People of the City

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  He was in another wide chamber that the river cut through, and in the dim, he could see the current slacking off and forming a pool to one side. Forcing himself to hold strong, he hauled Hemmit over his shoulder and took a step into the current, then another, and another, until he reached the pool. From there, he was able to pull himself and Hemmit onto dry stone.

  “Hemmit,” he said, touching the man’s face and chest. “Talk to me, man.”

  Hemmit groaned.

  “You all right?” Dayne asked.

  “Got . . . pretty . . . smashed,” Hemmit said. “I just need a few minutes. Let me lie here a bit.”

  “Sure,” Dayne said. He let himself give a prayer of thanks to Saint Julian for this small miracle.

  “Where?” Hemmit asked.

  “Not sure,” Dayne said. He made himself stand up, get a sense of where they were. A wide cavern, which looked like it was partly natural, and partly carved by human hands. The strangest part was the soft glow of the whole place. The walls were luminous green. “We need to—”

  “Lin and Maresh,” Hemmit muttered. “Got to get to them.”

  “I agree,” Dayne said. There were several passages out of this chamber, each definitely manmade. But with no sense of how far they traveled, which direction was where, he had no idea how to get back to their friends. There was no way to get upstream from here. “I’m still shocked by the depths of this whole place.”

  “We need . . .” Hemmit wheezed out.

  “You just rest,” Dayne said. “We’ll find them.”

  “Who’s crying?” Hemmit asked.

  “What—” Dayne started, and then heard it.

  Crying. A young voice.

  “The children.”

  Hemmit craned his neck to look at Dayne. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

  Dayne followed the sound down one of the passages. It was surprisingly clear, leading Dayne to a wide, round chamber with a tall ceiling and multiple passages in every direction. Again, Dayne was astounded by the engineering on display. This place was as much a marvel as the Parliament or the Royal Palace. Not merely the scope of it, but the craftsmanship. There were tall columns in the center of the room, intricately carved with designs.

  Sitting on the floor in a ball was a small boy, crying softly.

  “Hey,” Dayne said as gently as he could.

  The boy looked up at Dayne and screamed.

  “Hey, hey, no,” Dayne said. “It’s all right. Are you lost?”

  “Stay away from me!” the boy yelled. He spoke in perfect, educated tones for a little boy.

  “Are you the young baron?” he asked. “Vollingale?”

  The boy’s eyes went wide. “How do you know who I am?”

  “Your father, he told me you were missing. I’m here to find you.”

  “No!” the boy shouted. “You’re here to take me!”

  “I swear, I’m not,” Dayne said. “Look at my uniform. Do you know what that is?”

  “No,” the boy said.

  “I’m a Tarian,” Dayne said quietly. “We’re here to protect people. That’s what I want to do.”

  Dayne reached out to the boy, but then he heard the twang of a bow. He pulled his hand back just before a pair of arrows whizzed through the air between them.

  “You stay away from him,” someone shouted. Out of one of the other tunnels, a hooded figure in a crimson cloak charged in, drawing another arrow and nocking it. “Saints help me, giant, I’ll not let you hurt him.”

  Before Dayne could speak, the cloaked man loosed the arrow.

  The trail led to Keller Cove. Satrine and Kellman had put some pressure on the horse groom, and he quickly confessed to leaving gates unlocked and lamps blown out, having been forced by a gang in Keller Cove.

  “We’re gonna be fair with him, right?” Kellman asked as they rode in the Grand Inspection Unit’s carriage to Keller Cove.

  “They threatened his sister and niece,” Satrine said. “I’m not inclined to make his life any worse.”

  “Good,” he said.

  The groom had been more than happy to offer details on the thieves, giving them an exact address to the basement flop of a tenement apartment right next to the charred remains of Tyne’s Pleasure Emporium.

  “I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of a surge of gangs and robberies in this part of town,” Kellman said as they came up. “This place employed a lot of people, and Tyne kept a lot of the street bosses in check.”

  “Maybe that’s where this gang popped up from,” she said. “But I’ve got my doubts.”

  “Why?”

  It was moments like this that Satrine desperately missed partnering with Minox. He would pick up on exactly what she meant, which went back to why this case was far more interesting than any of the others on their plate right now. This wasn’t some random break-in. These people targeted Lord Callwood. Their goal was specific. Something so specific, something so secret, Callwood didn’t want to talk about it.

  How was that not a burning curiosity?

  “Street gangs that pop up from a fallout like Tyne, they don’t get ambitious. They stake down territory, they lick their wounds. They don’t plan a heist on the east side of town.”

  “Unless it’s a huge score,” Kellman said. “I mean, I still know folks who know folks in westtown. There’s talk that the Old Lady of Seleth—”

  “Maybe,” Satrine said, cutting him off. “But if this is some common gang, I’ll give you a crown.”

  “Deal,” Kellman said, going down the steps to the basement door. He gave it three hard pounds, and announced his presence according to protocol. “This is the Constabulary, we have lawful Writs of Entry and Search. We shall be entering the premises immediately.”

  Courtesy and legality attended to, he kicked in the door.

  Satrine was not ready for the sight inside.

  The room was filled with candles, meticulously arranged on the points of a nine-pointed star drawn on the floor. Three men sat on the floor, each on a point, while three dead bodies lay in the center of the symbol.

  The stench hit her full in the face, threatening to upend her stomach.

  “Stand and be held!” Kellman shouted, clearly finding his voice before Satrine had hers. She managed to bring up her crossbow with him.

  All three men grabbed knives off the floor, and Satrine focused her aim on the closest one of them, shooting on instinct. Her blunt-tip bolt struck him in the hand as his knife went up, forcing him to drop it. The blade skittered out of his reach. Kellman’s bolt knocked one of the others in the chest, but it didn’t deter him.

  The two who still had their knives went right for their own throats.

  The third got to his feet and went for his knife, but Satrine stepped forward, putting herself between him and it. He swung at her, a wild punch. She easily dodged and brought up her handstick, landing a shot across his jaw.

  Kellman had a whistle in his mouth, calling for Yellowshields. Not that they would be able to do a damn thing for those two. They had already bled all over the floor, and no Yellowshield or doctor in the city was going to be able to save them.

  Satrine locked her handstick under the third man’s arm, twisting him around and down to the ground. “You will be ironed and delivered,” she said, getting her irons out and on his wrists. “Charges will be laid upon you, including and not limited to murder and robbery.”

  “I fear not your charges,” the third man said. “I fear not your iron. Nothing can hold me while I serve.”

  “You’re going to serve in Quarrygate,” Kellman said. “But first, by every saint, you’re going to explain what the blazes this all is!”

  Satrine turned the man around. He was smiling broadly, eyes wild and crazed. Laughing, he said, “By every saint. You cling to this false faith, praying to emptiness that will never h
ear.”

  “And this is a real faith, this horror?” Kellman asked, shoving the man back.

  “Derrick, easy!” Satrine said.

  “This isn’t faith,” the man said. “It’s truth, pure as the wind.” Despite being ironed, he charged down a hallway to a back stairwell.

  “Rutting saints,” Kellman said, chasing after him. Satrine ran right behind, reloading her crossbow as she went.

  Up four flights of stairs they chased him, all the way to the rooftop of the building.

  “Nowhere to go,” Satrine said as she came out into the daylight. She leveled her crossbow at him. “Let’s come along and you can tell us all about this faith.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” he said, turning toward them. “For you are heretics, and you will never understand.”

  He took a few steps backward, to the edge of the roof.

  “Hey, easy!” Kellman shouted.

  “But it does not matter,” he said. “Soon this city, and every life within it, will belong to the Brotherhood.”

  He took another step back, and plummeted to the street, landing with a sickening crunch. Screams immediately rang out from down below. Satrine raced up to the edge to confirm it with her own eyes: he was definitely dead, his head cracked open.

  Kellman walked up next to her, and silently handed her a coin.

  She took it and pocketed it, but her attention was already elsewhere. Amid the crowd gathering around the body, there was a familiar face. Perhaps just a coincidence, but her instinct still told her no.

  The trapmaster, the one who disarmed Sholiar’s device in the Parliament. He looked up and met her gaze, giving the barest of nods.

  In his eyes, she saw it: that burning curiosity.

  Veranix no longer heard Delmin. He had definitely taken the wrong passage, and had gotten so turned around he wasn’t sure how to get back to where he had split off from Asti.

  Stupidity.

  The passage he had found himself in was slightly different—still a manmade tunnel, but the style of the brickwork changed, the wood used to make the support beams—those had changed. And to Veranix’s eye, to something slightly familiar. It now looked like the Spinner Run, the tunnel to the university carriage house that Veranix had often used to sneak out of the dorm buildings. Were these built by the same people, or at the same time?

  Also, the walls here gave off a low, greenish glow. Veranix touched a spot of the wall with a particularly strong glow, and the brick felt soft. He scraped it with his fingernail—some sort of moss, by the look of it. He wondered what Professor Yanno would make of it. Veranix had only started the naturalism courses he needed to earn his Letters, but he had to admit he found it an interesting study. Yanno was specifically a Master of Plants, so an underground glowing moss was definitely pertinent to his interests.

  A tearful cry cut through the air, snapping Veranix out of his thoughts. That was a child.

  Then: “Stay away from me!”

  Veranix drew two arrows as he charged down the hallway. He had heard it clearly: there was a boy, in terror. When Veranix reached the mouth of the tunnel, it was clear why: a giant fellow was trying to grab the kid. Veranix fired the arrows as quick as he could to let the kid get away.

  “You stay away from him!” Veranix shouted. The giant fellow stumbled and looked at him with a stupid expression. And it wasn’t just any giant fellow. That one. The one in the Tarian uniform from Fenmere’s. Veranix could feel that magical tag he had put on him.

  Veranix was a wellspring of rage, and he let it overflow. “Saints help me, giant, I’ll not let you hurt him.” And he nocked and loosed another arrow. This was one of the special ones Verci Rynax had mocked up for him with his chemist friend.

  “Get clear, kid!” Veranix yelled.

  The Tarian brought up his shield to block the arrow, which exploded in flame and smoke, knocking the brute back. Veranix took the moment to put up the bow and whip out the rope. He wrapped it around the kid in a cradle and pulled him away from the blast.

  “Don’t you dare—” the Tarian shouted, as he tried to get to his feet.

  “I got you, kid,” Veranix said. “Don’t worry.”

  The Tarian charged at Veranix, shield down. Veranix jumped high out of the way, releasing the kid from the rope as he sailed over the brute.

  “You’re not going to touch him,” Veranix said as he landed. He willed the rope around the Tarian’s arms, entangling him. Despite being roped up, he dropped the shield and tried to reach the child with those monstrously huge hands. Veranix poured magic into the rope and his legs, to anchor himself to the ground.

  “I’m not going to let you take him,” the Tarian said. He flexed his arms, and despite Veranix magicking the rope to be iron-hard, he yanked it out of Veranix’s hands. He turned on Veranix, anger in his eyes. His arms were still bound, but he moved like a cat.

  “Well, you can’t have him,” Veranix said. “I’m firm on that.” He shrouded himself and jumped high, sweetening the jump with magic. Bow out, arrows nocked and loosed: one, two, three. No tricks on these, just razor-sharp tips to bury into the brute’s huge chest.

  The Tarian spun and dodged; none of those arrows found their target. With a great shout of pain, he wrenched one arm free from the rope and picked up the shield. He hurled it, flying out of his hands like a runaway horse, to the exact place Veranix was landing. Veranix took the shield full in the chest, and with no footing on the ground, was knocked into the wall. He barely had a chance to push out magically and cushion the blow. It still hurt like blazes.

  “That’s how you want to be, Tarian,” Veranix said, kicking the shield away. “Then let’s really bring the fight.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” the Tarian said.

  “Feeling isn’t mutual,” Veranix said. “I won’t let you take any more children.” He nocked another arrow, despite his chest screaming as he drew back.

  “Take children?” the Tarian said, looking aghast. “I’m trying to rescue them!”

  “Then why are you working for Fenmere?” Veranix held the arrow back, but he slowly fed magic into his arm, into the arrow, so when it flew it would go as fast as lightning. No dodging this time. It would tear through the Tarian like a stone in the water.

  “I’m not! Whatever he’s doing, I want to stop!”

  “Then who’s the giant stealing children, if not you?” The arrow was full of magic, ready to send this bastard to meet his sinners.

  “Gurond!” A horrifying voice bellowed from one of the other tunnels. A lumbering body to match it came pounding into the chamber, a beast that easily towered over even this Tarian. The boy, huddled in a corner, screamed and ran off. The creature came full into view—gray skin, twisted mouth, inhumanly muscled. “Gurond will take children for the Brotherhood!”

  Veranix didn’t hesitate to let that killer arrow fly at the beast. It shot out faster than Veranix could see, so fast the room echoed with thunder, and slammed into Gurond’s chest.

  It didn’t even slow him down.

  Chapter 12

  JERINNE FOUGHT DOWN HER INSTINCTS to do something stupid.

  She knew which tunnel Lin and Maresh had been taken down—these beasts weren’t exactly trying to hide their trail—and she wanted to just charge after them and take down every one of the bastards to rescue her friends.

  That would be stupid, though.

  Time to think it through. What would Dayne do? What would Amaya do?

  Fight smarter. That’s what Amaya would do.

  First step was to assess herself, what she had, how she was. Be ready for the next fight. She went through her pack, as well as Lin’s, which she found on the ground. Two canteens of water, some bread and dried meat. She had no idea what time it was—at least five or six bells—but she was hungry. Drink one canteen, eat the food. Keep her strength up.
/>   Lin had brought a rope, lamps and oil, strips of cloth.

  For bandages. Rutting blazes, Lin was thinking. Why hadn’t she been?

  Jerinne checked herself. She had taken a few hits. Her jaw ached, but none of her teeth felt loose. Bruising on her left side, but not too tender. Shallow slice on her right. She cleaned the wound and wrapped it as best she could. She had hurt her hip somehow. She took a moment to remember the stretches Raila had taught her, work the joint. After a few stretches, she heard a satisfying pop from her hip, and a fair amount of the pain faded. As good as she could hope down here.

  Raila. What was she doing right now? Back at the barracks? At the baths? Wondering where Jerinne was?

  Jerinne’s thoughts were filled with the icy realization that she could very well die down here, deep underground at the hands of some horrific misshapen creatures. She might never see Raila Gendon again. Never even try to kiss her. She still had no idea if Raila would welcome that, or react with as much terror as Jerinne had to these beasts. Jerinne would probably be kicked out of her Initiacy for that. Was that what had happened to Fredelle Pence?

  No, Raila was nothing if not kind. At worst, she would demurely, respectfully break Jerinne’s heart with quiet words of disinterest.

  That was what would most likely happen. Jerinne had never seen anything but friendship in Raila’s eyes. Certainly not the excitement or electric joy she saw every time she talked to Rian.

  Saints, Rian Rainey. The thought of not seeing her again made Jerinne’s heart almost stop.

  No, she’d get on her feet, she’d go down this tunnel and fight every blasted beast and man she had to and save Maresh and Lin. She would find Dayne and Hemmit, they would rescue the missing kids, get back up to the sunlight, and by every damn saint she would kiss Rian Rainey the next time she saw her.

  The worst that would happen there is Satrine would smack her. She could live with that.

  She left the lamps in the bag. Her eyes had adjusted to the near dark, and now she could see the soft glow on the tunnel walls. A luminescent moss of some sort, probably. She strapped the bag tightly onto her back, coiled the rope on her belt, and checked her shield and sword.