Dusk Till Dawn (Being Rewritten!)

Part 6: A Party for Eight

Aiden’s footsteps echoed around him as he walked briskly down the steps to reach a part of the castle hardly any one dared to enter since the death of his mother.

Derek had suggested to use this part of the castle for that very reason for their plans on escaping the castle, and building a rebellion depended on it.

He shifted the scrolls in his arm while he continued his descent. A cold chill came to him, he shivered. If the draft was close, so was the door.

“Derek, it’s me,” Aiden whispered.

When no answer came, Aiden rapped on the wall three times. Dust shifted as a doorway appeared before him, swinging inward to reveal a room.

Inside, dust had been cleared from the oak table in the center of the room. The four chairs around it carried cushions to make the seating slightly more comfortable for those nights when their meetings ran until early in the morning.

The moment he stepped in, the door closed behind him and locked in place. When Aiden did not see Derek in the room, he feared the worse. Normally Derek would be off his shift and waiting for him down here already. Something must have happened to him.

His thoughts were disrupted by a whisper from the door.

“Aiden, you in yet?” Derek asked as Aiden put the scrolls on the table.

“Yeah, just a second,” Aiden was relieved to see his friend standing outside the door when he opened it. “What happened to meeting you down here?”

“I had to talk with a few of our friends to make sure they knew to be ready soon and I had other obligations,” Derek said, winking as he took his usual seat in the chair across from the door.

When Aiden had first revealed his thoughts of a rebellion, it was generally four people who had met to discuss what needed to be done. Two of them being Aiden and Derek. The others were older gentlemen who ended up being released from their job shortly after the plans started. Before they left, the two older gentlemen told Aiden and Derek about how to plan the escape along with leaving them a few items.

“Right,” Aiden said sarcastically as he sat towards the left of him. “Okay, well to get down to business. I found these maps of the castle in the library, but I’m not really sure which routes will work or not.”

“Let’s see them,” Aiden unrolled each map carefully, placing weights down at the corners to help keep them from rolling back up. “This one is pretty neat.”

“Yeah, it was used to help plan escape routes for the royal family when the people of Nimd decided to try and take over our country,” Aiden explained pulling out a book from the leather bag he had around his waist. “This book explains the routes for each of them.”

“Good, we can definitely use it,” Derek continued to look at the maps when a thought struck him. “By the way, the girl you told me to watch out for...”

Derek looked up to scan his face, but it seemed as if Aiden was only going to talk about the rebellion and nothing more. Derek gave a small smile since he knew exactly why it meant so much for Aiden to succeed.

“What about her?” Aiden said, still pouring over the maps, not really concerned since she seemed to be okay besides the fact that she was avoiding him.

“I heard the king started to take interest in her. I doubt she’ll last long,” Derek looked at Aiden, who only sat there hunched over the maps. “Are you listening to me?”

Derek went over to a small side table which had been hidden from sight at the door, bringing back a measuring device. It used it to measure the distance from one of the tunnels in a circular room, doing the math in his head.

“I know what you said, but what can I do? We can’t just bloody take her with us. She’ll be marked as a rebel and never be able to go home,” Aiden retorted, looking up at Derek with anger in his now narrowed blue eyes.

“But if we don’t take her with us she’ll just end up a puppet for the king,” Derek shot back getting just as angry. Aiden sighed, looking down.

“I’ll talk to her about leaving with us tomorrow. If she wants to come fine I’ll see about paying off her father’s debt as well. With so many of us leaving it should be a while before they really notice who left. In that time we’ll have her home with her family and get her family out of there as well,” Derek smiled, this was why he followed Aiden even to the point of creating a rebellion.

“Now that’s the kind of person I follow,” Derek nodded as Aiden shook his head. “Now, what’s the plan for escaping?”

“Looking at this map, the center here looks to be a good way to start. There are several exits any one of us could use, but before we even tell the others we need to make some trips to see if they can be used. We’ll spend the rest of tonight figuring that out,” Aiden pointed towards a circle on the map which indicated a circular room that had several doorways opening toward it.

The circular room with the doorways all connected to either the main part of the castle while the rest lead to passages to get out. Aiden wondered if the rooms similar to it were the same, even if they were newer. No matter how much he would have loved to explore the possibility, he knew he would not be around the castle much after the night was over.

“I know this path here is working,” Derek began to explain how he knew when Aiden gave him a strange look. “Right, well, a few days ago while I was on patrol I heard a noise. It turned out there were a few mice in that particular area. When I followed them to try and find the nest they came from, I ended up going through this entire tunnel area. Before anyone missed me I had to turn around though. I think the only problem we would have is towards the end.”

“Why the end?” Aiden asked, his brows coming together.

“Towards the end there must have been a cave in at some point for there is only a small space for someone to crawl through. So we if we used this tunnel we would be slowed down since only one person at a time could go through,” Derek explained ,using his hands to show Aiden how large the hole was.

“I see...” he was silent as he thought. Derek let him think quietly knowing his leader would come up with something. “Okay, we can head out here in the center, hiding of course. We’ll send in a few people at a time to enter the tunnel and escape. If anything should go wrong we have several other escape routes we can use.”

“Alright then, let’s go and check out these ways so I can let Cordelia know. She’ll let the others know for us,” Aiden stood up stretching knowing it was going to be a very long night for him.

“I’ll make sure to have coffee ready for both of us when this night is over,” Derek stood as well taking the map with all the routes in his hand for reference.

“That would be wonderful, but it’s going to take more than coffee to keep me awake tomorrow if we have to do a lot of crawling around,” Aiden took the other map before he blew out the candle that had been lit before he had entered.

Derek opened up the door for both to exit and start their long night.