by F. E. Hubert
out the large man walking in front of him, a darker shape against the shadows. A gate creaked as they went through. The path turned to gravel, crunching under their feet. A well-oiled door opened and Mufroen found himself blinking against the light of two torches set against the walls to the sides of the door.
The room was rectangular and narrow, like a tunnel, and he could see two doors beside the one they used, set into the narrow sides to his left and his right. Two men, a couple of years past their prime, looked up in alarm, the card game on the crate between them forgotten. The one farthest from the door reached down to his belt with reflexes honed by years of living on the edge. His cheeks were sunken with age, but his shoulders were still broad and his arms lined with ropes of muscle. Jan stepped between them before the knife in the other man’s hand could be a threat.
“He’s a friend.”
The other man was as short as Mufroen, skinny to the point of emaciation and pale enough to be a ghost. He stood up with a wobble, offering Mufroen his hand.
“Alvin.” Soft skin touched his sword-hardened hand. Definitely not a swordsman. Ink stained his two first fingers, so probably a scribe.
What was a scribe doing with these two hardened thugs?
“And this is Veel.” He tilted his head to indicate the man with the knife. He’d put it back on his belt, but he was still scowling at Mufroen.
“What’s he doing here? I’m not splitting this bounty.”
“He saved me,” Jan made a deflated sound. “They sent Kazir.”
Both Veel and Alvin blanched. To Mufroen’s surprise the skinny scribe was the first to recover.
“We need to leave. Now.” He pointed at Mufroen while he started to throw things into a rough leather bag. “How much do we owe him?”
“Fif-”
“Ten silvers.” Mufroen said.
“Alright,” Alvin dug up a small wooden box carved with dragons and painted in exotic greens and blues, took out a cloth purse and tossed it to him. Mufroen plucked it out of the air. “This should cover it.”
“That the box?”
Jan and Veel laughed, too loud to sound natural, Alvin just grinned and shook his head.
“It’s not here.”
They hid it somewhere, that made sense. He opened his mouth to ask what was in the box that was so special.
An arrow stopped him short.
It’s tail flashed white as it pierced Jan’s eye, killing him before his body hit the ground. Mufroen dropped to the floor. Alvin dove for Jan, but Veel’s howl showed he already realized his friend was dead. Sorrow twisted the sound in to something awful.
“Out!” Alvin shooed him toward the door behind him. “That way.”
On the run
Mufroen tore the door open.
He stepped into a covered walkway. The ceiling was low enough that Veel had to duck his head when he followed Alvin inside.
“Left!”
The turn led them to a dead end with a single door. Mufroen reached for the latch, but Alvin stopped him before he could open it.
“Not that way,” He pointed to their feet. For a moment he didn’t see what the thin scribe wanted. The he saw it. A grip was hidden against the wall. He pulled and part of the floor lifted. The hole was pitch black and smelled of dead things in water.
“Come on, they’ll be here soon,” Veel stepped into the hole and disappeared. “Quick!” his voice sounded far away.
Stepping in, Mufroen discovered hollows in the wall for his hands and feet. Alvin almost stepped on his head in his hurry to close the trapdoor. The darkness was complete once it closed and Mufroen made his way down the steps in the wall by touch until Veel put a hand on his back to indicate he’d arrived. He could hear the dripping and rushing of water, but his feet were dry, standing on slippery stone.
“You’re on a ledge,” Veel reached back for his hand, placing it on his belt. “It leads out into the bay. If you fall in, they’ll be dragging your body out of the water in the morning, so watch your step.”
Veel lit a candle, placing it in a holder he held above his head. The three of them shuffled along the ledge. The tiny flame didn’t show much, but the meagre light was enough to show the steep drop next to the ridge. The water roared.
The swishing of their feet on the wet stone reminded him of another time he’d walked in the dark. He felt behind him to make sure Alvin’s hand still held his belt.
Veel held the candle up to the pale symbols on the wall. They were a map of some kind, telling anyone who could read them where they were.
Once they were far enough down the tunnels and sure that they weren’t being followed, Alvin told him about the tunnels. He had a warm voice, made for telling stories and to Mufroen it was like listening to a fairy tale
The tunnels ran under the entire city like a maze. Not all of them were as big as the old main line they were following now, but most were big enough for a man to make his way through without too much trouble.
“The Path knows they exist,” A sound like a shrug. “They use some of them, but only a fraction. I found maps down in the old library, they come in handy. Some of the tunnels deeper down actually run under the bay.”
“You put those signs up on the walls?” He imagined the scribe coming down here in his free hours to paint instructions on the walls. Alvin’s giggle echoed in the dark.
“No, no. They were put up by whoever built them. Some have a different system. Some don’t have them at all. The Path marks the ones they use with blue. These,” He sounded pleased. “These, are ancient.”
Hours later, they came up out of the tunnels in a small cove. At Alvin’s request Mufroen stayed while he and Veel discussed something just out of earshot. He stood looking out over the expanse of water, waiting for them to finish. The sun was coming up, painting the city in layers of orange.
“We want to hire your services again,” The scribe was holding his satchel under his arm, the other hand played with the leather strap. “We have some coin left for an advance, we can pay you the rest after we sell the box,” He let his breath escape noisily through his nose. “It will be dangerous though. They saw your face, so you might be better off leaving the city.” Mufroen wondered whether this had been Alvin’s idea, he thought that it was, and if the scribe secretly hoped he would decline.
“On one condition,” The scribed looked up with the interest that he seemed to show for everything. “I want to know what’s in the box,” He thought a moment. “And why the Path wants it so bad.”
Alvin chuckled.
“Curiosity is a dangerous trait,” He said, tapping his lips. “The first question’s easy. The box is said to contain a ceremonial dagger of great power.” He sat on a large boulder and patted it for Mufroen to sit next to him.
“I’m not entirely sure why The Path wants to have it so badly, but it’s worth a lot of money,” He had the bright blue eyes that many of the city dwellers had. Now he used them to weigh Mufroen’s reaction to what he said.
Mufroen furrowed his brow. It seemed like a poor reason for the show he’d seen so far. If the path controlled the black markets, they must have coin to spare. The loss of a valuable object would only warrant this kind of response if there was something else.
Alvin smiled.
“I think they need it for something. Some big plan. I worked for them almost all my life,” He pursed his mouth like he tasted something foul. “So I’m quite sure whatever it is, it’s unpleasant. And there might also be the tiny matter where they were betrayed by some of their oldest employees. Revenge is always a thing.”
Mufroen found he liked the timid man next to him, chuckling about the fact that from today on every thug and backhand dealer would be looking for them.
Veel had enough of waiting, approaching the rock with the swinging, wide-shouldered gait of a fighter.
“Told you he wouldn’t—”
“O, I’ll do it,” Mufroen smiled at the man’s obvious attempt at manipulation. “Tell me
where to find this box and where it needs to go.”
Shouts sounded from the adjacent cove.
Both men looked up in alarm, sharing a look.
“We need to get going,” Alvin thrust a folded piece of bleached leather into Mufroen’s hand. “We’ll lure them out into the woods,” He nodded to the treeline that hugged the shallow inlet. “You get back in the tunnel.”
Even knowing which symbols to follow, it took him almost to midday to reach one of the outlets in the harbour.
“Just my bloody luck to wind up with a wielder who can’t read,” The sword had been shocked when Mufroen confessed that he couldn’t make sense of the rows of squiggles on the square of soft leather. “How do you get on in life without reading? Order food? Buy supplies?”
“I can count, ‘till now was all I needed,” They were walking down a crowded street on their way back to their inn. “Don’t worry, Rheena can read it.”
“I can read it for you,” The sword huffed. “That’s not the point. It’s about the principle of the thing.”
“That’s just what people say when they want to argue,” He gave the hilt a companionable squeeze. “And I think we have enough on our hands to save that discussion for a quiet night.”
The dark shape in their room turned so fast that Mufroen barely had time to reach for his weapon. He braced himself against the cold touch of the knife he saw gleaming in its hand.
Instead, he got a hug.
“Thank the goddess,” Rheena swung herself into his arms, her golden hair spilling from under the hood. “I was ready to come looking for