by Robert Evert
Still in her light blue silk dress, she swung her legs over the edge and put her feet on the second rung. She tested it. It felt solid. She climbed down a couple of more rungs. The rusty iron flaked off into her bleeding hands, but the ladder held. She considered whether she should take the candelabrum. Light would help her see, but it would also let her be seen. She only had one opportunity to do this. Brago was too strong, too skilled a fighter. She had to surprise him and stab him somewhere important—in the heart or the throat.
Faint sounds floated up, though what they were, she couldn’t tell.
She was wasting time. Part of her wanted to run. But she thought about her family. He’d killed them all, even the children.
She couldn’t wait. Setting the candelabrum aside, Natalie placed her knife’s blade carefully between her teeth and slowly descended into the dark stench, rung by gritty rung.
After maybe fifty rungs, her feet hit muddy ground. She could barely make out a brick archway and a tunnel that disappeared into the blackness before her. Dirty tree roots hung in great sheets from the ceiling, some had been slashed and cut away. She faltered.
Something about the roots reminded her of spiders. She didn’t like spiders, and the dank tunnel was probably full of them—and those long bugs with hundreds of legs. Oh, how she hated those! They were probably skittering about all over the place. Natalie shuddered. Perhaps waiting by the hole was actually smarter.
She was about to climb back up to the cathedral when she heard an echoing curse.
Whoever else was down there was only a couple hundred feet farther up the tunnel.
Now or never…
Make him pay.
Natalie crept through the darkness, knife in one hand and feeling along the crumbling brick wall with the other.
She’d only have one chance. She had to be as quiet as possible, get really close, then stab him right in the back.
You use this knife for whatever reason, the bladesmith had said, you do the job, and you make sure you don’t have to do it twice.
That was exactly what she planned to do. She’d bury the knife hilt-deep into his back. Even a famous adventurer would find it difficult to deal with eight inches of steel embedded between his shoulder blades.
The underground passageway wound deeper, first twisting in one direction and then doubling back. Feeling her way through the blackness, Natalie came across the openings of tunnels branching off to either side. She listened at these, but the sounds of movement were always ahead of her. She snuck forward, step by reluctant step, trying not to cry out each time; what she hoped were tree roots caressed the top of her head.
Somewhere in front of her, stone grated against stone.
She stopped. What would make that sound? A secret door? Now she was letting her imagination run away with her. She had to focus; she had to sneak up and kill Brago before he was aware of her. She had to get in close and—
Something furry scrambled over her shoes, wet paws clawing at her bare legs as it climbed up the inside of her dress. Natalie screamed and kicked.
Ahead, the movement stopped, then the faint glow of a lantern or a candle appeared farther down the passage.
Panicking, Natalie turned to run. Then she glanced down. The swiftly approaching light danced in the beady eyes of hundreds of swarming brown rats. Several stood on their hind legs, tiny paws reaching up to her. She shrieked as loudly as she could.
Someone raced toward her.
Rats were climbing her skirt. One fell from the ceiling onto her shoulder. She screamed again.
“Nat?” Reg ran up, lantern in hand. “What are you—?” He knocked the rats from her dress. Most scurried into various holes between the ancient bricks, but some lingered, squeaking defiantly at them. “What are you doing—? You’re bleeding. Are you hurt?”
“Reginald?” Sir Edris called from up the passageway.
“It’s Nat!”
“Natalie?”
Reg took Natalie’s elbow, turning her toward the exit. Stiff with fear, she could hardly move. “You can’t be down here. It isn’t safe! Go back up the ladder and—”
“He killed my family!”
“What?”
“Brago! He…he killed them! Killed all of them!”
Sir Edris appeared around a corner, stooped so he wouldn’t hit his head on the tunnel’s low ceiling. “Natalie? What in blazes—?”
“He killed her family,” Reg told him. “Brago.”
“What? Are you sure? I mean, are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes! He, he…” Natalie choked back a sob, but several more broke free from her tightening throat. “He tortured and killed my mother; stabbed my brother, Robbie; and, and—” She fell into the knight’s arms, crying.
“It’s okay.” Sir Edris peeled the knife out of her bloody fingers. “And you were planning to use this on him, eh?”
Natalie nodded.
“Well, maybe you’re my daughter after all.” He handed the blade to Reg.
Reg drew a thumb over its sharp edge. “She could do some real damage with this, if she knew how to use it properly.” He gave it back to Natalie. “Keep it in its sheath unless you absolutely have to use it, okay?”
“No, let her keep it out,” said Sir Edris. “Wills strengthen when hands grip sharp steel.” He smiled at Natalie, a kindness in his dirty face. “So you want to get back at Brago, eh?”
“I’m going to kill the bastard!”
Sir Edris cupped a hand to her cheek. “He’s not the type of man to mess with. You know what you’re getting into, right?”
Natalie wiped her snotty nose with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of dark mud across her face. “He’ll kill me if I don’t kill him first.”
Sir Edris sighed. “That about sums it up, I’m afraid.”
“Sir!” said Reg. “We can’t let her fight Brago—that’s insane.”
At this, Sir Edris gave his squire a meaningful look. “Oh, we won’t. Don’t you worry about that, young master Reginald. We won’t let any harm come to my daughter. But she can help us, and I think we might be able to help her.” He kicked away several rats scurrying over his boots. “Earlier, you’d said you found something in Brago’s papers, something that looked like a map of a winding mountain street. Something with lots of dead ends?”
“Of course!” Reg’s voice echoed through the tunnel.
“What?” Natalie said. “What does that have to do with Brago and—and my family?”
“Perhaps nothing. Perhaps a great deal.”
“There was an inscription, or some notes,” said Reg. “What was it, Nat? It was like three something, two something, one something?”
“It…it said: First right. Second back. Third up.”
Sir Edris shook his fist. “Aha! Finally. Come with us, Natalie! Quickly now. We haven’t much time.”
Natalie followed the knight and the squire, hiking her ruined dress to her knees. “I’m going to kill him. I swear to the gods, I’m going to stab the bastard and twist the knife!”
“I’ll tell you what, Natalie.” Sir Edris led them back to the hole with the rusty rungs, then turned around and began retracing their tracks. “If you help me find this accursed harp before Brago does, I’ll give you five hundred gold pieces, enough for you to go anywhere you wish and start a new life with a new name. Grow or cut your hair, and I promise Brago will never find you.” He pointed at an opening to their right. “Ah, this must be it!”
“It’s not about money,” Natalie insisted. “Oh, by the way, thank you for the coins you gave me, sir. And Reg, I’m really sorry for how I behaved, slapping your hand like that.”
“Second back…” Sir Edris followed the new passageway, hacking at a forest of tree roots with his dagger.
Natalie pushed aside the swaying roots. “It’s not about money,” she said again.
“Sometimes, Natalie”—the big knight smiled at her—“the best revenge is living a good life. Think of it this way: Brago will search
until the end of his days, but he’ll never find you. Can you imagine how much that will bother him? I know the ass. Trust me, it’ll eat him up inside; he doesn’t like losing. Now come on, we can’t stay down here very long. The walls are unstable.” He hurried along the passage.
“He’s right, Nat.” Reg guided her through a gap in the tree roots. “About living a good life, that is. But for now, you have to stick close. We’re almost finished with this quest.”
“No, we aren’t,” Sir Edris called from up ahead.
They found him in a long room where dusty skeletons lay in niches carved in the stone walls. However, it was the body in the pool of fresh blood that drew everybody’s attention.
Sir Edris turned the corpse over. Its throat had been recently slit and there were several deep wounds to its stomach. “This is…what’s his name? He’s one of Randell’s men, isn’t he?”
Lifeless eyes stared up at them. Reg wrapped his arm around Natalie as she turned away.
“I believe so, sir.”
“Damn! Then I bet—” Sir Edris strode quickly around the body. “Second back. Third up.”
Reaching the second group of niches, he peered into the third one off the ground. Other than a cobweb-covered skeleton wearing worm-eaten rags, it was empty.
“Bollocks!” Sir Edris yelled, his voice shaking the small room. Dust drifted down from the low brick ceiling. “He found it first! We have to get to him before he reaches the king! Turn about, Natalie. Back to the ladder. Double-quick!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Natalie tried to keep up with Sir Edris and Reg. “Where are we going?”
Now outside the cathedral, they hurried along a dimly lit side street, trying not to draw attention to themselves. This was difficult, considering they were all covered in dirt and Natalie was running in a torn and filthy dress.
“We’re going to get to Brago before he reaches King Michael,” said Sir Edris.
Peering the way they’d come, Reg suddenly stopped and gripped Sir Edris’s arm. They both glanced over their shoulders, then darted into a darkened alleyway. Natalie blinked and began to ask what was wrong when Reg pulled her into the shadows with them. He put a muddy finger over her lips.
“Shhhh! Stay still and be quiet.”
For many long minutes, they stood motionless in the dark—Reg with his muscular arms wrapped around Natalie, and Sir Edris with his back pressed against the side of a building, sword drawn. Then a figure passed by the alley. It was Brago, and he was letting fly a litany of curses even Natalie wouldn’t have said in public.
When he’d gone, Sir Edris tapped Reg and pointed the way Brago went, then up the alley they were hiding in. Reg nodded and let go of Natalie, giving her a hint of a smile. Then he quietly slipped around the corner and followed Brago.
Sir Edris took Natalie’s hand. “Come with me,” he whispered. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.”
Reluctantly, Natalie followed the knight out through the other end of the alley and down another street.
“What’s happening?” she asked. “Did you see who that was? We could have—”
The knight shushed her. A handful of people still walked the streets, eyeing Natalie and her dirt-covered dress.
Sir Edris pulled her along. “We’ll talk later. First, we need to get out of sight.”
He led her to a dilapidated house in the Old Quarter of town and entered without knocking.
“Who lives here?” Natalie whispered.
Sir Edris closed the door and peered out a partially boarded-up window. “I do, on occasion.”
“You do?”
“Sometimes it’s best to be hidden from prying eyes. I can’t do that in a tavern or an inn.” He seemed to see something he expected. “Good. He’s coming.”
“Brago?” Natalie fumbled with her knife. “Here?”
“No. Not Brago. An informant of mine.”
Somebody sprang lightly up the rickety stairs and across the porch. Sir Edris opened the door. “What do you know?”
A small figure popped into the room.
“Nathaniel!” Natalie called out.
At first, the boy seemed puzzled by the name. He blinked at Natalie. Then recognition dawned on him. “You! Nat, wasn’t it?” He took her hand and kissed it, heedless of the blood and dirt. “You look, well…different! Filthy, but still pretty beyond compare!”
“You can flirt later,” Sir Edris said hurriedly. “What do you know about tonight? What the hell happened?”
Nathaniel plopped into a dusty chair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sir Edris tossed him a small pouch. The boy looked in it, then shoved it into his pocket.
“Randell and two of his men went into the cathedral around ten o’clock.” Nathaniel crossed his legs, leaned back comfortably. “They were immediately followed by three others, newcomers who were smart enough to let others do all the hard work.”
Sir Edris snorted a laugh. “Then they couldn’t have been too new. Who were they?”
“I didn’t see them clearly, but Randell must have known he was being followed, because two more of his men were following the newcomers, if you get me. Eight went in, only seven came out.”
“Who came out first? Did they have the harp?”
“The newcomers ran out, chased by Randell and three of his men. I’m guessing the fourth stayed behind?”
“Permanently,” Sir Edris said, picking cobwebs and pieces of tree roots out of his beard. “Ran out, you say? Chasing the newcomers?”
“Swords drawn and their blood up.”
“So nobody had the harp?”
“It didn’t look like it.”
“Then what?” Sir Edris asked. “What happened after that?”
“Then you and Reg showed up.”
“How long after Randell left?”
Nathaniel considered this. “Three minutes, if that.”
“Three minutes!” Sir Edris paced across the room. “That would explain why Randell’s man was still alive when we found him.”
“He was alive?” Natalie cried. “And you…you—?”
“I ended his suffering. Trust me, Nat. He would’ve preferred to go the way he did, rather than slowly bleeding to death or being eaten by rats. He would have done the same for me.”
“You look much better with your hair down,” Nathaniel told Natalie. “And the dress, if it was clean, would make you look real splendid!”
“Enough of that,” Sir Edris interjected. “Tell me what happened after we went in.”
Nathaniel flicked his chin toward Natalie. “Then this one shows up, pulling on the front doors like she was about to rip them off their hinges. After that, she went to the side and busted a window—actually smashed it to bits! Can you believe it?” He chuckled. “Who smashes a cathedral’s window?”
“I had no choice!” said Natalie.
“Never mind the window; it can’t be helped.” Sir Edris strode back and forth. “That was what, about five minutes after we went in?”
“About that.”
“What about Brago? When did he arrive?”
“Right before you left.”
“Right before?”
Nathaniel smiled. “He was in the shadows across from me while you, Reg, and your pretty girl here ran out.”
“He didn’t see you, did he?”
Nathaniel snorted, offended.
“So Brago went in after we did,” Sir Edris muttered as he stroked his dirty beard.
“I didn’t say he went in. He tried, but thanks to your daughter here and her smashed window, monks were all over the place by then. As soon as Brago tried to enter, he ran into Father Bartholomew. Boy, he was furious! Seemed to think Brago had something to do with what had happened.”
“He didn’t even get to the catacombs?” Sir Edris asked, puzzled. “Odd.”
The latch on the front door turned. Natalie nearly leapt out of her skin, but then Reg slipped into the house.
“W
ell?” said Sir Edris.
“He doesn’t have it,” Reg replied. “He’s sitting in the Goose and Gander, drinking heavily. He’s as angry as all get out; nobody will even sit within twenty feet of him. The bartender was about to tell him to leave, but I warned him off.”
“The Gander?” Nathaniel chuckled. “I’d be angry, too, if I had to drink there.”
“The harp wasn’t in the catacombs,” Sir Edris told Reg. “We got lucky this time.”
“So that only leaves—”
Sir Edris lifted a finger to silence Reg, then turned to the boy. “Thank you so much for your services, Roland.” He gave Nathaniel a few more coins—all gold.
“It’s always a pleasure to assist you, sir.” The boy made for the door as he counted the coins. “If you need anything—anything at all—you know where to find me!”
He tipped an imaginary hat, winked his good eye at Natalie, and closed the door behind him.
“Roland?” Natalie repeated doubtfully. “He told me his name was Nathaniel!”
“You don’t expect him to tell anybody his real name, do you?” said Sir Edris. “That’s something worth remembering, Natalie: always keep as much as you can to yourself.” He raised an eyebrow at Reg.
“I know,” said Reg. “I need to be more careful.”
“Exactly. You almost gave away a vital piece of information.”
“What’s this all about?” Natalie asked. “Those tunnels under the cathedral. What do they have to do with the harp?”
“Alas”—Sir Edris sat in the chair the boy had vacated—“evidently nothing.”
“Remember what we discussed?” Reg asked Natalie. “About Balen’s family dying out?”
Natalie shook her head.
“Okay, I’ll start at the beginning. Balen was this brilliant musician. Although, personally, I think he was some sort of witch who cast spells through his music.”
“Like I said, that’s a dangerous thing to say,” Sir Edris told Natalie, “so don’t repeat it.”
Natalie nodded, then motioned for Reg to go on.
“So he was brilliant; he stopped wars and calmed people’s nerves. He even killed an ogre with a lute string.”
“Allegedly,” Sir Edris added.
