by Deck Davis
“Ludwig is spectral, so he can’t fight, and a rat is hardly a match for an armed guard. We can’t take the tunnels to get out, and the only thing behind us is the chamber. And I suspect the necromancer led us there because it just so happens to be a dead end.”
“Fuck.”
“Indeed.”
“Fighting is out of the question. We need another way,” said Jakub. “Lud, walk back the way we came, see if you can sniff anywhere out. Witas, let’s get back to the chamber. At least we can set up there and get ready if it comes to a fight.”
CHAPTER 50
With Ludwig sprinting ahead, Jakub and Witas went back through the tunnels and to the chamber of dead rats and fetid water. Ludwig was already gone when they arrived, which Jakub hoped meant that he’d found another way out.
“You got anything apart from your sword?” asked Witas.
Jakub went over his inventory in his mind. Aside from his wheels of cheese, his coins, and his steel sword, all he had were trinkets.
“A Bracelet of Rest, and an Inquisitor’s Belt of Persuasion. Nothing that can help. Oh, and a rogue blood draught.”
“Let me see the draught. If there’s enough for two…”
Jakub showed Witas the vial of draught. The liquid was dark blue like a nighttime sea, and it only half filled the vial.
“Damn it,” said Witas. “I was hoping we could drink it. Rogues are good at sneaking, right?”
“Even if they were, there’s nowhere to escape to.”
He looked around as if that would somehow reveal a hidden door. Stuck in a sewer with no exits, with footsteps drifting through the tunnels and getting closer, hemming them in.
“We’re the rats now, and they’ve got us trapped down here,” said Jakub.
“I can try and speak to the guards. As long as Lloyd Blackrum isn’t here, I can reason with them. Maybe slip them a few coins. Lloyd thinks they don’t take bribes; the guy has too much faith.”
“You heard what Ludwig said. This isn’t random, it isn’t like they’re patrolling the sewers. They’ve come expressly for us. If the captain sent them here, and they know we’re trapped, they can hardly leave without us.”
The boots were louder still. They could only have been a few turns in the tunnels away from them now.
“Okay, we put the woman’s body by the entrance,” said Jakub. “Maybe a dead body will throw them off a little. Then we stick one of them, I’ll drain the essence from him and use it to draw more rats, and…”
“Kill one of the guardship? Are you crazy?” said Witas. “Jakub, that wouldn’t just mean a night in the cells. We’d be official enemies of the Queen and the Queendom itself. Killing a solider in peacetime or murdering one of the Dispolis guardship is punishable by death. Not just your peaceful, go-to-sleep-and-never-wake-up kind. They make an example of people who hurt the guards.”
“I’m not thinking clearly, am I?”
“You’re thinking like one of our dead vermin friends; fight or flight.”
Jakub pictured the inside of his own mind. The racing of his heart and the fear and tension hanging in his mind were like dust on his mental floor, and he imagined sweeping it over into a corner and closing a door on it.
“Jakub, there’s a door this way,” said Ludwig.
Ludwig emerged from the pool of water. He was completely dry, of course, since the water didn’t actually touch his spectral form. The problem was, Jakub couldn’t see where he’d emerged from.
Voices drifted from outside the chamber now,
“Blackrum says the cleric’s a slippery one and he fights dirty. Take him first. His friend is a necro; all brain and no balls.”
“Spread out; I want a man on each passageway; don’t let them slip through.”
Witas held his sword tensed in his hand and he pressed back against the chamber wall so he couldn’t be seen from the entrance immediately. It’d take the guardship a few steps before they caught sight of him.
“Damn it, we don’t have a choice, do we? We either give ourselves up or we fight,” said Witas. “Our only choices. I have enough enemies without making one of the entire queendom.”
“Ludwig? Anything?”
The hound lifted a paw to the pool. “The bars are bent at the bottom; you’d be able to squeeze through. After that the water is shallow enough to walk in, and it leads to a ladder.”
“I’m not risking catching blight,” said Witas.
“It’s either that or get caught.”
“Blight can kill. Even when it doesn’t kill, it’s pretty gods-damned nasty. You might already have it, Jakub. You were in the water for long enough.”
The boots stopped outside the room. The voices were gone.
Jakub sensed the guards were whispering to each other, getting ready to storm the chamber.
He opened his inventory bag and took out the robes of repel rain that he’d looted from the necromancer.
“I have an idea, but we need time. Can you stop them coming in?”
CHAPTER 51
Witas spoke toward the chamber entrance. “What do you want?”
The guards outside muttered to each other, before one of them became their spokesman.
“Captain Blackrum says we’ve gotta bring you in, Witas. I don’t know what you’re doing down here but don’t make this difficult.”
“Take one step inside that doorway and I can make it very difficult indeed.”
“You and your friend are the girls at the barn dance who don’t have partners,” said the guard.
“There might be more of you, but have you considered something?”
“What?” asked the guard.
“That we are a black cleric and a necromancer. Does it seem wise for you to piss us off?”
The guards whispered among each other then, Jakub couldn’t pick out any words but he could hear their tone, and he remembered what Witas had told him; people without magic either envied it, hated it, or they feared it.
The guards didn’t know that Jakub had no soul essence, and that a black cleric wasn’t some kind of unbelievably powerful mage.
To them, it was the unknown. That was what would keep them from rushing in; the plain mystery of their powers, and not knowing what Jakub and Witas could do.
“That’s good. Keep talking like that,” Jakub whispered. “I just need a few seconds.”
Witas cupped his hands to amplify his voice. “The first of you to put a boot in that doorway gets a face full of pure Blacktyde ugliness. Got it?”
While Witas kept them out, Jakub set the robe of repel rain on the ground. The material was light and rather than regular waterproofs, this had been magically stitched to keep water out.
He spread it out, then took his sword and cut across the fabric. “Do you have any cuts?” he asked Witas.
“I don’t think so.”
“Check. Blight gets in through your mouth and through open wounds, right?”
“It’s in the water. Any place water gets into you, so will the blight.”
A voice spoke out from the entrance. This was a younger one. “We have anti-mana breastplates, cleric. Your fuckus-pocus shit won’t work on us.”
Jakub looked up at Witas. “Anti-mana? Is that a thing?”
“It’s a thing, alright. A thing called a bluff. Hurry up with what you’re doing.”
Jakub cut the repel rain robe up until he had strips of it. He handed four strips to Witas, kept four for himself, and put the rest of the robe in his bag.
“Tie these around your mouth and your nose, and then when we get to the pool, stuff some in your ears and tie a strip around your eyes.”
“Are you crazy? The blight-”
“The blight can’t hurt you if you don’t breathe in the water, and we’re covering our eyes for good measure. Get to it.”
Jakub had already sucked in a gallon of the water, so for all he knew the damned blight was coursing through him right now. Even so, it made sense to prepare.
He wrapped
the strips around his neck so he could put it over his mouth when he needed to, and he tied one around his forehead, ready to pull over his eyes. Then he strapped a long piece around his waist to cover a cut on his side, and another around his thigh to seal the wound he’d gotten from the crossbow sniper.
“Five seconds,” shouted a voice. “I want to hear swords ring on the ground, and then we’re coming in in the name of the Queen.”
“Ready?” asked Jakub.
Witas nodded.
“Lud, you said the bars were bent? Exactly where?”
“At the bottom on the right, see?”
Jakub couldn’t see through the murk, but he trusted Ludwig.
“And it’s shallow on the other side?”
“It’ll reach up to your shins.”
“Do this right,” said Jakub, “And you’ll be in the water for a second or two at the most. Okay, Witas?”
“Let’s get this over with.”
“We’re coming in,” called a voice.
Jakub slipped one strips of the robe over his mouth, the one next over his eyes.
The guards boots pounded on the stone as they stormed in, and Jakub heard them spread left and right, some shouting, others ordering each other around.
Jakub held a deep breath in his lungs and he jumped into the pool. The chill of the water hit him, but this time he was protected from its taste and smell.
He heard Witas land in the water beside him, and he swam forward with his arms outstretched until he touched metal.
Feeling his way over it with his fingertips, he found where the metal bent, and then he put his hands out and felt nothing; just a gap.
Ludwig was right.
Relief met with the aching of his chest as his lungs asked for air.
He swam through the gap and until he felt himself go all the way through and into the water on the otherwise.
Swimming north for another twenty seconds, the water became shallower and shallower, until finally it was shallow enough to stand up in.
His lungs burned now. He stood up and climbed out of the stream and onto the stone at the side of it. He didn’t take off his robe strips. Instead, he shook himself, he wiped his face, he squeezed his hair to get as much water out as he could.
Even though he was sopping wet, he was certain the water had at least stopped running down his forehead, so he removed the strips from his eyes, nose, and mouth.
He saw himself in another tunnel now, with the shallow water behind him, running in a stream where it gushed into yet another little tunnel. Behind him the stream grew larger and deeper, where it met with the iron bars he’d swum through.
Witas was with him, leaning against the tunnel walls and panting.
“You okay?” asked Jakub.
Witas nodded. “They’ll leave the tunnels on their side and circle around through Dispolis so that they’re waiting for us up top. We better go now.”
CHAPTER 52 – Studs Godwin
Studs heard the boy groan behind him as he approached the metal tray where his inquisitor tools were spread out. There were knives, barbs, and hooks, each scrubbed so they sparkled. It sometimes occurred to him that there was no point washing his implements when his victims were going to be killed at the end anyway, but it was a professional standard he’d developed years ago, and he couldn’t shake it off.
“We need to keep up momentum,” said Hackett. “More pain. It’s not coming through quickly enough.”
Studs selected a hook and turned around. Hackett waited there, his head almost touching the ceiling. Beside him, strapped to a chair, was a chubby mage boy.
“Hurry up; we need to keep the pain flowing,” said Hackett.
“I wish you’d shut up,” said Studs. “Would you stand over a surgeon’s shoulder and give him tips while he removed a kidney?”
“Bendeldrick is asking for the last glyphline. I couldn’t give him the necromancer’s glyphlines on time, so I need to get this one to him straight away. That’ll keep him happy until we deliver the others.”
“Then we need Ella-Faye,” said Studs. “I can’t bring the lad’s magic out without more pain, and I can’t get him close enough to the edge of pain without risking killing him. If that happens, we need our necromancer.”
“Should she be back by now?”
“Still in the Rats’ Palace. You know Ella; she likes to…mess with them after they’re dead.”
Hackett looked concerned now. “She won’t kill the necromancer, will she?”
“She knows what she’s supposed to do, Hacks. Don’t worry.”
“Well, go and find her.”
“I can still work on the boy while we wait; it’ll just be slower-”
Hackett snapped at him, his eyes flaring. “Go and fucking find her!”
Studs felt an almighty fire flush his chest, his face, his arms. Before he knew it, he drove a fist into Hackett’s stomach.
The beanpole bent over, wheezing, and Studs grabbed his neck and squeezed tight.
Hackett pounded Stud’s back, his face growing red, his eyes bulging.
But Studs squeezed harder…harder…
Until the heat of fury cooled slightly, just enough for him to recover himself, and he eased his grip and he turned away from Hackett.
He heard Hackett gasping behind him. The heat was still in Studs but it was directed at himself this time, at his loss of control. It was always the same; it seemed like he could only keep a sense of professional cool when he was torturing someone. Any other time, all it took was a wrong word and he’d lose it.
“Hacks, I’m sorry,” he said.
Hackett rubbed his throat and waved his hand. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have shouted.”
“A shout doesn’t deserve this.”
“We’ll work on it, Studs,” said Hackett. “Remember the breathing exercises I showed you?”
“I’ll practice tonight. I’m sorry again, Hacks.”
“You’re my oldest friend. I shouldn’t have shouted or swore at you. Could you please go and find Ella and ask her to come here so we can torture this boy to death and then bring him back to life?”
The boy, strapped his chair, had watched them fight and then make-up and now he’d just heard this.
Even so, he didn’t show fear.
All the people they had strapped to the chair, all the people they’d tortured magic out of, all the glyphlines they’d taken, and this chubby little kid was the first one to not utter a single scream.
For a torturer, that was worrying.
After leaving Hackett, Studs climbed into the Rats’ Palace through the manhole near the abandoned cake shop, the one he and Ella knew that the cleric used.
Down there, he followed Ella’s red dragons, noting along the way that there were more footprints on the stone than he’d expected.
Strange; it should have been the cleric and the necromancer down here, but it looked like an army had crossed through.
He carried on, a sense of dread winding inside him with every step.
Ella was late; that wasn’t like her, and it was evident more people had come into the sewers than he’d expected.
If anything has happened to her…
He felt the familiar mist of anger started to move inside him but he choked it back as best he could, submerging it using his inquisitor’s cool.
If it were anyone else, he wouldn’t have cared. He didn’t have many people he’d say he was close to. Hackett was his oldest and only friend, but Ella, she was different. She was…well, what was she to him? In his mind, where did he place her?
He wasn’t used to thoughts like this, and he couldn’t even finish the sentence in his own head.
As he neared the chamber where Ella was supposed to deal with the cleric and the necro, he stopped.
Voices. He listened to them.
“How are we supposed to get through?”
“Through? That water’s riddled with blight. We go back the way we came. Jones – you have the manhole pl
ans, yes? Where’s the next manhole?”
“It’s dark down here. Let me see…”
Studs couldn’t hold back now. He knew the cleric’s voice; he’d been in the Boarhead tavern plenty of times, and he knew the cleric liked to sing when he was drunk. None of these voices were him.
Whoever these bastards were, if they’d hurt Ella…
He charged in, only stopping when he saw ten guardsmen in the chamber.
The youngest of them turned. It was Heath, Captain Lloyd Blackrum’s errand boy.
“What are you doing down here, Studs?”
“Never mind what I’m-”
He stopped talking, because he saw the body. A slight frame, beautiful brown hair.
He rushed over, almost slipping over a dead rat, and he kneeled down next to Ella.
Her face was pale and there was a giant bitemark on her waist. Nearby there was a dead sewer gator, all scales and teeth. Teeth big enough for a bitemark like that.
“What happened down here?” he said. He choked the words out; he almost couldn’t say them, because he knew he was losing control.
Just looking at Ella like that, it made him feel like his chest was tightening, snapping and closing in on itself.
Heath approached him, a sword in his hand, his guardship leathers dull and scratched. “You better explain yourself. We got a tip that the cleric and one of his friends were down here. You told us they were with the pickpocket before he died last night, and I reckon they must have killed this woman, too. That’s a strange enough start to things, but now you’ve stumbled into the crime scene. So, Studs, I want to know-”
They killed her.
They killed her, they killed her, they killed her.
The words rebounded in his mind again and again, hotter each time, dredging up the fury that he always carried around inside him.
Heath was still talking, but Studs couldn’t hear the words.
All he heard were his own thoughts; regret for never telling Ella how he felt. Pure, white-hot anger that the cleric and necro bastards had done this to her.
Then he felt it; that final shift inside him, the little click where his fury locked into place, and a mist descended over his eyes, over his thoughts.
