The Fork-Tongue Charmers

by Paul Durham

  She felt Slinister’s eyes studying her carefully. “You were right,” she said quietly. “I know little of him.”

  “I’ll share a secret,” Slinister offered. “I told you I’ve seen you before. But not in the way you might expect. I have dreamed of a place I’ve long sought. And in that dream, I saw you there. Why, I do not know.” Slinister leaned in, his voice more menacing. Rye recoiled. “But I do know there is more you’re not telling me.”

  Rye’s skin turned cold despite the oppressive heat of the shop. Surely she couldn’t help what Slinister dreamed about. She summoned her courage and stepped forward to leave just as Hyde approached, balancing the cage of rats in his arms.

  “Not yet,” Slinister scolded, signaling for her to stop.

  Rye forced herself to find Slinister’s eyes behind the red-ringed slits of his mask. “My father keeps his darkest secrets to himself,” she said, and remembered Harmless’s words at Grabstone. “He says little . . . and reveals less.”

  Slinister cocked his head and, without seeing his face, Rye couldn’t tell if he was angry or impressed by her reference to one of the Luck Uglies’ own codes.

  But Rye didn’t waste a moment to find out. With all of her strength she gave Hyde a hard shove, knocking him into a shelf and sending the cage tumbling to the floor. Slinister wasn’t so easily surprised and made his broad frame wide, blocking the shop’s front door. Rye turned and ran the only place she could—through the doorway to the storeroom.

  The dimly lit room was even more cluttered than the shop itself, but she saw no sign of Slinister’s prisoner. She looked desperately for a door or window to exit, and when one didn’t present itself, she scanned the overflowing shelves for something she might hurl at her pursuers. Rye spotted the sharp tools of Thorn Quill’s trade just as Slinister appeared in the doorway. She moved to grab them, but the floor disappeared beneath her and she felt herself plummet briefly into darkness before hard, unforgiving earth greeted her backside.

  Rye blinked rapidly, trying to force her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Faint candlelight from the storeroom above illuminated the square hole through which she’d fallen. The dirt around her smelled earthy and organic. Fumbling with her fingers, she grasped one of the many orb-shaped objects that surrounded her and lifted it to her nose. It smelled like an onion. She sniffed another. A beet. She had fallen into a root cellar. But there was another, more pungent smell, stronger than it was in the shop—the bogs.

  She scrambled to her feet. Slinister and Hyde would surely be down here in an instant. Their silhouettes hovered over the hole and blocked out the candlelight above. But to Rye’s surprise she could still see, her surroundings dimly illuminated by a bluish glow. A rattle of chains stopped her in her tracks. She spotted something stirring in the shadows in front of her.

  Rye craned her neck downward.

  “It can’t be . . .” Rye gasped out loud.

  A dull blue glow emanated from the runestone choker around her neck.

  Rye’s runestones were a warning. They glowed blue to alert their wearer whenever a Bog Noblin was near. More important, they were a warning to the Bog Noblins themselves. Long ago, Harmless and the Luck Uglies had declared that the greatest of harm would come to any Bog Noblin who trifled with the bearer of the runes. Rye had seen firsthand how effective those stones could be. They had saved her more than once.

  A shape shifted in the shadows. In the pale glow of her choker, she saw a vaguely human form crouched with its back to her. Its skin, waterlogged and gray, hung in folds from its sinewy frame. She could count the bony ridges of its spine. The musty cellar air was thick with the bogs. The sickly looking thing was no bigger than Rye.

  A Bog Noblin could never fit down here, she told herself. The beasts were enormous, taller than a full-grown man and twice as thick.

  But when it turned to face her, there was no room for doubt. Like all of its kind, the weight of the mire had flattened the Bog Noblin’s head and elongated its toothy jaws, and the acidic waters had tanned its coarse hair and beard into rust-orange ropes.

  A terrible, inhuman wail pierced Rye’s ears as it lurched for her. Rye flung herself backward just in time, barely avoiding the creature as it snapped its jaws behind what appeared to be an iron muzzle. It snorted at the air desperately with its piglike nose, straining at the thick collar around its neck and pulling the attached chain to its full length.

  “Hyde! Climb down there and unchain Spidercreep!” she heard Slinister call out from above.

  Rye scuttled away on her hands and knees. Regaining her feet, she ran to what looked to be the farthest end of the root cellar, desperate to put as much distance as she could between herself and the Bog Noblin. But when she reached out to brace herself for impact against the earthen wall, she was surprised to find that she just kept going, disappearing into an even blacker tunnel. Rye didn’t stop to make sense of it; she just kept running as fast as she could. She felt the patter of earth and pebbles on her shoulders like hail. Her boots slapped the loose soil and shallow puddles splashed her bare legs. Rye lost all sense of direction as she ran, bouncing off walls and crashing into what she thought were dead ends only to turn herself around and run some more. Just as the blue glow of her choker began to subside, a hidden root sent her tumbling. She felt the sting of reopened scars as her knees hit the ground.

  Rye sat up and pressed her back against the tunnel wall. Now, in absolute darkness, she realized she must be in the Spoke. Its tunnels had been carved out long ago by the Luck Uglies themselves, and Drowning’s hidden underbelly still remained a little-known secret. Rye knew there were other entrances and exits throughout the village: abandoned wells, forgotten cemeteries; even the now smoldering basement of the Willow’s Wares concealed entryways into the Spoke’s catacombs. Thorn Quill’s root cellar must have been another.

  Rye caught her breath. The glow from her choker softened and winked out altogether.

  She sighed in relief. Now she could sort out how to get back aboveground.

  Suddenly the choker flared to life, the glow so intense that it illuminated her face. She heard the scratching and scuffling of rapidly moving footsteps.

  Rye knew her weary legs could take her no farther. Reaching over her shoulder, she drew the cudgel from its sling. Her choker should ward off the Bog Noblin once it found her, but Slinister and Hyde would not be similarly deterred. She stood, clutched her choker in her hand, and held it out from her neck.

  “Do you see this?” she yelled into the void around her. “Do you see what this is?”

  The shadows were silent. Maybe it had.

  Then something struck Rye harder than she’d ever been hit before. It took the wind out of her lungs and sent her sprawling onto her back.

  Spidercreep pinned her to the ground and perched heavily on her chest. He was snuffling furiously, smelling her. His breath reeked of the sour stench of the bogs.

  She struggled desperately as the beast pressed itself against her, pounding her ribs with hard knotted stumps that felt like fists. Knots of rust-orange hair whipped her face. Spidercreep snapped, but she didn’t feel his bite, the frame of the muzzle protecting her from his jaws.

  Undeterred, he unfurled his long black tongue through the iron bars. Rye pinched her eyes tight as it lapped across her face like a giant snail. Rye yelled and thrust her elbow at his face. It slipped through the muzzle and Spidercreep instantly bit down into the thick leather of her coat. Rye panicked and tried to thrash free, but he held her elbow tight like a dog latched onto a joint of meat.

  Desperate, Rye tightened her grip around the cudgel. Swinging her arm up, she bashed Spidercreep in the side of his head. There was a clank of metal and her elbow popped free. Another swing sent Spidercreep flying off her.

  Rye sprang to her feet emboldened, her ears burning, and stepped toward the creature to give it one more wallop for good measure. In the light of her choker, she could see Spidercreep cower like a frightened hound. His pathetic whimper made
her pause—long enough for him to leap aside and flee into the darkness.

  Rye stood at the ready, listening for signs of another attack. But her choker began to fade as the Bog Noblin’s retreat took him farther away, until the glow eventually disappeared entirely. There was no sign of Slinister—no footsteps or torchlight. She touched her elbow and felt bare skin. Spidercreep’s powerful jaws had ripped away a mouthful of leather, but everything important remained intact.

  Her relief lasted but a moment. Now she was alone. And lost. Beneath the ground in absolute darkness.

  Rye pulled her coat tight around her cold, damp body and closed her eyes. Although she couldn’t dally, she’d allow herself just a moment to catch her breath.

  But the darkness of the Spoke soon enveloped her like a tomb. She didn’t even realize she’d nodded off until the crawl of fingers on her face jarred her from her sleep.

  11

  Friends in Low Places

  “What are you doing down here, silly?” a voice whispered in Rye’s ear.

  Rye jolted and lurched away. A lantern flared in front of her. She blinked and shielded her eyes, the lantern’s glow burning them after so long in the dark.

  “Sorry,” the voice said. “The lantern’s for you. I don’t need it, of course.”

  Rye peered through the glare. A pale-skinned boy smiled back at her. His black hair hung in dirty strings on either side of his long face. His mismatched eyes flickered in the light. One was brown, the other blue.

  “Truitt,” she gasped in relief. “How did you find me?”

  “I hear everything that happens down here—sooner more often than later.”

  He extended a hand and helped her to her feet. She hugged her friend. His shoulders were bony, but they gave her comfort. He’d come to visit her on Market Street once over the winter, but she hadn’t seen him since.

  “I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard your voice,” he said. “But I was glad to nonetheless. I heard what happened to the Willow’s Wares.”

  “Everything’s turned upside down, Truitt. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Start with how you found yourself lost in the Spoke,” Truitt said. “But tell me as we go—this is not a safe spot.” He handed her the lantern. “Follow me.”

  Truitt led the way through the dark, only occasionally grazing a wall with his fingertips to get his bearings. His feet navigated the tunnel floors without the slightest stumble, and even with the benefit of the lantern and her walking-stick-turned-weapon, Rye struggled to keep up. She always found Truitt’s dexterity to be remarkable. He was blind.

  Truitt was what the villagers called a link rat—not that Rye would ever call him that unpleasant name ever again. He wasn’t much older than Rye, but he’d spent almost his entire life in the Spoke, venturing out into the village after dark to guide travelers by lantern light through its treacherous alleyways in exchange for spare coins. For parentless children, Drowning’s streets had always been more dangerous than the tunnels beneath it.

  “I was chased down here,” Rye explained as they walked. “By a Bog Noblin, but not like one I’ve ever seen before.”

  “Are you certain it was a Bog Noblin?” Truitt asked. “Something has been following the link children in the tunnels, Rye. It drags them off and we never see them again. From what we have heard, it is something less than human.”

  “I’m sure of it,” Rye said. “Why these didn’t work I have no idea.” She fingered her runestones and shook her head. “Could it be they are one and the same?” Rye asked. Perhaps Slinister didn’t always keep Spidercreep chained up.

  “Whatever it is,” Truitt said, “we need to stop it. If the link children aren’t safe here, there is no haven for us in all of Drowning.”

  Rye considered the other possible comings and goings in the Spoke.

  “Truitt,” she began cautiously, “did you hear anything else down here? Some sort of gathering maybe?”

  “It was a most unusual night,” he said over his shoulder. “Once in a Black Moon we’ll come across a lost reveler. Or sometimes a child crawling after a stray cat. But last night the tunnels echoed with creepers. Men. They gathered not far from here and stayed until nearly dawn. At times their language was . . . heated.”

  “Luck Uglies?” Rye whispered, even though they were most certainly alone.

  “I couldn’t say for certain, but they talked about an assault on Longchance Keep under the cover of darkness.”

  It had to be the Luck Uglies, Rye thought. Slinister told her they were meeting in the Spoke, and an attack on Longchance Keep sounded like the type of important business that would require their full attention.

  “Did they say when? Will it be tonight?” she asked.

  Truitt shook his head. “Voices travel far but unclearly in the Spoke. They didn’t strike me as the sort of men who would appreciate unwelcome ears. I didn’t linger.”

  Rye hesitated before asking her next question. “Will you warn her?”

  Truitt stopped and turned. He knew who she meant. Malydia Longchance. She was the Earl’s daughter—and Truitt’s twin sister. The Earl had cast Truitt, his own son, into the sewers when he was just an infant because of his blindness. But Malydia lived with her father in Longchance Keep.

  “You have good reason to distrust Malydia. She’s been nothing but cruel to you, for reasons even I don’t understand. But she is not her father, and I won’t leave her to his fate if I can help it.”

  “If you do tell her, Harmless—and the rest of the Luck Uglies—could be in danger,” Rye said.

  “I haven’t spoken with her yet, but I’ll drag her into the tunnels if that’s what it takes to keep her out of harm’s way. As for the Earl,” Truitt said, a look of disdain flashing across his normally kind face, “the Luck Uglies can string him up from the highest tower of Longchance Keep if they care to. I won’t let her warn him.”

  Truitt pointed overhead, where a dented tin canopy was punctured with dozens of holes. Rye looked up, then down at her chest. Tiny pinpoints of light dotted her filthy coat.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  Truitt slid aside the scrap-metal cover and gave Rye a boost so she could climb out of the hole. She squinted in the bright morning light and peeked around the narrow backstreet. The last remnants of winter had melted into deep puddles in the spring air, and several scrawny hens pecked through them in search of worms. Rye heard what sounded like the noise of morning foot traffic, but the footsteps were heavy, metallic. She glanced up. The moss-etched stones of a wall loomed high above her, forming the base of a staircase. The steps were packed with men. Shoulder to shoulder, their black-and-blue tartan flashed everywhere she looked. They held their positions, steel greaves clicking as they shifted nervously. Soldiers!

  “Truitt,” Rye whispered down into the tunnel. “Where am I?”

  “Have you been underground so long you’ve already lost your bearings?” Truitt called up with a chuckle. “You’re in the Shambles.”

  Indeed, she was at the foot of Mutineer’s Alley. Implausible as it seemed, the entryway to the Shambles was filled with Longchance’s men.

  “Something’s going on up here,” she said. “There are soldiers—lots of them. Stay in the Spoke. I need to get to the Dead Fish Inn.”

  “Rye, come back down with me if it’s not safe. I can get you there through the wine cellar.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Rye said. She was already sliding the tin canopy back into place. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find out more about the Bog Noblin,” she added quickly, and dropped the scrap metal over the hole, silencing Truitt’s protests.

  Rye hurried along the backstreet where it ran parallel to Little Water Street, then moved to cut across when she was a fair distance away from Mutineer’s Alley and the soldiers. But what she saw caused her to stop dead in her tracks.

  A much smaller procession of soldiers already marched through the Shambles, snaking their way down Little Water Street
. No one had seen a soldier in the Shambles for decades, so it was with great interest that the neighborhood’s denizens filtered from the taverns and shops as the procession passed by. They followed them casually in large numbers and, in the process, sealed off the group’s return path.

  Rye watched closely from an alley. Three soldiers in black-and-blue tartan accompanied the man with the crimson hat and leather helmet—Constable Valant. He clutched a chain leash and his enormous, mottled gray dog trotted alongside him, as if out for a morning stroll. The crowd behind them had grown into the dozens. The faces of the Shambles’ residents were hard and grim.

  What are they thinking? Rye wondered. Then she caught herself midbreath and crouched even lower into the shadows. The Constable’s squire marched along with the procession. His narrow-set eyes darted back at the crowd gathering behind them. Had he led them here? Who was Hyde really deceiving? The Constable, Slinister, or both?

  Rye suspected there was only one place they could be walking so purposefully. She’d have to use the back alleys to make it to the Dead Fish Inn before them. She pulled the hood of her coat over her head and thrust her hands into her pockets. Something hard and cold met her hand.

  Rye removed the object from her pocket. A smooth stone as black as the Spoke rested in her palm, identical to the one she’d found in her boot on Silvermas. She knew for certain she hadn’t put it there herself. Rye dropped it to the ground in surprise and wiped her hands hurriedly, as if its touch alone might taint her.

  12

  In Shambles

  Fitz and Flint stared down at the filthy, mud-streaked street urchin and told her to shove off before she drove away any more customers.

  Rye tugged off her hood. “It’s me. Let me in!” she said, pushing past them. “You might want to watch the street—trouble’s coming.” They stuck their thick necks out the iron doors for a closer look.