A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

At his words, the soldiers shared fearful glances. Beam thought he could see one of them shiver.

Nila was still studying the room, her eyes cast to the floor, as though she were in the forest searching for deer tracks. Beam couldn't tell what she saw – her eyes seemed to pick up far more than he, but the intensity of her scrutiny caught his attention. He watched her for a few moments, and waited.

Suddenly, she pulled the carpet back, revealing deep scratches in the wood.

"Gods! What the fuck is that?" Judas cried out in alarm.

For a stretch of a few feet, there were deep claw marks in the wood, as though someone – or something – had been dragged, as it desperately dug its fingernails in, fighting against the movement.

"Harder to get rid of those," the sergeant noted as he observed them. "Can't say any man I know would be able to inflict gashes that deep into wood this thick."

Nila pulled up more of the rug. Nothing but rough floorboards. Beam moved to help her, and together, they shifted the weighty carpet from its spot in the centre of the room, revealing more of the floor, and a section where a square had been cut out of the wood.

"A cellar," the sergeant noted, as he attempted to pry it open with his fingers. It was only when the torchlight was cast a little closer did they notice a keyhole.

"A keyhole in the cellar?" Judas murmured. "Can't say I know what some old man is thinking, but I do know one thing, no one has a cellar with a keyhole unless they've got somethin' to hide. Be it gold or whatever else, what's good is always in the cellar."

"How do you get it open without a key, though?" Beam asked. There wasn't enough of a gap between the trapdoor and the floorboards around it to get real purchase on the wood. Beam imagined they'd need a hammer, or some other such thing to stand a chance.

"You'd pick it," Judas said, as he crouched down. "I ain't got the tools to do that, though. Not got the hands for it either. We'd want to call in one of the boys to do it."

"There's someone down there," Beam noted.

There was a collective intake of breath at that, but no one refuted his words, for it was indeed the only place a person was likely to be – they'd searched the rest of the main room, after all.

"We don't have long. We have to get in now. The Elder likely accounted for this. We've seen him cover his tracks, or so it seems, with his burning of papers, his ridding of evidence. He likely was just attempting to buy a few days, at most – he's assuming we won't be able to get into this without burning the place down," Beam guessed.

"But if we get one of the boys, lock-picking it tomorrow wouldn't be out of the question," Judas said, but Beam shook his head.

"Tomorrow is out of the question. If the Elder is in league with these events that have been happening, then we don't know what tomorrow will bring. Today a dozen children went missing, and Half-Titans started appearing on the edge of camp. The Captain was firm when he gave us his permission – we have to find something tonight, and I'm in agreement with him," Beam said.

"Yet we promised those villagers fifteen minutes…" the sergeant noted. "Unless we burn away this trap door… No, even that would take too long. You can't brute force it, Judas?"

"With what?" Judas frowned. "The hinges are on the bottom. They're sturdy, these things. That's why you need a lockpick, and that's why people hide their good stuff beneath a locked trapped door. They're just a pain in the arse to get past."

As they talked, Nila had stood up again. Something had apparently caught her attention. She went to the fire, just as the sergeant had, and she began to run her hands through the ashes.

"They're cold, aren't they?" The sergeant called out to her. "There's nothing left of the paper burned though, if that's what you're looking for. Might be ashes, but can't make out any of the ink that was left on them."

The ash was piled rather high. The fire was set on a long iron grate, so that the ash could fall through periodically as it burned, onto an ash pan beneath. But here, the ash hadn't been raked through in a while. The ash pan was more than full.

She pulled that pan out, making a mess of the Elder's fireplace. A mountain of ash fell through the grates, now that the pan had been moved, making even more of a mess, but Nila's hands were intently searching through the ash pan. Beam joined her, curious.

She grew impatient, and eventually stopped weeding her way through it with her fingers, and merely turned the pan upside down onto the bricks of the fireplace.

"Ah," Beam's eyes had caught the shine of metal as the ash fell, followed by a metallic ringing as it hit the ground. Nila picked it up from amongst the ashes, and held it up for them to see, a proud smile on her lips.

The men found themselves nodding in admiration. Judas grinned. "That would be what we're looking for. How did ya know?"

"I didn't. Just something about that old man's spiteful personality, I can imagine him leaving a key here, within plain sight, just in case he needed it for any reason. I can imagine him smiling at the thought of us discovering it days later, when it's too late," Nila said. "The ashes were cold, so to me, it seemed like a perfect place for it."

Beam placed a hand on her head. A dirty hand at that, so she was none too fond of it. "Good work," he told her with a grin. The displeased look on her face soon vanished, and she responded with a smile of her own. She tossed him the key.