by Eric Ugland
Of course, some of the stuff we were avoiding was painfully obvious, like the inflow pipes coming from people's homes. Or businesses. Sometimes it was a small pipe sending a steady stream of liquid. Other times, it was a larger thing, nearly tunnel-sized, that had random bursts of, well, more solid stuff coming down. At which point, it would splash into the sludge, leaving a horrible spray that we were eager to avoid. It was remarkably disgusting on so many levels.
One time when Boris pulled back Shae and motioned for me to get back against the wall, he made it very clear we needed to be as still as possible. Then a series of ridges came up from the sludge, followed by a very large head. It was something crocodilian, fifteen to twenty feet long, and as it surfaced, it paused. I could see glossy black eyes scanning around. It drifted in the water, letting the current pull it along, and after a few minutes, it disappeared down another turn in an intersection.
Boris simply shook his head, and we continued on.
Finally, he knelt down and nodded at me.
"We are here," he said.
I didn't bother to ask for clarification, because I knew it would just wind up sounding ridiculous and get me no actual information.
"Around corner," Boris said, pointing towards the nearest intersection.
It was about ten feet ahead us. I stepped around Boris and slid my feet on the brick walkway until I came to the corner. I could hear two people talking. I couldn't make out any specifics though, since there was just enough ambient noise from the sewer and its sewage.
I knelt down and edged along until I could peek around.
A man and a woman stood at relative attention about twenty feet down the path. They had armor on. Nothing crazy, not like full plate or anything, but enough to indicate they were pros. These people were fighters. They had short swords in their hands, ready to go, and small bucklers on their non-weapon hands. So they were ready to fight in the close quarters of the sewers. They stood on either side of an opened door revealing a hole in the sewer wall. The door that looked as if it had been fished out of the passing sewage and repurposed to cover the hole. And having seen kobold tunnels before, I knew that the hole in the side of the sewer was kobold work.
Carefully, I leaned back around to look at Boris.
"Who are those people?" I asked barely above a whisper.
He looked confused, then came over to me to take a peek himself. But I saw zero subtlety in his actions, so I grabbed him and pulled him back onto me.
"Don't just step out there," I hissed.
"Can't tell you who then."
"Are there regular hunters who come down here after you guys?"
"Yes."
"Like professional sewer cleaners?'
"Yes."
"And that's who these guys are?”
"Maybe."
That changed everything. When I agreed to this quest, I’d imagined that the hunters were overzealous asshats who just wanted to muck around with kobolds, chasing them into the sewers. But if these were professional hunters whose job was to clean up kobolds, that meant they actually knew what they were doing. And, likely, had backup. Going in with daggers blazing, figuratively speaking, wasn't going to cut it.
I needed to be smart, and try to rescue the little dragon-like idiots without killing any of the hunters. It’d cause too much attention that I didn’t need.
I peeked out again.
The two were chatting vaguely. From the sound, and they way they stood, it seemed like the woman was irritated the man wasn't talking to her very much. And the man was spending more time looking at his sword than at the woman. They were relaxed.
"You stay here," I whispered to Shae. "And keep Boris with you."
"What are you doing?" Shae whispered back.
“Getting this nonsense started.”
Chapter Nineteen
I stood up, pulled my cloak back, and slid my daggers into their sheaths. Then I just strolled around the corner, doing my best to look unassuming.
Somehow I managed to get halfway over to the two before they noticed me. The man already had his sword up, so he took a step back and turned to face me.
"Hey," he said, not quite shouting, but with force.
Given what I'd seen of the sewers, I guessed no one was keen on making too much of a ruckus. You could never tell what attention would bring you.
"Hey," I said, matching his volume and pretending to be surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"What are we doing here? What are you doing here?"
"I’m on official business."
The man looked back at the woman, confused. She shrugged. But his sword point dropped a bit.
"What official business?" he asked.
"You tell me what you're doing here," I said, trying to inject as much snootiness into it as possible. "I've already said too much."
"We're cleaning out a pack of nasties," the woman offered up, gesturing to the hole next to her.
"A pack of nasties?" I replied. "That sounds ridiculous."
"Kobolds," the man said.
"You're hunting kobolds?" I asked.
"Yes,” the man said. “We found out there's a pack of them down here."
"You see one," the woman said, "means there's a hundred more lurking around. Doing nasty things."
“What kind of nasty things?”
"They eat children."
The man looked over his shoulder at the woman. "They don't eat children."
"Sure they do," the woman snapped back. "Where do you think all the children are going? Kobold bellies."
"That's absurd," the man replied. “There's not enough missing children to feed these kobolds. They'd be going hungry."
"Did they look well-nourished?"
"What in the hells does a well-nourished kobold look like?" the man asked, getting louder.
“Probably like a fat dragon!” The woman countered, her voice raising to match, and best his.
“You have no idea what the hells you are talking about,” the man said. His voice echoed off the tunnel, and I found myself torn. On the one hand, it might be just as well to let the two of them fight. On the other hand, their shouting might attract something worse than two loud humans. “You’re only here because your mother is—“
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother—“
“Why? Are you going to tell her I said something about her so she can get me a worse job than cleaning out the poop tubes?”
“My mother says I can do this job!”
“I’ve seen no evidence of that whatsoever.”
“I did the clean up with the—“
“That’s a clean up! You don’t even know—“
I felt something yanking on my pant leg. I had to check myself so I didn’t just turn around and start stabbing indiscriminately. It was just the little kobold Boris, who, frankly, did look malnourished. The arguing continued on in the background.
“Bad things coming,” he whispered.
“How do you know?” I asked
“Dangersense. Things coming down that tunnel. Loud idiots are loud.”
Just then, I realized the arguing had stopped.
I looked up to see both sets of human eyes on me.
“Were you just talking to a kobold?” The man asked.
“Can they even talk?” I replied.
The sword started to come back up.
I gave my best smile. “I’ve got one trapped,” I said. “We’re testing to see if they make adequate guides down here. My assistant has control of him.”
“Assistant?” The man asked, sword tip lowering down.
“Of course. You think I came down here on my own? I have this kobold guide, which is only experimental, and an assistant. Assistant?”
Shae poked her head around the corner and looked at the three of us.
“You called?” Shae asked.
She pushed Boris, who was looking suitably cowed, in front of her.
“Finally found a use for these things, eh?” The guy sai
d, stepping around me to get a closer look at Boris.
I wasn’t really keen on letting that happen, because I didn’t trust Boris to keep calm when a man with a sword came close to him. So I let my foot go a little further out than it should, and I tripped the man.
His eyes went wide as he dropped his sword and his arms pinwheeled, trying to regain balance. Which I think he might have, but Shae made a beautiful play to save him, and kind of shoved him into the poo-river by ‘accident.’ His partner rushed to the river to help him. I wasn’t even subtle this time — I just grabbed her by the shoulders and hurled her in after her buddy.
There was a splash as the man came to the surface, but the current swept him away.
“Not the most delicate of actions,” I said, “but thanks for coming through with the, uh, charade.”
“My pleasure, boss.”
“And Boris, I know you guys don’t eat children.”
“Sometimes eat eggs,” Boris said. “Like children.”
He did have a point, I supposed.
I went through the kobold hole, and before I could get my bearings, someone shoved me further inside.
“Wait up,” I hissed.
“Can’t,” came Shae’s hasty reply.
I motored through the cramped tunnel until I got to the first open room. It was a small circular space, but with enough height that I could stand up. My head didn’t quite touch the ceiling, but if I went on my tiptoes, I’d get brained. The space, as a whole, was maybe ten feet around, and had four more exits to pick from. Shae bumped into me, and I stepped further in.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Boris said something was coming.”
“What something?”
“You really think he gave me specifics?”
“I can dream.”
“Something dangerous. Set off his sense.”
Boris was there a second later, and a quick peek back the way we’d come revealed he had sealed the tunnel with the door.
“Which way do we go?” I asked.
Boris sniffed at the ground, then put his hand on the walls and felt.
“Hunters down here,” he pointed down the first tunnel on the left. “And here.” The third tunnel.
“Okay, and the kobolds?” I asked.
He swept his hand around to indicate all of them.
"Lovely."
"We go here," Boris said, pointing to the fourth tunnel.
I glanced at the four tunnels. I wasn't sure I wanted to ignore the hunters — there might be something gained by seeing what the humans were up to — but I was hoping Boris knew something, or had some actual plan beyond just leading me places.
"Four it is," I said, and crawled down the tunnel as quickly as I could go.
The tunnels would have been a nightmare for anyone with even a hint of claustrophobia. Even for someone without it, the feeling of the walls brushing against my shoulders caused a healthy dose of panic.
We went around a tight corner and I bonked my head against a door. I rocked back on my heels and I rubbed my head. Then I felt around for a latch before I finally managed to open the door.
It led to another circular room, this one larger. There were no other exits though, just the one I'd come through. It was higher than the first, maybe twelve feet or so. There was an acrid odor thanks to all the detritus and gack on the floor — which became even more disgusting when I realized I should’ve been nose-blind to shit-smell by now.
We were at the kobolds’ garbage dump. Which was weird — they lived next to the damn sewer, where all the trash in the city was thrown. Why bother with a separate garbage dump?
Being that the kobolds were basically digging out their chambers from solid stone, there'd been little ornamentation anywhere prior to this room. But in the dump, there was an interesting bit of decoration on the wall. The stone seemed to change color ever so much. Naturally, because it was so out of place, something bothered me about the decor. Nothing the kobolds had done so far had been with aesthetics in mind. Everything had been utilitarian to a ridiculous degree. I couldn't quite reach the color shift, but moving around through the garbage, I managed to find something that was semi-solid to stand on. From my new perspective, I saw there was more than just a shift of stone. There was some missing space there.
I jumped up to get my hand to touch the rough-hewn rock. Sure enough, right at the color change, there was enough of a lip that I got a grip. I slammed my other hand onto the ledge and pulled myself up.
When my head cleared the edge, I saw a ton of tiny eyes peering back at me.
Chapter Twenty
Let me just admit it right here: baby kobolds are cute. They have massive heads, big expressive eyes, and tiny little bodies. And they all stared at me with open and absolute terror, like I was about to eat them.
They made no noise. They just stared and shook slightly. By a quick count, there were fifty of them. I looked along the wall, and saw that the, well, hatchery for a lack of a better word, went about ten feet back and was about three feet tall, and went all around the circular room. Which meant there were likely more baby kobolds tucked in the other side.
“What’s up there?” Shae asked.
I dropped to the ground.
“Babies,” I said.
“Kobold babies?”
“Yes. You thought human—“
“I didn’t know.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Hey,” she said, “I lived a sheltered life. I don’t know about these things. That woman could have been telling the truth.”
“Fair. I’m sorry.”
I looked back at the tunnel, not really enjoying the prospect of more crawling.
“Boris,” I said, “why are there babies in the dump?"
"Humans stay out."
He made a good point. The smell was eye-wateringly bad, and from a cursory glance, there was nothing of value in the pit.
"So how do we get the babies out?" I asked.
"Bolt hole is in floor," Boris said, pointing to the exact most vile spot in the room. "You bring other kobolds in here. We will escape out this way."
"Do I want to know where that leads?"
"I am not you, cannot tell."
"Are you staying here?"
"No," Boris said. "I go with you. Shae stay with babies. Keep them calm."
"I'm doing what now?" Shae asked, eyes wide.
"Don't worry," I said, "it's all part of the plan."
I boosted Shae up, and she crawled in among the babies. Almost immediately I heard cooing sounds from her.
Boris grabbed my pants and tugged my belt.
"We move faster," he said. "Go."
So I went. Sadly, that meant crouch-running back through the tunnel towards the first branch point. I heard footsteps coming from somewhere. But because we were in a series of stone tunnels, there was no way to determine where the sound was coming from. It was just an avalanche of echoes. So I stopped short at the tunnel entrance and peeked around the edge.
I saw a burly human was dragging something in a net, something that was struggling. He slammed the net, and the thing, into the open area, and then turned and went back up the other way. I saw an opportunity, so I darted out, and snatched the net. A quick peek confirmed there was a kobold inside. Its eyes went wide with fear, and I saw it had a bunch of small cuts and swelling lumps over its body.
I dragged it back into the tunnel, going about halfway down to the dump-nursery before I stopped. Boris looked at me, and I pointed at the struggling kobold.
"Get him out," I hissed.
Boris pulled a small blade out and went to work on the net.
I went back to my position, and waited.
No one was coming.
"Go into first tunnel there," Boris said.
"Didn't the hunters go down that way?”
"Maybe."
He was insistent, though, and shoved me.
I ran across the open space, sliding to a stop in the first tunnel and turning around s
o I could see if anyone was coming.
Boris ran right into me and knocked me over.
We were a right stealthy pair.
"Sorry," he said.
I just shoved him off, rolled over, and continued crawling. It was a very, very long tunnel. The thing just went on and on. And on. Finally, we made it to the next room, and I got my first real glimpse into the daily life of a kobold. They seemed to be some sort of mixture of hoarders and inventors. Or engineers.
The room wasn't overly large, another mostly round space that was about twenty feet in diameter and ten feet high. There were no exits from the room, and the walls were liberally covered with things. Crude shelves made out of pieces of wood that looked to be held together with sheer force of will. There were vast piles of things, but all sorted. And mostly clean. Bits of wood, huge mounds of string and ripped cloth. Buckets with nails. One of bent nails, one of straight-ish nails, one of rusty nails, even one bucket of what I swear was just rust. There were hooks in the ceiling, with hanging baskets full of more crap. Bits of metal, bits of leather. I could barely make out a clear space in the center of the room, near a little work bench, so I walked there.
Boris nimbly stepped between the crap, and pulled on the side of a tottering shelf filled with broken weapons and tools. I jumped back, worried it was going to fall on me, but the thing swung out neatly on a hinge that had been cleverly tucked out of sight, about a foot above the junk. The shelf revealed another tunnel. My kobold buddy looked inside for a minute, then shook his head, and closed the shelf. He hopped onto me, then pushed off to a large barrel filled with staves of soggy wood. He pushed some cloth out of the way. Another tunnel.
"This one," Boris said, and he slipped behind the cloth and disappeared.
I shook my head. This was a maze and a half.
We went through the dark tunnel at a quick pace — I was growing accustomed to crawl-running. About fifty feet before we got to the end, Boris held up a claw to stop me. He didn’t take his eyes off the end. After a little feeling about, he found the latch he was looking for. He pulled the latch open, and very slowly pushed, revealing another room. This one was a bedroom. Only discernible from the first room because there were some bedrolls in a pile near something that I assumed was a heat source of some kind. There were more finished projects in here, as well as projects that were still in the midst of being built, devices that had to have some sort of purpose. But what those might be, I didn't know.