Rise of the Ragged Clover

by Paul Durham

  On the road, the Night Courier didn’t waste any time. He darted away as fast as he could in the opposite direction. But a second Bog Noblin, one even larger than the first, appeared from the mouth of the southernmost street. It dragged the body of an ox behind it as if the carcass were no heavier than a traveler’s sack, shoulders stooped as it hunched over to peek through windows and doors like a Market Street shopper. The second Bog Noblin straightened at the sight of the Night Courier and dropped its prize to the ground, eager to catch something a bit more savory.

  Both Bog Noblins converged on the Night Courier as he rushed to the facades of two crooked brick buildings that leaned askew with age. Rye caught her breath when it appeared that he’d run out of places to go—the windows and doors were boarded up tight. But the Night Courier slipped into the narrowest crevice between the buildings, like a rat under a door, and the Bog Noblins were left staring into its dark shadow with no hope of pursuing him any further.

  “Come on,” Quinn urged. “Let’s get out of here while we can.”

  “Not without the medicine,” Rye said, pointing to the small pouch the Night Courier had left at the center of the crossroads.

  She hurried out to snatch it before Quinn or Folly could stop her. But as she stepped into the roadway, another rumble echoed up and down the streets of Old Salt Cross. Rye glanced around in confusion. This sound wasn’t a beast’s groan, but a quick-paced thunder of hooves.

  Before Rye could react, three black horses and hooded riders burst from the western stretch of road. They didn’t slow as they approached her, and she had to throw herself aside onto the cobblestones to avoid being trampled. Without stopping, the lead rider stabbed the medicine bag with his sword as his mount stormed past it, plucking it up and stashing it among his saddlebags.

  Rye caught a glimpse of the rider’s ashen white face and the curled smile of black-lined lips under his hood.

  “Fork-Tongue Charmers!” she spat as Quinn and Folly rushed to her side and dragged her to her feet.

  The Bog Noblins turned their attention away from the Night Courier’s hiding place at the sound of the horses, but the Charmers didn’t slow. The gallop of hooves faded as the riders disappeared around a bend. Instead, the Bog Noblins found only Rye, Folly, and Quinn in the middle of the crossroads.

  “Back to the alley!” Quinn cried, but no sooner did he say it than the frame of a third Bog Noblin filled that alleyway, blocking their escape.

  “They’re everywhere,” Folly gasped.

  “Look!” Rye called, and pointed. “Follow him.”

  There, between the three friends and the Bog Noblin in the alleyway, was the Night Courier. He had appeared as if out of thin air, and now crouched on the cobblestones. Rye thought she saw the flicker of his eyes in the narrow slit between the brim of his hat and the scarf around his face.

  They all rushed toward him. The Bog Noblin in the alleyway must not have believed his luck, and lumbered out to wait for the dimwitted morsels making straight for his mouth. But as he did, the Night Courier disappeared before all of their eyes, and the Bog Noblin paused in disbelief.

  The three friends skidded to a stop where the Night Courier had been, hovering over the mouth of a round black hole just wide enough for a child to fit through. A heavy metal sewer grate was pushed aside.

  “Down there,” Rye said.

  “Are you sure?” Quinn asked, squinting into the ominous void.

  Rye glanced up at the snarling Bog Noblin just a stone’s throw away, spittle flowing from his distended jaws.

  “Positive,” Rye said.

  And the three children leaped down into the tunnels below.

  11

  Creepers

  Rye, Folly, and Quinn scrambled away from the dim column of light filtering down through the open sewer grate. Rye heard the snuffling of the Bog Noblins’ pig-like noses, the grunting of hungry maws and flicks of salivating tongues as the creatures peered down into the sewers. But like defeated hunting dogs that had lost a rabbit to its hole, they soon wandered off, having caught the scent of easier prey.

  Rye blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness.

  “Those riders—the Fork-Tongue Charmers. Do they always try to take the Night Courier’s supplies?” she asked.

  “Sometimes,” Quinn replied from the shadows. “Like Folly said, not everyone in the village has learned to cooperate.”

  “I heard they’ve holed themselves up in Longchance Keep,” Folly added. “But if they’re guests of the Earl, I think they’ve overstayed their welcome. No one’s seen Longchance since before you left.”

  Based on Slinister’s rough treatment of Morningwig Longchance when Rye had last seen them together, she doubted that anyone would be seeing the Earl again.

  “What is this place?” Quinn asked. “Is it the Spoke?”

  “Part of it, I guess,” Rye said.

  In the past Rye had accessed the Spoke through the wine cellar of the Dead Fish Inn, from a tattoo parlor in the Shambles, and by way of her mother’s hidden workshop on Mud Puddle Lane. She knew there were other entrances and exits concealed throughout the village. Abandoned wells, forgotten cemeteries, and neglected basements all provided secret entryways into the Spoke’s catacombs. It was the perfect highway to traverse Village Drowning invisibly—just as it had been used by the Luck Uglies generations before.

  Her vision had adjusted to their gloomy surroundings. It was dim, but not pitch-black. A weak light flickered a short distance away, giving shape to a bend in the subterranean tunnel.

  “I’d bet my boots that this is how the Night Courier gets around the village right under the Bog Noblins’ noses,” Rye said, glancing around.

  Rye waved for Folly and Quinn to follow as she crept forward, carefully navigating the loose earthen floors and stagnant puddles at their feet. Folly and Quinn trailed close behind. With his recent growth spurt, Quinn had to duck to avoid clipping his head on the roots jutting from the crumbling walls and ceiling. They reached the light source. It was a torch mounted in a casing on the wall.

  “And I bet your britches that someone lit this for us to follow,” Rye said to Quinn, reaching up and taking the torch.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Because I think I know who the Night Courier is.” Rye pointed to where the tunnel snaked away. “It looks like he lit another torch for us up ahead. Come on, let’s see where they lead.”

  When Rye last traveled the Spoke, it had been abandoned. She vividly remembered its dank, musty smell. But now, instead of the odor of abandoned earth, she could smell the pungent aroma of decay. Where once these tunnels greeted her with silence, she now heard far-off bumps and scrapings. Was it the mere settling of earth or the disturbance of footfalls? As they proceeded cautiously, they found another freshly lit torch smoldering in its casing on a wall. They moved on toward the next.

  Rye had just gotten into a rhythm, using her cudgel to push herself along, when she stopped in her tracks. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of the Spoke, they could hear a low rumbling.

  Folly and Quinn froze beside her.

  A gust of stale, damp air tickled Rye’s cheeks. The torch flickered in her hand.

  “What was that?” Quinn said.

  “I don’t know,” Rye whispered.

  “Did you feel that?” Folly asked.

  Something fell onto Rye’s shoulder. Then her head. She plucked at her hair with her fingertips. It was gritty to the touch. Soil.

  “Ouch,” Quinn said, rubbing dirt from his eyes.

  “It could be a cave-in,” Rye said. “Hurry, maybe the tunnels aren’t stable here.”

  They all rushed forward. Rye felt the patter of earth and pebbles like hail. Their boots slapped the ground below them and shallow puddles splashed at their feet. Rye didn’t try to keep track of direction as they ran, she just followed the distant glow from one torch to the next. Then, just as the falling earth seemed to subside, a loose stone sent her tumbling. She f
elt the heavy thud on her back as Folly’s and Quinn’s bodies stumbled and tripped over her. Rye’s torch fell several feet away and fizzled out. It was dark except for a dim torchlight around another bend.

  “Pigshanks,” Rye cursed. She felt water running over her hands and past her skinned knees. “There must be a leak in the Spoke.”

  “It was a wet summer,” Folly said. “One day we used up all the inn’s mugs catching leaks in the roof.”

  Rye climbed to her feet. “Let’s get to where we can see again.”

  They slogged farther along the tunnel, the splash of their footfalls growing louder as they went. The three friends placed their hands on one another’s elbows so they wouldn’t become separated. When they arrived at the next torch, Rye saw that the ankle-deep water flowed freely through the tunnel. She unslung the pack from her shoulder, its canvas dripping from her earlier tumble. She reached inside and removed Tam’s Tome. Its pages were damp and spongy.

  “That’s not good,” Rye said with a frown. She examined the ink smeared on her fingers. “We’ll need to dry this out.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Folly asked. “These torches seem to be leading us deeper and deeper underground.”

  “I’m not sure,” Rye said, squinting into the darkness of the tunnels around them. The Spoke could be disorienting, and she struggled to determine whether any of their surroundings looked familiar. “Stop that splashing, Quinn,” she said. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “I’m not splashing,” he said, blinking widely in reply. Indeed, he was standing in the water just as still as Rye and Folly.

  The splash was coming from close behind them, back in the stretch of tunnel they’d just traveled. The thump of limbs punched into the ground, followed by the swish of something heavy and thick. It sounded like an enormous fish trapped in the shallows at low tide. It seemed to be wriggling its way toward them.

  “What . . . is . . . that?” Folly asked slowly.

  “I don’t like the sound of it,” Quinn said.

  There was an echo of teeth, the scraping of claws.

  “Me either,” Rye said quietly.

  Rye, Folly, and Quinn weren’t strangers to troubling noises, but the sound was so foreign and unnerving that they were left staring dumbfounded toward the end of the tunnel.

  The shadow that emerged was impossible to identify, but the tight bend was filled by the silhouette of its long body and jagged, clawed hands.

  The friends didn’t linger for a better look.

  “Run!” Rye called, but as the word left her lips a gust of air extinguished the torch on the wall with a pop. They were plunged into complete darkness.

  Rye felt a hand grab her coat. She reached down and clutched it. “It’s me, Folly. Don’t let go.”

  “Let go of what? Where are you, Rye?” Folly cried, her voice several yards away.

  “Ow!” Quinn’s yelled from a different direction. “Folly, that’s my ear you’re pulling.”

  “I’m not pulling anything!”

  Rye cast her eyes downward, not that it helped—she couldn’t see anything at all. If she wasn’t holding Folly’s or Quinn’s hand, then whose was it? She tried to let go, but the unseen fingers held tight.

  In her alarm, something slipped from Rye’s grasp. She heard Tam’s Tome hit the water at her feet. Her heart lurched as she fumbled for it in the dark.

  “Quickly, come with us,” a voice whispered in her ear. It was a girl’s voice. Unfamiliar.

  “Who are you?” Rye asked.

  “Shhh,” the voice hushed. “Please, miss. There’s no time to waste.”

  “Rye, who are you talking to?” Folly called desperately.

  “Please,” the unseen girl implored from the dark. “Stay silent. The creeper’s sight is poor, but it can hear and smell us. We must be off.”

  Rye plunged her free hand into the water, fishing desperately for Tam’s Tome. The girl pulled at Rye urgently. She felt other small bodies at her back. Before Rye could resist, she was pushed forward blindly, deeper under the earth.

  Rye and her friends allowed the invisible hands to lead them in silence for a long while. The splash of their boots subsided, and whatever had been following them seemed lost in the distance. Finally, as they made their way through a section of the Spoke that began to glow with luminescent lichen, Rye felt the girl release her hand.

  “Careful,” the girl said, moving off in front of her. “There’s a stairway ahead.”

  No sooner had she said it than they reached a set of carved stone steps. But instead of leading up, they spiraled and twisted down, widening as they descended deeper into the Spoke. In the dim light of the underground flora, Rye saw three short figures start down the stairs. Rye, Folly, and Quinn caught one another’s gazes and hesitated. A small girl with dark, curly locks paused and looked back at them. She was younger than they were, but older than Lottie.

  “Well, come on,” she said with a wave, then continued back down. From her voice, Rye knew it was the girl who had taken her by the hand.

  They followed cautiously. Gradually the walls parted and the ceiling rose. They stopped at the bottom, where the last of the steps disappeared into black water.

  They’d entered an enormous chamber. Rye marveled at the carved granite pillars rising high above them to support an arched stone ceiling. Hundreds of lit lanterns hung from ropes of varying lengths, bathing the chamber in soft light. It was like they’d entered a subterranean cathedral.

  From the steps, a series of narrow wooden beams stretched over the water’s dark surface, leading to a towering maze of salvaged wooden planks and platforms. They formed an island of ramshackle walkways and shanties.

  The three younger children quickly traversed the beam with expert agility, disappearing into the hive of wooden huts. Before Rye and her friends could follow, another person crossed the narrow footbridge in the opposite direction. He stopped to meet them at the base of the steps. Up close now in his long brown coat and boots, Rye saw that he stood about Quinn’s height.

  The Night Courier placed his hands on his hips, the scarf still obscuring his face from under his wide-brimmed hat. He removed his cap and tucked it under his arm. His straight black hair fell past his chin. Without the shadow cast by its brim, Rye was now certain of his identity, even before he untied the scarf and offered her a familiar smile.

  One of the boy’s eyes was brown, the other blue.

  Beneath the Night Courier’s guise was Rye’s friend Truitt.

  12

  A Gongfarmer’s Boy

  Rye hugged Truitt enthusiastically. His arms were still rangy but, like Quinn, he had grown since she’d last seen him. His shoulders felt broader. Rye quickly introduced him to Folly and Quinn.

  “We’ve heard a lot about you,” Folly said.

  “And I you,” Truitt said, with a bow of his head.

  “We had no idea you were the Night Courier,” Quinn added.

  Truitt chuckled, his mismatched eyes flickering in the glow of the lanterns overhead. “Is that what the villagers are calling us? Well, it’s a fitting name, I suppose.”

  “Us?” Rye asked, looking him up and down. The rather comely leather coat, thick boots, and handsome cap were a far cry from the modest attire he usually wore.

  Truitt’s lips curled into a narrow smile. “Come. I’ll explain.” He waved for them to follow as he deftly retraced his steps across the narrow wooden beam.

  “The water has risen over the winter,” Truitt said without looking down. His heels didn’t miss a step, which was remarkable given that Truitt was blind.

  “Be sure to stay on the planks,” he warned. “The snarklefish prefer fallen bats or mice, but their eyesight is even worse than mine. They’ve been known to sample a toe.”

  Rye peered over the edge as they crossed the beam. Dark shapes cruised beneath them.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “The Cistern. It was built separately from the Spoke, althoug
h they’re now connected by a passageway. This was once the source of fresh water for Longchance Keep and much of Drowning. It hasn’t served that purpose for many years.”

  He reached back and helped Rye over a small gap in the planks, Folly and Quinn right behind her.

  “Now it is just our home,” he added.

  They all stepped onto a small shantytown of makeshift docks and tiered platforms in the middle of the chamber.

  Rye examined the manmade island. From the rows of cots and bedding, dozens of pairs of eyes had fallen on the new arrivals. Children—many her age but most younger—watched them from among their ragged blankets and scant belongings. The children’s faces were dirty and their hair bedraggled, but their expressions were not timid. Several older boys were bending scrap metal into hooks and crude arrowheads. They watched the new arrivals with wary eyes. A few of the younger children offered smiles. Rye recognized the curly-haired girl who had led them through the Spoke whispering with two friends. She couldn’t be more than six or seven. The girl nodded an acknowledgment to Rye and continued whispering.

  “The link children,” Rye said quietly.

  “Yes,” Truitt replied. “Orphans mostly, although some of us have simply been abandoned. Those of us who were old enough once took to the lamps by night, guiding travelers through the shadows. We used to pool our earnings to buy supplies we couldn’t scavenge.”

  Truitt hesitated, and Rye saw the pale skin of his jaw tighten.

  “Of course, no one travels the streets by night anymore. That leaves little demand for the link children’s services.”

  “Where is your caretaker?” Rye asked, looking around. Truitt had once told her about an old man who looked after the link children. He’d rescued Truitt from the sewers when he was just an infant.

  Truitt shook his head and lowered his voice. “He was gravely ill. Unfortunately, an unseasonably cold and wet summer finally proved to be too much for him bear.”

  “I’m so sorry, Truitt.”

  Truitt waved his hand. “Let’s not speak about it here. It is still too painful for the little ones, and they hear everything.”