by Jim Galford
Estin on the other hand, got up onto his feet and walked past her, surveying the area around them.
“We can get to the wall in an hour if we go that way,” he told her, pointing to the east. “They’ll be able to track us the whole way. I’ll take us south into the slums, where most of these people won’t follow. We can hide there until near dawn when there are the fewest guards on the walls.”
He began to stride across the roof towards the nearest one he could jump to, when he realized Feanne was very nearly paralyzed with fear as she looked around at the buildings…then back to the long climb down.
“I’ll find a way that isn’t too awful,” he promised her, then began checking nearby buildings for attics or other easily-reached entrances.
Feanne crawled to where he stood not letting her hands or feet leave the shingles. Her existing injuries were bleeding badly again after being scraped on the way up the house and now rubbed against the shingles. She hardly seemed to notice the trail of bloody humanoid pawprints she left behind.
“I will make one jump if it gets me somewhere that I cannot fall to my death,” she told him, not looking up. “That is all you’ll get out of me. I am not about to start hopping from roof to roof, which is what I think you were planning.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
Estin spotted an open top-floor window that was about fifteen feet from the roof they were on. It was an easy jump for him, but he was not sure Feanne could make it. He honestly had no idea what a fox could or could not do.
“We need to find a way to get you over to…,” Estin started to say, pointing at the window. As he did, Feanne stood up unsteadily beside him.
Feanne dug her feet into the shingles and then leapt past him, crossing the gap between the buildings and through the indicated window, as though she had been catapulted. Loud crashes sounded from the room beyond.
“Not the most graceful thing I’ve ever seen, but it works,” he said to himself, wondering how she had made the jump. It would be a decently-long hop for him and he had always thought he was a good jumper.
Taking a step back, Estin ran to the edge of the roof and sprang across the gap between the houses. He caught himself easily on the far side, though he landed just below the window, grabbing at the sill to keep from tumbling to the street. With one good pull, he got himself up and over into the room.
The place looked as though a war had broken out and then been brought to a halt by stampeding elephants. Furniture was smashed and toppled and a black bearskin rug that he guessed had once been in the center of the floor was now flung to the far wall, marred by blood and torn in several places. Around it, most of the furniture and decorations that had been in a direct path of the window was piled up in disarray.
From beneath the rug and several other objects, Feanne unburied herself, looking—if possible—more battered than she had before.
“Ask me no questions,” she growled, shoving the debris off her. “I will only say that using magic to augment your natural skills is dangerous…and at times, messy.”
“Wouldn’t even know what to say to that. Maybe we should just keep moving?”
He did not wait for her answer and began searching the upstairs of the house for multiple escape routes, just in case the people outside followed them inside, though he knew that was unlikely in the rich section of town. Rarely would the humans and elves willingly impose on another of their ilk without invitation, even if it would save the person’s life. He was counting on that standoffishness to give them a lengthy head-start in escaping.
“You coming?” he asked as he stood at the top of the stairs. “We need to get moving. They will come after us eventually.”
Feanne finally came out of the room they had entered through, the bear’s skin draped over her shoulders as though it were a cloak.
“This I wish to keep,” she noted, holding up a leg of the rug. “We do not get many bears in our part of the woods. At least, few that I would skin.”
Estin frowned at her, but she ignored him.
“It’s a little warm for fur…extra fur,” he added, reminding himself of the irony.
Feanne shrugged and walked past him and down the stairs.
“You live in the city. The woods are not nearly so comfortable at night.”
“Whatever you want.”
Estin hurried after her, then led the way down two more floors and finally to another staircase that was wooden and less well maintained. Cobwebs and dust lingered as they began descending. A damp chill made Estin shiver as the darkness of the cellar closed in around them. His vision faded from the bright colors of the upstairs to dull hues as his night-sight began adjusting. Individual colors faded into shades of grey, black, and white…the very colors of his own pelt, as well as his clothing.
“How will going into a hole in the ground get us out of this part of town?”
Turning to look back at her, Estin found that her own coloring had faded interestingly in the vision that only creatures of the night could see. Her leathers were almost pitch black, with all of the red and black of her fur dimmed to a near-black that blurred in the darkness. The only things that stood out where the white fur patches on her lower jaw and the tip of her tail. That, and her gleaming white eye that he realized was nearly as bright as his own orange ones. She likely could see as well as he could in the dark basement even with only one eye that could open. That was reassuring at least, given where they were going.
“Have you ever been in a sewer?”
Feanne’s furrowed brows told him she had not and might not even know what he was talking about.
“The sewers reclaim all the water…and waste…from the houses in the rich part of town.”
“And where does it go?”
Estin nodded, “That’s exactly the point. We can’t follow it too far, or we’ll be taking a fast path down the mountains when it reaches a stream. If we only take it to the slums, we can come up in one of the buildings that connect to the sewers. I know most of them and where the entrances are.
“This won’t be pleasant, but it’s the safest way out.”
Feanne nodded and gestured for him to continue.
“I have seen more unpleasant places than likely exist within the walls of this city,” she told him. “Show me these sewers so that I can get away from anywhere else that you might make me jump around like a monkey.”
“Then let’s get going.”
He led her down to the less-used sections of the basement, listening for running water. What he heard first was a door being kicked in upstairs, followed by many voices and the pounding of feet. Just after the mob broke into the first floor, he spotted what he was searching for—a grating near one corner to allow any excess water to drain away and for servicing the sewers if something were to get backed up.
“Down here,” he said quietly, grunting as he tried to lift the heavy grating. With all the climbing he had done this day, his arms were in agony, but this was not the time to stop and worry about it.
After several seconds and the sound of nearing footfalls, Feanne stepped up beside Estin, grabbing onto the grating herself. She whispered something that Estin did not recognize, then hoisted the grating as though it were weightless.
“Pull it closed behind us,” she told him, setting the grating alongside the hole, then slid past him and dropped into the darkness below with a faint splash.
Estin shifted himself under the grating, then dropped through, using his weight to yank the grating closed behind him as he fell. If he were to hazard a guess, he thought the metal grating weighed more than Feanne, making him wonder yet again at her capabilities, especially when she was less wounded.
He landed in about three inches of water, though from the smell of the place it was likely not exactly water. Estin winced as his feet sunk in and, as he had every time he had entered a sewer, he envied the other races with their thick boots. Bare paws in the muck was hardly something he enjoyed. A slick foul sludge had
already begun to work its way in between his toes, burning on the scrapes and cuts that covered his feet.
“Not much worse than some of the swamps to the far south,” Feanne noted, pulling the bear skin tighter over her shoulders. “Smells about the same.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that.”
Estin began down the sewer tunnel as quickly as he could with his feet being sucked down into the mire with each footfall. The trip would not be long, but he wanted to get out of this place as fast as he could as he remembered how long it had taken for the stink to get out of his fur the last time he was down here. That time had been a profitable theft in a house not far from this location, giving him a good sense of where they were and how to get out.
“Down here,” he announced, turning right and continuing through the darkness.
This area was far enough from the dimly-lit gratings of houses that the already-dim light faded to the point that he had to slow his pace and stare hard to make out the walls. A glance back confirmed that Feanne was doing no better, as she had a hand on the wall to ensure she was moving the right direction. Nonetheless, she did not complain or question , but followed along behind him.
Soon the passage grew brighter again as they neared several drain grates along the streets. At each of these Estin paused to check their location.
“We’re close now,” he promised, pushing on, even as the sludge rose above his ankles. “There will be a small hatch in the upper-right corner shortly.”
Sure enough, about fifty feet on, he found the well-disguised patch of wood. It was placed such that anyone coming through with torches could not see the door, as the shadows from the torches would conceal it. Those who knew where it was, or could see in the dark would have little trouble locating it.
Estin had to feel around the door a bit to find the latch, which was inconveniently-placed at best. Once he got a finger on it, he felt the lock click open and he slid the panel away to reveal a dim room above.
“After you,” he told Feanne, stepping aside.
She gave him a queer look, then tossed the bear skin up through the opening. She waited a moment, as though listening, then grabbed the lip of the opening and pulled herself through easily. Her white tail-tip vanished through the gap and she was gone.
Reaching up to the opening himself, Estin lifted himself through and collapsed inside the building, his arms trembling badly now. He casually shoved the hatch closed.
The room they were now in was barely lit by a thin ray of light from a boarded-up window on the south wall. Scattered through the old warehouse were boxes that had rotted, their decayed contents falling out into moldy piles. Estin had always wondered what they had been, but everything had been rotting so long that he could not tell if they were boxes of food or cloth.
Feanne had set herself to work immediately upon getting into the room, having found a steady leak of water from a pipe that may have once fed the building, but now just dumped its contents endlessly onto the floor, contributing to the decay. She had her feet under the stream, cleaning the grunge from her fur. Once that was less caked, she began rubbing the dried blood off her hands, claws, and the cuts on her arms, all the while leaning heavily on the wall, as if her strength were beginning to fade again. She worked hardest at cleaning her injuries, understandably concerned about getting the sewer’s sludge out of the open wounds.
“How do we get from here to the outside?” she asked him, somehow knowing he was watching her. She sounded extremely tired as she talked, wiggling her toes under the water a little longer before going back to scrubbing at her torn face. “You said this was just until we could escape.”
“There are ways through or over the walls once the sun sets,” Estin explained, coming over to sit on the floor near the running water. He tried not to look at his sticky-feeling feet and tried even harder to keep them away from his tail or anything else he would have to clean. When Feanne finished her own grooming, he would have to do something about it. “I have someone in the next building over who might watch out for us until we can escape. Once we’re past the wall, the only ones who would come after us would be the army. I’m hoping that they don’t have any troops nearby.”
“There are more than enough troops nearby,” Feanne corrected, stepping out of the water, checking her feet one more time for sludge, then glancing at her tail for any filth. “I was escorted in from nearly a mile outside the walls.”
“Really? I had no idea they were out that far.”
“They have enough to harass the wilds,” Feanne remarked, her tone dark and impatient. She put a hand to her heard again, steadying herself. “I will not talk further on this. Go find your person and plan our escape. I will rest while you do this.”
She staggered to the nearest dark corner and flopped down, curling into a ball as she tossed the bear skin over herself, effectively hiding. If he had not known where she was, Estin doubted he could have spotted her in the dim lighting.
Estin kicked his feet through the water to clean up at least a little, then headed for the back of the warehouse. There, he slid a more-intact stack of boxes aside to reveal hole just large enough for him to squeeze through that led into the abutting building. This was all part of the secret network that Nyess had built over the years, allowing him to escape raids by the town guards. Some routes had been shown to Estin in his service to the rat, but he doubted he even knew a fraction of what Nyess had available to him.
Once he was through, Estin sat up and nearly leaned right into a shining knife leveled at his throat. He raised his gaze and saw that it was another of the dwarves Nyess employed on occasion. This one’s beard was trimmed down to a short mass of hair—a grievous insult among dwarves, but likely a mark of distinction among thugs and thieves. While most dwarves Estin had seen liked to be seen and heard, this one was dressed in mottled dark colors that blended with the dimly-lit setting. He also appeared as though he had not bathed in several days, his face sweaty and his odor reeking of ale.
“So good of you to come, monkey,” growled the man, grabbing Estin’s shirt collar and dragging him out of the opening to the warehouse and onto the floor of the room. The knife came right back to Estin’s neck. “The boss was getting worried about you. I think he wants to talk to you.”
“Saves me time looking for him,” Estin said, trying to sound calm as he pushed the blade away from his neck slowly. “Lead the way.”
Once he was on his feet, the dwarf shoved him hard to get him walking, nearly making him tumble forwards. As they walked through multiple rooms and floors, he continued to give Estin occasional pushes, apparently for his own amusement.
At last, they reached a dingy basement room with stark block walls and a single desk at the center. There sat Nyess, his beady eyes watching Estin from the moment he entered, as his furless tail whipped back and forth impatiently.
“Where is your employer?” demanded the rat-man. “This is bad for business to have our customers disappear.”
The weight of Varra’s death hit Estin again like someone had punched him in the stomach. Once again, he struggled to push down the memories and keep his calm. There was no place in the streets for someone who let their feelings run away with them.
“She was killed by a Turessian while we were escaping. The item she wanted stolen was left with me…she wants it taken back to her people. I was not able to get her body out of the keep.”
“A fine mess that is.”
Nyess stood up—one of the few times Estin had actually seen him do that—and walked a slow circle around Estin, eyeing him up and down.
“The cup on your belt,” noted Nyess, tapping the metal with his filed nail. “This is what she wanted stolen?”
“Yes, that was all she wanted.”
Nyess sneered at the goblet as he leaned closer to get a look at it.
“It’s not valuable, is it?” he demanded, poking it again.
“I think it’s a family heirloom. Something about gypsy honor and people
stealing from family.”
Snorting, Nyess flopped back into his chair, making it creak dangerously.
“Your employer is dead, you came back with nothing of value, and I’m guessing you want something. Why shouldn’t I have…what was your name, dwarf?”
“Finth, sir.”
“Yes, whatever. Why shouldn’t I have Finth stab you repeatedly for my own amusement?”
Estin swallowed hard. The first time he had met Nyess, a young elf had been being beaten in the back corner of the room for failing to pay a debt. His meeting with Nyess had lasted nearly an hour and when he had finished, the man was still being beaten…though he had stopped screaming by that point.
He thought about revealing the gems in his pouch from the keep, but realized without bartering, he might just be ensuring his death. Estin decided to use those as a last-resort to get out of danger if things went badly.
“I plan to take it to the gypsies,” he lied, hoping it was sounding at least fairly genuine. In reality, he doubted they would want to see him if he was coming with news of Varra’s death. “Varra said that they would provide payment at that time. I’ll bring that back to you.”
“That will work,” Nyess said quickly. “How can I help facilitate the trade?”
Estin’s mind raced, going over his options and which ones might well get him killed for requesting. In the end, he settled on the simplest and safest option.
“I shouldn’t need anything more than some food, water, and a quick distraction at the south gate,” he explained, thinking through what might slow Feanne and his escape from the city. “The duke has likely got people hunting us and we’re not exactly able to blend in.”
“I understand. I’ll have some of my contacts make sure that the southwest corner of the wall is clear for about half an hour at dawn. You will need to cross there during that time, or your head will be on a pike and there is nothing I can or will do to save you.”
“Thank you, Nyess,” Estin said, watching Nyess’ face carefully. The other wildling was entirely calm and seemed to be taking the whole problem in stride. “May I return to the warehouse?”
