by Robert Beers
A slight breeze wafted out of the opening, its scent reminding Adam of his first trip through the tunnels, and bringing another thought to the fore.
He slapped his forehead. “Diety! Diety! Diety! Diety!”
“What is it, what's wrong?” Thaylli and Fainnelle looked to Adam in alarm.
“The bridges, I forgot all about the flicking bridges. If they're not closed there is no way she'll be able to get through. I am such a gnomic!”
Fainnelle put her hands on her hips. “Is that all? Well, don't stand there frettin’ about it, tell the lass an’ get it over.”
With an abashed look on his face, Adam did so. It took a lot less time than he thought it would. Thaylli had him repeat a couple of the instructions, but with even that being done, he was finished with his instructions in less time than it took to eat breakfast.
Thaylli and Fainnelle shared one last hug goodbye and then the wolf and the girl stepped into the tunnel's gloom.
* * * *
Wuest, Hodder, and Stroughten ran along the alley separating Hodder's apartment and the series of shops lining Glowbell lane. The sound of slaps and splashes followed the trio as they ran.
Stroughten wiped his face and swore, “Damn this weather! Why couldn't it wait and rain after we got under cover. I'm soaked through to my bleedin’ skin.”
Hodder grunted, “It's hittin’ me before it hits you.”
“Shhh! Both of you,” Wuest hissed as he peered around the alleys edge. “Do you want the Plague to hear you?”
Both Hodder and Stroughten gulped. Neither of them answered Wuest's question, there was no need to.
The rain increased in intensity, which suited Wuest just fine, fewer folk would be out and about, and therefore, fewer eyes to take their sightings back to his pursuers. He ducked back into the scant protection of the alley as a huddled group of pedestrians made their way to drier surroundings.
“Now,” he called out the command in a hoarse whisper, while at the same time darting across Glowbell's cobblestones into the next alley. His two companions followed on his heels.
“How long are we gonna be doin’ this?” Hodder complained, “Feels like we've run across the whole flickin’ city in fits an’ starts.”
“We're almost there,” Wuest answered. “Listen, you can hear the docks.”
“The docks?” Stroughten reached out and took Wuest by an arm, “You said we was gettin’ out through the sewers, an’ now you're leadin’ toward the bloody docks?”
A ship's bell mixed its sound with the patter of the rain as Wuest shook off his friend's hand. “The sewers are exactly where we're going. Think for a second. Where do they empty out? Or do you think piss runs uphill?”
Stroughten paused as he considered Wuest's statement. Hodder grunted and dragged the moisture off his face with a swipe of his palm. “Avin's got ya there, Leum. So, where's the outlet we're gonna crawl in, Avin?”
Wuest copied Hodder's gesture and wiped his own face. “About another block from here, South of the docks. The sewer outlet juts out over the large rocks a mile inside the strait.”
Hodder and Stroughten nodded, and huddled further into their cloaks as they followed Wuest. The street beyond Glowbell was aptly called Cod Lane. Many of the shops lining it dealt in that particular fish and the reek of it lingered, even in the downpour. Beyond Cod Lane rose the slender spires of the various vessels moored at Grisham's dock. A few shouts rose above the sound of the rain, ships masters guiding their crewmen at work. Rain meant little to them. Water was still wet, whether it fell from the sky or jumped up from the sea.
At the far southern end of Cod Lane lay a two story ramshackle building that looked as if it had never had better days. Along the top story, black, jagged-edged holes showed where windows had once looked upon the street. At street level an attempt to board over the missing doors and panes had resulted only in giving the poor an occasional store of firewood. A few of the planks still hung listlessly against the building, supported by one or two rusty nails.
Wuest pushed aside the board blocking entrance into the abandoned warehouse and ducked inside. Hodder and Stroughten followed suit.
Hodder looked up, started, and swore, “Damn and blast, right in my flickin’ eye!”
Wuest didn't even turn his head at his friend's outburst. “It's only water, come on, we've got to keep going. Watch the floor, there's holes there that'll drop you straight to the rocks.”
Just as Wuest finished voicing his warning, Stroughten stepped onto a weak spot and crashed through the floor, he wound up with just his head jutting above the floor's planking.
“Leum, you ok? Speak to me, man!” Hodder began a rush to his friend's side, but halted in indecision as he realized the same fate might await him as well.
Wuest turned at the crash and shook his head as if he'd been expecting such an occurrence. “Leave off, Hodder. I've been across this floor before. I know which spot'll hold our weight, let me get over there. You ok, Leum?” He edged to the side a few steps and dropped to his hands and knees, “You ok?”
Stroughten turned slowly, his face a mask of pain. What voice he had came out in a high-pitched whisper, “No, I'm not ok. I think I've crushed me bleedin’ plums!”
A sound came from Hodder. It gave the impression he was choking.
Stroughten turned and fixed him with a glare, “It ain't funny! You try slappin’ onto a skruddin’ plank an’ getting your flickin’ plums pushed up to your bleedin’ nose.” He turned back to Wuest, “Get me the flick outta here!”
With a lot of effort and not a few grunts of pain from Stroughten, Wuest and Hodder managed to get their friend out of his predicament. Once all three of them were back onto mostly solid floor, Wuest led his companions to an open door frame partially concealed by stacks of rotting sisal bags. Through the door, they passed under a series of sharply slanting beams, past two more doors, and into a room with no apparent exit but the way they came in.
“All right, Avin, whatta we do now? Chew our way out?” Stroughten spat a clot of saliva onto the mud covering the floor.
Wuest shook his head. “No, watch this.” He reached up and pulled on a nail protruding slightly out of one of the studs running vertically along the wall before them. The wallboard it appeared to have been holding fell away leaving an opening just wide enough for them to squeeze through. With the board removed, the sound of Grisham's harbor came clearly to their ears. Mixed with it came also the scent of salt, fish, seaweed, and something else.
Hodder covered his nose with both hands, “Fauggh! What in Bardoc's name crawled onto the beach and died?”
Stroughten took one sniff and choked, “Gods Avin! I can't go out into that. I'll lose what little's in me stomach now.”
“Fine,” Wuest snapped, “stay here and play with the Plague. I'm sure the Duke'll choose a pleasant one for each of you.”
Hodder and Stroughten looked at each other and then their shoulders slumped as if on cue. Wuest nodded. He knew there was little choice in the matter. It was merely happy chance their three heads weren't smiling down on the city from the pikes aligned along the parapet of the Duke's Keep.
“Very well, then. Come on.”
The three of them pushed through the opening. Hodder and Stroughten stepped aside and waited while Wuest refitted the board back into place. Once that was done, he led them along the narrow stretch of sod and rock that overlooked the estuary waters below. They continued that way for a good distance until Wuest drew up and pointed below where they stood.
“There's where we go in.”
Stroughten leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees, “Where? I can't see a bloody thing in all this rain.”
“Over there, to your left, up against the rocks. See that darker shadow? That's the sewer outlet, just a bit over man-high.” Wuest pointed again, raising his aim slightly.
“And that's where the bloody stink is comin’ from, too, I'll wager,” Hodder muttered darkly.
Stroughten no
dded and blew out his cheeks, “Right, then. I'd druther face that smell than have the Plague use my giblets for nubbins. Let's get down there, at least we'll be outta this tiddlin’ rain.”
They scrambled down the rocks as carefully as they could. Even at that, a couple of shins got barked, and Stroughten nearly re-insulted his throbbing testes. When they got to the bottom they discovered a new impediment.
“Crabs!”
“What? What are you screamin’ about now, Leum? You tryin’ to let the whole city know we's down here?” Hodder turned to add to his rebuke when something began skittering up his leg. “Ahhh! Get it off me! Get it off! Get it off!” He flailed wildly at his clothing while dancing backwards across the narrow strip of seaweed and sand.
Wuest also let go with a curse and began a duplicate of Hodder's gyrations.
Stroughten picked up a driftwood branch and used it as a broom to sweep himself clean of attackers. He then went to work on his two friends. “Got ‘em, now move. Keep your feet moving. Don't give ‘em a change to latch on. Into the sewer, now! Go! Go! Go!”
Wuest jumped ahead of Hodder and dove into the outlet, catching his cloak on a protruding sharp edge and hindering his friend's entrance. Stroughten had a bad time of it there, then, because, as if sensing a potential opening, the voracious little crabs swarmed after them like a mounting wave of large greenish-black spiders. Wuest finally tore his cloak free and vanished into the sewer. Hodder bundled his cloak under one arm and followed, yelping and cursing as he freed himself of the last of his attackers.
Stroughten danced around just outside the sewer's mouth, slapping at himself with the branch. “Geroff, damn, skrudding buggers! Geroff!” Crunching sounds echoed across the beach where those crabs not quick enough found themselves under his boots. One of them managed to worry its way under the cuff of his trousers and started scuttling up toward softer, sweeter flesh.
Two pairs of hands reached out of the blackness of the sewer mouth and pulled him in.
“Get it out! It's runnin’ for me plums. Get it out! Hurry! Huurryyyy!!” Stroughten's high-pitched scream bounced around the confines of the sewer pipe.
“Sorry about this, Leum.” Wuest set his jaw and reached down his friend's trousers. The seriousness of the moment overrode any potential jokes.
It proved less easy than supposed to chase down the crab delving around Stroughten's nether regions. When Wuest's hand came in reach, the creature would scurry out of the way and give Stroughten a pinch for the trouble.
“Aauuggh! Get the bleedin’ thing, will you?” Stroughten started beating at his trousers in spite of the damage he'd done to himself earlier.
“Leum, what the pit are you doing? Stop it. I'll get the thing, but not if you...” They all heard a crunch and a grating squeal.
Stroughten looked down at his crotch. “I think I'm gonna throw up.”
“What were those things?” In spite of the knowledge gleaned from scouting the docks, Wuest was strictly a city dweller. Crabs, and other sea life, came from the fish mongers, usually dressed for the pot.
Hodder shook his head. “Damned if I know.”
They both looked at Stroughten. Even in the dim interior of the pipe they could see how pale he'd become.
Stroughten wiped his face with a trembling hand. “I want out of here. Gods, that thing nearly had me for dinner. As Bardoc is me witness, I'll never eat crab again, couldn't stand the sight of it lookin’ back at me.”
“What was they?” Hodder repeated Wuest's question.
“Blood Crabs, from the look of ‘em.” Stroughten dropped his trousers and cleaned out the remnants of his late attacker. The welts and bruises it gave him stood out as dark blotches against the whiteness of his skin. “Good eatin’ from what I hear. Problem is, when they're spawnin’ they think the same of us. Enough of ‘em get together, they can strip a man to bones in about an hour.” He shivered, “let's get goin’ to where we're goin'.”
Even the lanky Hodder had room enough to stand in the pipe. Grisham's early planners had foreseen the need for lots of sewer space.
“Why aren't they in here, still after us?” Wuest asked, to no one in particular.
Stroughten sniffed and made a face, “Smell the air, Avin. Would you come in here, if you had a choice?”
Wuest drew in a breath. The air was indeed foul, but not as bad as it had been before. Perhaps they were getting used to it. “No,” he answered, “probably not. All the better for us. Think about it, we now have two guardians protecting our backsides, this stink,” he waved a hand, “and those crabs.”
Hodder and Stroughten nodded in agreement. The three of them turned away from the sewer's mouth and began walking the slow incline that would take them under the bowels of the city.
* * * *
Thaylli shifted her shoulders, trying to readjust the weight of the pack on her back. In spite of her assurances to Adam, it was heavy. “How long have I been walking? Bother Adam, why couldn't he have just come with me? This is going to take so long.”
The wolf's ears twitched, but she didn't answer.
“I should have had him teach me how to talk to you,” Thaylli said, directly to her guide, as she shifted the pack one more time. “Then at least I'd have someone besides myself for conversation.”
After about a quarter hour's walk they came to the first of the bridges. Adam's instructions had been thorough and to the point. Thaylli had no trouble in finding the concealed lever, or in activating the bridge.
Well, she thought smugly, this seems to be going better than I thought it would. Maybe all my worrying was for nothing.
For the next few hours, her thoughts seemed prophetic. Each bridge worked just as it was intended to, and the wall lamps, lit when she first came across them, continued to light her way. She rested for lunch at a spot much like a landing after one of the bridges. The tunnel floor slanted up and away from that spot curving off to the left. Flickers of warm amber light danced across the arching bricks of the tunnel wall under the influence of the lamp above and behind her.
The wolf took the package of diced meat from her and devoured it carefully, with a daintiness Thaylli found surprising. During her journey from Access, the wolf pack that accompanied her fed away from her sight, so she had no reference for comparison, but this one seemed to be very much the lady.
After finishing her meal, the wolf padded off to one side and lay down. Thaylli watched her for a moment, and then leaned back against the tunnel wall. The ancient brickwork felt comfortably cool.
It was the growling that woke her. At first Thaylli thought she was back on the road, traveling with Drinaugh and the wolf pack, but that feeling lasted only an instant. Opening her eyes she focused on the sound and turned to see the wolf standing, stiff-legged, and growling. The she-wolf's nose was pointed toward the right-hand wall where the tunnel intersected the sewer. Sounds came out of the sewer, they sounded like voices.
Fear clutched Thaylli's stomach. Did the city guard find out about her leaving? Did this mean Adam was now in danger?
“Who is it? You stay back now, I ... I've got a wolf!”
“...hear something?”
“Sounded like a girl.”
“...wolf?”
The voices grew closer and clearer. In a few moments, faces appeared. Two of them belonged to men of short stature, one of them as plain as a lump of mud, and who looked like he'd been chewed on. The other one looked like a bookkeeper. Close behind them walked a third figure; this one was at least a head taller than the other two, but just as bedraggled.
Thaylli stared at them for a moment and then, in spite of herself, began to giggle, the wolf's growls continued, but at a considerably lower volume.
The three men noticed the wolf and stopped just inside the confines of the sewer. The lump-like one stopped with one foot raised to step into the tunnel. “Avin ... there's a wolf growlin’ at us.”
“I see that, Leum. Try telling me something I don't know, like how to not be eate
n.”
“Bloody Bardoc's balls, first blood crabs, now a bleedin’ wolf. Hey, there's a girl.” The tall one pointed at Thaylli, “Uh, miss, that your wolf? Can you call ‘im off, please?”
“It's not a him, it's a she, and she's merely protecting me. You'd better stay back,” Thaylli sniffed, “if only for my nose's sake.” She giggled again. The trio looked anything but threatening.
The wolf growled something.
“Avin, you hear that? Sounded like the beast was talkin'.”
“Yeah, askin’ if its lunch is ready,” Stroughten muttered.
Wuest shook his head. “Well, I don't care any more. I'd rather be gulped down by a wolf than go back.” He ignored the slight increase in growls and clamored up onto the tunnel floor. Hodder and Stroughten watched for any sign of mayhem, and when none seemed to be coming, joined their friend in his spot against the tunnel wall.
The wolf growled again, softly, and turned back to take up a position between Thaylli and the three men.
Hodder groaned, rubbed the lank hair sticking to his scalp and leaned forward to look over at Thaylli, “Um ... I don't mean to be forward, miss ... but I couldn't help noticin’ you've got a bit of food with you.”
“Leum!” Wuest admonished his friend.
“It don't hurt to ask, Avin. ‘Sides, I'm starvin’ here. Feel like me bloody stomach's naught but a nubbin right now.”
Stroughten remained silent, but managed to look even more pitiful.
“Miss?” Hodder pressed.
Thaylli stuck out her lower lip, and then shook her head slowly from side to side, as if arguing with herself.
The wolf grumbled something that sounded like a not on your life statement.
Thaylli continued her internal argument for a while longer, and then she stood and stamped one foot. The wolf winced and looked up at her reproachfully.
“Miss?” Hodder sounded like a child begging for food.
“Oh, all right, here!” She reached into her pack and pulled out a wrapped bundle of bread and hard white cheese.
Wuest caught the thrown parcel and bowed from the waist. “Thank you Miss. It seems we failed to consider food while making our escape.”