Lawrence could proceed no further with his jape.
Holo looked at him as if stricken.
“… That’s not fair,” he grumbled.
“Mm-hm. Female privilege.”
Lawrence poked her head lightly for being so shameless.
The window by the drivers seat opened, as if the driver had been waiting for the opportune moment. He smiled reluctantly.
“We have arrived. Are you quite finished with your conversation?”
“We surely are,” said Lawrence with affected enthusiasm as he removed the carriage floorboards. Beside him, Holo snickered madly.
“It’s true, then, that people who bring talk of profit are rather odd,” said the driver.
“What, you mean my ears?” said Holo mischievously.
The driver laughed – she’d gotten the better of him. “It makes me want to return to my traveling merchant days, looking at you two.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Lawrence, shoving the stone and confirming the tunnel was the right one. He then climbed back into the carriage to let Holo go first. “You might end up running into someone like her.”
“Ah, but a wagon bench is too wide for just one. I’d wish to be so lucky!”
Lawrence chuckled; nearly any merchant would feel the same way.
Without another word, he descended into the tunnel. Had he continued, he was sure he’d embarrass himself. And in any case, Holo awaited him.
“Surely I am the unfortunate one, to be picked up by the likes of you!” said Holo there in the darkness once the driver replaced the stone and drove away with a quiet rumble.
Lawrence thought about how to turn the tables while the sound of a horse’s neigh echoed faintly above them, but ultimately decided that no matter what he said, Holo would win in the end. He gave in.
“You’re too clever by half.”
“’Tis what makes me so charming,” said Holo, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. What could he say to that?
No, it’s because I’m always searching for a retort that I fall into her trap, he thought to himself.
He decided to take the most unexpected route.
Lawrence coughed quietly.
Then he looked away. “Well… yes, you’re quite charming,” he said in the shiest, most bashful tone he could manage.
There was no way she would anticipate such an answer, he was certain.
He forced himself not to laugh in the darkness. As he expected, she was silent.
Now, for the finishing blow, he thought.
As he turned to face her, the softest sensation filled his hand. His mind went blank at the realization that it was Holo’s small, impossibly soft hand.
“… I’m so happy.”
Lawrence’s heart couldn’t help stirring at those sweet, reticent, girlish words. As if to punctuate it, her hand squeezed his ever so slightly, as if she were embarrassed with her admission of happiness.
So it was Holo who dealt the finishing blow.
“You really are an adorable boy,” she said, amused at her own joke – which was even more irritating. Lawrence wasn’t angry with her for saying so, but rather himself for giving her the chance.
And yet he didn’t think of letting her hand go, which felt somehow pathetic – and Holo’s holding his hand made him feel unreasonably pleased.
“Too clever by half,” he murmured to himself.
It was quiet in the tunnel.
Then it filled with the echoes of Holo’s giggling.
Chapter Six
Holo stopped short, surely not because of the rat that scampered away with a squeak at her feet.
There in the inky darkness, Lawrence turned to Holo. He wouldn’t lose her, as even now he held her hand.
“What is it?”
“Do you not feel a stirring in the air?”
Lawrence wasn’t sure where exactly in the city they were, but the scent of clean water in the air suggested that it was somewhere near the marketplace. He could at least tell that they were well away from the river that flowed alongside the city.
It was easy to imagine the countless people and horse-drawn carts passing above them. A bit of movement in the air was hardly surprising.
“Isn’t it coming from above?” he asked.
“No…” said Holo. He could tell she was glancing this way and that. But they were in a tunnel – there were only two directions to go.
“If I had whiskers I would be able to tell…”
“Are you sure it’s not your imagination?”
“No… there’s a sound. I can hear it. Water? The sound of splashes–”
Lawrence’s eyes widened at his instinctive thought – they were being pursued.
“It’s from ahead. This won’t do. We must retreat.”
Before Holo could finish, Lawrence had turned on his heel and began running. Holo scrambled to follow him.
“There are no forks in this path, yes?”
“The path we were taking was direct. Going the other way, there’s one branch. Take that, and it becomes a complicated labyrinth.”
“I don’t know that even I could keep from getting lost here… whoops!” said Holo as she stopped in her tracks again. Their hands came apart at the sudden stop, and Lawrence stumbled. As he hurried to turn around, it seemed like Holo was facing back the way they’d came.
“You, cover your ears.”
“What? Why? “
“Even if we run, they’ll catch us. They’ve loosed the hounds on us.”
If they were being pursued down a straight path by well-trained hounds, it was hopeless. Holo could see quite well in the dark, but the dogs had their noses and ears. They had no weapons with which to fend the beasts off save the silver dagger Lawrence always carried.
They did have something rather hound-like, though – Holo the Wisewolf.
“Heh. So foolish-sounding, that baying,” said Holo. Lawrence could now faintly hear the hounds cry.
It may have only been the overlapping echoes, but from the sound, Lawrence guessed there were at least two animals.
What was Holo planning?
“I’m not certain what I’ll do if they’re too stupid to understand this. Anyway, cover your ears!”
Lawrence did as he was told and plugged his ears. He’d figured it out – Holo was going to howl.
Holo took a long, deep breath. It lasted so long Lawrence began to wonder where all that air was going. There was a brief pause, and then she unleashed an earth-shaking howl.
“Awooooooooooo!”
The force of the great noise was enough to send shivers down his hands and set the skin on his face trembling. It seemed as though the tunnel was about to collapse.
The wolf-howl was enough to strike fear into the heart of the strongest man. Lawrence forgot it was Holo howling and curled up into a ball.
The merchant remembered being chased across the plains by packs of wolves. They possessed overwhelming numbers, knowledge of the terrain, and physical strength no human could hope to match. They would bring all three to bear and attack – and the howl was the signal. That was why some villages, when stricken with plague, would imitate a wolf’s howl to drive away the disease.
Holo coughed, jaggedly. “Ugh… my throat…” Lawrence heard her coughing once the howl had subsided and took his hands down from his ears. It wasn’t surprising that such a great howl from such a small throat came with a price.
“An apple… I want an apple… koff–”
“You can have as many as you want once we’re free. What of the hounds?”
“They turned tail and ran.”
“Then we should do likewise. They’ll know where we are now.”
“Do you know the way?”
“More or less.”
Before starting to run, Lawrence held his hand out to Holo, who gripped it firmly.
Ensuring that they wouldn’t be separated, Lawrence ran. It was about then that he heard the voices of their pursuers.
“Still, how did they find us?” Holo asked.
“I doubt they knew exactly where we were. They probably came underground after being unable to find us above and then happened to run into us.”
“Ah.”
“If they knew exactly where we were, they would’ve cornered us by now…”
“I see. You’re quite right.”
Directly ahead of them muffled voices could be distinguished, then a faint ray of light penetrated the dark tunnel. It was where they had first entered the passage.
Lawrence had never been so optimistic as to think that the Milone Company would come to their rescue.
He drew a sharp breath as the realization washed over him like a splash of cold water and quickened his pace.
Then a voice echoed down the passage.
“The Milone Company has betrayed you! There’s no point in runnin’!”
As if to avoid the voices, they turned down the single branch, and from behind them came the same words. Lawrence ignored them and continued to run, but Holo was uneasy.
“Sounds like we’ve been sold out.”
“And for a high price, no doubt. As long as you’re here, the Milone Company will lose a branch, at the very least.”
“… I see. That’s a high price, indeed.”
If they were truly betrayed, Marheit would’ve been forced to put the entire branch on the line. If he’d really done so, he must’ve been planning to keep the branch’s money and escape by himself to some far-off land. But it seemed unlikely that the huge Milone Company would let that happen, nor did he take Marheit for the kind of man to run.
Which meant their pursuers were simply lying on the spot – but to someone unused to such tactics, like Holo, it could be effective.
Holo nodded her head to indicate understanding, although her grip on his hand grew faintly tighter.
“Right, we turn right here.”
“Wait–”
Lawrence stopped immediately after rounding the corner.
At the end of the slightly winding tunnel a lantern swayed. “There they are!” cried a voice.
Lawrence immediately took Holo’s hand again and ran back along the path they’d first taken. Their pursuers broke into a run as well, but their footfalls did not reach Lawrence’s ears.
“Do you know–”
“–the way? I do, it’s all right,” said Lawrence impatiently, but not because he was out of breath. The paths were strangely complicated, and all he could remember from what the Milone employees had told him were the paths that connected the entrance and exit.
It wasn’t a lie to say he knew the way, but it wasn’t the truth, either.
If which way to turn left or right, and after how many intersections, then it was true. If not, it was a lie.
His head filled with strange illusions that threatened to blank everything out – the sound of a column of mice running through the forest – tripping over the rubble of a crumbled stonewall. Traveling merchants had to remember complicated figures about how much they owed and how much they were owed, so they tended to have confidence in their memory.
But Lawrence’s confidence lasted for only a moment after he asserted it.
The twisting tunnels were just too complicated.
“Another dead end?”
They’d gone a short distance after turning right at a T-junction before reaching the end. Lawrence kicked at the wall, breathing heavily. His actions made his worry clear, but Holo, her breathing also ragged, simply squeezed his hand tighter.
The Medio Company had apparently decided it was important to capture both of them – and they’d sent ample manpower to accomplish it.
Their footfalls and shouted voices echoed through the halls. They were so many that even Holo couldn’t be sure of their number.
The companions’ anxiety made them imagine a great swarm of men pursuing them, more numerous than ants.
“Damn. We’ll have to head back. I don’t remember anything else.”
If they pushed ahead into unknown passages, there would be no going back.
Lawrence’s memories were already quite shaky, but seeing Holo nod her assent, he didn’t say so, not wanting her to feel any more uncertain.
“Can you still run?” he asked.
Lawrence was a hale and hardy traveling merchant, and despite his fatigue, he knew he could still run – but Holo could only nod her head in answer.
Perhaps her human body wasn’t as capable as her wolf form.
“Just a bit,” she said hastily as she gasped for air.
“Let’s find a place to…” Lawrence began. He was going to say “rest,” but he caught Holo’s glance and the word never got out of his throat.
Her pupils glowed keenly in the darkness, every inch the forest predator scanning its surroundings.
Heartened to have someone like Holo as his companion, Lawrence quieted his breathing and listened carefully.
Crunch, crunch, came the sound of their pursuer’s cautious footsteps.
From where Lawrence was standing, it sounded as if they were coming from a passage that led off to the right some distance ahead.
The path they’d taken was now directly behind them. If they doubled back on it, many possible paths branched off of it. They hoped to guess the timing and run back, then escape down one of those paths
Crunch, crunch, came the sound as the footsteps grew closer. There was still a wall between them and the source of the noise, which was encouraging, but the footfalls were incessant – it was as though the Medio men were purposefully causing a commotion as they talked in some kind of incomprehensible code.
Lawrence felt as though they’d already fallen into the trap, and their pursuers needed only to toss a net out to capture them.
He gulped painfully, gauging the timing for their sprint.
He hoped to run as soon as there was another shout from the Medio Company people.
It was not a long wait.
“Ah, ah…”
Another sound came from the direction of the footsteps. A sneeze.
Lawrence took this as a blessing from the gods and grabbed Holo’s hand tightly in preparation to run.
“Ah-choo!”
It sounded as though whoever sneezed realized his mistake and tried to muffle the sound with a hand.
But it was more than enough for the two to begin their flight. They turned left at the first junction.
Just then, something black crossed in front of their faces.
Lawrence realized it was no mere rat when Holo began to growl.
“Rrrrrr.”
“Wha– shit! Here! They’re here!”
A small, almost child-sized clump of darkness wove this way and that before Lawrence. He felt something hot on his left cheek. He realized it was a knife wound when he put his hand to it and felt the warm wetness there.
When he realized that Holo had abandoned escape and even now had her teeth in the arm of their knife-wielding attacker, Lawrence, too, lost control.
Strengthened by hauling loads heavier than themselves over mountains and across plains, traveling merchants had fists as hard as silver.
Lawrence put all his strength behind his right fist as he punched, hitting the man Holo was attacking square in the face at a slightly upward angle.
There was an awful squishing sound, as though a frog had just been stepped on, as Lawrence’s fist connected.
With his other hand, Lawrence reached out for Holo and snagged the back of her shirt, pulling her back to him.
The shadow that the fist had struck tumbled slowly backward. There was no time to say anything – Lawrence took off running, trying to find a different path.
But he soon realized that the sneeze had been a ploy to flush them out.
As the body hit the ground with a whump, Lawrence felt a shock, as if the blood in his veins suddenly reversed direction.
The moment they tried to turn, a blade thrust directly into Lawrence.
“O
holy God, forgive me my sins…”
Hearing his opponent’s words, Lawrence realized this man intended to kill him.
There in the darkness, his assailant held his breath, surely thinking he had in fact slain his target.
But the gods had not yet abandoned Lawrence. The knife found purchase in his left arm, just above his wrist.
“Before you think about your sins,” said Lawrence, raising his leg and delivering a vicious kick to the mans thigh, “regret your daily deeds!”
The man dropped soundlessly, and Lawrence grabbed Holo’s sleeve with his right hand and sprinted past him.
The sounds of the Medio Company closing in echoed all around them.
They veered down a path to the left, then went immediately right – but not because of some plan or because Lawrence remembered the way.
They simply ran. Stopping was not an option. Lawrence’s left arm felt heavy, as if it were sinking into a swamp, and it burned as though impaled on a piece of red-hot iron. His left hand was cold, perhaps from the blood that flowed freely from the wound in his arm.
He would not be able to run much farther. Lawrence had been wounded several times in his travels. He knew the limits of his own body.
It was hard to tell how far they’d come in the darkness. The confused echoes of their pursuers eroded his fading consciousness like rain over grasslands.
When even their pursuers started to sound distant, he had no energy left with which to worry about Holo. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to keep going.
“Lawrence.”
When he heard someone calling his name, he wondered if it was the Grim Reaper already.
“Lawrence, are you all right?”
He returned to himself with a start, realizing that he was leaning against the wall of the tunnel.
“What a relief. You weren’t moving when I called to you.”
“… Ugh. I’m okay. Just a little sleepy,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence wasn’t sure if he succeeded in smiling. An irritated Holo hit him in the chest.
“Pull yourself together! We’re almost there.”
“… We’re almost where?”
“Did you not hear me? I said I can smell the warmth of the sun ahead. There must be a way to the surface close by.”
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