Among Thieves totk-1

by Douglas Hulick

  He shook his head. “Don’t look at me: I work alone.” He seemed worried.

  “How many?” I called to Degan.

  “Enough.”

  “Enough what? Enough to make it interesting, enough to work up a sweat, enough to dig us each a grave? What?”

  “Enough to consider the back door.”

  I pictured Fedim’s back room in my mind. “There isn’t one.”

  “Unfortunate, that.”

  I prodded Larrios. “Who are they?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  I kicked the stool out from under him, sending Larrios sprawling on the floor. I was crouching beside him in an instant, the edge of my blade against his throat.

  “If I find out you planned this party,” I said, “I’ll make sure it’s slow and painful before you die.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” called Degan.

  “I swear,” said Larrios. He was sweating-a lot. “I came alone. I just wanted to get some swag Fedim was holding. I swear.”

  I stared at Larrios for a long moment. Two choices: kill him or trust him.

  Ah, hell. Degan was right. We didn’t have time for this. Besides, if there were as many as Degan said, they didn’t need a man on the inside. Nor would they move if we had him.

  I leaned back, indicating the long knife on Larrios’s belt with my chin. “You any good with that?”

  Larrios put his hand on the blade and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to see. “I manage.”

  “Now that we’re all friends,” said Degan from the doorway, “I can die a happy man. Alone, defending a curtain, but a happy man.”

  “You’re not dead yet,” I said. I stood up and walked over to Degan, leaving Larrios to pick himself up off the floor.

  “They haven’t begun closing in,” said Degan. He was standing away from the curtain now, looking through the space where it failed to meet with the doorway. He stepped aside as I moved up and put my eye to the fading daylight.

  The easiest way to tell when something is going down on the street is to watch the locals. They don’t run or shout or make a fuss, at least not in the parts of town I’m used to-they just slowly fade and vanish. It’s a sort of sixth sense for crowds, a survival instinct. And right now, that instinct was hard at work, because the street out front was empty of any sort of normal early-evening traffic.

  Instead, I saw three men lounging on the corner across the street and two to our right. On our left, a man and woman were taking turns tossing coins against a wall. Three more men were standing in a doorway directly ahead. I could just make out the bows leaned up against the door behind them. All of them were looking at Fedim’s shop far too frequently.

  “Four more on this side of the street,” said Degan as I stepped back from the curtain. “They slipped into a couple doorways before you came up.”

  I gave a soft whistle. “Twelve? Just for us?”

  A caustic grin formed on Degan’s face. “Flattering in a disturbing sort of way, isn’t it?”

  Frightening, more like it. Who spends a dozen blades on two? The odds were obscene, unnecessary, even with Degan in the equation. Someone wanted us beyond dead-someone wanted to erase us.

  “You didn’t see them coming before they were in position?” I asked.

  Degan shrugged. “Their turf.”

  I tapped my rapier against my boot. Maybe they were just holding us for someone. After all, they hadn’t started to-

  “Here we go,” said Degan.

  I flipped a small bit of curtain back with my sword. The five up and down the street were starting to move our way, slowly. The three in the doorway seemed to be staying put.

  “They won’t rush until they’re close,” said Degan. “They’re hoping we panic and make a break for it. Easier for them to take us in the open.”

  “Good thing we don’t panic,” I said.

  Degan smiled. “Good thing.”

  “Got anything to throw?”

  He gestured at a shelf on the wall. “Vases.”

  I drew the knife from my boot and held it up for Degan. I had the one in my wrist sheath for myself.

  Degan shook his head. “More your style than mine.”

  I turned around to Larrios. “Can you throw a-”

  He was gone. Of course. Damn. Damndamndamn.

  Chapter Eight

  “Problem,” I said.

  Degan glanced back over his shoulder, saw the empty room. He didn’t even blink.

  “If he got out…” said Degan.

  “So can we.” I ran toward the back room. There was no time to be subtle, no way to play it safe and still see what Larrios was up to. Two paces from the doorway to the back room, I planted my feet and leapt. I crossed my arms above and behind my head, hoping the rapier and boot dagger would deflect any attack Larrios tried as I sailed into the room. Odds were, though, if he did swing, I was dead.

  I hit the floor in the back room, rolled awkwardly. The dagger skipped from my hand. I put my sword through three parries before I took a single breath.

  No one.

  No light, either, except for sunset’s dirty leftovers coming in from the front room. Not enough to see by, but too much for my night vision to help.

  I stood and scanned the room. Woven mats on the floor prevented footprints. No walls appeared out of place, no hole made itself invitingly apparent in the ceiling. I stamped the floor. Dirt beneath the mats.

  “Larrios!” I called.

  No answer. No surprise.

  “Well?” yelled Degan.

  “Hold on.”

  Degan mumbled something I couldn’t catch.

  I ran a circuit of the room, four paces for each wall, striking the plaster with my blade. Everything sounded equally solid. I guessed where I might put a concealed door and threw my weight against the spot. The wall surrendered a thin snow of dust, but nothing more.

  I looked over the rest of the room, taking in its dim shapes, grainy textures, hints of a shadow here and there. Why the hell couldn’t it be darker out?

  There was nothing beneath Fedim’s bed but dirt, same for the lone table.

  I threw myself at another spot on the wall in desperation, bounced off it. As I staggered back, my heel caught on the hard corner of a mat and sent me over. I scrambled back up, wondering how fast I could cut through the weathered lumber of the ceiling. Then it hit me.

  Hard corner of a woven mat?

  I dropped to my knees and pulled the mat away. Or rather, I tried to, since it was attached to the floor by long pegs that ran into the dirt.

  I ran my fingers around the edges, felt a sunken wooden frame beneath it. There were two rope handles tucked beneath the mat. Grabbing one in each hand, I crouched and lifted.

  It was heavy.

  “Ah, Angels!” I gasped as the trapdoor slowly came up out of the ground.

  “Door” was generous; it was a nothing more than a wooden box filled with dirt, placed in a shaped recess in the floor. Unwieldy, but it would sound as solid as the rest of the floor to anyone walking on it.

  Beneath, there was a crude shaft running straight down into darkness. A horrible, familiar stench rose from the hole-sewage.

  Suddenly, staying here and dying didn’t seem like such a bad option.

  Nevertheless, I yelled, “Degan! Let’s go!”

  Degan came running into the room, sword in one hand, a hefty-looking vase in the other.

  “They’ll rush soon,” he said. “The pots slowed them down, but not enough.” He looked at the hole and moved toward it. Then the smell reached him.

  “Ugh!” Degan wrinkled his nose and looked at me pointedly. “You always manage to find a sewer, don’t you?”

  “Only when you’re around,” I said.

  Pushing his hat down more firmly on his head, Degan climbed into the shaft. Grumbling something about Noses liking the worst scents, he disappeared into the darkness below.

  I set the “door” near the edge of the hole, sat down,
and swung my legs in.

  The stench was nauseating, ten times worse than anything we’d encountered in Ten Ways that night. As I slid into the hole, I heard a yell from outside. The Cutters were coming.

  I pulled on the box of dirt, trying to shift it back into place as I sank the last few feet into the hole. My feet met round, slippery resistance: a peg or spike of some sort set into the shaft wall. The box moved two fingers’ breadth, then stopped. I tugged at it again. Nothing. Larrios had been stronger than he looked to move this thing by himself. Then again, he hadn’t had ten Cutters breathing down his neck, either.

  I gave up on the box and started climbing down the peg ladder set in the shaft wall. I hoped the smell would be enough to keep the Cutters off our blinds.

  The darkness was thick with moisture and odor. After eight pegs, my foot met nothing but air.

  I shifted in the hole, trying to find the next peg, and something poked me in the shoulder. I felt behind me, found a niche dug out of the earth. In the niche was a long, thin object, like a small case of some sort. So, this was where Fedim had kept his swag. Clever bastard. Larrios must not have known it was here; otherwise I doubted he would have left it behind. I pulled the object out and tucked it between my back and my belt. Damned if I was going to leave this place empty-handed.

  “Degan?” I called.

  His voice rose up from below. “It’s a short drop. Just let go.” His voice echoed and reechoed.

  I went down to the last peg and hung by my hands. Dropping off into darkness is always an unnerving proposition, but twice so when you’re used to being able to see in the stuff. I was tempted to hang and wait for my night vision to adapt, but I could hear Degan splashing about below. He had no such advantage to wait for; for him, the darkness was there to stay. Every moment I held on was another he had to spend listening and groping and wondering at every sound and sensation.

  I let go and fell.

  Darkness and the rush of air. My feet hit light resistance, then firmer, slicker stuff. Sewage and then the bottom of the sewage tunnel, respectively. I staggered, legs wide, and went to one knee and a hand to keep from falling over completely. The sewage would have come up high on my calf if I had been standing. As it was, I could feel the muck at my hips and past my left elbow.

  The stench! My stomach started rolling over and over within me. I felt my throat tighten, my guts lurch, and I tasted bile. Force of will kept everything else down, but there was no telling how long that would last.

  “Larrios,” I said, gasping, “is a dead man.” I stood and shook off my left arm. “You hear that, Larrios?” I yelled. “A dead man!”

  I heard my own voice echo and reecho down the sewers. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I caught the faintest hint of laughter from far away. It was hard to tell in that place.

  Bastard.

  “You all right?” said Degan from off to my right.

  “Superb.” I spit to clear my mouth, slogging toward his voice. “What kind of idiot has a rabbit hole that drops him into the middle of a sewer?”

  “One who’d rather smell bad than die.”

  “Uhm.” I had taken to the sewers for much the same reason a few years ago, although it had been out of desperation. But the idea of anyone choosing to dig into the streams and pools of filth that ran beneath Ildrecca of his own accord-that was beyond me.

  The thrum of a bowstring and thwack of something striking water came to us out of the darkness. Another whoosh and splash followed moments later.

  “Arrows,” said Degan. “They’re shooting down the shaft.”

  I smiled and put my clean hand to the side of my mouth.

  “Bene!” I yelled at the ceiling. “You just skewered a piece of shit.” Unless we were standing directly beneath the shaft, there was no way they could hit us.

  “Then we got you!” a voice called back.

  I barked a laugh. “Come down and try me, Eriff.”

  The sound of voices drifted down. Another arrow hissed through the darkness into the slop. If they were dumb enough to follow us down, we could wait beneath the hole and cut them down as they landed. I doubted they were that stupid, but one could always hope.

  “Another time, cousin,” called the voice from above.

  There was a dragging sound, followed by a thud. They had put Fedim’s “door” back in place.

  “Well?” said Degan.

  “Almost,” I said.

  We stood in the darkness. To my right, I could hear Degan breathing through his mouth, just as I was. It only helped foil the smell a little, and I knew we would start tasting the air after a while. I didn’t want to be down here that long.

  I stood still and let my eyes slowly roam the blackness around us, looking for the first hint of amber that would mean my gift was beginning to work. It was not long in coming.

  The first thing I picked out was a jutting brick in the far wall, showing dark red against the black. Next came the crimson and yellow flecked surface of the sewage, sluggish in some spots, fluid in others. I had forgotten how strangely serene it could look this way, a slow dance of colors that would have disgusted me in the light of day.

  Degan appeared next, rapidly followed by the arching walls and ceiling. I looked overhead and saw Fedim’s shaft closer than I had expected it to be. A true trapdoor was hanging open above the sewer from it. Larrios had neglected to shut it in his haste to escape. Good thing, too; otherwise Degan and I would be a pair of arrowriddled corpses by now.

  To the side of the trapdoor, a rope ran along the ceiling to a stone walkway. Anyone knowing what they were about would be able to shinny along the rope and land, dry and filth-free, on the pathway the imperial engineers used to inspect and repair the city’s sewers.

  I considered climbing back up for a moment, then considered the ambush that might very well be waiting for us on the other side of the trap box.

  “There’s a causeway to our left,” I said. I didn’t have the heart to tell Degan our dunking could have been avoided.

  I led him over to the causeway and helped him find footing to climb out. I followed.

  “Recognize anything?” he asked, crouching to avoid the arch of the wall as it rose toward the ceiling.

  I looked up and down the tunnel. There was an empty torch bracket nearby. I suspected the torch had made its way out with Larrios.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t think I ever made it this far in.”

  “Any sign of Larrios?”

  “None.”

  “There must be a way out nearby. I can’t imagine he came down here just to stumble around in the dark.”

  I nodded, then remembered Degan couldn’t see me. “Probably a drainage shaft or access tunnel,” I said.

  “Lead on.”

  I placed Degan’s hand on my shoulder and headed to our right. It seemed as good a direction as any.

  The stones of the walkway were slicked over with slime and rat droppings. In one spot, the edge of the causeway had crumbled away, forcing us to sidle past, our backs against the wall. Rats confronted us continually along the path, and I soon had my rapier out before me, sweeping the more belligerent rodents into the river of waste that flowed beside us. The rats squeaked in protest, and their cries formed a sharp counterpoint to the otherwise soft sounds of dripping and squelching that surrounded us.

  It was a short time later, while I was leaning over the sewage, emptying what little remained in my stomach for the second time, that Degan’s grip tightened on my arm.

  “Feel that?” he asked.

  I spit, stood up, and leaned back against the wall as best I could. The damn smell-it had always gotten to me.

  “What?” I gasped as I fumbled at my herb wallet with my cleaner hand. Thank the Angels, the oiled lining had kept the water out.

  “Cross breeze,” said Degan.

  I lifted my head and waited.

  “I don’t feel anything,” I said.

  I returned my attention to my herb wallet and m
anaged to pull out two small parchment packets. One held echember roots, the other ground mysennius seeds. I ripped open the first with my teeth. Half of the echember fell out before I got the packet to my mouth. The powder was easier, and I poured what I hoped was half of it in with the roots. I chewed. The echember wasn’t bad, but the mysennius tasted awful without wine to mix it in. With any luck, my stomach would settle down soon and my senses would become sufficiently dulled to keep the stench from getting to me further.

  “There it is again,” said Degan, more excited now.

  This time I felt it, too-the lightest brush of air across my face.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Air movement meant ventilation. Ventilation meant a way out.

  We tracked the breeze to a side tunnel. Fresh air, or at least the ghost of it, met our nostrils.

  I went first. The tunnel had a low ceiling, forcing me to hunch my shoulders and Degan to bend nearly double. As we slopped along, I began to see a brighter patch of amber ahead-starlight and the smallest hint of moon glow coming in from above.

  “Something up ahead,” I said. “Either a grate or a small cave-in.”

  Degan made no response.

  After ten paces, the smell began to lessen. After another five, I allowed myself a small smile of relief. It was a sewer grate, set in the ceiling of the tunnel. Despite the drugs, I could even hear voices coming from the street above us.

  “It’s a gra-” I began to whisper, but Degan suddenly grabbed me and shoved me against the tunnel wall. He put a warning hand over my mouth.

  “Hsst!” he whispered through clenched teeth.

  I fell silent. Degan held me a moment longer, then released me. I turned to him for an explanation, but his attention was elsewhere. He had his head cocked, eyes staring off into the darkness. I realized he was trying to listen to the voices coming down the tunnel. After a moment, he shook his head in frustration.

  “Closer,” he whispered, his voice so faint it was almost lost in the few inches that separated us.

  We crept forward, one soggy, sucking pace at a time. When we were practically beneath the grate, we stopped again. The voices were still there.

  “… found nothing?” said a female voice from above us.