by Logan Jacobs
“Count me in, too.” Dehn took a drink from his flask. “If there’s even a chance those lowlifes are crawling around down there, we need to administer a beating.”
Aerin sighed and ran a hand through her red hair. “I’ll go, too. Can’t have you all getting yourselves killed down there.” She cleared her throat. “And, you know, if there is treasure, I want first pick of the loot.”
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth at that, and I turned to Lavinia and Maruk. The ladona ranger had her arms crossed over her chest, and the orc shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Look,” I told them. “You can stay here if you really don’t want to go, but I think it’s worth looking into. We’ve done more with less information before, haven’t we?”
Lavinia’s red eyes met mine, and her gaze softened somewhat.
“I’m not about to just sit around knitting with this one and miss the party again,” she said and jabbed her thumb at Maruk. “I’m in.”
Maruk looked even more uncomfortable with all eyes on him, but I could see that he didn’t want to be the only one to stay home. At last, he heaved a sigh and nodded.
“Very well,” he grumbled. “I suppose I’ll just have to bring a change of socks.”
Chapter 5
It didn’t take more than a few minutes for us to pack up our gear and weapons. Merlin chattered excitedly as he followed me up to my room and wove between my feet as I shoved a change of clothes and my invisibility cloak into my pack and clasped the traveling cloak that Yvaine had given me around my neck.
When I returned downstairs, the others were already waiting by the door. Lavinia, Aerin, Maruk, Lena, and Emeline all looked inconspicuous enough with their weapons and other supplies concealed by the matching green cloaks, but Dehn, with his bright red hair, spiked armor, and surly expression, stood out like a sore thumb.
And he still had a bit of the dead elf’s blood on his face.
Well, he was a guard, and I figured his reputation among his peers was established. The guards wouldn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary with him.
As Merlin leapt up onto my shoulder, I gave him a scratch beneath the chin, and with a nod to the rest of my guild, we stepped out into the night and started for the tunnel entrance. We’d decided to use the same entrance that Emeline and I had used when we’d broken her out of prison. It was fairly close to the city walls, and in an out-of-the-way area where we’d be less likely to be noticed by any random passers-by. We were on a sanctioned guild mission, this time, at least, but if there were other bandits keeping an eye on things, I didn’t want us to give ourselves away too soon. They might warn the others about us, or at least cause more troubles and delays. The quicker and quieter we could handle this, the better, especially considering how careful all of these bandits were being. I had to admit that I was curious about the sort of person who could organize something like this heist in the first place. I wanted to find out who the leader was, the person with the swan stamp, and I didn’t want him to get away before we could catch up to him.
Thankfully, there were relatively few people about when we all slipped out into the streets. We took the back ways out of caution, but it was late, and the chill autumn fog that had settled over the city was enough to convince anyone who didn’t absolutely need to be outside to just stay indoors. As such, we didn’t meet anyone as we made our way to the old drainage tunnel entrance by the southern wall. It was covered by an old, rusted iron grate, but Maruk had no trouble pulling it up, and we all climbed down the old ladder into the tunnels beneath Ovrista.
Emeline went first, and she was certainly the most eager out of all of us to be dropping down into the dank, twisting tunnel system. A moment after, I heard the splash of her boots as she jumped the last few rungs of the ladder, and a bloom of orange firelight shone out from the manhole.
I looked down the twenty or so foot hole to the layer of foul water that glistened like an oil slick in the light of Emeline’s mage fire. The smell was no better than I remembered it, either. It was like some mysterious rotten thing from the back of a highschooler’s locker had been pickled, and then the whole mixture had been left out to ripen in the sun. I tucked Merlin into my pack so he wouldn’t fall or get in my way while I was climbing, and then I gritted my teeth and tried not to think about the smell or the strange warmth of the tunnels as I took the rungs by twos down toward Emeline. The metal rungs had the unique quality of being both gritty and slimy, however that was possible, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a roach as it skittered down the wall into the shadows. As I got near the end, I realized that Emeline hadn’t jumped the rest of the way out of excitement. In the weeks since we’d last been down here, the last several rungs had broken off from the wall.
Tepid water sloshed up over the toes of my boots as I jumped down next to the mage, and she flashed me an eager smile as she passed me a lit torch.
“I didn’t really get to enjoy it last time,” she said, “you know, with the threat of capture and execution, but this is a real adventure! I’ve always wanted to try to find Dredfen.”
I couldn’t help but grin back, the panthera woman’s enthusiasm was infectious.
“I just hope they got the part about the treasure right,” I replied.
“How is it down there?” Aerin called, and I could see the healer’s face high above, illuminated by the orange firelight.
“It’s cramped,” I called back, as loudly as I dared. “And it smells.”
“Fantastic,” Aerin muttered, and I saw her turn as she began to make the descent herself. “You said something about a city of gold, right, Emeline?”
“No one knows what the treasure is,” the mage answered. “But there probably wouldn’t be a legend about it if it wasn’t amazing.”
“If no one knows what the treasure is, it probably doesn’t exist,” Lavinia put in. “People make up stories all the time.”
Aerin splashed down next to us, then moved to the side so that Lavinia could follow.
“Besides, we’re after bandits, not mythical treasure,” the ranger reminded us as she climbed quickly down the ladder. “Let’s try to focus on our actual mission. Ugh, this place is worse than I thought. Maruk’s going to hate it.”
“What was that?” the orc called down.
“Nothing!” Aerin insisted with a pointed glare at Lavinia, but Lavinia was too busy trying to keep the tips of her horns from scraping the stone ceiling to pay attention.
“Move, move, you’re going too slow,” Dehn spat, and a moment later, I could see the halfling at the edge of the manhole. The ladder rungs were spaced for elves and humans, who made up the bulk of Ovrista’s population, and the halfling had to stretch to reach each one and muttered curses the whole way down.
“Careful, the rungs--” I started, but Dehn cut me off.
“I got it, I got it,” he snapped, but then his foot met air where the last portion of rungs had broken off, and he let out a startled cry as he slipped and was left hanging by his hands about five feet above the water. Aerin and I moved forward at the same time to help him down, but he twisted as he kicked out for a rung that wasn’t there, lost his grip, and fell into the shallow water with a garbled curse.
I backed up to avoid being splashed more as the halfling thrashed around in a fit of anger, spluttering and swearing, but I couldn’t really blame him. The water was hardly two inches deep, so it wouldn’t have done anything to soften the fall, and he’d be soaked through all night. Even Lavinia had the grace not to laugh, though I could see the look of amusement in her red eyes as she watched the halfling get to his feet.
“What happened?” Lena leaned over the entrance, her violet eyes wide.
“Uh, Dehn fell,” Aerin called back. “There are some rungs missing at the bottom.”
“Is he okay?” Lena asked.
“No!” the halfling insisted.
“He’s fine,” Lavinia answered. “Hurry up, we don’t have all night.”
Lena cam
e down, swiftly but carefully, followed by Maruk, who was almost too big to fit.
“Goodness, the smell just gets worse, doesn’t it?” the orc remarked with a sour expression when he stepped hesitantly into the water with the rest of us.
“The sooner we find this Dredfen place, the sooner we can get out of here,” Lavinia assured him. “Let’s go.”
“This way,” I said, and I started down the southbound branch of the tunnel.
I’d been in plenty of caves, bogs, cramped rooms, and other uncomfortable places since I’d joined up with the Shadow Foxes, but there was something unique about these old tunnels. They managed to combine the worst aspects of every terrible place we’d been and rolled it all into one dark, stinking tube of slimy stone. Foul-smelling water sloshed over our feet with every step, but it also seemed to seep from the walls where it left tracks of black mildew stains. The ceiling was uneven, and every now and then, I was forced to crouch as I walked to keep from hitting my head, and just as often there came thunks and muttered curses from behind me as Lavinia and Maruk were faced with the same problem.
As unpleasant a place as it was, though, I couldn’t help but feel excited. Maybe that was Emeline’s energy rubbing off on me, but I sensed that this was the lead we’d been looking for. We’d find the bandits’ hideout and either get them to reveal who they were working with or figure that out from the information they left behind.
Emeline had taken the lead, mostly because she’d kept stepping on my ankles when she’d been behind me, but I didn’t mind. She set a quick pace in her excitement, and her fire magic lit the way ahead for the rest of us.
I kept track of our progress on the map as best I could while we walked. We had only a vague idea of where we needed to go to reach Dredfen, but our navigation was further complicated by the fact that there were roadblocks and other obstacles that we didn’t know about until we came upon them, sections where the stone walls had collapsed or were covered by enormous grates. We’d brought along the best maps we could find, and we had the one Etienne and I had used when we’d broken Emeline out of prison, but these tunnels would have been complicated enough to find our way through even if they had been in decent condition.
After we’d been walking for what I guessed was about forty-five minutes, we came to a horizontal fork in the tunnel, and Emeline stopped and glanced back at me.
“Haven’t we been this way already?” she asked, quietly enough that the others wouldn’t overhear.
I consulted the map, scratched across with my notes.
“No,” I replied. “We need to go south or west to get out of the city, though. That’ll be the left tunnel.”
Emeline gave me a grateful nod and started off down the left fork. Her steps were a little slower and a little less jaunty than when we’d first started, but the little candle flame flickers of mage fire that floated around her were cheerful. They almost reminded me of wisps.
Merlin had begun to get restless, and he twisted around and stuck his head out of my pack as I followed Emeline. I could hear his soft snorts as he sniffed the air experimentally. The dank smell must not have bothered the puca much, because he clambered up onto his favorite perch on my shoulder and rubbed against my ear until I reached up to pet him.
“We’re almost there, buddy,” I whispered to him, though I said it to reassure myself just as much as for the puca.
We hadn’t gone another five minutes or so, however, before Lavinia stopped. “Hey,” she said suddenly, her voice low and serious. “Hold up, I hear something.”
We all stopped, and Lavinia cocked her head slightly while her red eyes narrowed as she listened intently. I strained my ears, but now that our splashing had ceased, all I could make out was the occasional drip of water from further down the tunnel. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I’d learned to trust the ranger’s keen senses, and I kept my eyes on Lavinia.
“Is that... clicking?” Dehn asked after a moment with a confused glance up at the white-haired ladona woman.
“Great, you hear it, too.” Lavinia returned the halfling’s frown before she looked up to me. “Let’s be careful going forward, I don’t think we’re alone down here. Not sure what’s making that noise.”
“Can you tell which way it’s coming from? Or if it’s getting louder or quieter?” I asked. As much as I tried, my human ears couldn’t make out whatever it was that Lavinia and Dehn had heard yet.
The ranger shook her head. “It echoes too much down here to pinpoint it, but I didn’t notice it until now, so I’d say we’re getting closer.”
“I think it’s a good sign,” Aerin put in. “There’s supposed to be treasure down here, so there’ll be traps and you know, the bones of old victims and all that.”
“There’s supposed to be bandits down here,” Lavinia corrected her. “Just... everyone keep your guard up.”
“I never let my guard down!” Dehn insisted, as though he was offended by the very notion that he wasn’t ready to clock a lawbreaker in the jaw at all times.
I kept my hand on the hilt of my dagger as we moved forward, my stomach knotted in anticipation. After another few minutes of walking down the tunnel, I began to hear the noise that Lavinia and Dehn had talked about. A sort of clicking sound, almost like castanets. There wasn’t any rhythm to this clicking, though, which made me think it probably wasn’t man made. Of course, that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.
The tunnels were growing wider as we continued, and I sensed that their downward slope had become a little steeper. The ever-present water along the floor had become deeper, until it crept well up my shin, almost over the tops of my boots, and the irregular clicking became lounder.
Suddenly, Emeline stopped short, and I nearly ran into her. On my shoulder, Merlin chattered uneasily and balled up the fabric of my cloak in his tiny, raccoon-like paws.
“What’s the matter?” I whispered.
“I thought I saw something,” Emeline responded, and the panthera mage took a half-step forward and raised her hand out toward the gloom before us. As she did, the light of her mana glowed brighter, and the crackling sound of her magic became louder as a ball of flames the size of a cantaloupe floated out from her outstretched hand to light the way forward.
The mage fire was like a tiny sun, but the tunnels it now illuminated had never seen the sun, and as the light spread over the scene before us, I could understand why. At first, all I could make out were the creatures’ slick carapaces, ghostly pale and nearly transparent. It wasn’t until the clicking intensified that I was able to reconcile the noise with the creatures I saw before me and the lobster-like claws that they snapped into the air as they tried to catch that little sun. As they lifted themselves up out of the water, I pieced together the rest of them, the four pairs of legs, the twitching antennae, the gnashing jaws.
I supposed it would be fair to say they looked like lobsters, but the truth was, they looked as much like lobsters as they didn’t. For one thing, they were the size of mastiffs, and their claws were easily larger than my head. Their eyes were shrunken and pale, but by the way they reacted to the mage fire, I knew they must have some sort of vision. Their eight legs were insect-like as they scuttled over one another in their desperation to reach the light, and their thick claws snapped at lightning speeds as they tried to pluck it out of the air.
When the light hit their weird, blunt faces just right, I could sometimes see a set of serrated, shark-like teeth behind the drooping tentacles that trailed like fleshy beards down the creatures’ noseless faces. They had no tails, and their bodies ended in awkward stumps like the back halves had been left off by mistake. I could see far more than I would have liked of the creatures’ internal organs due to the transluscence of their pale shells, and just beneath the light of each monster’s mana was a dark, beating heart. There were about thirty of them, I guessed, filling the tunnel in front of us.
“Gods of the Vales,” Aerin murmured from behind. “What are those things?”
&nbs
p; “You’re asking the wrong person,” I whispered back as I drew my dagger, but I hesitated before I summoned the mana blade to the hilt. These things were obviously attracted to light, but they weren’t attacking us. Emeline and Aerin might be able to use their magic to distract the pack and allow us to get by without any trouble. I was just about to suggest the plan to the women when several of the monsters turned towards us, and their antennae and mouth tendrils flicked in the air between us.
“Shit!” Aerin hissed.
Had they heard us? They would have heard us splashing around and talking long before now. I whirled to look back at the others, and my heart sank as I realized what had suddenly drawn the creatures’ attention.
The torches, of course.
Before I could suggest that we extinguish them, however, I realized it wouldn’t matter. The light had gotten the creature’s attention, but now that they were aware of us, they were far more interested in what sort of beings we were. They all abandoned their attack on Emeline’s mage fire as they began to scuttle through the water toward our group. And judging by those teeth, they were carnivorous. Thankfully, Lavinia, Aerin, Maruk, and Dehn already had their weapons drawn to engage the beasts, so I summoned my mana blade to my dagger, and blue light shone out of the hilt.
At that moment, Dehn charged forward with a yell, his sword clutched in one fist, his axe in the other, and for a heartbeat, the creatures paused as if in shock. I almost laughed. I supposed that they’d never seen a beserker halfling before.
The guard threw himself into the crowd of lobster-creatures and chaos erupted. The monsters couldn’t seem to decide if they wanted to attack the halfling or get away from him, and they swarmed over one another in a wave of clicking claws and scuttling legs. Dehn himself was like the blade in a blender, a spinning instrument of destruction, and every time his sword or axe or the spikes on his armor hit the creatures’ shells there was a terrible scraping sound.
Not to be outdone, Lavinia began to fire volleys of dark arrows at the creatures, and Maruk pushed past us to keep them herded together and beat them back with his shields. Merlin leapt from my shoulder and transformed in midair into a falcon, and he dove at the creatures’ flailing tentacles with his talons outstretched.