Orphan's Song

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  For a moment, he crouched on the edge, exposed to shots from both sides of the street. The narrow hole yawned at his feet—it would be a tight squeeze. Yelling broke out in the streets, and he knew he had been seen. He took a deep breath, dropped to his knees, and lowered himself into the hole.

  Soot engulfed him as he scrambled down the chimney, feet wedged against one wall, back pressed against the other. Ragged rock ripped through his worn coat and tore at his skin. The broken shaft in his hand scraped against the wall, and he gasped at the pain. And all the while, he told himself to hurry, hurry, hurry.

  The house was tall, at least two—maybe three—stories. Even now the soldiers could be breaking down the door—they might even already be waiting for him at the bottom.

  Something crunched beneath his toes—ashes. Squirming like a fish trapped in a net, he wriggled loose, and dropped into the fireplace.

  He crawled out into a dark room. Three rusty pots sprawled beside the hearth. A table stood in the center of the room, cluttered with knives, spoons, chipped plates, and various odds and ends, all covered in a thick layer of dust.

  Something skittered in the far corner. He twisted to face the noise. A dozen rats scampered across a stack of empty casks and rustled through torn grain sacks.

  “Open in the name of the Takhran.”

  Ky jumped at the muffled voice and the rats scattered. A loud crash echoed over his head, followed by the thud of booted feet dispersing through the house. The noise of the search filtered down to the kitchen—the thump of overturned furniture, doors yanked open, shutters left to swing in the wind, shouts ringing down empty corridors. And nearer, footsteps clomping down a flight of stairs.

  Ky raced toward the stacks of barrels in the corner, but the earth suddenly gave way beneath him. Too startled even to scream, he tumbled into darkness.

  Ky wandered in fog. Garbled voices drifted around him, and dim figures flickered across his vision. Calloused hands tended his wounds—there was a flash of pain in his hand, then a dull throbbing that gradually eased.

  “Is he going to be all right?” A girl’s voice spoke beside him. It sounded musical, like a stringed instrument.

  “Aye, he’s not sore hurt.” The second voice was deeper, rumbling. “Bleatin’ bollywags, but I’d like t’ get my hands on the slitherin’ slumgullions who’d shoot a wee lad like this.”

  Ky groaned, trying to open his eyes.

  “Amos, I think he’s waking up.” An icy hand rested on his forehead.

  He jolted awake and tried to scramble away, but pain lanced through his side and arm, and he fell back, dizzy.

  “Not so fast, lad. Ye’ve had a nasty fall.” Firm hands held him down, and a weathered face surrounded by unkempt red hair beneath a feathered cap loomed over him. Green eyes blazed beneath the shadow of heavy brows. “Aye, that’s it. Take it easy. We’re friends. Ye’ve naught t’ fear from us.”

  Ky doubted that was true. Scars on the man’s hands labeled him a warrior. He was obviously dangerous and—

  Blue eyes peered at him over the man’s shoulder. Cold blue, like frost floating on the River Adayn. Ky shivered and tore his gaze away from the eyes to a pale, round face framed by dark hair.

  The girl stared at him in silence a moment and he stared back. Then she scooted past the man, revealing ragged, mud spattered clothes draped over a small frame. She didn’t look much like one to fear, but something about her eyes made him uneasy.

  And the Underground was proof that even the smallest could be deadly.

  Right now, though, the best he could do was lay quiet until the dizziness passed and then be on his way. He studied his surroundings in search of an escape route. Looked to be a small underground room lit by a candle set against the far wall. A few empty casks were scattered haphazard across the floor. The only way out appeared to be a trap door in the ceiling, and it was wedged shut.

  “I’m Birdie,” the girl said at last. “The grumpy one is Amos.” She paused and looked to be waiting for a response, but she wasn’t going to get one. Didn’t she know better than to throw names around with strangers?

  He checked for his sling. It was still looped around his waist, and he had his sword too. Odd if he was a prisoner. Maybe he had fallen in with honest folk—that would explain the odd behavior. At least it couldn’t hurt to ask a few questions.

  “How’d I get here?”

  Birdie’s eyes flickered up to the trap door. “You fell through there a few minutes ago, bloody and covered in soot. Amos treated your wounds. Do you remember what happened before that? Who did this to you?”

  Ky forced his left hand to rise, wincing at the pain, and eyed the blood stained bandage. Recollection flooded his memory as the boards overhead creaked with the weight of footsteps. Pots and pans clattered, barrels tipped, something heavy was dragged over the wooden floor and then overturned with a massive thud.

  The dark soldiers were still looking for him.

  Birdie’s face turned the color of ice. “Khelari.”

  The man—Amos—inched to his feet and drew a bronze dirk from his belt. He crept over to the far wall beside the candle and ran his free hand along the stone, muttering to himself.

  Ky pushed up to a sitting position, blinking as the blood rushed from his head. Was there another way out, a tunnel of some sort? He didn’t trust the trapdoor to withstand the dark soldiers’ search, and he didn’t want to be in this cellar when they found it.

  From the looks on Birdie and Amos’s faces, neither did they.

  Amos grunted and pressed against the wall in two different places. Something clicked, and a three foot section slid back, grumbling on rusted tracks.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, Ky limped over and ducked his head inside. The tunnel didn’t look familiar, but if it was one of the Underground tunnels, then how did this stranger know about it? The Underground survived by staying invisible.

  “Those Khelari brutes will have heard that,” Amos said. “Quick, lass, grab the packs. Birdie?” He hastened to her side and hovered over her kneeling form. “What’s wrong?”

  The girl clutched her head in her hands, eyes closed, lips pressed together, as if she were in pain. Then her eyes flew open—round, haunted eyes—enormous in her white face. “Carhartan’s here,” she whispered.

  “Bloodwuthering blodknockers, how could ye possibly know that?”

  “Please trust me, Amos. I know.”

  Overhead, steel-shod footsteps clanked down a flight of stairs. Scrambling feet thundered across the floorboards, and then a soldier stammered. “Lord Carhartan, Marshal, sir. You’re . . . we . . . expected you at the Keep . . .”

  Ky didn’t waste any more time. Dark soldiers close enough to overhear were too close. Clutching his injured hand to his wounded side, he snatched up the candle and crawled into the tunnel. A moment later, the girl slipped through, followed by Amos with both of the packs. The man pushed the section of wall back into place and squeezed past Ky to the front.

  Amos took the candle and led the way at a brisk walk with the flickering circle of light bouncing down the tunnel before him. The noise of their breathing and the slap of their feet echoed in the enclosed space.

  Each step sent renewed pain flaring through Ky’s injuries, but he had to stay alert. Focused. Now was his only chance to find out what the stranger knew about the Underground. He cleared his throat. “Where’s this tunnel lead?”

  “It’s an old smuggling tunnel,” Amos said without turning. “It’ll set us out on the street a few blocks away.”

  Birdie’s clear voice piped up behind Ky. “What will we do after that, Amos?”

  “Find somewhere t’ hide ’til we can get clear o’ this blaggardly city. Look, lad.” Amos halted, puffing for breath, and gripped Ky’s shoulder.

  He fought the impulse to break free and waited to hear what the stranger would
say.

  “That was a Khelari bolt in yer hand, so it’s no use pretendin’ those soldiers had naught t’ do with it. The lass an’ I are none too fond o’ them ourselves. It just so happens that there’s an entire network o’ tunnels beneath this city, leadin’ t’ a central cavern, an’ there’s an entrance not too far from where this tunnel lets out. I reckon we can wait in the cavern for things t’ settle down, an’ ye’re welcome t’ join us, if ye’ve a mind.”

  Ky’s heart sank. So they did know about the cavern. He couldn’t just allow them to barge into the Underground on their own, but if he accompanied them, Cade would hold him responsible for revealing their secrets to strangers. “Wouldn’t it be better to just wait here and avoid risking the streets? Could be patrols everywhere by this time.”

  “No.” The hardness of Birdie’s tone surprised him. “We’re too close to the Khelari. They’ll be searching this area. They could find the tunnel and then we’d be caught.”

  “Aye, best t’ put as much distance between us an’ this place as we can.” Amos started off again at a swinging trot.

  “Wait!” Ky called after him, struggling to keep up against the pain and weakness that made his legs tremble and his breath catch in his throat. “How did you know about the tunnels, anyway?”

  There was a long pause, then Amos grunted an answer. “Friend o’ mine owned a smithy not far from here. He knew about them.”

  Ky stopped so fast that Birdie ran into him, bringing a pained groan to his lips. She stammered an apology and slipped past, hurrying to catch up with Amos. The weight of the stranger’s claim sank in. Cade’s father, Lucas Peregrine, had been a swordsmith, and the ruins of his smithy concealed the nearest Underground entrance.

  “Lucas Peregrine,” Ky burst out. “He was your friend, wasn’t he?”

  Amos came to a halt and swung around, arms folded across his broad chest. “How did ye know that?”

  Chuckling, Ky slumped against the tunnel wall, grateful for a chance to relieve the weight on his legs. He let his head tilt back until it thumped against stone and closed his eyes, trying to think straight through the fog clouding his brain. If this truly was an old friend of Lucas Peregrine returned to Kerby, Cade would be thrilled to meet him.

  Ky could only imagine what it would be like to have the chance to talk to an old friend of his parents. It put things in a new light. Of course Amos and Birdie must go to the Underground.

  He took a deep breath. “Follow me. I’ll show you the way.”

  24

  “This is it.” Ky halted in front of the ramshackle building that had once been Cade’s home. With a shaky hand, he wiped away the sweat beading on his forehead, then hugged a displaced column for support. Stones blackened by fire and scarred by weather, the old smithy sprawled beside the street in a jumbled heap of collapsed walls and sagging roof. The place looked about as weary and pain ridden as Ky felt.

  “Blithering barnacles, what happened here?” Amos demanded. His forehead furrowed and the muscles stood out along his jaw. “I’d scarce recognize the place. This was Lucas Peregrine’s smithy?”

  “Until the dark soldiers burned it down. Now it hides one of our secret entrances.” Ky tilted his head toward a large boulder on the edge of the ruin, inviting Amos to take a closer look. He had explained the workings of the Underground on the way, about the coming of the dark soldiers to Kerby and the fight to survive.

  Amos knelt and traced the flaring V etched in the stone. “This is your symbol?”

  “Yes.” Ky started to draw himself up tall, but thought better of it when pain shot through his wounded side. “A hawk for the hero Hawkness. His example taught us that we aren’t made to bow to the dark soldiers. That we could fight back, be free!”

  He released the column and picked his way painfully through the ruin until he stumbled to a stop in the middle of the pile of broken stone and twisted metal pipe. An old wooden door lay at his feet, half buried in the mound of rubble. He grasped the curved handle with his good hand, spun it in a circle, and pulled, gasping at the strain in his injured side.

  The top half of the door swung open, revealing the Underground entrance.

  “George!” Birdie cried out.

  Head still reeling from the exertion of opening the tunnel, Ky tottered around and watched the girl run over to a yellow cat strolling atop a porch railing at the edge of the rubble.

  “Where have you been?” Birdie scooped the scrawny beast into her arms, oblivious to his attempts to squirm free. “How did you find us? I’ve been so worried.”

  The cat purred when she set it down and rubbed up against her legs.

  Ky shuffled back and motioned to the entrance. “Here it is.”

  “Good.” Amos called Birdie over, then turned back to Ky. “D’ ye have a name, lad?”

  “Yeah, it’s Ky . . . Ky Huntyr.” He knelt and pointed into the entrance shaft. “There’s a ladder built into the wall. Whistle when you get to the bottom.”

  Birdie nodded her understanding and made her way down, her dark head melting into the underground blackness. Amos dropped into the narrow entrance next, wriggling to free himself as his pack jammed against the sides.

  Leaving Ky alone in the company of the bedraggled yellow cat. Whiskers twitching, it trotted over to the entrance and sniffed the air. A shadow smudged the ruins for an instant and then was gone. Ky glanced up, and out of the corner of his eyes, saw a large black bird swoop down and perch on the ridgepole of a house farther down the street.

  The cat hissed at Ky and sprinted away, fur bristling like an exploding fire flower.

  Far as he was concerned, the feeling was mutual.

  A whistle drifted up from below, signaling that Amos had reached the bottom. Setting his teeth to endure, Ky tucked his left arm against his body so that the elbow provided support to his side and his wounded hand rested on his chest. Then he sat beside the hole, swung his legs over, and clambered down as best he could one-handed.

  He paused halfway down and peered up at the open square of light above him. This is going to be tricky. He tried to grip the iron bar with his injured hand and reach for the trap door with the other, but fire flamed in his palm, and he bit his tongue to keep from crying out.

  Stifling a sigh, he continued down.

  As soon as his bare feet scraped the bottom of the tunnel, he explained the problem to Amos. The man climbed back up the ladder and yanked the trap door shut. It thudded into place, blocking all light from the tunnel, and Amos dropped back down.

  “There, closed up nice an’ tight.”

  Ky started off, but a rough hand seized his good wrist.

  “Hold up a moment, lad. We’ll link arms.”

  After a moment’s scuffling while Birdie and Amos tried to locate one another, Ky received the go-ahead. They proceeded single file down the twisting tunnel, Ky leading the way with a confident step. As they neared the Underground, the passage widened and became visible before them, lit by the glow of the main cavern ahead.

  A sense of wrongness settled in Ky’s stomach. He slowed his pace and cast a glance around the tunnel. It was odd they hadn’t met any sentries. Cade usually kept a runner posted in all the main tunnels, just to be safe, but he didn’t see any sign of lookouts in the usual crannies and hidey-holes.

  What if there had been a raid?

  His steps quickened to a shuffling run, tugging Birdie and Amos after him, grunting with every aching breath.

  Light flooded the tunnel.

  Ky jerked to a stop, blinking in the sudden orange brilliance of a dozen torches. Familiar faces pressed in on all sides—Cade, Paddy, all the oldest runners in the Underground. He took in the accusatory squint of every eye, the hard press of every mouth, and the weapons drawn in every hand.

  Guilt struck like a blow to the stomach, driving all thought of speech from his mind. Dizzier should
have been standing here with the rest of them, the same old, hateful sneer twisting his face. Not lying dead in the marketplace.

  “Explain yourself, Ky.” Cade pushed to the front of the crowd. “Where have you been all night, and where is Dizzier?”

  Ky swallowed, trying to moisten his dry mouth. “He’s gone, taken by the soldiers. He’s dead.”

  A murmur rippled through the circle, and one of the girls whimpered.

  “Dead?” Cade’s gaze roved across Ky’s face as if to read the truth in his eyes, then the older boy shook his head and a lifeless mask slipped over his features. His voice was hard when he spoke again. “How did it happen?”

  “He was captured. I tried to rescue him. A soldier shot at me and Dizzier fought him.” Ky heaved a breath and let his eyes drop to his dusty toes. He should stop talking now, but somehow the bitter words refused to be held back. “Dizzier’s gone . . . the mission failed . . . what do you think of your war now?”

  Torchlight flared in Cade’s eyes. “It’s not my war. It’s ours. And what of the sword, did you lose that too?”

  Ky touched the leather grip of the short sword belted at his waist before realizing that Cade was talking about something else.

  He tilted his head to look Cade in the eyes. “How’d you know what was in that box?”

  Cade shifted positions, and Ky caught a glimpse of uncertainty on his face.

  He pressed his advantage. “I never saw what we stole. Dizzier took it away while I kept the soldiers busy, but he didn’t have it with him when he was captured in the marketplace. And if it isn’t here, then how do you know what it was?”

  Cade didn’t reply, but that was answer enough. In that moment, Ky knew. Somehow, Cade had known all along what the treasure was, known what they were getting themselves into, and yet he hadn’t told them. His silence had cost Dizzier and Rab their lives and put the Underground at risk.