by Greg Curtis
“How is life at the fort?” There was no point in getting into an argument about irrelevancies he decided. So he changed the subject.
“Busy. Leona has moved into full swing and now the masons are pointing all the walls as fast as they can and the new drapes are being hung. Th'yssen and Simon have moved in as have Derys and Thomas. Father has said there is little they can do in Bitter Crest and the fort is safe for the moment so they should be comfortable. Cassandra may move in shortly. An alehouse is no place for a woman with child.”
“You can accept Simon living there?” April asked the question a little hesitantly.
“Yes.” Strangely he could he discovered. Edouard hadn't actually thought about it until just then, but when she asked he realised a lot of the anger he had held for his eldest brother had gone. And in any case it was hard to reconcile the Simon he had known all his life with a baby. It might be him in a way, but in another way Simon was dead. For once he thought the hamadryad had come up with a reasonable punishment.
“Good. Th'yssen was worried.”
“Tell her please that she has no need to worry.”
And she didn't. In Edouard's thoughts she was just as much a victim of her son as everyone else. And he had always liked his stepmother.
“There's one other thing that you should know. Leona said not to tell you. That you already had too much else to deal with. But I think you should know. Kyriel may be in trouble.”
“Trouble?” What sort of trouble could she be in he wondered? In his experience she was usually the one causing it – for him. The woman was an unstoppable engine of destruction when it came to disturbing his peace.
“We can't find her.”
“You can't find her? She's lost? How can that be?” Edouard didn't understand that. Surely she should be either at the fort or the temple. Or maybe here, helping with the supplies.
“We don't know exactly. Liandra says she was making noises about how we needed to help the people in the city. That they would all be killed if we didn't do something. And then two days ago she vanished. She took a brace of your pistols and some supplies and disappeared.”
“The fool woman's on her way there?” Edouard couldn't help but raise his voice a little, his heart in his throat. What was it about these infernal handmaidens? Why did they have to keep making trouble and meddling? And why Kyriel? He had no doubt that she was capable in all matters of warfare. But still this was no place for her. She could get herself killed. And he absolutely didn't want that. The woman confused him. She told him off for his many faults. Lectured him too much. And then she smiled and his world turned upside down again. But he didn't want her hurt.
“She may actually be inside the city.” April's voice trailed off to a whisper.
“What?! How? The city's surrounded! She would have been spotted and turned around. And then how would she make it through the walls and past the rock gnomes?”
Of course then there was the other question. Just what in the seven hells did she think she could do in the city to help? The city was a disaster area. It was filled with the enemy, burning down and being bombarded. In a few more days it would be overrun by soldiers and there would be a pitched battle in the streets. There was nothing anyone could do inside the city that would help. Nothing except get themselves killed.
“There's a portal.”
Edouard groaned when she said that. Of course there was a portal. No doubt in the shrine to Tyrel. The shrine that had been badly damaged by the mammoths. But the portal being magical might have survived. He should have thought of that. And the handmaidens should have told someone. It could have been vital to the war.
“You mean you've been able to enter and leave the city at will for all this time, and no one thought to mention that to Marcus?”
“No! We haven't! The night Simon and Vesar came to power the portal failed and it hadn't worked since. Until two nights ago. When it started working again – on and off. We don't know why.”
“Because it was stopped with a stone of silence. Or one of these death stones as Ascorlexia calls them.” The answer was so obvious to Edouard. He didn't know how many of the stones Vesar had – he suspected it was very few – but one place he would place them was near anything he considered a threat. If he'd had more of them he would probably have had one placed in their dungeon instead of having to drug everyone. “But the fires have obviously affected it. Heating and cooling the stone damages it, and the spell it contains.”
Edouard could see that so clearly. Just as he could work out that the fool woman had probably got herself trapped in the city. If she wasn't already dead. One woman in a handmaiden’s dress with long white hair running down her back would stand out like a sore thumb. What a damnably stupid thing to do!
Edouard sighed loudly as he thought of the pointlessness of the woman's actions. So utterly brave and so completely stupid. And he thought – so typically her. “April, I want you to go to Marcus and tell him about the portal and Kyriel. I don't know that he can do much, but he may be able to do something. Have the soldiers look for her when we go in.”
“And then I want you to go straight home and stay there. No more of our family are going to be placed in harm’s way. Not by the Seven.”
“But –!”
“No!” Edouard was firm with her. He had to be. She was his little sister. His responsibility. And he was not going to have her in harm’s way for another single second.
“Kyriel is probably dead by now,” Edouard said ruthlessly, stomping heavily on his own feelings in the matter. He had to say it. He had to make sure she didn't imagine that there was hope and she could do something. Because she could be just as brave – and just as foolhardy. “The rock gnomes would have spotted her in a heartbeat and they hate priests and priestesses. I will not have you joining her. Now go! See Marcus and go home. There is absolutely nothing you or anyone else can do for her.”
Should he have said that? Edouard didn't know. But it was a terrible thing to say, especially when he could see the tears forming in his sister's eyes. And the way her shoulders suddenly slumped. He felt like the worst brother in the world. Yet she had to believe it if he was to stop her doing some fool headed thing like mounting a rescue. And she had to be safe.
But as he watched her leave, dejected and upset with him, Edouard knew one thing. What he really meant was that there was nothing anyone else could do.
If the fool woman was alive then this fool would find her and get her out of there. And then there would be some telling off!
Chapter Fifty Two
Edouard hated the sewers. He hated wading through filthy diseased water. He hated everything that slithered and crawled and hopped through these dark tunnels. In fact he hated everything about this place including being back in it. But it was what had to be. And this time at least he was stronger and fitter. He was armed. And he had a plan of a sort. A plan that began with marking the ceiling with arrows showing the direction out. He was never getting lost in this place again.
Of course he had no idea where he was going. Mostly he was just heading in the one direction away from the exit, looking for places where the sewer had exits. Simon had given him the information that there were lots of secret ways in and out of the city through them, and now it was just a matter of finding them.
He had an advantage in that. The secret passages were all designed to be unseen from the top side of the city. But once you were in the sewers themselves there was no attempt to hide them. So all he had to do was wander along until he found a ladder or stairs heading up and then start exploring.
Already he'd found three exits, though only one of them had been of any use. One had opened into a burning building, a warehouse of some kind, and he'd quickly backed away. The fire would eventually die down, but when it did the remains of the building would no doubt collapse all around it, blocking the exit.
One had opened into an inn of some sort. But what remained of it was only a pile of rubble and burnt timbers and
crawling through them to reach the city itself would have been a mistake. He would have been spotted immediately and caught even quicker. There had been a guard post just fifty yards away.
The third one though had been more useful. It had been a butchery and most important for him, one that was both intact and had no guards nearby. The trapdoor had opened into one of the back rooms, and after making sure that no one was around, he had managed to sneak his way into the shop itself. From it he'd been able to work out where in Theria he was, and which way he needed to go to reach the shrine. It was on Saddlers Row as he remembered.
Finding Saddlers Row though he had discovered, was going to be a problem. Sure it was east of where he was. He knew the general direction to travel. But there was a larger problem to consider. Much of the city was unrecognisable. So many buildings had burnt down to the ground that landmarks were few and hard to find. The streets themselves were broken from the heat of the fires that had raged out of control. And of course there was no light. Not above and certainly not below. The street lights were no longer working. Many of them were missing completely.
Instead there were little guard posts everywhere, each with a brazier and perhaps one or two dozen veiled soldiers standing around it, keeping warm. At night, with a huge pall of black smoke covering the city and blocking the light from the moon and stars and the only light coming from the braziers, nothing looked as it should. Daylight would help of course, but he absolutely didn't want to be seen above ground during the day. Darkness was his friend.
So he'd gone back down into the sewers and started heading east along the nearest branch of the sewer going in the right direction, looking for more ladders and staircases. But on this line there didn't seem to be many. And as if to add to his unhappiness, the water here was deeper. In places it was almost up to his chest and he had to hold his pistols and powder above his head.
Still, as with everything in life, eventually something good had to happen, and though he almost missed it in the darkness, there was a staircase on the side wall. It was narrow – they were all narrow for some reason – and he had to walk up it sideways.
Once he reached the top he found himself pressed against a wooden panelled wall instead of bricks, something that surprised him. It was the sort of thing you would find in a manor house. Obviously he'd found a secret passage to one of the estates.
That made sense to him. According to what Simon had said many of these passageways had been built by thieves posing as masons doing the renovations as ways of gaining access to the wealthy. Of course some of them had been built by the owners themselves so that they could enter and leave the city unnoticed. Not all of the nobility were apparently so law abiding. Simon had been a perfect example of that.
There was a small grate in the panelling, put there probably so that fresh air could enter the home, but also perfect for him to see through while hopefully remaining completely unseen. And after checking for heat and listening for anyone who might be on the other side, he sidled carefully along the wall so that he could peer through it.
When he did he was caught by surprise again. It was the drawing room of an estate which wasn't that unexpected. But what was unexpected was that he could see people in it. Tied up, sitting on the floor in the darkened room and by the looks of things in a state of distress. They'd obviously been there for days at least. Maybe longer. He understood that, as he did the fact that the dozen or so people there were both the nobles and their servants. The people who normally lived on the estate. But what he didn't understand was why they were there at all. Surely they should have all been either killed or put to work? That was what he understood had happened to everyone else. Obviously these people had some value to the enemy.
Still, it didn't matter. What mattered was getting these people out if he could. A task that began with the two soldiers keeping watch over them.
The soldiers proved no problem to remove. He simply kept watch on them from the grate and waited until they were both standing at the front window with their backs to him, and then he sent a cutting finger of light across the room and into the backs of their heads. If he could carve stone he figured, flesh would be a lot easier.
They fell almost without a sound and he congratulated himself silently. No one had noticed except for the prisoners. And they weren't saying much as they sat there staring. Still, he waited to see if any other soldiers came rushing in to see what had happened.
Once he was satisfied that none were coming he quickly started cutting his way through the oak panel wall. It didn't take long before he had a doorway.
After that he walked into the room as quietly as he knew how, making sure to keep well away from the windows, and started searching for any more soldiers. The prisoners quickly realised they needed to keep quiet after he held a finger to his lips, and waited for him to finish.
When he was satisfied they were alone, at least in this part of the house, he started working on the bonds holding them secure. But he made sure to remind them to keep quiet. There were more veiled soldiers outside.
“Are there any more people held captive in here?” Edouard whispered to the man he assumed was the head of the house as he cut his ropes.
“No.” The man shook his head. “They dragged us all in here and tied us up a week ago. The others were killed.”
“All right then, I want you to go down the stairs behind the wall I just came up. It'll lead to the sewers. And from there you'll need to travel west through them for about seven or eight hundred paces. Stay together. Follow the arrows I cut into the ceiling of the sewers. Then turn right and keep travelling until you find a grate and the water outflow. The grate looks secure but underneath the water line there are no bars.”
“Dive through it and you'll find yourself in a river flowing away from the city. And maybe six or seven hundred yards along from that you should find some sentries. Go to them. They'll get you some food and dry you up, and then see Marcus. He'll no doubt have a lot of questions for you about what's been happening in here. And tell him that Edouard sends his regards.”
With that he handed the man a chair leg – there was a lot of broken furniture in the room for some reason – ignited it so that it became a torch, and pushed him into the stairway behind the panel wall and had the others follow him as fast as he could untie them. It wasn't long before the drawing room was completely empty save for him and the two bodies.
That was a good thing, but Edouard decided quite quickly, not good enough. There were still several more veiled soldiers outside. And now that he had a weapon he could use against them, a nice, silent and above all deadly weapon, he wanted to use it.
He also had to cover his tracks. He didn't want anyone realising that he'd entered the house from the sewers. They might come after him if they guessed.
Fortunately there was a way to do both. And it began with him setting the drapes alight. It didn't take much. A thought and a tiny spark and soon they were burning brightly. Bright enough to attract the attention of the soldiers outside.
They came running in, saw the flames running up the drapes and heading for the ceiling and immediately ran for them, not even realising that the room was empty of prisoners or that their comrades were dead. They didn't even realise they were in a battle as they raced to pull down the drapes and stamp out the flames. Not until they too were all dead.
Three more veiled soldiers dead. Five in total. A dozen or fifteen prisoners rescued. It wasn't a bad start to the night he thought as he set the rest of the manor house alight to hide any trace of his having been there. In fact it might be merely the beginning of something truly good.
Chapter Fifty Three
It was dawn by the time Edouard reached the shrine. He couldn't help that. If the city had been as it once was and he'd been walking the streets he could have made the trip in twenty minutes on foot. But doing it by wading through the sewers without any clear idea of where he was going, and having to constantly climb up ladders and staircases to get his b
earings slowed things down a lot. Half a dozen pitched battles had slowed them down even more.
On the other hand three more houses had been freed and he would guess sixty or seventy more people had hopefully found their way to the outflow and safety. He didn't know why but it seemed that the enemy was still guarding the civilians, though not in any large numbers. Maybe they thought that those who remained could still be useful as labourers in time. At least as many veiled guards were now dead or badly injured. Most of them had been brought down when he'd poked his head up through a floor space only to find he was in the middle of a hall where probably thirty of them had been sleeping. They'd spotted him immediately.
There had been shouting and pointing, and people had started running for their weapons. Shots had been fired and he'd had to duck down the ladder quickly. But his immediate reaction when the musket balls had started to fly had been to launch a fireball up through the trap door. The resultant inferno of fire inside an enclosed structure had set everyone alight and covered his escape.
