“Where are we?” Megan whispered.
“Lost. Back to the turn and right this time.” They padded back and took the other turning, straining to sense the downward slope they sought. The lanterns were few and far between here, hurtful to eyes night-adapted by hours beneath the earth. The sad smell of wet stone had been with them so long they scarcely noticed it; despite the underground chill the air was sticky. They came to a crossway in the low tunnels, and Shkai’ra eyed the arch above her head with hatred. She could stand erect only in the center, which put her feet in the drainway, a wet cold chafing inside her boots. This level was all beneath the water table, kept open by drainage to the sewer tunnels and the pumping system.
Behind them the noise of the temple search party grew. Then it was answered from the right, down-slope. Megan turned toward the rising left fork of the T-shaped junction.
“No!” Shkai’ra said. “Death that way; too many of them on the middle level above, the tunnels are too wide. Better we chance a fight, try to break.”
Just then the sound began behind them. It was a whining, saw-edged shrilling along the nerves. And there was something else behind it, something that drove needles into her ears and blurred the darkened scene before her eyes.
Baiwun, be with me now, Shkai’ra thought desperately. She invoked the mental disciplines of the Warrior’s Way, then slapped herself savagely across the face. Weakness swam in her, leaving her barely conscious of falling to her knees. A metallic sound came to her from a vast distance; she knew it was her saber clattering on the floor, but somehow it was too distant to matter.
The sound leaped into Megan’s mind, forcing its way in through channels burned with pain from the last time. She stumbled and almost cried out. Acid seared its way into her, and the vague sound of metal on metal did nothing to shatter the hold the Sniffer had on her. She brought up her hands, crooked into talons with the effort, as she felt her mind start to crumble. Her teeth were being driven through rusty metal; she was smothering in broken glass; it hurt to breathe, it hurt to think, it hurt ...
No. I am. I think. Megan is my name. Megan. Megan. She was down on her hands and knees, striving to rise. I decide. I. I. It became an anchor. A fragile thread that grew thinner moment by moment. From somewhere nearby Yeva’s power joined her own frail defense, a blue-violet surge of power that drew shield over them.
The pressure eased. Awareness returned. Shkai’ra shook her head and groped for the familiar bone grip of her sword, staggering back to her feet. The taste of blood was in her mouth, and she felt the pain of the wound her teeth had made. Vision cleared—
She started backward a step. She and Megan stood in the rising arm of the T; the two parties of priests had met before them. She could have reached out her blade and touched the foremost of them, or the ... creature held on a straining leash, and none so much as glanced at her.
“They must be here!” the foremost priest said. “They were seen! The beast says they’re near, very near, near enough for us to see with the eyes that see light.” The priest gave a savage jerk at the leash.
“Someone must be feeding it shit, then, because that’s all it’s got left for brains. About time to make a new Sniffer; you must have let them slip by you, somehow. His Radiance is not going to like this. Or us.”
There was stone under her hands. The Zak raised her head and opened her eyes, blood trickling out of one corner of her mouth. The first thing she saw was the Sniffer’s stare. The bulging eyes had once been human; now they were distorted, oozing and blood-shot. It was hairless, limbs stretched to gauntness, pallid white. Skin hung in loose folds under its chin, and it crouched, beastlike, staring at her and drooling greenish spittle on itself, mouth working as it chewed the air. For a second, she thought that the priests had them. Then her ears started working again. She moved to brace herself as the priests argued^ unseeing. The motion sent the monster—she could not call it anything else—into a frenzy, twisting and backing to be free of the chain. The one priest cuffed it, and it snapped at him, then cringed. It began its mental howl again.
“Stop it!” the priest said sharply, cuffing it again. “I don’t need a headache either. They are not here.”
“Bring your pet worm,” said another, who seemed to be in authority, running a hand over his shaven scalp. “They can’t have gotten past us downslope; you must have lost them back in the cross passages. Quickly!”
They trotted off down the two women’s backtrail, leaving the downward slope free. Shkai’ra looked after them, suppressing a hysterical giggle.
I saw that, she thought. We were standing in plain sight and they didn’t see us. I won’t think about it. Not now.
Megan pulled herself to her knees. “We ... ha ... have to get out now.” She braced herself against the wall. We can’t expect her help again, she thought. What it cost her to get into the temple and help us, I don’t want to think about.
They took the downslope, slowly recovering from the battering their minds had taken, picking up speed. Then, like a nagging tooth, Megan was aware of the Sniffer, at first fading, then growing stronger, trying to settle a hook into her brain. “They’ll find us if they follow the Sniffer. It just tore the chain from its keeper’s hand and hunts us alone. Na Koru, rozhum.”
Chapter XVII
The mildewed lattice, swollen and heavy with dampness, took the two of them to wrench loose. As it swung back with a crash and the raw, sharp smell of urine and rotting garbage welled up, Megan looked at Shkai’ra.
“So, these are the sewers. Why aren’t I glad that we’ve reached them?” She eased the grating down and followed Shkai’ra into the rough brick shaft. The stream of water from the drainage channel fanned out in the cracks in the wall, running cold over one hand and trailing down her forearm. The way was closed behind them, even if the priests delayed in following their monster.
Shkai’ra was moving down the wooden handholds as quickly as caution allowed. “Hurry. They group around the waste chutes.”
“They?”
“Come on!”
A rung gave way under her foot, loosened by the heavier woman’s weight; Shkai’ra had just set her feet on solid stone when Megan’s cry of “Look out!” came down the shaft.
Megan followed, coiling out of a ball to land on her feet. Her legs absorbed the impact of her weight, but the force other landing was still enough to drive a small sound from her lungs.
As she rose from her crouch, Shkai’ra’s eyes and teeth gleamed in the darkness. “Who do you steal from—the deaf?” she whispered. Her voice scurried around the tunnel, sibilant and cut by the drip of water and a rustling noise in the distance.
“We have time for jokes, heavy one?”
“No—follow me.”
They edged along the narrow path barely wide enough to stand on, the sluggish now of water only inches from where they stood. The darkness was not quite black; enough reflected light filtered through to suggest an oily sheen on the rippling surface but not enough to guide the feet.
“Do we nave to swim through this?” Megan choked. The stench was heavy, palpable, not raw as it had been in the shaft, but oily and rancid, clinging to the inside of nose and throat like the scent of overripe bananas. She twitched as something multilegged and slimy dropped from the ceiling and crawled down her cheek.
“Nai,” Shkai’ra said, dropping back into her native language. The slow drip and splash of the water had changed slightly, sounding against something other than stone or water, a hollower sound. “There are canoes for the repair crews,” she continued, guiding Megan’s hand to the side of a small dugout. Quick, we’re not safe yet.”
“This is so difficult to see that you have to tell me?” They pushed off into the current. Shkai’ra set a relentless pace, pushing the paddle deep into the thick fluid. “Paddle hard,” she gasped. “But don’t let your hands touch the water.” Megan labored to match the taller woman’s stroke. “Stop making ... dark ... hints ... and tell,” she breathed, matching w
ord to effort.
At that moment, a heavy crunching twitch struck at her paddle; the sensation reminded her of a fish striking at a hook. She raised the suddenly heavy paddle, twitching and jerking in her hands. Straining through the dimness, she could make out a small wiggling shape. An alligator only twice a bandwidth long, the twin of the voracious little pests that she’d seen in the swamps. Perhaps a trifle smaller. Behind them the rustling was growing louder and the water began to seethe.
“Why have you ...” Shkai’ra snapped over her shoulder. “Oh, kill it. Quick, the pack will be here soon.”
Megan had shaken the paddle as Shkai’ra spoke, then, realizing that it would never let go, crushed it against the body of the canoe, feeling it pop and break like a grape with bones. The others were close enough now to snatch at the remains as she used the paddle again. Faintly, in the fetid darkness, she could see that there were only teeth left still clamped deep into the wood of the blade.
They had slowed, and the rest of the pack had converged on them.
“Koru, Guardian of Laves, give us strength! Shkai’ra, paddle faster!” She tasted the cold salt of sweat on her upper lip. “I’ve no will to be eaten alive.” She paused an instant to beat off two of the beasts clinging to the side of the canoe. Behind, a sliding, scraping noise was building. “And in such small bites!”
“Can’t go faster,” was the panted reply. The boiling sound of foul water whipped into froth was close now; the outriders of the horde jerked upward along the gunwales, and the Kommanza smashed the handle of her paddle across their bodies as she switched the blade from one side to the other. “There is one difference between these and the swamp breed,” Shkai’ra panted.
“What?”
“These ... their bite is septic.”
“Wonderful! Move, woman—we’re clear of most of them.”
I could scream, Shkai’ra thought. Or vomit. Her eyes probed the darkness overhead. “There should be an access here ... ah!” A movement in the air and a hollowness in the darkness marked the way out.
A thrust with the paddle against brickwork stopped the canoe. “Hold. There must be a service ladder here in the shaft.... Sheepshit!” The relief in her voice shifted to disgust colored with urgency. “It’s broken off.” Her fingers traced old brick, crumbling in the wet; a trickle of oily liquid fell on her upturned face.
Megan rammed down a surge of panic. “If we can’t get out here, can we reach the next one?”
The canoe thudded against the wall and rebounded. Shkai’ra had not answered; there was a dim flash of metal as she jammed her dagger into the ancient mortar of the access shaft and hammered it home with the butt of her paddle. “Climb over me, quick,” she husked.
Megan reached up to the Kommanza’s shoulders, her fingers sinking into the hard deltoids. Careful not to shoot the uncertain footing of the boat out from beneath the other woman’s feet, she moved to a precarious balance on Shkai’ra’s hips, then climbed lightly to place her feet on the shoulders. Reaching up, she wove her hands through the lowest secure rung and braced a foot on the dagger hilt. Arching her back in anticipation of the strain, she looked down into a deeper blackness. “Climb,” she said.
There was an instant of joint-cracking tension as the Zak felt her companion’s full weight; she bore the brunt of it on her arms, not daring to throw strain on the sodden mortar and eroded brick imprisoning the Kommanza’s blade. Hands clamped her ankles; an arm reached up to circle her thighs, tightened to bear weight, and the other hand reached for her belt. The long body slid over hers, and she gave a grunt of relief as Shkai’ra’s hands reached the rung above hers. Her feet gripped the hilt of the dagger, worked it free, and brought it up for gripping as she hung one-handed. Below, she could near the canoe capsize under the scrambling impact of the gator herd; the slow current bore it away.
Megan tossed the knife upward. “Here,” she said. “The walls curve inward to the ceiling; can they reach the access hole?”
Shkai’ra caught the hilt, more sensed than felt, and paused to hawk gummy phlegm into her mouth and spit into the water below. “Yes,” she said. “There’s growth on the brick lining, and the surface is rough. Take a little time, but they won’t stop on a hot trail. At least there’s no blood to drive them into frenzy. Couldn’t you do that glowing-knife trick? We could use some light.”
“True, but do you want to wait for them while I concentrate?” Megan replied. Below, the thick viscous liquid at the sides of the tunnel was being whipped into froth as the caimans scrabbled at the slick growth that covered the bricks. Soon it would be stripped away, and the claws would grip.
Unseen in the darkness, Shkai’ra spat in the direction of the noise. “No,” she snarled. “Only one way to go.”
“Let me go first.”
“why?”
“If those shoulders of yours get stuck, I don’t want to be behind you, like beer behind the bung, and if I get stuck ... well, you will just have to use those stilt legs and push.” She paused a moment. “Hard,” she added, and squeezed past.
Shkai’ra stared up into the darkness, and knew that it would need all a warrior’s sense of shame to make her follow into the narrow lightless filthy smallness of it. She gritted her teeth and began to pull herself up; just then a small shape thudded into one leg. White-hot needles punched into a calf just above her boot.
“Sheepshit!” she yelled. “Glitch take all vermin.”
Twisting into a U, she hung by one hand and reached down with the other as the four-inch alligator thrashed wildly, trying to tear a mouthful of her flesh free and drop clear. She snapped its neck, then broke the jaw to force the cartilage-locked teeth out of her flesh. Grimly, she scrambled to follow Megan. The shaft still loomed like a mouth waiting to swallow; but there were too many real mouths below. At least this one is toothless, she thought with a wild inward laughter.
“All praise to the Mighty Ones,” she muttered, in her people’s standard response to bad luck. “Now they’ve got a blood trail to follow.” The noise below rose to a frenzy as the warm red drops spattered their maddening scent into the water. A few lucky ones took bites from their dead cousin; the others drove forward in a slithering hill against the walls of the tunnel, their combined thrashings raising the mound out of the water.
“Faster—they’re climbing the walls after us.” An endless scuttling of claw on brick underlaid her words.
The shaft climbed vertically, then angled over toward the level. The darkness was absolute now, pressing wetly on the eyes. The only sound was their own hoarse breathing, falling muffled and dead into the still, confined air of the drainage shaft.
Shkai’ra could feel the weight of city-sour earth above her; it pressed on her chest, made each breath a labored effort. Instinct fought reason, told her to draw knife and smash, tear her way clear to air and light before the walls shifted and crushed her into darkness forever. Not even a soul could escape from here; it would be trapped with the rotting body, eternally unfreed by cleansing fire, never to be reborn.
The training of the Warmasters saved her. The true killer should hate all that lives, and that hate would make one strong.
“I hate,” she whispered, harsh and hoarse in the meter-high roundness of the shaft. “I hate you all. I hate ...”
Megan heard the grating whisper begin behind her in a language that she did not understand; hate and fear and lostness beating through the alien tongue, powerful enough to carry meaning. She could almost see the red flare of rage around her, and every sense cringed from the terror in the sound.
“... the miserable spook pushers and their ratshit message, and I hate the bungling incompetence that got us into this, and ...”
It was the last, desperate grasp of someone falling into hell, blaming everyone else. This is hell, Megan thought. Darkness and that sound will be with me forever and this tunnel will not end.
“... and I hate the priests and everybody breathing free above. And I hate ...” Shkai’ra hissed, her
voice shrinking into a singsong chant. Memories opened and bled; it was the voice of a child alone in the dark with pain and fear.
No way out, Megan thought. No opening. In a cold sweat, she imagined her groping hand suddenly finding a wall in the dark. In the blackness. To be eaten alive.
“... but I live, you die. You go, not me. I’m strong now, not weak ...”
The hair rose on Megan’s back, and she fought down the trembling fits that threatened to lock her here, unable to move either forward or back.
“... no one will hurt me again; I’ll live and kill, until the gods come to eat the world. And I’ll dance in the flames ...” The Kommanza’s face worked into a rictus of hate, but her body moved forward, its movements guided with a preternatural calmness even as threads of spittle drooled down from her lips. In her mind, the ancient Litany of Hate continued.
The force of Shkai’ra’s fear clawed at Megan’s mind, but there was no way for the Zak to stop, to perhaps ease the fear. Megan opened her mouth dazedly and shook her head. Sweat ran down her temples and under her hair as she fought off Shkai’ra’s emotions. She gasped again, aware that the air no longer moved at all From somewhere inside herself she pulled a defense against the other. Fishguts, she thought. That might be helping her, but it’s not helping me at all. She pretended that it was a challenge, issued in the childpack; one to perform or lose zight, her face and position. She crawled on.
In the blackness before her, suddenly there was no floor. She stopped and felt around the edges, fingers sliding in slimy softness. Her breathing was reflected back to her with an odd metallic ring-cold, and shifting slightly. So that’s why the air is dead. She clamped her teeth on her lip a moment.
Shkai’ra ran into her feet. The sudden interruption of the steady mechanical crawling shocked her consciousness back into control.
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