, who until then seemed relieved to find some tension relief in that place, and who quickly stopped laughing too. A strong punch landed on that idiotic face and then another. Out of nowhere, Konig began to give him a savage beating, and despite being a burly man, that prisoner was so surprised by the blows that he was unable to react, which his attacker took advantage of to keep hitting him until he was lying on the floor with his face covered in blood, before the astonished gaze of the old toothless man. The guards burst in when they heard the commotion, entering the cell to separate them and take the newcomer away.
Rössman didn’t resist, but one of the guards still hit him with the hilt of the sword on the head, making a gash. They dragged him down the stairs to the officers’ barracks on the first floor of the barracks, where they left him chained with shackles to a bed near the window. A couple of men were left to guard him, standing by the door in case he started another trouble.
“Gods, you really are as crazy as the marshal said. I hope you try to beat someone again; that way, you’ll know what happens to those who cause trouble in this city.”
“Hey! Leave it. That guy is not stupid; he’s provoking us to see if we lower our guard, and he manages to escape. The marshal warned us about it.”
The prisoner, with his forehead covered in blood, smiled at them and gave them a malicious look under his eyebrows.
“Well, guys, I think you overestimate me. I’m afraid rumors about my cleverness are terribly exaggerated. But look, I’m flattered to know that people are talking about me out there. I can even imagine a play. The great Rössman Konig: the expert crossbow shooter!”
“What are you talking about, idiot? Who said anything about a crossbow…?”
At that very moment, and against all odds, a crossbow flew into the room through the window, landing on the bed next to Rössman. The guards were stunned and took a moment to react, which the detainee used to try to reach it, but as he had both hands handcuffed, it was impossible. The guards then pounced on him to prevent him from trying, giving him very little time to react. Without thinking, he kicked the bed next to him to make the weapon come closer, and sliding on the floor with enviable agility, he stretched and lifted his legs to the mattress to pass one foot underneath and kick it to himself with another kick. The crossbow fell into his hands at the same time one of the guards grabbed him by the jerkin, so he shot the bolt into his stomach. The poor man collapsed face down on the floor, with his hands trying to contain the blood. Immediately his partner replaced him, ready to avenge him, unaware that a small knife was hidden in the handle of the weapon, which Konig quickly pulled out and promptly threw, hitting him in the neck. With his legs, he pulled the corpse of the last man towards him and extracted the small blade from him.
“Now!” he shouted, and from the street, an answer and a whip were heard. Suddenly, the room began to vibrate, and he quickly used the knife to separate the bed leg to which he was chained, knowing what was about to happen.
The room began to tilt, and the floor and the window wall crumbled, falling onto the porch below in the street. Rössman managed to move away from the bed just an instant before the building collapsed, and embracing his crossbow, he jumped through the huge hole in the wall onto the street, rolling when he landed on the pavement. Behind him, the officers’ barracks detached from the barracks until it became a mountain of rubble. A rather plump guard ran up to him holding the reins of a mule and Sandokan, his horse, both tied to a wooden pole they had been dragging, which had previously served to lift the first floor of the guard barracks.
“And you threw knives at the circus, right? You left the crossbow so far away that they almost took it from me!”
“Quick, Röss, get on the horse! If they catch us, we’ll end up on the gallows!”
Even with both hands handcuffed to the bed leg, Konig pulled out the knife hidden in his crossbow and cut the ropes tying his horse to the wooden pillar. Then he climbed on top, and with difficulty, he helped his friend to do the same.
“Sorry to burden you with so much weight, Sandokan, but don’t complain so much; you’re a strong animal and can perfectly carry two people. Now, get us out of here!”
The horse neighed, and after being spurred by his rider, it trotted laboriously through the city’s alleys. Guards started pouring out of the barracks, half-dressed, intending to chase the perpetrator, but too confused to know where to start.
“Well, that crossbow fell on the bed next to it, and those guys almost took it from me. The whole plan would have gone down the drain!”
“This plan was madness, Röss! From on top of the horse, I couldn’t know exactly where to shoot! And everyone suspected me! This uniform is too tight!”
“Honsi, in the circus, you did it blindfolded, and I shouted the keyword loudly so you knew where I was!”
“They were axes, not knives! And throwing a crossbow is not the same! The plan was absurd; if we survive, it will be a miracle. Anything could have gone wrong! Do you know what it cost me to get that mule, for us to have to leave it there? I had to change it for the beans!”
Suddenly, Rössman’s face lost its color, and he stopped focusing on directing the horse to turn to his friend with a horrified expression.
“You… changed the beans?”
“I had no choice! Do you know how much one of those beasts is worth?”
“Gods, gods… of all the people in the world, it had to be him!”
“To him? Do you know the kid?”
“No! Yes… it’s a long story. The important thing is that we can’t let him take them. We have to find him, and quickly.”
“But the entire city guard is after us!”
“It doesn’t matter! Listen, take me to your tent, unlock my handcuffs, get rid of that ridiculous uniform, and let’s go look for him. And pray that today neither of us ends up on the gallows.”
The barracks were a hive of activity, with guards barely organizing themselves to hunt down the fugitive, and workers bustling to remove the debris from the street.
“How could we let all this happen…?” lamented the captain of the guard with his second in command, while they looked with their arms akimbo at the disaster.
At that moment, a man dressed in a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat, with a weather-beaten face and a furrowed brow, well-shaved and with a perpetually annoyed expression, made his appearance on the scene.
“What’s supposed to have happened to your barracks, Captain?”
The officer turned sharply upon hearing the deep voice behind him, a tone between sarcastic and threatening that was enough to chill one’s blood without the need for further words or hastening in the slightest.
“Marshal! I’m very sorry for what happened, I… I take full responsibility for this failure.”
“Captain, a man escaping by demolishing part of the barracks where he is locked up is not what I would call a ‘failure.’ I warned you about the suspect,” he said while leisurely removing his hat and running his hand through his hair to straighten it, “and from the results, it seems you didn’t heed my advice. I should lock you and your gang of incompetents up instead of Konig, and let the city suffer as punishment for your incompetence, but since every minute I spend talking to you makes me partly responsible, I prefer you to tell me how the hell he escaped this time and where he went.”
The second officer didn’t dare open his mouth for fear of earning one of the marshal’s proverbial compliments, so it was the captain who had to face the situation again.
“Rössman Konig was arrested for robbing the Marquis’s alchemist’s house. Several witnesses saw him leaving the place tonight because the house was well guarded, and we managed to capture him near the shop of a well-known local money changer. We caught him with several magical artifacts he had tried to sell without success, and we locked him in the dungeon. However, he got into a fight with a low-life thug we also had inside, so we had to take him to a secure room while we prepared another, more appropriate detention place. Then, someone removed one of the pillars supporting the room he was in, and he took the opportunity to escape on a horse with an accomplice, leaving this mule behind.”
“A dark brown horse?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s odd”, said the marshal, rubbing his chin and dragging out his words. “Rössman is pursued for working as a hitman, not as a thief, and he’s not very fond of magic. I can’t understand what interest he could have in the house of an alchemist. But he’s an erratic person; he might have lost his mind even more. He mentioned a money changer, what’s his name?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“He’s called Honsi Burbereq, sir”, said the second officer.
“So you do have a tongue. Well, you’ll be glad to know that those two are old friends, so it’s most likely that he’s the accomplice. I would send you to search his house, but since it’s the best place to start investigating and I don’t want you to mess it up, I think I’ll be the one to take care of it. You make sure he doesn’t leave the city and that the barracks doesn’t completely collapse.”
And with that, he jumped onto his horse and rode down the same street where the fugitive had escaped barely an hour before.
