Rudi’s lips curled upward in a leer, as if he were actually considering such a fate. There might, in fact, be worse ways to go, Garett had to admit as he regarded his tall, blond lieutenant from the corner of his eye.
“All right,” he called to his watchmen. “Everyone choose a partner. Stay in twos and watch out for each other. Look for anything that seems out of place, anything unusual. Let’s go.”
At this particular juncture, the sewer flowed southward only a short distance before depositing its waste into the South Stream. Garett led his team north instead. He no longer had the feeling that he was being watched, and that allowed him to concentrate on the matter at hand. At the fore, with Burge by his side, his gaze roamed over every brick and stone, seeking anything that would confirm the story of Rudi’s witness that the murderers had come this way.
The smell in the tunnel’s close confines grew worse the farther into the sewer they penetrated, and the filthy water seeped into their boots in no time. Garett was grateful he’d thought to leave his cloak at home. The garment would have been hopelessly ruined. He’d already made up his mind to burn everything else he was wearing.
Up in a corner, where an arch of stone buttressed the tunnel’s ceiling, a faint movement caught Garett’s eye, and he stopped suddenly. A fat black spider, as big as Garett’s thumb, eyed them coolly from the center of its web. The web itself was dotted with the silk-wrapped corpses of luckless insects that had blundered into its sticky strands.
“Oh, great!” Blossom muttered. The tallest of their party, she crouched a little lower, her gaze nervously wandering around the ceiling. “All I need are those things dropping down on me. I hate spiders.”
Burge brought his torch close to the web, the better to see. Then, suddenly, he thrust it at the huge arachnid. Strands of webbing flared and popped, and the flames consumed the creature instantly. “Me, too, Blossom,” he agreed. “Never could stand ’em. Saw a man die from a spider bite once. Not pleasant.”
“That’s enough, Burge,” Garett ordered. He turned long enough to give his watchmen a once-over, and saw how their tension level had gone up. Like Blossom, they were all scanning the upper corners and shadows for spiders. He didn’t need Burge feeding their imaginations with tales. Then he added for the benefit of his men, “Most spiders aren’t deadly, anyhow.”
“Fine, Cap’n,” Burge answered as Garett started forward again, and he followed close at his heels. “Next one we meet, you shake hands with ’im and ask if he’s seen anyone pass this way carryin’ a dead girl. Then, when you’re done talkin’, I’ll wait ’til you move on down the tunnel a little bit before I fry ’im, so’s not to offend your sensibilities.” Before long, they came to a fork in the tunnel. Garett held up his torch and peered both ways. The water in the new shaft seemed more shallow, and a bit less swift. It was also somewhat narrower. He called Rudi up beside him and pointed. “Take five men,” he said, “and follow that. When you come to the first grate, raise it, take a peek, and see where you are. If the tunnel splits, send two men, and two men again the next time. Never less than two. Got that?” Rudi nodded and beckoned to the five nearest watchmen. “Keep your torches dry,” Garett cautioned them as they separated from the main party and waded into the new tunnel. He watched until the smaller group rounded a bend and its torches’ light slowly faded. With a wave of his hand, then, he led his own men ahead.
Not much farther on, they encountered the first evidence that someone else had passed this way. Iron bars, like those in a cell door, blocked their way. Only the center bars had been bent far outward, wide enough for any man to squeeze through.
Garett knew his party was precisely under the Black Wall,
which separated Old Town from the New City The bars had been placed here, and at all such junctures in the tunnels, to prevent the residents of the Slum Quarter and the Thieves’ Quarter from using the sewers as a secret means of passage between the two parts of Greyhawk. It didn’t surprise him, however, to find the bars in such a condition. He had long known that the thieves of Sorvesh Kharn’s guild had some way of traversing the wall without passing through the Black Gate, where the guards would log and record their passage. The sewers were the most logical means, and bars such as these, heavy with rust, would have been a small obstacle to men like Sorvesh Kharn or his predecessors.
Nevertheless, Garett paused to examine them carefully before he squeezed through to the other side and waited while each of his men did the same.
“I fear the rain has washed away anything useful,” Blossom said as she stepped to her captain’s side and peered at the iron bars with him.
But Garett touched her arm and drew her closer. “Maybe not,” he said softly. “Look here.” He pointed at a small yellowish smear about head high on one of the bent bars and pressed his thumbnail into it, leaving an impression. “That is tallow wax, and we all have torches. Someone else has come this way, and recently. If the wax was old, it would be brittle. My nail would have broken it.”
Blossom shrugged. “Then under all this water, there’s probably a trail of tallow droppings that could tell us which way the murderers went.” She leaned her head to the side as she frowned, and a thick blond braid slipped over one shoulder and shimmered in the light of her torch.
“We don’t know who came this way,” Garett cautioned her. “Maybe the murderers, but, then again, maybe not.” He quickly explained to her his suspicions about the Thieves’ Guild and Sorvesh Kharn. “All we know for certain,” he concluded, “is that someone passed this way recently.”
“Could Sorvesh be the one behind these killings?” she wondered.
“I don’t see how it would profit him,” Burge said, interrupting, as he brushed one hand through the damp locks of his long black hair. “An’ Sorvesh Kharn is the kind of man who does nothin’ unless it turns a profit.”
“Unless he thought he could sow enough unrest in Old Town to cause the Directorate to turn against Ellon Thigpen,” Garett suggested, recalling the animosity he had seen on the thief master’s face in the directors’ meeting earlier that day, when he had attempted to turn his fellow directors against Prestelan Sun. And all because Prestelan Sun had supported Ellon Thigpen for mayor. “No,” Garett said, thoughtfully scratching his chin. “I don’t think we can rule Sorvesh Kharn out so easily.”
“If it is Kharn,” Burge whispered, leaning close, “then you’d best take care, Cap’n. As either a city director or a master of the Thieves’ Guild, he’d make a nasty foe. But Sorvesh Kharn holds the resources of both offices. He’ll be a tough nut to crack.”
A little farther on, the tunnel forked again. This time, Garett chose six men and sent them off with the same instructions he’d given Rudi’s team. He waited as they splashed their way up the sewer. When their torches were no more than a distant ruddy glow on the brickwork, he turned away.
Blossom gave a choked scream. Her sword whistled out of the sheath on her back and flashed downward, striking only water. Again she raised it, and again she struck downward as the nearest watchmen fell back away from her, shouting curses, trying to dodge her blows and protect their faces from the foul water she was slinging everywhere.
Garett and Burge reached her at the same time and caught her arm. She looked at them for an instant with an expression of utter repulsion before she began to blush. “It was a rat,” she explained, breathless, “swimming right by me. I almost touched it.”
“First spiders, now rats.” Burge snorted with good-natured mirth. His violet eyes sparkled in the torchlight. “You’re turnin’ squeamish in your old age, Lieutenant.” Blossom dipped the tip of her sword and flipped water upward into Burge’s face. When he twisted aside to avoid taking it in the eyes, she used the flat of the blade to deal his backside a sharp swat. “Mind your manners, elf,” she said petulantly. “It’s not polite to tease a lady.”
Burge grinned as he rubbed his rump where her blow had landed. “My wee and delicate Blossom,” he answered with a mocking bow. “Forgive me. I somet
imes forget that you are, indeed, a lady. From time to time, I have to strain my neck to look up an’ remind myself of that fact. Duck, now, cause we’re cornin’ to another arch.”
She had been watching Burge, expecting some retaliation. Barely in time, she reacted to avoid bumping her head on the stone support.
“Look out,” Burge warned, pointing to the dark comer where the arch met the ceiling. “There’s another spider there.”
Unable to stop herself, Blossom shuddered and jumped sideways, splashing water, her eyes darting fearfully up into the empty corner. With a small yelp, she started to slip until Burge caught her arm and steadied her. “Guess I was mistaken, milady,” he said with a broad smile.
Blossom glared at him as she sheathed her sword, straightened her damp tunic, and tossed her wandering braid back over her shoulder. “When we get back up into the real world,” she scolded, “I’m going to severely punish you.”
Burge held up his hands and shook his head. “Not me, milady,” he answered. “But thank you for the offer.” Garett knew his two lieutenants well enough not to worry. Their banter was always in fun, no matter how they insulted each other. Probably no one else but Blossom could continually call Burge an elf with such scorn and escape a beating. And certainly any other man would be a
fool to make fun of Blossom’s size.
The water in this part of the sewers no longer ran swiftly. In places, it was almost still and came no higher than their ankles. But Garett could feel the slime underneath the water through his boots, and the smell was still nearly unbearable. He couldn’t help wondering at the desperation that drove some men to seek employment as sewer sweepers, those poor citizens who, day after day, crawled down here to clear the sludge and sewage. He remembered Kentellen Mar’s father had been such a man.
They came to yet another fork in the tunnels and stopped. Garett realized suddenly how the light had dwindled. From twenty torches, they were now eight, and if he sent men up this new shaft, there would be fewer still. There was nothing else to do, though. Lieutenant Burge and three men moved off, and Garett watched them go. as he had the others, until the light of their torches was gone.
He stared ahead into the darkness that closed around him as he led Blossom and the two remaining watchmen in his group up the original tunnel. Despite their four sputtering torches, the gloom had a suffocating quality. More than ever, he was aware of the weight of stone and brick and earth over his head, of the closeness of the damp walls on either side.
There was little water on the tunnel floor now, just puddles and a thin stream of fetid sludge. A pair of rats looked up hesitantly from a meal they were making on the corpse of a poor drowned cat, and scampered quickly out of their path. Garett stared at the cat as he passed it. It was pretty chewed, but what riveted his attention were the dark, moist sockets where the animal’s eyes had been.
Why the seers? a part of his brain asked suddenly. Just as suddenly, the answer came to him. Because there’s something someone doesn’t want them to see.
A scream reverberated with frightening intensity through the tunnel. Garett spun about as one of his men dropped a torch from fear-numbed fingers. The flame popped and sizzled in a puddle and went out. Shamed, the soldier recovered himself. “Sorry, Captain,” he muttered apologetically, one hand still clenched tightly on the hilt of his sword.
“Understandable,” Garett responded even as he drew his own sword and started back down the tunnel at a run. In truth, he’d nearly dropped his own torch. The hair was still standing on the back of his neck.
“It came from that last fork,” Blossom shouted, running alongside her captain. “Burge’s party!”
They splashed noisily back through the tunnel as the sewage deepened, found the fork, and raced up it. The torches crackled and smoked in the wind of their passage. Behind Garett, one of his watchmen slipped and fell with a sharp scream of his own, and another light went out.
Then, out of the blackness came a terrible screech. For the briefest instant, Garett had the impression of something huge, a winged form with monstrous talons rushing at them out of the dark. A wind blew upon his face. With a shout, he threw himself against Blossom, knocking her aside. His torch sizzled in the water and went out as another human scream, from the watchman behind him, ripped through the tunnel and ceased with a horrifying finality.
Garett rose on his elbows out of the putrescent water and stared the way the creature had gone. His heart thundered in his chest as he pulled himself to his feet. Amazingly, Blossom had managed to save her torch. Though she was drenched, as he was, she was unharmed. He left her and hurried back to the fallen watchman. The man was dead, his neck broken as if by a powerful blow from the monster’s outspread wing.
A splashing alerted Garett, and the remaining watchman, the one who had slipped, came rushing up, his weapon in hand. “What in the hells was that?” he shouted. The look on his face was the result of both anger and fear, as it so often was on men at the edge of hysteria. “It passed right over me before I could get up!”
“Who knows what it was?” Garett snapped too loudly. He drew a deep breath. There was still the first scream to investigate. That had to have come from Burge’s party. “Take care of him,” Garett ordered, indicating the fallen watchman. He turned to rejoin Blossom, who was on her feet.
“You’re not leaving me here in the dark!” the soldier cried desperately. He slammed his naked blade against the stone wall, striking sparks, and Garett saw that he had, indeed, crossed the delicate edge. The man would fight rather than lose the light of Blossom’s torch.
“Then pick him up and bring him, gods damn it!” Garett turned his back as the soldier hurried eagerly to obey. Once the burden was shouldered, they all splashed ahead.
A new side tunnel intersected at a right angle, and someone shouted out even before Garett and Blossom reached it, alerted, no doubt, by the torch’s light. “Down here!” they called. “Help!”
The side tunnel was a dead end. A wide drainpipe near the ceiling gave a steady trickle from the upper world, and a green mossy stain trailed down the far wall. Two watchmen from Burge’s team rose unsteadily from where they were crouched. A third floated face down in the foot or so of water that filled the tunnel. Burge himself sat propped against one wall. His head lolled to one side, and his eyes were closed. Blossom’s torch revealed three sharply defined streaks of crimson that began on the side of his neck and ended just above his left nipple. The front of his tunic was entirely ripped away.
Garett went to him at once and felt for a heartbeat. “He’s alive!” he declared.
“I thought I was never gonna see light again in my life! ” one of the watchmen exclaimed.
“It was a bird, Captain! ” the other watchman hissed excitedly. “I mean, sort of! I mean, it was a man first when we came upon him. But then he changed. I mean, just changed! Right in front of us! The lieutenant there tried to grab ’im, but you see what that got!” He pointed to Burge’s wounds. “The thing just swiped at him and knocked him aside like he was a doll. Then it rushed at us. Me and Henget here—” He indicated his partner. “We ducked. But all of us, everyone, lost our damn torches!”
“What happened to the other one?” Blossom asked, moving toward the floating corpse, taking the light with her.
“Damned if I know,” the one called Henget answered. “He went down, too. Then it was dark. We didn’t move.”
Blossom turned the floater over and winced. The man’s throat was ripped away. As she let him go and rose again, the light of her torch fell fully on the far end of the tunnel, and she let out a short exclamation.
Garett heard her and turned to see what her light had revealed. Together they approached the low, stone altar while the other watchmen hung back silently. It was fashioned from large, unmortared blocks, recently assembled, and the cracks between the blocks were stained red where blood, and lots of it, had flowed down into them.
At one end of the altar, Garett found several str
ands of blond hair caught in those cracks. The little girl from Old Town whose body had been found yesterday—her hair had been blond. He put the palm of his hand down where her small head must have lain, and a tremor of anger went through him.
“Look,” Blossom said, touching his shoulder as she raised her torch a bit higher.
On both walls, at either end of the makeshift altar, was a sign, crudely painted in red, that Garett knew. It could not be coincidence that he had seen it most recently carved in the wall of the apartment belonging to the old seer called the Cat.
It was the horned skull above two coupling serpents, the symbol of the Horned Society, the most despised of all Greyhawk’s enemies. For years, the sorcerous Hierarchs that ruled the society had glared enviously across the Nyr Dyv, coveting Greyhawk’s power and wealth. But their own conquests and expansions had overextended their military strength. The Hierarchs lacked the navy to reach across the lake. And thanks to the political machinations of Greyhawk’s wiliest politicians, a precarious series of alliances with other nations around the Nyr Dyv ensured they would never develop one.
Then, suddenly, Garett took a closer look at the symbol. He grabbed the torch from Blossom to see better and held it right under the paintings, which were not done in paint at all, but in the life fluid of some victim, and it was still wet, still fresh.
Garett repressed a shudder and forced himself to study it closely. They were not horns that adorned the skull this time. They were slender wings.
“Let’s get out of here,” he announced abruptly. “Tomorrow, I want this thing taken apart stone by stone and the pieces thrown into the Selintan River. And have the sewer sweepers scrub these walls.”
He gave the torch back to Blossom. “One of you carry that man,” he ordered, pointing to the floater. “None of my men get left down here.” Then he bent and picked up Burge and cradled the half-elf s head on his shoulder.
Not another word was said until they found the other teams, located the nearest grate, and reached the upper world.
D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch Page 13