Sordith rushed back to Keelee.
“How about a dip in a lovely pool to clear your head and clean you off?” He reached down and handed her the orb. Before she could even answer he helped her up. They both groaned with the effort and then laughed. It was good to just be alive.
Sordith held her up against his right side and helped her to the edge of the ledge where he sat her down.
“I’ll go first and then you can slide down on your better side. I’ll catch you.” He grinned. “Or if not that, at least I’ll break your fall.”
He slid down the rock face and landed harder than he would have liked at the bottom. Even though the drop was just a matter of a foot or two, it took his breath away. He stood with his back against the rock wall until he could breathe regularly again. Then he pushed away and turned to look up at Keelee.
“Just a short drop. Remember, be careful not to bump your bad leg! and then we’ll have a nice lounge in the pool.” He held his hands up toward her as high as he could without it sending shooting pains through his side.
She tossed him the orb and he set it down by his feet, then she slid down into his arms. He kept her from hitting the floor and she kissed his neck in thanks. Sordith carried her over to the pool and just walked in, clothes and all, setting her down on a natural ledge where she could rest her legs.
“It’s cold,” she hissed as the water covered her lap.
“But clean and fresh.”
The water around her wound immediately blossomed dark red before his anxious eyes, but after a moment it cleared some, and he figured getting it clean probably outweighed any further harm.
He unbuckled his leather tunic and slipped it off. There was all sorts of mud and filth caked to the surface of his torso. He knelt beside her and started to splash water over his skin. The water ran off him in a brown slurry.
“Oh Sordith,” she leaned forward and ran her hand over his chest. “It must hurt so badly.” His torso was a mass of bruises.
“I’ll live.” He grinned at her. “Isn’t it great to be able to say that?”
He took off his leather britches and washed himself thoroughly, after which he rinsed the leathers and then wiggled his way back into them.
“You look worse than a woman getting into a corset,” she giggled, releasing some of her pain and tension at his expense.
Once dressed he helped her out of her top and rubbed her down. He dipped what was left of her dress over and over in the water until when he squeezed it the water ran clean. Then he helped her back into it, as she gazed wistfully at her filthy pantaloons. “I wish…” she started, and he cut her off with a kiss.
“I know. But I just don’t want to risk dislodging the spear. At least they’re cleaner, now. “You ready to see where the stream leads us?”
“Ready when you are. Let’s just stay behind our filth. I might want another drink of water.”
He helped her up and hugged her to his good side.
The stream ran down the middle of a huge tunnel. They were both amazed at the size of it; it must have stretched up at least thirty feet above their heads. The floor and sides were smooth, even smoother than any rock work you could do with a chisel. When they came upon a vein of onyx in the rock wall, they stopped to take a rest and inspect it closer.
Keelee ran her hand over it. “It’s almost like it has been melted.”
Sordith stood out away from it as Keelee sat on the floor of the rock tunnel. It was less trouble to stay on his feet than to sit and stand with his broken ribs. He followed the vein with his eyes over their heads and down the other side. He could not see the other side clearly, it was hidden in the shadows. Keelee’s orb only showed them about thirty feet in each direction and the tunnel was a little more than that across.
“It’s so uniform. Almost as if someone embedded it in the rock on purpose.”
He took the orb and stepped across the stream which had now grown to about a foot wide and same deep.
He walked a bit past the onyx arch.
“Hey, don’t get too far away,” Keelee called. “You’re leaving me in the dark and I don’t have the energy to conjure another orb.”
A moment later the orb winked out as if snuffed.
“Sordith!” she called in a worried voice from the dark. “Damn it, Sordith! Come back here.”
She started to struggle to her feet when she heard a shout. She felt her way along the wall in the pitch black of the tunnel.
“Sordith?”
She was frightened now, and suddenly the tunnel seemed blacker and colder than it had been moments ago when Sordith was at her side with the orb. She stopped and tried to conjure another orb, but it fizzled in her hand and popped out leaving her in total darkness again.
“Sordith? Answer me please…” she begged.
Tears were springing to her eyes when she saw the orb break back into view.
“Keelee, you have to see this!” Sordith said in an almost reverent whisper. He stepped over the stream, handed her the orb and scooped her up in his arms in spite of the hiss of his breath as he sucked in air to stop himself from hollering out loud at the pain in his side. “You aren’t going to believe this.”
Keelee almost hit him for scaring her so, but thought better of it considering his condition and the fact that he was holding her. Instead, she bit his ear.
“Owww… What was that for?” he yelped. He stopped and looked down at her.
“For leaving me in the dark!” She did strike him on the shoulder this time. “And worrying me.”
He brought his lips to hers and silenced her with a kiss. “I’m sorry, but wait until you see.”
There was a cavern off the main tunnel on this side that she had not been able to see from her place against the far wall. That was why the light went out; Sordith had ducked in here.
“Hold the orb up and don’t be scared,” Sordith warned.
She held it up and he took a few more tentative steps forward.
Despite his warning, she wasn’t prepared and let loose a small scream, much like she heard earlier from Sordith when he disappeared.
They were standing in front of a huge dragon’s skeleton. The head pointed directly at them. The teeth in it massive maw were easily as tall as they were. It was laying on its stomach with its head on its forepaws like some gigantic dog.
Sordith walked her around the head and back toward its side. One wing was folded up against the side of the cavern, but the other was stretched out, creating a kind of tented framework across the breadth of the cave.
“I have heard stories all my life about there being tunnels and dragon caves under the city, but I always thought they was legends, with no basis in real fact. Why would dragons live under Silverport?” Sordith asked rhetorically as he walked under the wing and back toward the tail.
No wonder he had not answered her call. Seeing this, she would have ignored her too. It was magnificent. She ran her hand along one of the bones as Sordith passed. It was smooth as glass.
“He must have been incredible in his time,” she exclaimed.
“Or she,” Sordith suggested. “The stories say that at one point man and dragon lived as friends.”
“Wouldn’t that be marvelous?” Keelee asked. “To be able to consider one of these magnificent creatures a friend?”
“Indeed, it would.”
Sordith hated to leave, but he felt the weariness of his injuries, and Keelee was shivering in his arms. He needed to get them some help, and he wouldn’t find it among dragon bones. One day, he promised himself… One day he would return.
After what Sordith estimated was another couple of hours they came to the end of the tunnel. It had dwindled to only about fifteen feet tall by the time they came to the rock wall.
He and Keelee had about reached the end of their endurance. He leaned against the rock pile blocking the tunnel and cursed. The stream flowed right under it, but there was no opening. He had dunked himself checking. The stream ran through a serie
s of cracks in the pile of rocks.
He put his right shoulder against one of the smaller rocks as he stood in the stream, the cold water flowing over his boot tops. The rock did not budge.
He pushed again, harder.
Keelee was sitting against the rock wall and she squealed in surprise.
“What?” he asked.
“There!” she pointed. “The rock right above the one you pushed. I can see daylight!”
He backed away and sure enough there was a crack where you could see light. He pulled out his knife and used it as a pick to pry the smaller rock free. He could see out, or more correctly, in. The stream dumped into one of the well rooms on the first tier of Silverport. He had been in this room many times, in fact, and had drunk from this well!
“We’re home!” he called to Keelee as he pried away another rock.
Sordith only had to remove five rocks, the last being the biggest and most difficult. He actually put his shoulder against it and pushed it into the well on the other side.
It was not really a well, more like a deep pool – a catch basin for the stream. When it ran over, a series of troughs filled barrels to be transported along the first tier. Each tier had a well like this, and it made Sordith wonder if they were all connected to dragon caves. The old stories were true.
He lifted Keelee one last time and helped her over the boulders at the base of the blocked tunnel. Then he followed her.
Sordith stood as open mouthed as Keelee when they emerged onto the first tier. The tier was totally abandoned. The second tier did not look much better, and they could just see that the garrison roof on the third tier was gone. There wasn’t a tent left standing that was intact. There was still about a foot of standing water on the first tier that they had to slosh through on their way up.
The damage to the first tier was almost incomprehensible. There was not a home or shop left with its roof in place. Shutters had been ripped from their hinges, and there was standing water in most of the buildings they passed.
The rock walls were still blocking the ramps. Keelee shuddered and cried at the sight of them.
“I hope the miners got to high ground before the trench was sealed off.” His words were soft and laced with grief at the sight before him.
He could see the Silver Guardsman were gathering up the dead from the plain. Those would be either garrison dead or his own people. Grief hit him so hard that tears fell silently down his cheeks. He had sent them up onto the plain in hopes they could get to the bridge. It was clear that many didn’t make it.
Sordith held Keelee close as they carefully made their way along the first tier and up to the second. More than once, one of them saw something they wished they had not – a partial body or a child who had been crushed in the stampede to get to higher ground. The walk down the length of the second tier seemed endless. Finally, they made it to the bridge to the third tier.
Sordith looked at Keelee and they both smiled. There were some people on this level and it looked as though they were cleaning up.
“We’ll find you a healer,” Sordith stated as he moved forward.
“And a gown,” Keelee added, feeling self-conscious about her lack of attire.
Sordith looked down at the trench. It was still full of water though it was no longer even with the plains above it. He could see areas of wall that had slid in. The trench would not be reopening any time soon. He hoped the manor had survived. They did not stop on the way up. It was a detour and he needed to get Keelee to a healer.
The sound of rebuilding was already ringing through the city, a drum without rhythm as they made their way onto the third tier. The damage about Sordith and Keelee appeared to be just from the wind. Urchins were running throughout the city gathering roof tiles that had not broken. Sordith smiled when he watched one given a trading token for the pile of tiles in his arms. He had done the same when younger. Though the storm he remembered did not have a wave, it had torn loose a good number of tiles.
They saw a crowd and Sordith steered them to it. He hoped to find help for Keelee. However, when he drew closer, what he saw was Luthian speaking. His hand went for his sword, grasping at air in reflex for a weapon lost.
“Stay here,” he whispered angrily to Keelee.
“Now is not the time, Sordith, please do nothing today.” She looked pointedly at his sword belt wrapped as a tourniquet around her leg.
He kissed her forehead. “That bastard killed and injured hundreds. I still have a dagger.” He motioned for her to stay and started moving through the crowd, stalking the High Minister.
“Today is a sad day for us all,” Luthian called out loudly. “We have found the evil mind that would do such a thing. In fact, it appears that one of you fine people put an end to her before the council could.”
Lady Caterine’s body was being held up by two guardsmen. It looked battered and barely recognizable.
As Luthian was speaking, Sordith made his way quietly toward the group protecting Luthian. No one would think anything of the Trench Lord moving into his inner circle.
Alador saw Sordith. He almost cried out before he caught the glint of the dagger in his brother’s hand. Sordith started to move closer to get within reach of the High Minister. He was taking full advantage of the attention that the High Minister had secured by his speech.
“No charges will be pressed for the death of this mage. She deserved her fate for the atrocity she committed.” The crowd’s approval masked any sounds Sordith made.
“High Minister, I suspect the Trench Lord saw to the matter, and look, here he is.” Alador called loudly.
If Sordith could have punched Alador in the face in that moment, he would have. He glowered at Luthian as the High Minister spotted him in the crowd. Luthian tipped his head at the gaze and gave a look of puzzlement before he called out loudly, arms open in welcome.
“Our Trench Lord lives!”
People began cheering and suddenly Sordith had Alador’s arm grasping him so tightly around his ribs that he hissed in pain. The dagger fell from his hand. He tried to push back to Luthian, but Alador pulled him aside. Any chance of killing Luthian was now gone. Alador’s words had made him an instant hero and there would be no convincing the populace in that moment that the real enemy was Luthian. One thing for certain, Alador and he were going to have words. There may even be a few fists to emphasize his points.
“Come with me, brother,” Alador whispered in his ear. “You are in need a healer and I see Keelee would be happy to see one too.” Alador heard the hiss of pain, and having known broken ribs himself, he knew a bit of pressure would give him an advantage over his larger and stronger brother.
“I will kill him,” Sordith growled under his breath.
“And I will assist you in the deed, but later – now is not the time.”
Alador smiled at the crowd surrounding them. “We must get the Trench Lord and his woman to the healer,” he announced in a loud voice.
Sordith was immediately lifted, as was Keelee, and carried to a relatively undamaged home in the middle of the third tier. Out front stood Auries directing her girls in the art of administering healing to the injured.
She saw him coming and hurried to his side, all past issues forgotten when she saw his mangled face and heard the groan as they put him down on her doorstep.
“Bring him in,” she instructed. “Put him in the bed in the room to the right.”
“Auries,” he called as they took him past her. “Keelee… Please help her. Her leg,” he added quickly as he was dragged out of sight and into the room Auries indicated.
Auries looked at Keelee as she was brought forward and shook her head. “Damn you, Sordith,” she mumbled under her breath. “Put her in the room at the end of the hall.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sordith woke to the delicious smell of roasted prang. His stomach growled before he even opened his eyes.
“Did you say something, brother?” Alador asked in a teasing voice. He was s
urprised when Sordith opened his eye. “Hey, you’re awake.”
Sordith tilted his head so he could see Alador at his bedside through his one good eye. He spied the tray sitting across his brother’s knees. “Is that the remains of a full hindquarter?”
“I have been working hard,” Alador spoke around a mouthful of meat.
“Give me some.” Sordith held out his hand and his stomach growled again in anticipation.
Alador carved off a slice with his knife and was about to hand it to Sordith when Auries walked in.
“Stop!” She scowled at them and crossed her arms over her chest.
Sordith smiled – this was the Auries he remembered.
Alador halted mid-air, the prang hanging from the point of his dagger.
“He hasn’t had solid food for over two days. I don’t want him throwing up with broken ribs and undoing the healing I have accomplished so far.” She turned and called back up the hall. “Betra?”
A young girl who couldn’t have been more than 12 turns old came rushing to her side. “Yes, milady?”
“Fetch me a tray with a bowl of soup, bread and some clean water… Our Trench Lord is finally awake.”
“Yes, milady.” The child hurried off to prepare the tray.
“Milady?” Sordith smiled at her. “You have come up in the world, my sweet.”
Auries came to the edge of the bed and frowned at Alador’s hand still holding the offering. “Take that away,” she huffed.
She set about fluffing Sordith’s pillow and adjusting his covers, then took a jug from the bedside table to pour some liquid into a cup. She held his head and offered him the drink. “A lot has changed since we thought you were lost in the storm.”
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