by A. C. Cobble
“The only trick is that they’ll see me and think just as you did,” said Sam with a smile.
“Ten percent, and I’ll see you in an hour,” said the guard. He looked around cautiously and warned, “And I’d best see you. Otherwise, I’m going to come find you.”
“You and plenty of others,” said Oliver with a grin.
He grabbed Sam’s arm and led her past the looming guard. Before he entered the house, Oliver turned and asked the giant man, “Last I was here, pickles was the password. What is it now?”
The guard eyed him. “It’s still pickles. Didn’t like the looks of you, though, so I thought I’d see what you said when I wouldn’t let you in.”
Oliver grunted, shook his head, and walked into the Filthy Beggar.
Low, smoky ceilings cut the light from the burning torches and scattered lamps to a dim, ominous glow. Patrons, mostly men, walked around bouncing on the balls of their feet, drinks in hand, pouches jingling with coin. Their faces were flushed, their eyes quick. Watching the fights excited them, got their blood pumping. It wasn’t uncommon for the battles to spill out of the pits into the room. The thrill of pugilism, the emotions of winning or losing significant coin, the effects of too much ale… it was a dangerous cocktail.
The Filthy Beggar employed the biggest, nastiest bouncers in the city, though, and they had little regard for their patrons when it came time to kick someone out. A knock to the head, a missing purse, and that was it if the offender was lucky. Losing fighters weren’t the only ones to occasionally leave sewn into a long, dirty canvass sack.
A roar went up, and the men near the doorway all turned to see a new fight begin.
Oliver, holding Sam’s hand, guided her around the first of the open pits.
Covered in a mixture of dirt, sand, sawdust, and blood, the pits were dug into the ground so that the fighters were a yard below the floor. The patrons clustered around wooden railings and looked down, shouting encouragement at their fighters.
Oliver glanced between the legs of the throng and saw two shirtless men close on each other. Hands wrapped in cloth, nervous sweat slicking their chests and brows, they swung tentative jabs, trying to feel each other out.
Farm boys or common laborers. They’d probably been in more than their share of barroom brawls, but these men were not professionals. They were amateurs given a handful of silver and brought in to appease the commoners who simply wanted to see blood spilled. There would be no skill in the bout, just flung fists until one combatant fell and was unable to continue.
The patrons didn’t care. They were there to drink, gamble, and watch two men batter each other unconscious. The crowd roared as the two amateurs fell onto each other, the sounds of fists striking flesh drowned out by the thirsty chants for blood.
Oliver and Sam moved quickly, weaving between the dozen sunken pits that kept the sailors and harbor workers entertained.
Bars lined the walls, interspaced with money changers, sellers of illicit potions and drugs, scantily clad women eager to accompany big winners back to the hidden rooms that honeycombed beneath the city, and vendors of dubious-looking paper-wrapped meat skewers and pies. There was little Oliver would rather do less than eat meat cooked in such a place.
A girl passed them carrying a huge earthenware pitcher. For a couple of copper shillings, she would refill a patron’s drink without them having to make it all the way to the bar. It kept them drunk and gambling. At each one of the fighting pits, there was a representative of the house to hold the coins, settle up the wagers, and take the Filthy Beggar’s share.
More bouts of fisticuffs began in the pits, and by the time they’d crossed to the opposite end of the huge room, two had begun outside of them. The combatants were quickly dragged apart in one case, and in the other, they were shoved into a pit to settle their dispute upon the sawdust. It was a strange place, far from the king’s laws, but it had its own, and no one objected when the rule breakers had to face their fates.
Sam grabbed Oliver’s sleeve and nodded toward two men wearing royal marine blue.
Oliver shook his head and circled around a far fighting pit to stay away from the men. A marine was more likely than anyone else to know Oliver’s description, and even if they hadn’t been tasked with looking for him, he was the prime minister, and despite his attempts at a disguise, anyone from the palace might recognize him.
Across the heads of two brawling men, he saw the marines were drinking and laughing. They were off duty, but it was still best to avoid them.
The crowd burst into a mixture of cheers and curses, and one of the fighters staggered around the pit, blood smeared on his face, his arms raised in celebration.
“There,” said Oliver, nodding at a nondescript door hidden in the shadows.
They opened it and proceeded down a brick tunnel, lit sporadically by lanterns hung on the wall. The sounds of fighting and revelry faded behind them until they were heard again in front.
“The men back there are brawlers and thugs,” said Oliver. “Ahead, we’ll find entertainment for the peers and the merchants. Everyone fighting in the next room will have won several bouts and showed some measure of skill. They may have gained a patron, or the house will sponsor them. This is where the real wealth changes hands and the reason the watchmen never raid the place. No one wants to accidentally arrest a peer.”
Sam grunted. “They’d have no problem tossing one of those commons in the gaol, though, would they? They certainly kept me locked up for less than many in here are guilty of.”
“Aye, but many in here can pay their way out,” said Oliver. He looked over his shoulder at her. “What was it you did?”
She ignored him, and around a bend in the brick-lined hallway, they found themselves facing two bouncers, each as large as the original man who had guarded the first entryway.
Sam whispered, “How will we talk our way around these two? I’m guessing they’re less likely to be fooled.”
Oliver nodded. He strode up to the two men and looked them right in the eye.
One of the guards nodded and turned to open the door.
Oliver walked through, Sam on his heels.
“Frozen hell, do they know you?” she asked.
“Seems so,” he replied with a grin. “That first man is trained to let no one in. These two are trained to let the right sort in. I can’t imagine they’ll be running to tell on us to my father, though.”
She spluttered, shaking her head in consternation.
The room they’d entered wasn’t so different from the first fighting chamber. The vices of the commons and the peers were much the same, but the peers had better seating. Tiers of benches set with padded cushions rose around the pits. Girls, dressed in tight, revealing dresses, walked amongst them offering drinks or other intoxicants. Liveried men shuttled between their masters and the wager makers.
The pit itself had the same sawdust floor and the same shirtless men prowling within it, but these men were skilled and lethal. They followed the same rules — fight until one man could no longer continue, but broken noses, split lips, and swollen eyes were the smallest of the scars they’d carry. These were the type of men who could seriously wound or kill another with only their fists. It was their job, and they did it for a great deal of silver. In this room, a few successful prize bouts could set up a man to retire for life or, just as easily, end it all too soon.
One such loser was being dragged out near them. Two attendants held his arms and pulled him across the rough floor, his feet trailing listlessly behind. Oliver could see his jaw was swollen, likely broken, from what must have been an epic blow. As a younger man, Oliver would have been eager to see the confrontation that led to such carnage, but now, it just made him sick. He shook his head, seeing the man’s eyes squeezed tightly shut, hearing his low moans.
Then, the man blinked, and Oliver gasped.
Twin, glowing purple eyes turned slowly to stare at them. The man seemed to gather his strength and pulled himse
lf upright. The two attendants backed away, confused, but the man, or what had once been one, had no concern for the attendants. He took a shuffling, awkward step toward Oliver and Sam.
“Duke,” hissed Sam, “your plan of sneaking in doesn’t seem to be working very well.”
He nodded and drew the two katars from beneath his jacket. “I can see that. I think it’s time for the backup plan.”
“The backup plan?” questioned Sam. “What’s the backup plan?”
“We fight.”
The Priestess XX
“What’s the backup plan?” questioned Sam, unable to look away from the glowing, spectral eyes of the injured pit fighter.
“We fight,” claimed Duke.
She shrugged and then lunged forward, drawing one of her kris daggers and slashing it at the fighter in the same motion. The sharp edge of the blade split the man’s face, and in an instant, the purple glow faded from his eyes. He collapsed limply. The two men who had been carrying him stared at her, mouths agape.
“Invested with a shade, not a reaver, for what that’s worth,” she advised.
“There are more of them,” warned Duke.
A dozen men, shirtless, most of them sporting fresh wounds from bouts of fisticuffs, shuffled toward them. Screams rose from the benches and around the room as peers and merchants realized something was terribly wrong.
A woman, dressed in a billowing silk dress more appropriate for a debutante ball than a pit fight, stumbled in front of the approaching pack of men. One reached out and gripped her head, twisting it sharply until the woman’s spine cracked. The creature shoved the dead woman away, but she pivoted back, her head hanging loosely from her neck, her eyes glowing purple.
Beside Sam, Duke shifted his grip on his katars and nodded to her. The two of them advanced.
She kept her eye on the guards and attendants scattered throughout the room. If they misunderstood what was happening and became involved, she and Duke would have no way of facing them all, but against a dozen men, moving awkwardly as if they were suspended on strings, the two of them had a chance.
One of the fighters, a big, burly man with an impressive red mustache and a disturbing amount of hair on his chest, charged her.
She let him come then dodged to the side, sliding her blade along the back of his leg to cripple him. He fell, but instead of crying in pain or rising to his knees, he flopped forward and lay still.
“All we have to do his injure them!” called Sam. “They’ll fall like lesser shades.”
Duke ran to the side, circling the pack of possessed pit fighters, darting at them and lashing out with his katars. The inscribed blades nicked the creatures, felling them one by one, drawing their attention to the peer.
Sam plunged into the pack. Windmilling her arms, she cut through the center of the group, slashing five of them in the space of a few heartbeats. Duke cleaned up the rest, and soon, there was just one man left. Unlike the others, this one did not attack. Instead, it stood, watching them.
She shifted her grip on her kris daggers, worried.
The creature opened its mouth and with a wretched, tortured voice, uttered, “You’ve chosen poorly. You should have joined me or fled.”
Sam lunged forward and stabbed her dagger into its side.
The fighter collapsed like the others.
Duke looked at her and shrugged. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“No, it—” she began. She bit off her words and cursed.
Duke, frowning, turned.
“Frozen hell,” he said. “There’s a door on the other side of the room. Maybe it can be barred, if we can get there.”
Between them and the other side of the room, two hundred men and women were shuffling toward them, taking the slow, painful steps of the spirit-infested. It seemed every man and woman in the place had fallen under the thrall of King Edward.
“He’s possessing people with a thought,” hissed Sam. “This is the power of the great spirit.”
“Why not us?” asked Oliver, shifting his grip on his katars.
“My tattoos might be granting enough protection, or your blood is strong enough to oppose him,” said Sam. “Hells, I don’t know. Maybe he’s giving us a chance to fight our way through.”
“He’s toying with us,” growled Duke.
She shrugged uncomfortably. King Edward had been toying with them for months, dancing them on his strings as easily as he did the possessed.
“What do we do?” asked Duke, edging nervously closer to the throng of slow-moving puppets. “Any ideas?”
“Run,” she suggested.
Moving quickly, cutting down the stray possessed man or woman who stumbled into their way, they circled the room and the largest pack of the creatures, the huge benches around the fighting pit serving as a natural barrier to slow their attackers.
Outside the door to the next hall, she slashed the face of one former guard, banishing the spirit that infested it, then raised her forearm to block a swing from a second. Duke thrust a katar into the creature’s gut, and they moved into the tunnel.
There was a heavy, steel door, which together they were able to muscle shut. They locked it with a bolt as thick as her wrist.
She muttered, “Well, they’re not getting through that.”
From the other side of the door, they heard thumps as the creatures reached the barrier, but she doubted even combined they had the strength to break through. The door was designed to protect against serious raids by the royal marines and buy the patrons time to escape.
Leaning against the door, she looked down another brick-lined tunnel, just like the one they’d taken between the two fighting chambers. Lanterns hung on the walls, filling the corridor with a yellow glow. The passageway undulated and bent, following the curve of the city or perhaps snaking around the underground rail lines. She couldn’t see more than twenty yards away.
“What comes next?” she asked Duke. “If we run into that many of those things in a confined area like this, it’s going to get messy. They’re slow, but we need space to outmaneuver them.”
“No more fighting pits,” he assured her. “It’s, ah, it’s a bit of a maze from here on out. Tunnels and rooms are sprawled haphazardly. They built them where they could find room to dig, I guess. There are some areas set aside as pleasure houses, potion dens, and the like. I’d guess there are other criminal enterprises down here, but it wasn’t the kind of thing they showed a young duke during the tour.”
“We’ve got to worry about more of the possessed,” she stated.
He nodded.
“We’d best get going, then,” she suggested. “I don’t know what else your father will have waiting for us, but I know getting pinned in this tunnel with a room full of his summonings behind isn’t going to go well.”
They started off, stalking the brick corridors, moving quickly when the way was clear, slowly when they approached branches in the path.
She worried they would find more shambling foes, but instead, they found dead bodies. Dozens then hundreds of dead bodies. They’d been killed messily, torn apart by what looked to be tooth and claw — attendants of the sprawling complex that was the Filthy Beggar, patrons, pit fighters, and fallen women. All died in a panic, trying to get away from something. Evidently, none of them succeeded. The stench of blood permeated the space, and Sam began to sweat in the close confines of the narrow tunnels and low-ceilinged rooms.
“I had no idea this place was down here,” muttered Sam, stepping over the mutilated body of a half-naked woman.
“You haven’t spent much time in Southundon,” remarked Duke. “After a time, most everyone hears about it, even if they never find their way here. When they do, some flee in disgust. Others become regulars.”
“You were a regular?” asked Sam.
Oliver, looking queasily at a man who appeared to have been ripped in two, replied, “No, not a regular. I just passed through on my way out of the palace. Some of my associates came here often, though
. They’d wager large on the pit fights, seeking a thrill that was missing from their lives. I always preferred to have my own adventures. I’d rather experience the excitement of discovery and find a new world than pay to see two men beat each other senseless.”
“Aye,” agreed Sam, “if I’m going to pay two muscular men to do something, it’s not fight.”
Duke looked back at her, frowning. Then the wall beside him exploded in a shower of brick and dirt. He was flung away like he’d been kicked by a giant, and she screamed in astonishment as a nightmarish creature crawled from the hole. It had skin the color of dead ash, thick arms and legs, and no hair on its body. A long, curved horn protruded from its forehead, catching her gaze and then almost her throat as the monster swung toward her, trying to skewer her.
She scrambled back, and the beast came after her, brushing against the wall, crushing brick as it came, smashing against the lanterns hanging on the wall, extinguishing them. Sam retreated until she found an open room, a place she would have space to maneuver and where the beast couldn’t easily knock out all of the lights. Even with the extra illumination, she could hardly see the thing, like it was cloaked in swirling shadow. She saw enough to tell it was huge, four times her size, and nearly indestructible as it crushed through a pillar of solid stone. Mortar and rock rained down, but it kept coming, as if the thick stone had been no more substantial than tall blades of grass.
She tripped, stumbling over a body and falling onto her bottom, stunned.
The creature reared above her, its horn snagging on the low ceiling. It bellowed, the sound causing a rain of dust to fall from above, echoing down the brick tunnels and back. It flexed its arms wide, and a spike of steel burst from the creature’s chest, the point of Duke’s broadsword emerging bloodlessly. The monster whimpered and then fell to the side.
Duke was standing behind it, half his face covered in brick dust, the other half in blood. He held up his broadsword, “I knew there was a reason to bring this.”