by T. H. Lain
The half-elf shrugged, shook his head, and stepped aside. Regdar put out a hand and the sergeant set a crowbar across his palm.
"Three men with me," he said, quickly counting five watchmen in the basement, "the other two stand ready with weapons drawn."
One of the younger watchmen swallowed and drew his sword in a shaking hand.
"Do you...?" the young man asked. "Do you think it's still in there?"
Regdar found the hairline crack, set the end of his crowbar in it, and said, "No."
He heard at least three of the watchmen sigh with relief, heard a second blade drawn, and the sergeant and two of his men pressed their own crowbars into the skinny crack.
It took them several minutes just to chip away at the surrounding mortar enough to get their crowbars set. When the three watchmen nodded to Regdar in turn that they were ready, the lord constable gave the order and they pushed. Regdar didn't put all his strength into the first attempt, in case the crowbar wasn't as firmly set or the wall as well-mortared as he thought. The crowbar dug into the crack but the door didn't budge.
"Are you set well?" he asked the other three. They nodded and Regdar turned his head to address the two men with swords. "I'm sure it's long gone by now, men, but look alive just the same."
The two guards swallowed and nodded. They held their swords in a ready position, their feet set wide apart. Regdar turned back to the door and tightened his grip on the crowbar.
"On three, then," he said. "One...two...three!"
They pushed with all their might, and at first it seemed as if they were trying to move a mountain. When Regdar felt the crowbar move, he backed off, thinking it had slipped from the crack and not wanting to accidentally injure one of the other men.
"It's...opening," the sergeant grunted.
Regdar blinked at the crack. It was indeed wider than it had been when the half-elf first found it.
"Put your backs into it," he ordered, then did the same himself.
With considerable effort, the four of them worked their crowbars deeper into the space between the door and the wall. When Regdar thought it felt as if the door was going to come open, he stopped pushing and held up a hand. The others stopped and Regdar motioned for them to back up.
"It's almost there," he said, gesturing to two of the men. "You two, stand on either side, watch your toes, and push. Sergeant..."
The sergeant dropped his crowbar and stepped back, drawing his sword. Regdar let his own crowbar clatter to the flagstone floor and slipped his greatsword from its sheath on his back. When both he and the sergeant were matching the other two watchmen's stance, Regdar nodded to the men with crowbars.
They pressed their backs into it with impressive will and surprising strength. All the while, Regdar tried to trace the outline of the door and match its size and shape to the floor in front of him. When the section of brick wall came out, it was likely going to fall, and any toes that strayed under it would be lost for good.
"Careful, now," he cautioned, though both men had their feet well back.
The door came loose all at once, but seemed to hang in the air for a precarious second. The two men with crowbars leaped to either side as the section of brick started slowly, gently tipping into the room.
With both hands on his sword, Regdar couldn't hold his hands over his ears, though he knew he should. If he had, though, he wouldn't have heard the footsteps on the stairs behind him. Thinking at first that his men were deserting, Regdar spun to face the stairs while the secret door fell, revealing a dark space beyond.
Torn between the footsteps that were descending the stairs—his men were still standing ready—and the darkness beyond the secret door, Regdar wasn't sure where to turn, so he whipped his head back and forth trying to see both sides at once. This startled his men, who looked at him, then whipped their heads forward when the heavy section of brick wall hit the flagstones with a thunderous boom that shook the floor and sent up a cloud of dust and pebbles of brick and mortar.
The tall, skinny man who ran the inn slipped down the stairs at what appeared to be an all-out run. Recognizing him right away, Regdar put his full attention back to the yawning, black hole in the wall. His ears were ringing and the bottoms of his feet tingled from the vibration of the floor, but he was ready for anything.
He counted three fast heartbeats, and nothing came out of the darkness but a rotten, dank smell of decay.
"What is the meaning of this?" the tall man said, breaking the silence that had descended over Regdar and his men.
Regdar relaxed his stance and turned to the innkeeper slowly, keeping his sword at his side in an unthreatening manner.
"You're the innkeeper," he said.
The man sketched a shallow bow, his face flashing from anger to surprise to anger again, and back to surprise in the course of a second.
"I am Feargal Haelliuzh," the man said, "proprietor of the Thrush and the Jay, and I am at your service, Lord Constable."
Regdar didn't bother wondering how the innkeeper knew of his appointment.
"Did you know about this?" Regdar asked.
The innkeeper shook his head, his eyes wide, his hands turning palm up.
"The secret door," Regdar said. "Did you know this was here?"
"No," said Haelliuzh.
Regdar saw the half-elf kneel in front of the fallen door and examine its edges, but he turned his attention back to the innkeeper.
"We will need to seal off the basement as well," Regdar said.
"But, Lord Constable, I..." the innkeeper began.
Regdar tipped his head to one side and lifted an eyebrow, and the tall man bowed deeply.
"My most sincere apologies, Lord Constable," he said. "Of course, the Thrush and the Jay is forever at the duke's disposal."
"Thank you," Regdar said. "If your people need anything from down here, just have them ask one of the guards and he'll have it brought up."
"Most gracious of you," Haelliuzh replied. The innkeeper looked around one last time and said, "I will leave you to your work then."
Regdar nodded and the man was gone in a flash.
"Well," the half-elf said, fingering a twisted bit of metal sticking out of the side of the fallen door, "here's the catch."
Regdar barely glanced at the ruin of the elaborate hinge and spring-clasp left twisted and ruined by their crowbars. Instead, he stepped to the edge of the dark space and eased his head through the doorway. The opening led to a wide, dark shaft that plunged into the ground past the reach of the light filtering in from the basement. The shaft ran straight down into the sewers. Though Regdar couldn't see the bottom of the shaft, he knew a sewer when he smelled one.
The stench was strong. Still holding his greatsword, Regdar put up one hand to cover his nose.
"The sewers," he announced.
Regdar saw a steel rung mortared into the wall behind and below the opening. The steel rung was the top of a ladder that was built into the wall of the shaft. From below, Regdar could hear the sound of rushing water echoing in the sewers far below.
Nothing else moved or made a sound.
"Do we go down?" the sergeant asked him.
Regdar turned, having quickly made up his mind.
"Not yet," said the lord constable. "Whatever that was, it was big, and we'll be in its territory. We know how it moves now, but there's an awful lot of sewer down there. We need a map, a plan, a mage maybe...weapons and supplies for sure."
"But we are going in?" the sergeant asked, his voice quiet, almost tentative.
Regdar looked at him and smiled.
Maelani turned left onto the paved walkway along the strand and sighed in relief when the Thrush and the Jay hid her from Naull's view. She wasn't sure, hut Maelani thought she could feel the woman's eyes follow her all the way down the street. It was a risk turning off the road before she was confronted by the bridge guards, but if they saw her face, she would have to answer to her father.
She ambled along the path with t
he cowl pulled over her head, trying for all she was worth to appear casual, just a young woman out for a pre-dawn stroll. That was strange enough, even in one of the city's better neighborhoods, but all she needed was to avoid both the bridge guards and Naull long enough to get back into the inn.
A small crowd of watchmen milled about the strand, most of them still looking up at the broken windows of Regdar's room. The memory of floating up to that balcony, propelled by her enchanted sandals, made Maelani momentarily dizzy. She walked slowly, eyeing the guards from the shadows of her cloak. When none of them were looking directly at her, she slipped into the deep shadows of the inn's columned patio.
One of the Thrush and the Jay's house guards was lighting lamps in a line along the wall. Intent on his work, and made nightblind by the lamps only inches from his face, he never saw Maelani step into a curtained alcove.
Reserved for the inn's most privacy-conscious clientele, the alcoves were often rented by the month. Maelani, through her maid, had rented one almost a year before under an assumed name. She paid well for it, having to sell some of her jewelry and trading a favor or two. The portal had cost her even more.
A three-month-old baby was being raised in the Trade Quarter by a peasant couple who managed to make a fortune when they both discovered they had dragon blood and a talent for sorcery. Something in their past made it impossible (at least in their own minds) for them to ascend to the aristocracy, but they purchased the title, held in trust, for their baby when he came of age.
The title was a small thing for Maelani but huge for the family of sorcerers, and it bought her the portal in secrecy.
Pausing in the utter darkness of the alcove, Maelani took a deep breath.
"Regdar," she whispered, then quickly put a hand to her lips.
The place was still crawling with guards and she didn't want to be found, but she didn't want to go home, either. She came to the Thrush and the Jay that night with a purpose, and her mission had been interrupted.
Maelani pushed away the memory of the bed exploding at her, the bedcovers, the stomping, the fear of something lumbering toward her. Instead, she let her thoughts fill with the feeling of Regdar's arms around her, of the lord constable picking her up like she was a baby, and of his cool, confident gaze as he lowered her and the other woman down through the hole in the floor.
Here was a man truly worthy of the duchy and of her, but he was with that peasant, that trollop, that street mage.
Maelani felt her jaw tense with anger, embarrassment, and jealousy.
She thinks he loves her, Maelani thought, and maybe he does, but we haven't been alone yet.
Maelani thought of the potion, and her face relaxed. She wouldn't use it unless she had to, and she truly didn't think she had to, Naull or no Naull, but it was nice to know she had it just in case.
With a smile, she stepped onto an enchanted floor tile, whispered a command word, and faded from the pitch-dark alcove.
Regdar stretched, holding his neck. He hadn't slept and the adrenaline high that followed the mysterious attack had long since run its course. While he was still gathering men and resources to begin a search of the sewers, Naull returned. She'd said only a few words to him about having to rest and regain her spells. She seemed angry, but maybe scared as well. The look on her face and the tone of her voice troubled Regdar deeply, but as always seemed to be the case, he had pressing work to do, more immediate problems, and Naull would have to wait—and understand.
Standing knee-deep in waste water, Regdar finished stretching and pressed on. The tracker was several paces ahead of him, and already there was a space of inky darkness between the pools of light from his lantern and Regdar's. The curved ceiling was only a few inches over Regdar's head, and the walls were only a couple feet to either side of him. The sewer passage was a long, brickwork cylinder—a pipe, really. Sounds echoed so strangely in its confines that Regdar eventually gave up jumping at every sudden noise. A drip could sound like a warhorse's hooves, a splash like the beating of a giant heart.
The tracker was another of the city watchmen who Regdar commanded, though he hadn't met the man an hour before. The sergeant told him that the tracker, whose name was Willis, had worked in the sewers and knew their quirks. Having spent an hour following Willis through the worst place in New Koratia, Regdar wasn't so sure. They seemed to just be walking in a straight line.
Behind him followed two more watchmen, whispering gripes and dirty jokes to each other to pass the time. Regdar wished he could join them but he was still working out how a Lord Constable should act, and griping with the men probably wasn't it.
He had three more teams of four men apiece fanned out in the maze of sewer tunnels, each led by someone who claimed to know the subterranean ins and outs. Regdar could only hope that one of those other teams, at least, was on the right track.
He was beginning to think about turning his team around and going back to the Thrush and the Jay when one of the men behind him screamed. Regdar whirled and saw a single, flailing arm surrounded by splashing water. The other watchman moved back and to the side, pushing through the water, pinwheeling his arms so that the sword in his right hand scraped the ceiling and the wall close behind him.
Regdar sloshed toward the commotion, scanning the rippling water for the downed man. Bits of garbage and feces bobbed in the brown water, which was being churned from below. The water was no more than two feet deep, and Regdar couldn't believe the watchman could have disappeared completely in it.
"What happened?" he asked the missing man's partner.
The watchman looked at him with wild eyes and managed to say, "He just—" before the water exploded up into Regdar's face, and the missing man appeared with a high-pitched, gurgling scream.
The horrible sound echoed over and over again in the sewer tunnel, and Regdar bent back away from the man's fear-ravaged face as it lunged toward him, or was pushed at him. Something had the man in its jaws.
"Run!" the tracker called.
Regdar grabbed at the flailing man and got hold of his soaking tabard. The fabric tore, and the man was jerked back. Something slapped the water, and the light dimmed in the tunnel when the lantern was knocked out of Regdar's hand by the screaming watchman's flailing hands.
It was a snake that had him—a huge snake with a head as big as the watchman's torso.
The snake dropped its head and the still flailing watchman back into the water. It slithered forward under the surface. Regdar felt it slide across his legs, then it twitched against him and almost pushed him off his feet.
Regdar drew his sword but momentarily forgot the low ceiling. The heavy blade clanged against the bricks.
The tracker was trying to run away and was still loudly urging the others to do the same when either the drowning victim or the monster snake itself tripped him up. He fell facefirst, his lantern dropping into the water with him and going out. The only light left was one small lantern held by the man who'd watched his partner fall to the snake, and that man was taking the tracker's advice. He was running away as fast as he could manage in the knee-deep water and taking the only remaining light with him.
"Stop!" Regdar shouted at the man's receding back.
Regdar looked back over his shoulder and saw the disturbance in the water as the snake slithered away just under the surface. The tracker splashed past him, and they made eye contact as he went by. Regdar saw a little guilt there, but not much. There was another splash from farther up the tunnel and the snake's victim screamed again.
Regdar reached out to grab the tracker but the man stopped anyway, looking back at his dying comrade.
"Your bow," Regdar said, keeping his hand out.
Willis slipped the shortbow off his shoulder and handed it to Regdar, who took the liberty of sliding an arrow out of the tracker's quiver. He nocked the arrow and drew back the string in a single motion. He aimed but the light was already so far behind him that he was basically shooting blind.
"Pin it," t
he tracker said, and Regdar let the arrow fly.
There was a great disturbance in the water—splashing, a cough, something like a shout—and the light didn't get any dimmer. The other watchman started splashing his way back.
"Did you get it?" the man called. "Did he get it?"
"Help!" came echoing down the corridor, then was swallowed up by more splashing.
"He got it," Willis said, and followed Regdar up the tunnel.
"Get him to the temple," Regdar said as he handed the wounded man to a pair of watchmen in the basement of the Thrush and the Jay.
The remaining two members of Regdar's team clanged up the ladder behind him as the wounded man was carried away, bleeding, his head lolling weakly to one side.
"You found it," Naull said, and Regdar flinched.
He hadn't expected to see her there, but was instantly happy he did. She was dressed in her traveling clothes, with her straps of pouches over her shoulders and her hair tied up away from her face.
"What was it?" she asked.
"It was a snake," he said.
"A dire snake," the tracker Willis added as he climbed through the formerly secret door behind Regdar. "A nasty one, too. Almost swallowed Kirk whole."
Regdar found himself about to ask who Kirk was, then realized he needed to start introducing himself to his men. He was ordering them into the notoriously dangerous city sewers and hadn't even bothered to learn their names.
"A snake?" Naull asked, skeptical.
She had good instincts.
"It was just a big snake," Regdar said, "that lives in the sewers. It wasn't what tunneled up and tried to kill M—" he almost said Maelani but quickly switched to—"me. It was just an animal."
"A big animal," said the fourth member of Regdar's team as he crawled from the shaft.
"So, you didn't find it," Naull said.
Regdar opened his mouth to reply, but the sergeant spoke first.
"One of the other teams got a good trail."
Regdar looked at him and asked, "What trail?"