Threading the Needle

by Joshua Palmatier

  She choked on a gasp, a wave of dizziness passing over her. She was hyperventilating, her breath too short, her chest tight.

  Bowing her head, she sank back down to her knees and sucked in a large lungful of air to steady herself. Disappointment crossed Richten’s face before he turned away to watch the rest of the Rats parading Kent’s body around the roof. The Dog was still bellowing in rage, although it sounded weaker. Kara blocked it out, crawled forward to Dylan’s side, and rolled him gently toward her. His eyes were glazed, mouth slack. Bile smeared one side of his chin, its acidic reek sickening, but she reached out and slapped his face.

  “Come on. Wake up. You don’t stand a chance if you’re catatonic.”

  She slapped him again and he jerked away from her, arms flailing in self-defense. Kara caught his wrists. “Dylan, it’s me!”

  He tried to pull away until her voice registered, his eyes latching on to her face. “Kara? What happened?” As if finally becoming aware of his surroundings again, his eyes widened. “Kent.”

  “You need to stay with us if you’re going to make it out of here.”

  She helped him to hands and knees. He winced in pain, favoring his left leg.

  The Rats had migrated to the edge of the roof. Kara watched as they hoisted Kent’s body up for display, the Dog limp now, covered in blood from a hundred cuts, the most garishly visible the one Richten had made in his neck. Then they tossed him over the side.

  She didn’t hear the body hit the water of the river below. The roar from the Rats was too loud, the drums beating in a rapid rhythm that thrummed in Kara’s skin.

  “Now.” Kara’s head snapped back in Richten’s direction. He’d moved closer, still held the knife, Kent’s blood on the blade. “Who are you and where do you come from?”

  Allan signaled to the Dogs and Cutter to remain silent as their weapons were taken and their hands were bound. The two Wielders and Aaron followed suit, no one protesting. They were forced to kneel on the rooftop where they were captured, a group of the Tunnelers guarding them, most clustered near the edge of the roof where they could see the fight still going on below. He was certain these were from the group beneath the ley station now. They were older—maybe fifteen to twenty-five—and now that he’d had time to study them, he realized they were dressed better. The clothes were cleaner, had been patched and repaired, and most of them wore shoes or boots. The Rats went mostly barefoot. And they’d bathed recently.

  Glenn caught his eye and nodded toward the open trapdoor on the rooftop where the Tunnelers had cut them off. Only three of their captors stood guard there, one of them the youngest of the group. They could probably knock all three off their feet and be down the stairs inside before those gazing down at the street below even realized they’d moved.

  But then what? There were bound to be more of the Tunnelers on guard inside the building, and even if they made the street, where would they run with the fight raging just below? He doubted they could wade through that without drawing attention, especially with their hands still tied.

  He shook his head at Glenn. Artras had noticed the exchange. She appeared to be trying to tell him something with her eyes, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Then the sounds from the street below shifted, drawing away, and the oldest of those on guard—a young woman, maybe twenty-two, who Allan had heard one of them call Sorelle—drew back from the roofline. She had long, dark hair, nearly black, and her expression was hard.

  “Jaimes, Laura, get the rest. We’re moving.”

  Laura headed for the stairs and disappeared below. Jaimes’ group surrounded Allan and the others.

  Sorelle came to stand in front of Allan. She carried a sword in one hand, loosely, her stance casual, unthreatening, but he could see the alertness in her muscles. She could kill him within a heartbeat if he made a move.

  Allan found himself reassessing the group. Especially this woman.

  “Stand up.” Sorelle emphasized the order with a twitch of the blade.

  He climbed to his feet, wincing as muscles in his leg and back that had been strained by their flight twinged. “What are you going to do?”

  “Take you below.”

  Jaimes grabbed his arm from the side and shoved him toward the trapdoor, the other Tunnelers closing in on the Dogs and Wielders. Carter jerked out of the grip of the boy holding him, then stumbled and fell face-first to the rough stone of the roof. A few of their captors snickered as he moaned and rolled himself to his knees, his face now scraped and bloody, but they were cut off with a sharp word from Sorelle. The Dogs had all tried to move to protect the Wielder, but were held back.

  Jaimes hauled Carter to his feet, and then they were all hustled toward the trapdoor and maneuvered down through the building and out into the street. As soon as he ducked through the battered door, Allan glanced east toward the distortion, muscles tensed, but the fight had carried the Tunnelers and Rats in that direction, and the thoroughfare was clogged with the melee. The street outside was littered with bodies, splashed with blood, a group of Tunnelers younger than the fighters methodically looting whatever they could. Wagons had been pulled up and were being loaded with weapons, armor, and even some clothing and food as the children raced back and forth along the street, going body to body.

  Sorelle paused outside the door, staring in the direction of the fight, then shook herself and pointed with her sword back toward the ley station. “Walk.”

  They wound through Tinker, past the house where they’d holed up when the Rats arrived, then into the wide plaza before the ley station. The barricades the Tunnelers had hastily erected were still up, the bodies of Rats being removed from the stakes where they’d been impaled and stacked to one side, more children scavenging here. Sorelle was challenged by a slew of fighters on guard, but she gave a curt password at each post and they moved on without stopping.

  They mounted the wide stone steps of the ley station and passed through the crowded doors, Tunnelers dashing in and out all around them. Inside, the cavernous mezzanine roared with voices, the volume doubled by the echoes. A statue of a man and his family surrounding a covered cart, like a cottage on wagon wheels, filled the center of the room, pots and pans dangling from the cart’s roof, parcels and barrels latched to nearly every available space on its sides. It was carved from a bluish-white granite streaked with green and black.

  “What in hells is that?”

  “A tinker’s wagon. They used to come to Canter all the time.” At Glenn’s befuddled look, Allan added, “It’s how the villages too far from Erenthrall received new materials and the latest gossip.”

  They picked their way across the mezzanine, the floor covered with wounded being tended by a flurry of healers. Quite a few of those they passed were dead.

  When they reached the tunnel mouth that had once led down to the ley barge system that connected the districts throughout Erenthrall, the ground began to shake. Sorelle paused, hand up, but the tremor only lasted a moment, dust sifting down from overhead. Healers leaned over those they were working on to shield their bodies, and others broke into sobs, but after a moment of anticipatory silence, activity resumed.

  Sorelle led them down a walkway, past quiescent ley globes and standing torches, into the underground series of barge tunnels. They were challenged twice more, then passed through to one of the station’s docks. Allan shuddered at the strangeness of it all, the room lit with lanterns, the ditch that cut through along one side dark and empty. Before the Shattering, it would have been flooded with the white light of the ley, a river connecting this station to over a dozen others. Even with the ley line so obviously dead, Allan kept expecting to hear the warning bell that a barge was approaching, or the whistles of the station masters as they directed flow off and on a new arrival. The sounds echoed in his ears, mocking him.

  The platform was obviously a staging ground for the activity abo
ve, a figure—the oldest person Allan had seen yet, at thirty—at the center of the room at a desk, receiving and handing out orders from runners. Sorelle approached him, Jaimes and Laura keeping the Hollowers in check. The Tunneler leader spoke to the man. His gaze raked over them all, settling back on Allan, before he waved one hand dismissively and said something. Sorelle spun on her heels and stalked toward them.

  As soon as she was close enough, Jaimes asked, “What are we to do with them?”

  “Take them below. To Cason.”

  “You knew that’s what Ren would want. Why’d you even bother asking?”

  “Because I don’t like being a guard.”

  Jaimes rolled his eyes and tugged on Allan’s arm, leading them closer to the ley line’s bed. Half of their guards scrambled down a ladder leaning against the channel’s wall, then waited while the Dogs and Wielders were untied, allowed to climb down, and bound up again.

  They proceeded down the line’s bed, the bottom made from river stones, which made walking awkward. Allan found himself next to Artras, the Wielder staring around them avidly as they passed into the main tunnel heading east, toward the distortion.

  “What were you trying to tell me earlier, on the roof?” Allan kept his voice low while he watched the guards for a reaction.

  “I was trying to warn you that these weren’t Rats. They seemed more organized than that.” She turned to him, her face lit briefly as they came upon another torch. “But you’ve figured that out already.”

  “I still don’t trust them.”

  “I think we’re safer with them than with the Rats.”

  Allan said nothing, Sorelle glancing back.

  Then they passed out onto a ledge and into an open chamber. Artras gasped.

  “What is it?” Allan scanned the domed roof overhead and the dozen or so tunnels that branched off from this one room, all of various sizes. Those that belonged to the ley barges were the largest, one directly opposite them, another to its left at an angle, another pointing southward. Beneath their ledge, the bed opened up into a pit, with smaller openings scattered around the stone walls.

  “It’s a junction. No one has ever been inside one as far as I know, except while on a barge. Certainly not a Wielder.” She dropped her gaze. “It’s normally filled with ley, only the barge tunnels and this dome above the surface. Everything beneath is usually submerged. If the ley were to return, this room would be flooded in moments. We’d all be annihilated.”

  Allan recalled what they’d seen after emerging from the broken Amber Tower. The ley had consumed every living thing it had touched, nothing left behind but buckles and buttons and clasps. “What’s holding the ley back?”

  “Someone sealed off Tinker. Whatever ley was here has been diverted.”

  They edged along the ledge until they reached another ladder, repeating the earlier process as they made their way down to the bottom of the pit, passing multiple sets of guards, all in their twenties or thirties. Sorelle entered one of the smaller tunnels, but they weren’t inside long before it spilled out into another pit, this one smaller and without the larger ley barge openings up above.

  The room was bustling with people, most of them focused on a firepit in the center, large pots and rotating spits over the flames, the scent of roasting meat permeating the chamber. Allan started salivating, but Jaimes dragged him along to the left, circling the pit toward a group off to one side. As they passed the openings of some of the other tunnels, he saw makeshift tents within stretching as far as he could see, with people sleeping on pallets and others mere shadows of activity as they worked by lantern light behind obscuring sheets.

  “They live here.”

  “Better than living up above with the Rats and Wolves at your door. Here you can defend yourself, if anyone even risks coming after you through the tunnels.”

  “They could lay ambushes at every intersection. You may take the tunnels in time, but it would cost you.”

  Allan agreed with his Dogs’ assessment, but his attention was now fixed on the group they’d drawn up to. Jaimes tugged him to a halt as Sorelle continued forward, waiting for a man to finish speaking to a woman who was at least forty-five, if not older. Her face was scarred, her stance solid, her hair graying near the temples. She wore no armor, but her clothes were cut and shaped as precisely as a uniform. A sword hung sheathed at her side, two knives visible on the other side, and Allan suspected there were at least two other weapons hidden discreetly in a boot or sleeve.

  When she turned to face them, her eyes first locking on Allan, then Glenn and Tim, Allan’s hackles rose. Beside him, Glenn stiffened. “She’s a Dog.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she took in the rest of their group, then she spoke to Sorelle, turning away as if dismissing them.

  Sorelle stormed toward them, angrier than after speaking to Ren.

  “Follow me.” She swept past them and crossed the central part of the pit, skirting the kitchen. Allan’s stomach growled as they passed close enough to the fires that he could hear the fat sizzling in the coals beneath the spits. Smoke wafted into his face, acrid but with a hint of herbs and spice. He glanced upward to see it venting out through one of the smaller openings above, but then the yeasty smell of baking bread brought his attention back to the firepit, where loaves of some type of flatbread were being pulled from a roughly constructed oven.

  They passed on, until Sorelle reached a wide opening with a large metal grate placed over the front. Allan and the others were forced to wait while Sorelle’s group emptied the room beyond of a surprising number of crates and barrels and sacks. The markings indicated they were all stocks of food—grains, salted fish and pork, even a crate of oranges.

  Sorelle pointed toward the tunnel with her sword. “Inside!”

  Allan gestured with his head. “You first, Glenn.”

  The Dog took his meaning, stepping up into the tunnel and shifting back into the darkness. But Sorelle wasn’t inclined to give him time to investigate. She ordered Jaimes and the rest forward with their prisoners, shoving them all into the opening before slamming the grate closed and latching it from the outside.

  Jaimes sidled up to Sorelle. “Now what?”

  “We watch them. Cason’s orders. I thought we were going up above to fight.” She caught Allan watching her. “Settle in. I don’t know how long it will take before she finds time to talk to you.”

  Sorelle turned away, and after a brief pause, Jaimes edged closer. “She doesn’t hate you, she’d just rather be killing Rats.” Then he stepped away hastily, before Sorelle could notice.

  Allan scanned the chamber before edging farther back into the shadows. There were no torches or lanterns in here, the back of the tunnel nearly pitch black. Glenn’s broad-shouldered frame was barely visible as he shifted around, feet scraping along the floor. Stones skittered, followed by a curse, then what sounded like dirt and pebbles cascading down in a small avalanche.

  Glenn reappeared.

  “What did you find?”

  “The ceiling has caved in twenty or thirty paces back, probably from the quakes. I don’t see a way out.”

  Allan twisted his hands, the rope that had been used to bind them cutting into his wrists. “Untie me.”

  They stood back to back. The others saw what they were doing and did the same. Within minutes, all of them were untied and massaging their wrists. Allan worked the feeling back into his numbed fingers, but noticed that the abrasions on his skin were less serious than he’d thought. Tim and Carter hadn’t fared as well; both of them had struggled to free themselves during the long walk here from the rooftop.

  “What do we do now?” Artras asked.

  Allan sank down and sat, leaning his back up against one curved wall. The position was awkward, but he settled in and closed his eyes. “Wait for Cason.”

  The others hesitated a moment, then followed suit. Alla
n cracked an eyelid to watch, noting that Glenn was still too anxious to rest. The Dog began pacing in the depths of their prison.

  He must have dozed off. The screech of the grate opening up again jerked him out of sleep. His hand fell toward the empty sheath at his side before he remembered that Sorelle and the others had taken all of their weapons. Glenn stepped forward as Allan stood, the rest of the group watching warily or rousing themselves from their own naps. Allan couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but his mouth tasted awful, so he’d slept more than an hour. He desperately wanted a drink.

  Sorelle held the grate open as Cason stepped into the tunnel. Jaimes closed the bars behind them, and Allan heard the latch falling back into place.

  He and Cason stared at each other, the Dog’s hand resting on the pommel of the sword strapped to her side. Her back was stiff, her broad shoulders tensed, her bearing confident. She bore all the markings of a Dog—scars on her face, harshness in her gaze. If she had been male, Allan would have described her as grizzled. Instead, her age lent her an air of brutal competence.

  “Sorelle says she captured you fleeing from the Rats.” Her voice was softer than Allan had expected, though brusque. “You aren’t Temerite, and you certainly aren’t with the Wolves. Where do you come from?”

  “The plains.”

  Cason’s gaze flicked toward the others, lingering on Artras, Carter, and Aaron, before returning. “You don’t look like Aurek’s men. Did you escape from the Baron’s camp?”

  Allan thought of the group that had attacked their wagon on their last trip, and the wagon train they’d seen slaughtered on their way here. So the leader of that group called himself a Baron? He could see the resemblance to Baron Arent in the way the man had carried himself. A cold aloofness. But also a dangerous intelligence.

  And since there were no other true Barons left to challenge him as far as Allan knew, who was to say he didn’t deserve the title?