by Ben Wolf
“Gladly.” Commander Anigo forced a smile.
Dealing with underworld scum wasn’t something he was accustomed to anymore, and he’d forgotten how greasy it made him feel. In Solace, he’d already forced the disbanding of every major criminal enterprise, but here in Kanarah City, dealing with undesirable people seemed necessary to accomplish anything of significance.
In any case, Corporal Jopheth had recommended Thirry—which certainly said something about Corporal Jopheth—and Thirry had shown him the entrance to the tunnels under the city, originating almost five miles beyond the city’s west gate along Trader’s Pass.
It was a hunch, and nothing more, but if the fugitives he’d been chasing meant to use the tunnels to bypass his soldiers, they’d certainly be in for a surprise.
But in his exceptional career, his hunches had more often than not proven to be the deciding factor between success and failure. He wasn’t about to abandon his instincts now, after they’d served him so well so many times in the past.
“Two of my men will escort you back into the city along the pass.” Commander Anigo would’ve just as soon had his men kill Thirry and leave him along the pass as a message to other underworld slime seeking to avoid dealing with the King’s men, but for now, he elected to let Thirry go.
Until his mission was complete, Commander Anigo couldn’t be sure he was done dealing with Thirry. The thought of having to engage the man in the future brewed like soured stew in Commander Anigo’s stomach, but he would no sooner discard a useful tool because it was covered in grime.
Needs, not wants.
“Many thanks, Commander. I hope your excursion is as profitable for you as it has been for me.” Thirry smiled, and his white teeth almost glowed in the moonlight. His white hair certainly did.
Two of the soldiers mounted horses, Thirry mounted another, and they rode off toward the city.
Given the narrow opening and the steep decline into the tunnels, Commander Anigo had left Candlestick back in the army barracks stable for safekeeping. It meant that on this mission, he could only rely on himself. The pain in his chest from his last encounter with these fugitives no longer ached as it did, but it still ached enough to reinforce his caution this time around.
Commander Anigo looked at the twenty remaining men he’d brought with him, half of whom held burning torches, and said, “One lit torch for every four men, plus one near me. We’ll find a place to hide, then we’ll ambush them.”
The soldiers nodded, and half of them snuffed their torches.
“Let’s go.” Commander Anigo led them down the dark stone stairs into the tunnels.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Calum and the others followed Riley through the labyrinth of the Kanarah City sewers, all while wielding makeshift torches. Even though they walked along a rocky slab next to the slow-flowing river of waste in the center, muck and waste still clung to their boots. At times the stench grew so pungent that Calum almost vomited.
At one point, Axel stumbled and planted his hand against a brick wall to brace himself, but the ancient brick wall crumbled under the pressure, and his hand went through it instead. A few dozen rats poured out over his shoulders and skittered away in the sludge.
Axel yelped and whooped and danced away from them, and he lost his torch in the river of sewage in the process.
“There you go, screaming like a girl again.” Magnus glanced at Lilly. “No offense, Lilly.”
She laughed and shook her head. “None taken.”
Axel called down a curse on the rats, then he glared at Magnus. “Yeah? Let’s see how you react when a thousand rats jump out at you in a dark sewer.”
“I will do one better.” Magnus walked over to the hole Axel had just inadvertently made in the wall, stuck his hand inside, and pulled out a thick rat almost the length of Calum’s forearm. “Lilly, you may wish to turn away for this part.”
She pursed her lips and then complied.
As soon as Lilly’s back was turned, Magnus dropped the rat into his mouth and crunched down on it with his pointed teeth. He swallowed it in two gulps.
Nicolai covered his mouth with his hand. “Did I really just see that?”
Axel closed his eyes and moaned. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“Me too,” Calum said.
“I dunno what the problem is,” Riley said. “It’s just meat. Not good meat, but meat nonetheless.”
“Can I turn around now?” Lilly asked.
“Yes, it’s over.” Magnus licked his lips with his long red tongue.
She wrinkled her nose at him.
Magnus smirked. “Saurians are inherently carnivorous, but we can function on an omnivorous diet if we need to. Rodents make for a pretty standard meal on the streets in Reptilius.”
“That’s disgusting.” Axel shook his head and covered his mouth with his hand. “I gotta keep moving. Come on.”
Magnus just grinned.
A half-dozen turns later, Riley stopped in front of a large opening.
Calum and Magnus came up beside him and held their torches ahead to get a better look while Axel stood behind them with Lilly and Nicolai. Calum would’ve preferred to stand by Lilly, but with only two torches left, he had to stay near the front so they could see where they were going.
Even so, he preferred to have Axel with Lilly when around Nicolai, just in case. Nicolai had proven trustworthy so far, but it had only been a few days.
The torches revealed an opening about twenty feet high and twice as wide that narrowed to a tunnel about fifteen feet high and thirty feet wide farther inside.
“This is it.” Riley sat down and scratched behind his left ear with his corresponding hind foot.
“This is a huge opening. How do more people not know about this?” Axel asked.
Riley exhaled another one of those short sharp sighs. “It’s really not that complicated. We’re in the sewer. Not many people come down here for evening promenades. It’s also in a specific place inside the sewer.
“Sure, you might stumble upon it after a long search, but again, who just walks around a sewer for fun? Plus, it’s dark down here. You could walk right past it and never know it. And on top of all that—”
“Alright, alright.” Axel held up his hand. “I gotta be honest. You lost me at ‘promenades.’”
“It means ‘taking a walk,’” Riley explained, aggravated.
“The path is massive,” Nicolai said.
“Scared?” Axel asked.
Nicolai turned to him, wearing the beginning of a scowl. “A little bit, yeah.”
Axel rolled his eyes.
Riley nodded toward the opening. “Once we get inside, we go for about ten miles in pitch-black tunnels. Then we climb some makeshift stairs carved into the rocks before we finally pop out a little less than five miles west of Kanarah City along Trader’s Pass.”
Calum nodded. “Let’s go.”
“Remember,” Riley said. “Stay close, and follow me. If you go the wrong way or step somewhere you shouldn’t, you might as well be dead, so pay attention, and walk where I’m walking. Crystal?”
Everyone else nodded and followed Riley inside the enormous tunnel.
Nicolai hung back next to Calum while they walked. “Calum, I just wanted to tell you again how grateful I am that you spared my life. I really—I don’t want to live my life that way anymore, so this second-second chance means a lot to me.”
Calum smiled. He found it interesting how someone only a few years older than him had already found so much trouble this early in his life. “I’m happy you feel that way, Nicolai.”
“Look, as far as I’m concerned, I’m indebted to you forever, just like what that Wolf was saying back at the camp.” Nicolai unsheathed his sword.
The action set Calum on his guard at first, but Nicolai didn’t threaten him with the weapon, though he did wave it around a bit.
“And I’m glad Magnus made me leave that old meat cleaver behind,” he said. “This sw
ord hardly weighs anything by comparison.”
“I held that cleaver of yours after Magnus made you drop it, just to see how heavy it was,” Calum said. “Honestly, I can’t imagine how you or anyone not as strong as a Saurian could wield something like that. The blade was dull too.”
Nicolai chuckled. “No wonder I was never any good in a fight.”
“Have you had any training of any sort?”
“Not really.” Nicolai shook his head. “I’m pretty observant though. Picked up a few moves from Tyburon and Norm, but they mostly kept me on menial tasks. I’m not what you’d call athletic by any means.”
“Don’t worry. With our luck, you’ll get some experience in no time.”
“Yeah, or I’ll be dead in no time.”
“Don’t think like that.” Calum patted Nicolai’s shoulder, still a bit wary of his unsheathed sword. If Nicolai tired anything, at least Calum had his torch in hand. He could probably fend Nicolai off until the others came to help if it came to it. “We’re a team. We watch out for each other. Sometimes we even bleed for each other. Just remember, we’re here to help you.”
Nicolai pursed his lips and sheathed his sword. His voice lowered, he said, “I don’t think Axel feels the same way you do. Frankly, if a venomous spider was crawling on my nose, I don’t think he’d walk three steps to punch me in the face.”
Calum grinned. “He might surprise you with that one. He really hates spiders.”
“You know what I mean. He doesn’t like me.”
“Yeah, I know.” He stared at Axel’s back as he walked next to Lilly. Together, they followed Magnus and Riley, while Calum and Nicolai brought up the rear.
When Axel’s hand brushed against Lilly’s arm, Calum wanted to charge forward and step between them, but he resisted the urge. He still didn’t exactly know how he should behave around Lilly, but he knew enough to realize that kind of reaction wouldn’t do him any good.
“So…” Nicolai started. “Any suggestions on how I can get on his good side?”
Calum refocused on Nicolai. He’d been happy to bring Nicolai along, but he hadn’t expected so much conversation.
“Just give him time,” Calum said. “He was grumpy when we started out on this journey, and he’s still grumpy now. It’s kind of just how he is. He didn’t like Magnus, he doesn’t like Riley, and most of the time I’m not sure he even likes me, even though I’m supposed to be his best friend. So far Lilly’s the only one he’s really taken an interest in.”
Nicolai smirked and nudged Calum’s armored ribs. “Can’t blame him there.”
Had Nicolai injected sleaze into his comment, Calum would’ve decked him with the burning end of the torch, but he’d said it so it didn’t convey anything threatening or ominous at all. He’d said it very matter-of-fact, as if he had agreed to Calum’s assessment of the weather or something equally mundane.
Nicolai stammered, “N-not that I’m thinking of—”
“I know what you meant, Nicolai.” Calum exhaled a quiet breath and glared at Axel from behind again. “She is beautiful. That’s for sure.”
As they walked, every so often they had to adjust their path to avoid the occasional hole in the floor. Where they’d come from or how they got there, Calum had no idea, but he didn’t want to get too close to any of them to investigate, either. With a burning torch in his hand, he had more than enough light to avoid them, and that was good enough for now.
“Do you think you could teach me some fighting basics some time?”
Calum blinked at him. “You want me to teach you?”
Nicolai shrugged. “I trust you more than anyone else in the group. I think you’d be less likely to ‘accidentally’ kill me while we were sparring.”
Calum chuckled. “I know what you mean.”
“…well?” Nicolai pressed.
Calum sighed. He’d come a long way since Magnus had started training him, but was he really ready to pass along that knowledge to someone else? What if he taught Nicolai something wrong, and it got him hurt… or killed?
Then again, what if he refused, and not teaching him got him killed instead?
“I’m flattered, Nicolai. I really am,” Calum said. “But Magnus is the expert. He taught Axel and me. It’s really him you should be asking.”
Nicolai shook his head. “I don’t want to learn from him. I’d be too embarrassed at how bad I am to work with Magnus.”
“Ha.” Calum could certainly relate to that. “You should’ve seen me when I first started. I got lucky my first few fights, or I’d be dead too.”
“Look, I want to learn from you.” Nicolai stepped in front of him so Calum couldn’t walk any farther. “Just get me through the basics that Magnus taught you, and then I’ll learn the rest from him. That way I won’t be squeamish or awkward when he’s teaching me.”
Calum stared at his dark eyes. “Alright. As soon as we stop for a break, I’ll show you a few things. Probably a good idea anyway in case we run into whatever’s lurking down here.”
Nicolai beamed, then stepped aside. “Thanks, Calum. I won’t let you down.”
Let’s hope not. Calum showed him a half-smile and kept walking.
Two lefts and one right turn later they stopped for a meal break, probably about six miles into the tunnels. Just like Lilly had said, the tunnel smelled just as foul as the sewers, but in a different way, as if something had died in there awhile back and had just been left there to rot.
Stench or no stench, they still had to eat. Calum handed Lilly his torch so he could unpack some food, and after their meal, Calum showed Nicolai some basic attacks as promised. To Calum’s surprise, Nicolai caught on quickly; then again, he had mentioned he was observant.
About fifteen minutes into their training, Magnus pulled Nicolai away so the two of them and Riley could scout another area a bit. Riley hadn’t been completely sure which path was the right one, so he wanted to investigate with someone to back him up.
For whatever reason, Axel had decided to go with them, possibly to keep an extra eye on Nicolai, or possibly because if something did attack them, he couldn’t trust Nicolai to have Magnus’s back in a fight.
Whatever any case, it meant Calum finally had some time to talk to Lilly without anyone else listening, without anyone else around. The idea of it sent shudders through his chest, but he couldn’t deny his glee at having the opportunity.
“How’s your shoulder?” he asked.
She still carried the torch he’d given her in her right arm, and she smiled and rotated her left shoulder. “A lot better. I think it’s almost totally healed. Whatever Magnus gave me—that veromine, or whatever he called it—it worked fast.”
“That’s good. Great. I’m glad to hear it.” He mentally kicked himself. Why was he jabbering so much?
“Yeah.” Lilly nodded and her smile widened. “I guess you are.”
“You able to fly again, yet?”
“I never lost that ability. I just haven’t because I haven’t needed to, and until we got into the tunnels the ceiling’s been too low to make flying of any real use.” She tugged on her shimmering blue cape. “As long as I have this, I can fly.”
“Oh. Good to know.”
Lilly leaned over, across Calum’s chest, and peered into the food pouch. “Can I have one of those oranges?”
Her proximity to him sent chills rippling down his back and arms. His breathing quickened, and he struggled to find words.
He blinked and self-chastised his way out of the sensation. She was asking for an orange, not requesting his hand in marriage.
Still, he found his mouth refused to form words right away. Instead, Calum reached into the pouch and traded her an orange for his torch.
As she started to peel it, he found his voice again. “So you’re from the Sky Realm?”
Lilly nodded. “Yep.”
“How long have you lived there?”
“All my life.” She pulled a big chunk of orange skin off and dropped it o
n the ground. “Seventeen years, at least until the slave traders got me. It’s been almost two months since they first captured me.”
“Your parents must be terribly worried by now.”
Lilly sighed and leaned against the tunnel wall as she pulled the first segment of orange from the cluster. “I know. If he could, my father would conscript the entire Sky Realm’s population to look for me.”
“Maybe they’re already looking for you.”
“I have no doubt that they are. There was a chance they’d find me right after I left, but when Roderick and his slave traders took me across Trader’s Pass, that chance all but disappeared.”
“Why’d you leave in the first place?”
Lilly stared at him with her mouth open, then she shut it and looked away.
Idiot. Calum had thought he’d been doing well. The conversation was flowing, natural, easy. Then, with one question, he’d ruined it all.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s none of my business.”
She shook her head, but she still didn’t look at him. “It’s not your fault. It’s a fair question.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have to ask it. And you don’t have to answer, either.”
She looked at him with no lack of self-confidence in her eyes. “I know.”
“I’m really, really sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She gave him a small but kind smile. “I have my reasons. I made the choice to leave, and now I just want to get back. That’s all I can say.”
Calum nodded and leaned his shoulder against the tunnel wall, facing her. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you home soon.”
“Thanks.” She smiled and handed him half of the now-peeled orange. “Want some?”
“Sure, thanks.” He leaned the torch against the tunnel wall, popped a segment into his mouth, and savored the burst of sweet citrus flavor. It almost negated the wretched smell of the place.
“So what about you?” Firelight from the torch flickered in her keen blue eyes.
