“Let’s ask,” Priscilla said.
There were footsteps then Crow said. “Hey, wake up! Come on, a love tap like that can’t keep a ranger down.”
Moz moaned and went through the motions of slowly coming to. When he opened his eyes he found himself in a dark, steel cage. Beyond the bars looked like an empty store room. No windows so he guessed he was in the basement of the mansion. A single oil lantern hanging from the floor joists did a poor job of lighting the space.
He blinked at the pair. “Priscilla?”
She smirked. “Didn’t have a clue, did you? No one ever suspects poor, pitiful Priscilla.”
“Enough chatting,” Crow said. “Why are you after Rondo?”
“His thugs tried to kill me. He escaped, they didn’t. I didn’t want to give him a chance to try again. On the hunt I met his father and we came to an agreement. I bring Rondo back and he makes sure his son never leaves home again. He offered me a nice price for my trouble too.”
Crow nodded. “A private bounty. That makes sense. Be a good way for a retired ranger to make a living.”
“How do you know I’m retired?” Moz asked.
Crow laughed. “Your best years are clearly behind you. Make yourself comfortable. You’ll be here for a while.”
Moz ignored him and looked at Priscilla. “Why did you betray me?”
“I didn’t.” She shrugged. “As soon as I heard you asking about Rondo, I knew I had to keep an eye on you. It was a simple matter to take you by surprise. Don’t feel bad. I’ve fooled people a lot smarter than you.”
Crow and Priscilla left the room. Moz scratched his beard. They’d stripped him of his weapons and armor. Even his boots were missing. Getting out of this mess wasn’t going to be easy.
Chapter 12
The sun had barely risen when Yaz bent and shook Silas awake. The wizard grumbled and rubbed his eyes. Yaz and Brigid had split the night watch letting Silas get his strength back. Yaz didn’t know much about magic, but just from observing, it was clear it took a considerable physical toll on the user. There were no wizards in Dragonspire Valley, but Yaz had thought from time to time that he might like to study magic. Having seen how casting just a few spells wore Silas out, his interest was waning rapidly.
Brigid passed out jerky and dried fruit. As they ate Yaz couldn’t help wishing for a better meal before they left the city. Oh well, with the price on their heads he might have wished for the moon and had an equal chance of getting it.
When they finished their meager breakfast, Silas stood and pointed at the boy he cursed. “Up, boy. Grab our horses and get moving. Unless you want to find out what it feels like to get electrocuted, you’d best be waiting for us when we arrive.”
The boy nodded eagerly. “Yes, sir. I’ll be there.”
He hurried over and started collecting the horses’ reins.
“One moment,” Yaz said. He got his and Brigid’s spears from Thunder’s pack. “I’ve heard stories of sewer rats. If they’re true, I want something better than a walking stick to fend them off.”
“I second that.” Brigid accepted her spear and Yaz put the walking sticks in the pack.
Yaz moved back to the statue entrance. “Do we need anything else?”
“Just our guide,” Silas said. “On your feet, Uncle.”
The head thief scrambled to obey. Nothing like having a curse sparking in your chest to encourage good behavior.
Silas spun his finger once in the air and a ball of light the size of a marble appeared. He spun twice more and the light grew to the size of his fist.
Uncle led the way down a set of narrow, steep stairs. The passage was built from worn red brick and was so narrow they had to go single file. When everyone was through the opening, Uncle pressed a particular brick and the hidden door ground shut. They were committed now.
The stairs descended far deeper than Yaz had thought. He counted thirty-eight before they reached the smooth stone of the tunnel proper. The smell wasn’t as bad as Yaz expected. Probably because they were still under the cemetery. Nothing was draining into this part of the old sewer.
Uncle turned left and they marched along at a slow, steady pace. Silas’s conjured light provided them with a good look at the tunnel, not that there was much to see. A raised walkway ran on either side of a deep, dry trench. The bricks were perfectly fitted and undamaged. Typical imperial craftsmanship.
Nothing much changed for a couple hundred yards. The first hint that they were reaching the main part of the sewer was the smell. That was followed by a slow trickle of sewage running down the center of the trench.
“Gods be merciful.” Brigid pinched her nose shut with her left hand.
“It only gets worse from here,” Uncle warned.
They continued on into the sewer proper. Foul water dripped down from the ceiling, forcing them to watch where they put their feet. In most of the city, people just threw their waste into the streets and let the rain wash it away. They probably never thought about where it ended up. An excellent idea on their part.
After a minute or two of breathing the nausea-inducing stench, Yaz found he hardly noticed it. Though he feared his nightmares tonight would be horrific indeed.
“How much further?” Silas asked when they’d been tromping beside a river of sewage for ten minutes.
“We’re about halfway to the exit,” Uncle said. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan to draw this out a second longer than I have to. The sooner you three are out of my city, the happier I’ll be.”
“Finally, something we agree on,” Yaz muttered.
A few more minutes of trudging brought them to an arched bridge over the sewage river. Did something move on the other side?
The thought had barely formed when four figures separated themselves from the shadows, raised crossbows and loosed. One bolt grazed Yaz’s cheek, two whizzed down the tunnel, and a fourth buried itself in Uncle’s shoulder. He howled in pain.
“Hold your fire, you fools!” Uncle shouted.
A fifth person stepped out of the shadows. Female for sure and dressed in tight, black leathers. “I told you to capture or kill those three, not bring them down our most secret pathways.”
“Auntie,” Uncle murmured. “Please. The wizard cursed me. Unless I do what he says I’m dead.”
“At least you would have died loyal,” Auntie said. “Kill them all.”
Yaz flattened himself against the tunnel wall and Brigid followed suit. Silas grabbed Uncle and positioned him to act as a shield.
“I thought you were in charge of the guild,” Silas said.
“Second in command,” Uncle said. Another crossbow bolt streaked by. “I never imagined she’d order me killed. I brought that girl up through the ranks. Miserable ingrate.”
Yaz ignored Uncle’s complaints and tried to gauge the distance to the crossbowmen. It took only a moment for him to realize they were too far away to risk throwing his spear. Not to mention such an effort would leave him unarmed.
“What are we going to do?” Brigid asked as another volley of bolts streaked past.
Yaz wished he had a good answer. Charging that narrow bridge was a death sentence.
A pained shout snapped his gaze back to Silas and Uncle, who had another bolt sticking out of his upper leg. Light flashed and Silas threw his hand forward.
A lightning bolt blasted out, nearly blinding Yaz.
With his blurred, flashing sight he watched as a stone spear shot up and deflected the spell.
“You didn’t think to mention she was a wizard?” Silas gave Uncle a shake.
“I was distracted by the crossbow barrage. She only knows a few earth magic tricks. Most of them aren’t even that useful in our line of work.”
Silas muttered something Yaz couldn’t make out but that sounded derogatory. Yaz’s slowly recovering vision gave him an idea. He waited until the next barrage had gone past and darted over to Silas.
“Can you blind them long enough for us to close the gap?” Ya
z whispered.
Silas nodded. “Be ready.”
Yaz ran back to Brigid. “Close your eyes and don’t open them until I tell you.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Just be ready to charge.”
Brigid gave him a look before pinching her eyes shut. Yaz kept his gaze focused on Silas. Uncle now had four bolts sticking out of him and it looked like it was all Silas could do to keep his shield upright. Silas caught Yaz’s eye and nodded.
Yaz screwed his eyes shut as tight as he could. Even so, when the light flashed, he saw it through his eyelids.
“Yaz!” Silas shouted.
“Now, Brigid!” Yaz opened his eyes and ran as hard as he could toward the bridge.
Black-clad thieves staggered around clawing at their eyes. Yaz’s spear snaked out and gashed one of their throats open. The thief fell into the sewage river and was quickly carried away.
Yaz spun and cracked the butt of his spear into a second thief’s gut doubling him over.
Brigid engaged a third man who had dropped his crossbow and pulled a short sword.
Yaz continued his spin, stabbing the last thief in his hip. The wounded man collapsed, clutching his side in a vain attempt to stop the blood.
Before Yaz could finish him a tendril of stone wrapped around his right leg. Auntie glared at him and wove her hands in a complex pattern.
A second stone tentacle grew out of the floor and instantly shattered in a shower of sparks. The stone wrapping Yaz’s legs quickly followed suit.
Silas stood on the bridge, his hands raised and crackling with lightning.
Leaving the wizards to their duel, Yaz met the man he’d hit in the stomach as he came charging in with a pair of drawn daggers.
The spear’s haft easily turned the attacks aside. Yaz leapt back hoping to create distance.
His opponent wasn’t having it. He stayed so close Yaz couldn’t bring the tip of his spear to bear.
If he wanted to get close, fine. Yaz feinted a second retreat.
The thief sprang forward.
Yaz reversed course and head-butted the thief in the face. His nose broke under Yaz’s forehead.
The thief staggered, giving Yaz all the opening he needed to plunge the tip of his spear into the man’s chest.
He turned to help Brigid just in time to see her crack her opponent in the side of the head with the butt of her spear. He went down and didn’t move.
Yaz hurried over. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, steadier than after their last battle. “Silas.”
Yaz spun. Lightning flashed and crashed against a wall of stone. Auntie hurled spheres of stone that were blown away by gusts of wind before they could reach Silas. Looked like a standoff.
“Should we help?” Brigid asked.
Yaz looked around. One of the fallen crossbows lay on the edge of the trench. He snatched it up and pulled a bolt from the dead thief’s hip quiver. Taking careful aim, Yaz waited for Silas’s next attack.
He didn’t have long to wait. A lightning bolt streaked out and slammed into the wall of stone. As if she was physically connected to it, Auntie flinched and closed her eyes.
Yaz fired. His bolt struck home, burying itself to the fletchings in her neck. Auntie collapsed in a bleeding heap and her wall crumbled.
Silas sagged, finished crossing the bridge, and sat hard on the stone floor. “I hate wizards duels.”
“What can I do?” Yaz asked.
“Is anyone still alive?” Silas asked.
The thief Yaz stabbed in the hip still breathed, albeit weakly. “One.”
Silas nodded. “Wicked, drain.”
The familiar flew over and sank his pointy teeth into the wounded thief. Darkness surrounded the familiar and a tendril ran over to Silas who closed his eyes and opened his mouth. The tendril went down his throat.
Master and familiar stayed connected until the thief ceased breathing. Silas stood and stretched. “That helped a bit. Though I don’t plan on fighting another duel for a few days. We need to hurry. I used so much power defeating Auntie that the paralysis spell I used on the guys in the cemetery wore off.”
“I’m all for leaving,” Yaz said. “But who are we going to use for a guide?”
All three of them looked across the trench at Uncle’s very still body. No way was he going to be any help. They were on their own.
Chapter 13
Yaz paced back toward the tunnel mouth where the thieves had to have come from. Silas had put a light spell on a dagger for him so he could see. Now the wizard was doing something with Auntie’s corpse. He didn’t know and didn’t ask what. Best to let Silas deal with the magic. Brigid went from body to body searching for anything valuable or better yet a map of the sewers. She’d volunteered to check the bodies which surprised him. She was also disposing of any weapons so the pursuers they expected couldn’t use them.
Despite the others’ efforts, there was only one hope for escape as far as Yaz could see: following the thieves back to wherever they came from. Fifty yards from the ambush site the tunnel branched in four directions. Which way did they come from? There had to be some sort of clue. Yaz had tracked wolves across the valley, surely he could track five thieves through the sewer. There were scuff marks here and there, but nothing he felt sure enough to follow.
He shrugged and turned right. At this point, one way was as good as another. He’d barely gone twenty steps when he found iron rungs hammered into the wall. At the top he could barely see a sliver of light. This had to be one of the old imperial access points. But where did it lead now?
Only one way to find out. Yaz climbed the rungs and pushed on the ceiling near the light. It gave a little, but when he peered through the crack all he could see was a stone wall. Cursing gods, thieves, and anyone else he could think of, Yaz jammed the dagger into the gap and worked it around a quarter of the way. This time he could see a sliver of an empty room. He was in someone’s basement. If he could sneak out and get a bearing he’d know how to escape.
Encouraged now, Yaz, worked the dagger all the way around the opening and pushed hard. The cover lifted up and he climbed out into the basement. It wasn’t as empty as he thought. Along one wall were shelves filled with preserved food. Yaz ignored the supplies and trotted over to a set of stairs leading to the first floor. He listened hard, but no sound came from above.
With no other options, he climbed the steps and eased the door at the top open. Beyond lay a kitchen with, blessedly, a window. He took a deep breath and sighed. After the sewer, the scents of bread and bacon were a dream come true.
Out the window, the city wall was visible and not that far away. He needed to go back to the intersection and take a left. On that bearing they’d be headed straight for the wall. Yaz grinned. Maybe they had a chance of escaping after all.
“Someone down there?” A muffled voice from above asked.
Not wanting to push his luck any further, Yaz retreated to the basement and down the iron ladder, pausing only long enough to replace the seal. Someone was bound to notice it now that he’d broken all the mortar holding it shut, but they’d be long gone before that became an issue.
“Yaz!” Brigid’s frantic voice called for him from further up the tunnel.
“What?”
She poked her head around the bend. “There you are. Where did you go? My heart almost stopped.”
“I’ve been trying to figure a way out of here. I know which way we need to go. Did you have any luck?”
“Not really. I found a few silver scales and more knives than you can shake a stick at, but nothing useful. Silas finished setting his trap.”
“Is that what he was doing?”
She nodded. “He tried to explain it to me, but it was like a different language.”
“Let’s get him and go,” Yaz said. “I’m thoroughly sick of being down here.”
“Agreed.”
Yaz and Brigid walked back to the bridge. Silas looked their way and r
aised an eyebrow.
“I found the way,” Yaz said.
“Excellent. I left a death bomb in Auntie’s corpse. The enforcers are on their way, so we should get moving too.”
Yaz led the way down more disgusting tunnels, always careful to hold his bearing toward the wall as best he could. He figured they managed a quarter of a mile before coming to a dead end. The tunnel just ended at a blank stone wall. Yaz frowned and tapped the wall in hopes of finding a hollow space. Just as he turned around Silas flinched.
“What?” Yaz asked.
“The death bomb just went off. I don’t know how many I got, but any survivors will be on us soon enough.”
Yaz swore then forced himself to calm down. He must have missed something. He started pacing and looked down at the trench. The waste water flowed away from the wall. Idiot! He’d been so intent on his direction he ignored the flow. The outlet must be down one of the side passages.
“Come on!”
Yaz hurried back the way he’d come, this time keeping careful watch on the flow. At the next intersection the sludge took a left. They followed as quickly as they safely could. At another intersection they turned left again and at the end of the tunnel was an opening through which sunlight flooded.
Silas clapped him on the back and Brigid hugged him. The three of them rushed out into the fresh air. The city walls were about fifty paces behind them and about twenty feet above. The sewers exited from a rocky crag below the city in a dense growth of forest. All the nutrients probably helped the trees and shrubs grow so much. From this position it would be very hard for anyone patrolling the walls to spot them. There was no sign of the boy with their horses. Either he was late, or they emerged from the wrong exit.
As if reading his mind, Silas pointed west. “Kid’s that way. I can sense the curse mark.”
Yaz frowned. The young thief must be hidden among the trees. Hopefully nothing else was.
“Can you collapse this entrance so the enforcers can’t follow us?” Brigid asked.
“Earth magic’s not my thing,” Silas said. “Let’s just get out of here before they show up.”
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