Niya had spotted it, too. “No disguises this time,” she whispered.
“What shall we do?” said Loren.
“Turn back?” said Chet, but even he did not sound hopeful that the idea would be accepted.
“There,” said Gem. “Look.”
He pointed to the floor. The same channel that had run beside them ran through the center of the mess hall and out the other side. And it was far removed from the tables on either side.
“It will be a tight fit,” whispered Chet.
“And filthy,” said Niya. “Mayhap we can find a way to sneak around.”
“When did you care for a little dirt?” said Loren. “It is the fastest route for certain, and already I worry that the servant may be discovered at any moment.”
They could not argue with that, and so together they stole back down the hallway. Once they were far enough away from the mess hall that they did not need to fear being heard, Loren and Chet stooped together and lifted up a section of the iron grate. If lifted easily enough, though the iron ground on the stone with a noise that made them all nervous.
“In, quickly,” said Loren, placing the grate to the side. Niya took off her sword and, holding it in one hand, she crawled into the channel. Gem was just behind her. Chet motioned to Loren.
“I will go down first and lay on my back. Push the grate on top of me as quietly as you can, and I will do my best to hold it up while you crawl in. I can lower it down from below.”
In a moment they had done it. From inside the grate, Chet held up one side of it so that it slanted, and Loren slid in beside him. As they pressed up against each other for a moment, she kissed his cheek.
“For luck,” she said.
He grinned and slowly lowered the grate, following her as she slithered along the channel. The water they crawled through was dirty, but it seemed an ordinary sort of dirt, from the earth and not from rubbish. Loren was grateful for that—she had half-feared that the trough might be a secondary method of disposing of the chamber pots.
They came to the turn in the channel where it entered the mess hall. Niya paused for a moment and looked back to make sure they were with her. She placed two fingers to her lips for silence, and then crawled forwards again, much more slowly this time.
One half-pace at a time, they made their way through the room. Above them and to either side of them, the chatter of the soldiers seemed like a shouting throng, and they flinched at every raised voice and sudden laugh. Loren’s nerves nearly failed her every time she had to put one of her hands or her knees back down in the water, for she feared to make even the smallest splash. She looked up again, trying to guess how far they had gone. She might have been halfway through the room, or only two body lengths in. She could not be sure, and her view was blocked to the front by Niya, to the rear by Chet.
Then a soldier crossed the room, and stepped loudly on the grate just over Niya’s head. Startled, the Mystic dropped her sword in the water with a splash.
Loren looked up through the grate as they all went perfectly still. She counted the thudding of her heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
No one came into view. The sound of talking all around them did not pause for so much as a moment.
A long, shuddering sigh escaped her, though she fought to keep it silent. Niya looked back over her shoulder and grimaced.
They went a little faster, no longer worried of the small little sloshing sounds that came from their progress. Soon they had crossed to the other side of the room, and then the channel took a turn down another hall. Still Niya pressed on, until they were well away from the mess hall, and in a long passageway with no one in sight in either direction. Then the Mystic woman flipped over and lifted the grate above herself, setting it gently on the stone to the side. She leapt from the channel and stole into the first room. Gem hopped out after her, but he waited for Loren and Chet to emerge and replace the iron grate before the three of them followed Niya into the room.
It was an office of some sort. There was a large ledger on the desk in the corner, though it was closed, and there were shelves of scrolls on the opposite wall. Thankfully it was unoccupied, at least for the moment.
“This looks more like the sort of place we seek,” said Niya.
“Yet Damaris is not here, either,” said Loren. “Let us move on, and quickly, for now I expect the place will be well-populated.”
They began to steal from room to room, pausing at each one to ensure there was no one around to see them dashing by. Only when a hall was lined by doors that were all closed did they dare to run, and even then they did it at a crouching sort of shuffle to keep quiet. But they only found more offices, and rooms of accounts, and once a study, with a fine upholstered chair and many books upon its shelves. They passed a grand staircase, with bannisters of wood embedded in the stone walls to either side, and a fine rug that covered each step. The edges of the rug looked new, but the middle was worn and dirty. Gem stopped and stared at it for a moment, but Loren took his shoulder and pushed him on.
Finally Niya rounded a corner and stopped dead before immediately backing up into Loren again. They pressed themselves to the stone wall, and Niya met her gaze. She held up two fingers, and then pointed to the sword at her hip. Two guards, both armed, in the next hall. Loren nodded, and then slid around Niya to see for herself, slipping one eye around the corner. They stood together on the left side of the hallway, hands on the hilts of their weapons, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall.
From within the room where they stood guard, Loren could hear voices. Some were deep, some were shrill, but they did not speak over each other, and she could make out each of them with crystal clarity. And she heard one that she knew better than most others in the nine kingdoms, a powerful, velvety voice, almost melodic, rich with power and well used to it. The voice of Damaris of the family Yerrin. She drew back again.
“Come,” she whispered, motioning towards an empty room they had passed. The door was open, but Loren had seen that it had a bolt. They entered the room and closed the door behind them, and Loren slid the bolt into place before turning to the others.
“We have found her,” she said. “Damaris is in that room. Now we must figure out how to remove her from this fortress, even if we must drag her screaming the whole way.”
thirty-seven
“I FEEL AS THOUGH WE have traveled across a kingdom to find a door, but no one told us the door would be locked and bolted and protected by magic besides,” said Chet. “Tell me I am not the only one who sees this as hopeless.”
“Keep your voice down,” said Niya.
“And take heart,” chirped Gem. “I have always seen this entire affair as hopeless.”
Chet glared at him. “That is comforting.”
Loren ignored them. “We must subdue the guards before we can capture Damaris and make our escape with her. I think the two in the hall will not be much of a problem. But if I know Damaris, there will be other guards within her council room. And I heard other voices within besides, voices I do not recognize. And we will likely face Gregor.” Even saying the man’s name sent fear coursing through her very soul. Gem’s cheerful smile vanished in an instant. He, too, had seen the giant guard, on the streets of Cabrus.
But Niya sliced her hand through the air, as though banishing Loren’s warnings. “Darkness take the guards. We can rush the room and take the ones at the door—I trust that you three can subdue one, while I kill the other?—and slay whoever we find inside as well.”
“You do not know Gregor,” said Loren.
Niya spat, sending a thick glob of phlegm to splash on the open pages of a book on the desk beside her. “Call him whatever you wish, I will gut him regardless.”
Loren only shook her head. Chet spoke up. “But that is not all we must do,” he said. “Once we have Damaris, how do you mean to get her out of the fortress? She will not cooperate just because you have her in hand. And we are fifteen floors below our only means of escape.”
They all went quiet at that. But in a moment Gem looked up with a bright smile. “The shaft. The same one we came down in. Why do we not use the platform to bring her up, like a tray of food?”
“That could work,” said Loren, nodding eagerly, and a slow smile overcame her. “And I will admit that the idea of escorting her out of here in such an … undignified manner amuses me no end. Yet the way to that shaft is back through the mess hall.”
“It cannot be the only one, not in a place this large,” said Gem. “We have come through many passages on our way here. I am certain I can find another.”
“Go, then, and search,” said Loren. “Only be careful, and do not let yourself come to harm.”
“Yes, my lady,” said Gem. He gave her a quick half-bow and vanished, as Niya rolled her eyes.
“That leaves us with the council room,” said Loren.
“We can take the—” Niya began.
“We cannot take the guards,” said Loren, shaking her head. “Not with any degree of certainty. You are a powerful warrior, Niya, I will not deny that, but I will not hinge all of our success upon your skill with a blade.”
“Unless you have a better suggestion, you have little choice,” said Niya, folding her arms.
The room fell to silence, for of course Loren had no answer. Chet shook his head and tugged at the collar of his tunic. “Darkness take this place,” he muttered. “The air is so thick.”
At his words, an idea came to Loren in a flash. “Fire,” she said. “We can set a fire built of wood, cloth and parchment, so that it fills the hall with smoke. The smoke will drive them out of the council room, and make it hard to see besides. In the confusion, we can snatch Damaris right out of the hands of her guards.”
Niya frowned, but Loren could almost see the idea taking root in the Mystic’s mind. “Mayhap. But they will move fast once they smell the smoke, and could slip past us before we can act. We should block their first means of escape.”
“The stairwell we passed,” said Loren. “Its rug was new, but its fibers had already been worn down. It sees much use. That is the route they use to come and go from this floor.”
“We must block the stairwell, then, and we should do the same to the hallway at its feet,” said Niya. “That way the guards in the mess hall will not be able to come and help their lady.”
“But if we fill it with furniture, we will be spotted before we can set the flame,” said Chet.
Loren thought hard. “The floor above. If there are not so many of them up there …”
Niya straightened. “Why wonder? Let us go and see.”
They slipped out and went back the way they had come, quickly reaching the stairwell. They stole up it and looked down the hallway in both directions. At once Loren thought she must be right in her guess, for only every other torch was lit, and they saw no one in any direction. A quick search of the rooms confirmed it: this floor was used little, if at all, though it still had furniture aplenty for their purpose.
“We will build a small mountain of it at the top of the stairs,” said Loren. “When we are ready to begin, Chet, you and Gem shall send the furniture crashing down the stairs. We will return to the room where we just were. Damaris and her guards will pass that way, but they will find the hall blocked. By the time they return in our direction, the smoke should be too thick to see. That is when Niya and I will snatch her away, and take her down the hall in the other direction. We will take the first stairway up that we can find, and meet you there. Then Gem will take us to the shaft leading up, if he can find one.”
Gem burst around the corner just then, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “He can,” he said. “I found it only a short distance away. I poked my head inside just to be sure—it does not have a door for the level below, which is why they did not use it to send Damaris’ food.”
“Good work,” said Loren. Despite the gravity of their situation, her mouth split in a grin. “We have our plan, then.”
“As far as schemes go, it seems less than simple,” grumbled Niya.
“Simple schemes are more easily countered,” said Chet.
Loren stifled a laugh and clapped on hand each on their shoulders. “Enough. This plan will work. I can feel it. Ready yourselves, for now we snare a merchant.”
thirty-eight
LOREN AND NIYA RAN HURRIEDLY from room to room on the lower level, building stacks of books and drapes beneath tables in half a dozen rooms. They did it as quickly as they could, fearful that at any moment someone would come wandering down the hallway and they would not notice, and the plan would be foiled. But soon they had their little pyres built, and Loren ran quickly to the stairwell. On the floor above, she found Chet waiting for her. Beside him was a huge pile of chairs and couches, all of them stacked atop a pair of tables at the head of the stairs.
“Are you ready?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yes,” he said. Then he seized her shirt and drew her in to kiss her. “Be safe.”
“And you.” She kissed him back.
“Ahem,” said Gem. He did not clear his throat so much as he simply said the word aloud.
“Oh, be silent, Gem.”
She fled back down the stairs to Niya, who had been watching them. As they ran down the hall towards the first room to set their fires, Niya arched an eyebrow. “Do I get no such consideration?”
Loren ignored that. “Here,” she said, taking a torch from a sconce and placing it in the Mystic’s hand. She took another from the wall farther down, and then ran to the most distant room. She thrust the torch into the pile of books, and the dry parchment caught almost immediately. The smoke was even thicker than she had thought it would be, and she ran to the next quickly before it grew too thick to breathe. Two more fires she set, at the last one she threw the torch into the flames. She and Niya met each other in the hallway and ran back to the first room where they had concocted the plan, the edges of their cloaks held over their noses and mouths to ease their breathing.
They had barely shut the door before the heard shouts in the direction of Damaris’ council room, and they quickly pressed themselves to either side of the door to wait. Many boots came tramping towards them, and Loren tensed. The party passed them by, the guards rushing their lady towards the stairs. Any moment now, Chet and Gem would throw down their barrier …
A crash shook the walls, ending with the sound of splintering wood and splinters sprinkling upon the stone floor. A renewed cry sprang up from the guards, and the sound of running came towards them, back the other way. Loren waited until they were almost just outside.
“Now!” she cried, and she and Niya threw their shoulders into the door. It flew outward like a battering ram, and she felt it slam into bodies outside. Three guards were bowled to the floor, two of them unconscious, and the third rolling back and forth, senseless. Loren blinked against the smoke that suddenly filled her vision, trying to see the figures ahead of her. She spotted one in a dark green dress, hands held up to cover her mouth, pressing a sheer green shift to her face to breathe, eyes squeezed shut. Loren seized an arm and dragged the figure forwards. The face came into view, and her heart skipped a beat. Damaris of the family Yerrin stood before her, in Loren’s clutches at last.
“We have her!” cried Loren. “Go!”
She dragged Damaris off down the hall. The merchant’s eyes were still pressed so tight against the smoke that she had not realized who had taken her arm. But Niya did not follow them at once. Behind Damaris there were several other figures—some in the fine clothes of merchants or noblemen, and others in guard uniforms.
Niya slew them all.
Loren paused for a moment, horror-struck. First Niya cut down the unarmed figures in the fine clothing. Then she attacked the guards. The smoke had begun to work on her by then, but the guards were nearly poisoned from it, and they all fell beneath her blade. She hacked them down as though she had gone mad, leaving them mangled on the floor in their own blood.
She could
not stop it. She could not help them. Loren turned and ran.
It was a long way before she found another stairwell. This one was plain stone, and it was crumbling, so that she had to take care with her steps. But as she started her ascent, Damaris began to recover from the smoke at last. She swiped desperately at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress and, blinking, fought to focus on Loren’s face. The moment she did, she recoiled, trying to snatch her hand away.
“You!” she cried. “Guards! Guards, darkness take—”
Loren wrenched the woman’s arm around and behind her back, and with her other hand she covered Damaris’ mouth, taking care that the merchant could not bite her. “Be silent, Damaris. You know that I will not kill you, but I can make your path out of this place more painful than it has to be.” She shoved the merchant up the stairs, and Damaris had to walk or fall flat on her face. Whenever she felt Damaris trying to break free, Loren wrenched on her arm again, until the woman cried out beneath her hand.
But all the while, Loren looked fearfully back over her shoulder as they went, for suddenly the thought of Niya coming up behind her was terrifying, for she did not know what strange war-lust had seized the Mystic. It reminded her of when Mag had fought the Shades in the town of Northwood, and the battle-trance she had entered. Only that had been a cold and dead-eyed thing, and Niya’s seemed born of pure rage and hatred. It frightened Loren to her core, and she only wished to get as far away from it as possible.
At the top of the stairs, she headed back towards where Gem had shown them the shaft leading up. The smoke had begun to rise to this level, but it was nowhere near so bad, and she found the place easily enough. But when she found the room, only Gem was there. Loren looked behind him, and then inside the room, but Chet was nowhere to be seen.
“Gem,” she said, panic seizing her limbs. “Where is Chet?”
“Some guards spotted us just after we threw down the furniture,” said Gem. The boy panted heavily as though he had just run a great sprint. “We split up, and said we would meet here. He has not returned yet.”
Weremage: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 5) Page 24