After several minutes, they ventured out of their hiding place, creeping along the wall to the corner of the building, peeking out into the street.
“Follow me,” Wren whispered, then dashed across the street into the opposite alley. Once safely within the shadows between the two buildings, she looked up and down the street again before motioning for Lacy to cross.
When they finally reached the dark undisturbed subterranean room, Lacy felt a great sense of relief. But as evening slipped into the darkness of night, the number of soldiers searching for them seemed to grow rapidly.
“I was hoping Isabel would be here already,” Wren whispered on her way to the cabinet containing her supplies. “We should probably get ready so we can leave as soon as she gets here.”
She frowned when she opened the cabinet door and saw a note resting atop her supplies. She picked it up and read it.
Dear Wren,
I can’t come with you. Take Lacy and flee the city. I’ve drawn a map of the sewers showing the way out. Also, there’s a witch down there-I’ve marked her last known location on the map as well. Avoid her at all costs. Once you’re out of the city, find someone from the House of Karth and tell them to take you to Princess Ayela. Tell her everything. She’ll help you.
I’m going to miss you.
Love,
Isabel
Tears rolled down Wren’s cheeks as she read the words.
“What’s wrong?” Lacy asked, a hint of alarm in her voice.
“Isabel isn’t coming,” she said, handing her the letter.
Lacy read it, shaking her head. “I don’t understand. Why can’t she come with us?”
“Phane,” Wren said, sniffing back her tears. “I’ll explain it as best I can later. Right now, we have to go.” She started preparing her pack.
Lacy wrinkled her nose when Wren opened the hatch to the sewers, but she didn’t say anything, smiling to herself as she descended the ladder after Wren. Not long ago, the mere idea of venturing into a sewer would have made her nauseous. She’d come a long way in a short period of time, and yet she still had so far to go.
She took a moment at the bottom of the ladder to let her eyes adjust and to master her queasy stomach. The stench was almost unbearable, but she endured it better than she thought she would.
Wren opened the shutter on the lantern just enough to let a sliver of light out, then handed Lacy the map. Together they oriented themselves to the sewer canals and made a mental image of the way out. Wren led the way, silent as a mouse, the sliver of light shining backward toward Lacy while Wren used the wall as her guide.
The sporadic drip, drip, drip was unnerving, especially since Lacy knew there was a witch somewhere in the darkness, but after several minutes, it faded into the background and she began to worry instead about the jungle beyond the walls.
When they reached the end of the canal, Wren stopped at the corner, quickly shuttering the lantern. Through the gentle rustling of the foul water sliding past and the incessant dripping of condensation from the ceilings, she could hear voices in the distance. She and Lacy both froze in place, straining to hear, but the voices were too far away.
“We should just go,” Wren said.
“But what if they have the box?”
“What if they do? What can we do about it?”
Lacy shook her head in frustration, her eyes burning from the tears that were about to come anew. “My father entrusted me with that box. I have to do something.”
“If we confront them, they’ll kill us.”
“Then we’ll follow them.”
“Isabel said to find the House of Karth. We should do that first, then go after the box.”
“By then it might be too late. I have to do this, Wren. And I really need your help.”
Wren nodded in the darkness. “All right, but we have to be quiet and we can’t use any light.”
“Agreed.”
Wren led the way down the corridor running along the down-water edge of the city. The voices grew louder as they drew closer. Dim light filtered into the tunnel from the distance. Two figures were standing on the bridge spanning the canal just before the second outflow grate that Isabel had cut a hole through. Wren slowed, placing each step with care. Lacy crept along behind trying not to breathe too loudly and feeling slightly deprived of air for her efforts.
Wren stopped. Lacy knelt down and took several slow deep breaths before focusing her attention on the two figures standing not a hundred feet away. A thrill of fear jolted her when she saw Druja for the first time. In that single glance, she understood the malice bound up within the Sin’Rath. Sudden fear for her brother nearly made her cry out.
“Your next task is the death of the Reishi witch,” Druja said, clearing her throat noisily, then spitting into the canal.
“Yes, My Lady,” Rankosi said, looking just like Wizard Enu.
“Once she’s dead, you’ll travel north to Stobi, where I will await you. Phane will send soldiers to pursue me. Kill them along your way.” Her words trailed off into a wheeze followed by a hacking cough that reverberated in the sewer tunnels.
“Understood.”
Light erupted from the canal, followed by a gout of fire. Rankosi turned toward the fire with contempt, while Druja transformed into a cloud of black smoke just a moment before the flames engulfed them. The roar and the heat and the light assaulted Lacy and Wren as they huddled together along the wall, well out of reach of the flames.
When the fire subsided, Druja was gone, but Rankosi was still there, unscathed.
“Hello, Tasia,” he said. “You’re too late. But more than that, you’re just not relevant.” He smiled maliciously before transforming into a large snake, then he slithered into the sewer canals and vanishing under the sludge.
“Blast! I thought I had her.”
“I’m just glad the shade didn’t breathe fire back at us. I wasn’t looking forward to taking a swim.”
Two other people, a woman and a man who was dressed in the uniform of Phane’s soldiers, walked out onto the bridge. The woman was holding her palm up and a lick of flame was floating just above it, illuminating the nearby area.
“Who are they?” Lacy whispered.
The woman’s head snapped around, and she peered into the darkness, looking straight at them.
“Wait, I know him,” Wren said, standing up.
Lacy grabbed her arm. “He’s been chasing me.”
“Show yourselves or I’ll light you on fire,” the woman said.
“What is it?” the man asked, unslinging his bow and nocking an arrow.
“We’re being watched.”
“We have to run,” Lacy said.
“No. That’s Captain Wyatt,” Wren said. “He’ll help us.”
The woman sent a ball of brightly burning orange fire down the center of the tunnel, illuminating them as it passed.
“You can’t escape me,” she called out. “Stand forth or burn.”
Wren opened the shutter on her lantern and held it up. “Please don’t hurt us.”
“Wren? Is that you?”
“Yes, Captain Wyatt,” she said as she walked toward them, leaving Lacy standing in the dark, torn and afraid.
“You, as well, come forward,” the woman said.
Lacy hesitated a moment more before deciding to trust Wren. When she stepped into the light, the man in armor frowned for a moment, then smiled broadly.
“Tasia, may I present Princess Lacy Fellenden and Wren, a friend of Lady Reishi’s.”
“How do you know my name?” Lacy asked, anxiety flooding into her stomach.
“There’s no need for alarm, Princess. We’re here to help you. I’m Captain Wyatt of the Ruathan Rangers and this is Tasia. I was charged by Lady Abigail Ruatha with finding you and bringing both you and the box you carry back to Fellenden.”
Tasia looked at Wyatt with a faint air of disgust. “Perhaps we should find a more suitable place to have this conversation.”
&n
bsp; “We have to go after Druja,” Lacy said. “She has the box. If you’re really here to help, then help me get it back.”
“Captain Wyatt, Phane is looking for us,” Wren said. “Will you help us get out of the city?”
“First things first,” Wyatt said, “I like that. Once we’re in the jungle, it will be a simple matter to find the witch. We need to get to the surface.”
“No,” Wren said, pointing at the hole burned through the nearby outflow grate. “Isabel cut a hole through that grate so we could escape.”
“Wait … Lady Reishi is here?” Wyatt asked, alarm in his voice.
“Yes,” Wren said. “Phane has her.”
Wyatt put his hand on his forehead and turned around whispering to himself, “What do I do?”
“You do as you were charged to do,” Tasia said.
“If Lord Reishi knew she was here …”
“He does,” Wren said. “We can’t try to rescue her, if that’s what you’re thinking. She wouldn’t want us to.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because she told me,” Wren said sadly.
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t she want us to rescue her?” he asked.
“Phane is slowly gaining control over her free will,” Wren said, a slight tremor in her voice. “Once he has her, she’ll be a threat to all of us and she doesn’t want that.”
Wyatt seemed to struggle for a moment before he nodded resolutely. “I see. We should go then.”
“Are we certain where that leads?” Tasia asked, eyeing the outflow drain suspiciously.
“No, but it’s the only way out of the city besides the main gate,” Wren said.
“No, it’s not,” Tasia said. “We’ll do better to head for the surface and make our escape from there.”
“But how?” Wren said.
Just then, Lacy saw a faint glow in the distance. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing down the tunnel. The glow vanished momentarily, then appeared slightly closer.
“Wraithkin,” Wyatt said. “We have to move … quickly.”
He set out toward the center of the city with Tasia bringing up the rear. Not fifty steps into the tunnel, another light came into view ahead.
“Soldiers,” Wyatt said, unslinging his bow. “Douse your light.”
Wren shuttered her lantern.
“I count six,” Wyatt whispered.
A roar of fire erupted behind them, drawing everyone’s attention, as Tasia directed a jet of blue-hot flame at the wraithkin who had just appeared not twenty feet away.
In the sudden light, Wyatt loosed an arrow at the first soldier in the file. A moment later, darkness engulfed them, a muffled splash reverberating softly down the tunnel. The soldiers started shouting, the sound of their footfalls growing quicker and louder.
Light bloomed again, this time in the form of three fiery orbs, each about a foot in diameter, one hovering over Tasia, the second moving down the tunnel behind them and the third moving toward the soldiers.
“The wraithkin is gone,” Tasia said.
“He’ll be back soon,” Wren said.
Wyatt killed another soldier, causing the next man in line to trip and fall over his dying companion, splashing into the muck. The remaining three men clambered over the fallen men in a rush. Wyatt felled another, leaving him howling in pain. His cries drew shouts of alarm from yet more soldiers searching other parts of the vast sewer network.
“That drain is starting to look like our best chance,” Wyatt said as he sent another arrow at the enemy. He scored only a glancing blow against the lead man’s shield, now held high to protect the advancing soldiers while more men raced to back them up.
Suddenly, the wraithkin appeared next to Wyatt, slashing at him viciously with his long black dagger. Wyatt blocked with his bow, defending against a fatal wound, but taking ruinous damage to his bow. He dropped it, drawing his sword, but the wraithkin disappeared, reappearing in front of Tasia and stabbing at her savagely. Quicker than a cat, she caught his wrist and jerked his thrust wide of her belly, at the same time grabbing him by the throat with the other hand, spinning him off his feet and propelling his head into the wall with such force and speed that the back four inches of his skull caved in, spraying blood across Lacy and Wren. Tasia casually tipped his corpse into the canal and slipped past the three of them to face the oncoming soldiers.
She raised her hands and unleashed a gout of flame that filled the entire tunnel for a hundred feet or more, waves of heat washing back over them, the roar echoing throughout the sewer system. When the dragon fire subsided, all that remained of the onrushing soldiers were charred husks, warped so grotesquely that it was hard to imagine they had once been human.
“Follow me,” Tasia said.
Wyatt dropped back to cover the rear as they set out toward an exit and the surface. Shouting soldiers were converging on their position, but Tasia calmly proceeded onward with seemingly little concern.
Lacy, on the other hand, was terrified. She didn’t know these people, and even though they were fighting to protect her, she couldn’t help but realize that she was utterly at their mercy should they choose to turn on her, especially Tasia. Lacy hadn’t seen a demonstration of such profound power since the dragons had attacked her ship en route to Karth.
At the first ladder, Tasia started climbing. Lacy was relieved to see slivers of daylight through the sewer grate in the road above. When they surfaced in an alley, Tasia melted the iron grate into place to stymie any pursuers before heading toward the nearest road.
“Now what?” Lacy asked.
“You’ll see, Princess,” Wyatt said.
“I don’t like this,” she said. “I want to know how you plan on getting us out of here, and I’m not taking another step until you tell me.”
Wyatt considered her words, openly appraising her.
“Very well, Tasia is going to take her true form and fly us out of here.”
Lacy stood dumbstruck, looking at Wyatt as if the world no longer made any sense.
“What are you talking about?”
“That,” Wyatt said, with an admiring smile.
Tasia was standing in the middle of the road, facing what sounded like a platoon of approaching soldiers. Her form seemed to become indistinct momentarily … and then she morphed into a beautiful, terrifying silver dragon, filling the entire road with her bulk and filling the air with her roar. The angry shouts coming from the approaching soldiers abruptly turned into cries of panic that retreated into the distance.
“Dear Maker,” Lacy whispered, cocking her head in recognition. “Wait … she was the one who saved our ship from the green dragon.”
“One and the same,” Wyatt said. “Let’s go.”
Lacy felt a surreal sense of detachment come over her. She was running toward the dragon, yet a part of her was screaming in terror. Fear bubbled up from some ancient place within, deeper and older than conscious thought-born of pure animal instinct, it seemed to know at a visceral level that the dragon was the ultimate predator, that she was nothing more than prey. She stopped running and started backtracking. No sane person would willingly run toward a dragon.
“Lacy, what are you doing?” Wren shouted.
Lacy couldn’t get any words out past the constricting fear closing around her throat. All she could do was shake her head in denial.
“Wyatt!” Wren shouted.
He looked back, scrambling to change directions when he saw Lacy was trying to run away.
She turned just in time to see a wraithkin appear not ten feet in front of her, faint wisps of black fading quickly in his wake. She screamed. He smiled.
Wyatt’s throwing knife caught him in the shoulder and he vanished. Wyatt grabbed Lacy and pushed her up against a wall, standing in front of her, guarding her and preventing her from escaping at the same time, his sword drawn and his head snapping this way and that, looking for his enemy.
“Tasia!” he yelled.
The dragon�
�s long neck coiled back, bringing her head into the alley a moment before the wraithkin appeared again. He was facing Wyatt and Lacy … and his back was to Tasia.
She darted forward and bit his head and shoulders off with a single snap of her powerful jaws, chewing once before spitting parts of him into the alley as if he tasted foul.
“Hurry,” she said. “Phane will come himself when he learns that a dragon is loose in his city.”
Lacy was trembling. She couldn’t seem to make her mind work right. Things that shouldn’t be possible were happening around her with alarming frequency and she was powerless.
“We have to go, Princess,” Wyatt said.
When she didn’t move, he sheathed his sword, picked her up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and carried her to Tasia. Wren climbed aboard without hesitation and helped Wyatt get Lacy into place on Tasia’s back.
“Go!” he shouted.
Tasia launched into the air with a powerful thrust of her wings, carrying them straight up past the windows of the buildings surrounding them until she was in open sky. Lacy felt the crushing weight of acceleration as they ascended into the night, then cool air when they began to fly away from the city and Phane.
In all of her life, she had never once even imagined that she would find herself riding a dragon. That thought replaced the irrational terror that had gripped her just moments before with a kind of giddy optimism. She was riding a dragon-if she could do that, she could do anything.
Chapter 22
As exhilarating-and terrifying-as riding a dragon was, Lacy was relieved when she slipped off Tasia’s neck into the little clearing where they’d landed.
A moment after her passengers dismounted, Tasia transformed into a woman and Wyatt led them into the jungle.
“Where are we going?” Lacy asked.
“My men are hiding nearby,” he said. “Stay close.”
He led them through the dark, following a path that Lacy couldn’t discern. Within a few minutes, they descended into a narrow crevasse not four feet wide. It led thirty feet below the surface of the jungle and into a network of washouts and caves that offered ample shelter from the elements as well as concealment from all but the most thorough searchers.
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