Of Dragon Warrens and Other Traps

by Shannon McGee

  As I tucked myself into bed, my pulse thrummed, and I watched the door. After a few minutes, embarrassment settled over me, causing my stomach to swirl. I had more than half expected her to follow me back to the room. She wouldn’t though. I should have known. It was a new town. I had seen at least one of the serving women looking at her. Doubtless she’d be going back to one of their rooms tonight.

  I turned on my side, pulling the sheets over my shoulder. When sleep enveloped me, she had yet to return.

  Besides his habit of lighting candles for the love god Soaryph, Lucas’s close call with the mob in Nophgrin did not seem to have done anything to dampen his opinion of flirting with local girls.

  The next morning, I found him at the breakfast table bragging about his winnings from the night before and flirting heavily with one of the serving girls, Sabine. She was one who had made eyes at Aella, but though I saw my friend side-eye them with an amused smile, she didn’t seem to mind.

  She and I sat across from him, helping ourselves to eggs, olives, more flat bread, tomato slices, and thinly sliced pickles. A small metal pot with a long wooden handle sat on a tea-light burner at the center of the table as well.

  “What’s that?” I asked with a vague gesture. “Is it tea? Because I need some.”

  Traveling on the road we had got into a specific sleep schedule; staying up late the night before had been unexpectedly hard on me. Michael used to say I was like a bear in the morning, and today he would have had the right of it. Little things were irritating me, like Harold tapping his plate with his fork as he chatted with Tess, and the way the serving girl leaned a little closer than necessary to refill a plate of eggs next to Aella.

  “It’s coffee,” Ito explained from down the table, and I took my eyes off the two of them to listen. “It’s like tea, but it’s made with a sort of bean, and it is much stronger. I like to have some after a difficult working. It wakes you right up. Otherwise, it makes me too jumpy. There’s sugar in that dish next to it, and milk in that saucer, if you’d like to try some.” He indicated the two white ceramic containers to the metal pot’s right and left.

  Like all the other place settings, mine had a comically small white cup that matched the milk and sugar containers. I flipped it over to pour the steaming black liquid in. Tentatively I took a sip, and blanched. It was scalding hot and horribly bitter. Was he having a laugh at me? I made a face at Aella, but she took the pot from me to pour her own portion without any hesitation.

  “Add the sugar and milk,” she advised. “It makes it heaps better.”

  I did as she instructed, being fairly liberal with both before I passed them on to her. This time my taste was even smaller than before. “Huh.” I said, taking a bigger drink. “That’s not bad.”

  Aella nodded, replacing all three vessels where they belonged after adding milk and sugar to her cup. “Mother says it’s not something you should have every day—especially with all the sugar you have to put in to make it bearable, but it is good for hunt days.”

  Already I could feel myself becoming more awake. Even the smell of the stuff, the coffee, was invigorating. I inhaled deeply and tucked into my breakfast as more of Twelfth Company filed into the courtyard and took places beside me. My foot bounced beneath the table as I listened to their early morning grumbles.

  Aedith was one of the last to arrive. Fully dressed in her fighting gear, she was deep in conversation with a tall thin man with a beak of a nose, and large, deep-set eyes. That was Anyo, the advisor to the earl. He had met us briefly as we arrived in town. Now he nodded gravely to whatever she had said last, clasping forearms with her in farewell. He waited for her to sit before he returned the way they had come in.

  We all finished eating at about the same time. Then all that was left to do was to put on our leathers, strap on our weapons, and mount up. At Aedith’s prompting, we also swathed our entire forms in our cloaks to make the fact that we were armed to the teeth less noticeable.

  Tess explained with mean satisfaction that it made the locals less tense if they didn’t have to see all our weaponry as we guided our mounts single-file through the narrow side streets. It would be sweltering when the sun was high, but for now, in the early dawn, it was bearable.

  The entrance into the sewer system was a covered hole in the sandstone street. There were many throughout Dabsqin, but the one we were to use was across town from our inn. Next to it was a rail for our horses to be tied to. The guard who had led us to the east district would stand watch over them while we were below.

  The chute itself was slim and dark. I felt the gear strapped to my back rubbing the edges, and as I stepped off the last rung, my foot went straight in to a puddle. I winced and moved out of the way of the next person coming down the ladder.

  It would have been nice if we could have worn our oil-coated boot coverings and cloaks to keep the wet off. With drakes, I knew that would have been foolish. Still I wasn’t looking forward to when the gunk in these tunnels seeped through my leggings.

  I rubbed my leather-gloved fingers across the front of my thighs. Afua and Gilbert, who had been the first two down, had already lit torches and stuck them into sockets in the wall, which were clearly designed for that purpose. Like the rest of us, they had two more unlit torches strapped to their backs. We would light those one by one as we made our way through the tunnels, illuminating our path and providing a clear trail back to the exit.

  The light filling the antechamber revealed a space that was little more than a box with gray stone walls and a gray stone floor. The light from the torches reflected yellow in the wet on the floor and glistened green on the moss that clung to the walls. It was surreal that so near beneath the sand and sun of the street was this place, which was so damp and dark.

  Marching to stand with the others near to the sewer entrance, it didn’t take me long to pine for the dryness of the street. Avoiding puddles was a futile effort, and I could feel the wetness already seeping into my stockings. I shuddered but said nothing about my discomfort. No one else was complaining. They kept their eyes on the sewer entrance. Little more than a hole in the stone, it opened into blackness. I kept my eyes there too, only taking them off briefly to look at Aella and assure her I was ok when she asked.

  Aedith had gone over the plan again before we left the inn, so when everyone had descended the ladder, the hunt began without delay. I let the group file ahead of me, my heart thrumming in my chest as I took up my position at the rear of the column.

  The tunnels we walked through were broad and squat. Down the center of pathways that ran along the walls of either side was a steadily moving stream of water and refuse. The smell was near unbearable. I wrinkled my nose, which was quickly stuffing up in defense of the onslaught of scents. I’d wrapped my nose and mouth with a kerchief before we descended, but nothing could defend against the barrage of human and animal excrement, rot, and other unnamed scents that wafted down the dark corridor.

  The only blessing was that it was cool. The darkness and the moving water seemed to keep the sewer system noticeably cooler than the street above. I sent a prayer of thanks to any of the gods listening. If it had been hot, I might have passed out. As it was, I removed my own torch and lit it.

  My task was a simple one. I was to stay in the back of the procession, play sentry and keep the way illuminated. At first Belinda and Ito walked in line with me, until the path narrowed and I had to fall behind the two of them.

  In Ito’s hand was a small globe—a crystal that glowed from within. I’d seen him use it more than once as Aedith looked at maps long after the evening light had faded. The commander stood at the front of the line. To her right was Kaleb, and behind them were Dai and Aella.

  We walked for ages. The tunnel split several times, following the houses above. At those points we crossed rickety bridges. In one case, we were forced to jump the gap or trudge through the thick stream. Every so often a hole gaped in the tunnel wall, opening into hollows with dirt and stone walls.r />
  “Are those…drake warrens?” I whispered when we passed the third such hovel. My voice rebounded gently off the ceiling and came back. Somebody—I thought it might have been Tess—snickered.

  “Beggar holes,” Belinda corrected me. When she looked back, I saw her eyes crease with sorrow. “Places where those without homes sleep at night.”

  “They’re empty now. Hopefully that’s because they heard us coming and not…” Ito trailed off, but I got his meaning.

  At the beginning of our trek I saw more than a few very large rats. Their dark eyes glittered out of the darkness. They chittered curiously, coming so fearlessly close that I was forced to shake my spear at them, my gut twisting. As we got deeper, I began to wish they were still around. Wherever we were in the tunnels, all signs of life had vanished. No humans, no rats, just the steady plink plunk of water dripping off the ceiling into the sludgy river beside us.

  We were getting close, I realized. It had happened gradually, but even the small amount of conversation had trickled away with the sounds of life.

  It wasn’t long before we saw the first charred markings on the flagstones of the tunnel floor. My nose had almost adjusted to the stink; the smoke from my torch stung my eyes, and the scenery was a blur of dimly lit taupe stones. My eyes had just about glazed over when Aedith raised her arm in a silent halt. I almost bumbled into Belinda, catching myself just in time.

  “It’s old.” Kaleb’s voice rumbled along the floor to reach all of us. “There’s dampness on top of the soot.”

  Excitement fizzled into disappointment across the entire group. “Dung-caked lizards can take three turns beneath this sopping hole,” I heard Harold curse, and Tess snorted and elbowed him.

  “We are on the right track.” That sardonic tone could only have belonged to Aedith. “Let’s press forward.”

  Thrice more we found drake markings, and one of those times the markings accompanied the remains of a human. It was impossible to tell if the person had been male or female. All that was left were half of their shins and the two attached feet. The remains of the breeches, flesh, and bones were jagged and wet. It was as though the rest of the body had dissolved away.

  I couldn’t even garner up the need to vomit at the sight of them. They seemed so wholly detached from an actual human. Just a pair of grubby bare feet with bites taken out of them. Those bites were stark against skin that had gone sheet white, and the tattered remains of dark breeches had soaked up the wetness around them so as to be almost black.

  Just disconnected pieces belonging to some full person. A hand touched my shoulder, and I jolted away with a stifled grunt of fear.

  It was Belinda. With a tight but kind smile she nudged me forward, toward the rest of the group, who were a few yards ahead. “Come on girly. There’s nothing we can do for that one.”

  I swallowed and nodded. As I followed her, I refused to look at the remains again. Was anyone even mourning that poor soul? If the earl or the guards hadn’t waited for us, would they still be alive?

  With renewed fervor, my eyes began flitting to every foreign movement in the shadows. We were hunting monsters. The thought made my stomach flip giddily, and despite myself I wished I was walking next to Aella rather than back by myself. We were hunting things that were made to eat us. In the dark. Underground. If one of us disappeared, would the body ever be found?

  A hiss whispered through the air. As one, Twelfth Company stilled, listening. The noise was a series of staccato sounds that overlapped as the tunnel amplified them and played them back to us. It was impossible for me to determine where they originated.

  Aedith planted her torch in the nearest socket. Carefully she adjusted her leather breastplate, shifted her bracers just-so, and tugged her gloves more firmly up her fingers. When she seemed to feel ready, she drew her short sword. She locked eyes with her seconds and her daughter briefly, nodded, and then she turned down the narrow maintenance corridor to her right, disappearing from sight.

  Dai and Kaleb waited five beats before following. Aella went after that. Her eyes scanned the line behind her, but I didn’t have the chance to catch them before she went after the first three. Victor followed her a moment later, his bald head glistening in the torchlight.

  My heart thudded as Aella vanished into the shadows of the tunnel. She would be fine. She was a professional. I knew that, but still I wished I was at her back.

  In our briefing, it had been agreed that if the drakes were down a maintenance tunnel entrance, Aedith would lead pursuit, followed in waves by the next four. If they needed aid, they would signal for it, but the maintenance tunnels were too small for the full company to all barrel down. Cramming all of us into one place was a sure way to incur injury. With no one able to swing without hitting another, we would be lain flat in moments.

  Instead, the other nine mercenaries and I spread along both sides of the entrance to the path they had taken and waited. This way, if the drake managed to slip past the first five, no matter what direction it chose, it would be met with sharp resistance.

  The echoes of the others’ boot did not fade away, so much as halt abruptly. A screech ripped its way through the darkness to surround us. I flinched backward from the mouth of the tunnel, not unrelieved to see Belinda do the same from the corner of my eye.

  “Smell that?” Afua murmured to no one in particular.

  I inhaled shallowly, sorting through the myriad of disgusting scents for the one she meant. “Sulfur.”

  Belinda turned half toward me to grimace. “They must be spitting back there.”

  “Everyone, weapons up.”

  At Ito’s command, each of us with torches plunged them into nearby sockets and readied our armor and our weapons. No one wore anything heavier than leather. I didn’t own any but Aella had explained that chainmail could melt onto a warrior’s flesh if hit by a drake’s toxic spray.

  As a unit, the company unsheathed and unclipped their weapons. I watched them with a breathless sort of wonder.

  At the front of our line, stocky Harold had his short-handled battle-ax; Lawrence and Lucas were lined up behind him. Lucas usually practiced with a halberd which he had used in the guard, and Lawrence preferred a long-handled poleax. Down here it was too cramped for those weapons. Instead, like the commander, Luke wielded a short sword, while Lawrence bore an ax similar to Harold’s.

  On the other side of the opening, Tess was wielding a mace, and the spiked ball capping the end of the short wooden staff shone dully in the low light. Behind Tess, Ito was barehanded, but I could feel the hum of his magic vibrating in my teeth. Then there was thickly muscled Cassandra, who held an ulu in each fist. They were nothing more than crescent blades that curved over her knuckles and ornate wooden handles that were lost in the leather of her gauntlets. I’d seen her practice with them. She was terrifying. Beyond her I knew were Tate, Gilbert, and Afua, but I couldn’t see them or what they wielded around the people between us.

  I had brought my spear, but I was feeling woefully unarmed next to my companions. At least Belinda was wielding something similar. We weren’t meant to see much fighting, as the novice and the healer.

  A glance back at Cassandra showed her eyes were locked on the maintenance tunnel entrance. With a start, I realized everyone else was doing the same, and mine ought to have been glued there as well.

  The wood where I gripped my spear was hard, pressing the leather of my gloves into my fingers. I had to remind myself not to grip it too tightly. I was at the back of the line, I reminded myself. A drake would have to make it past the five who had gone ahead; it would have to turn right out of the tunnel, and then make it past four more highly trained mercenaries to get to me. Sweat pooled in my armpits. I bit down on my inner cheek until I could taste blood.

  Down the corridor there was the sound of metal clanging against rock. I heard Aella cry out, and fear swamped me making me dizzy. My knuckles went white on my spear. Ruthlessly I tamped down on the urge to race in after her. They hadn
’t called for us, and there was nothing I could do that the people with her couldn’t do better. If I broke the line, I would endanger everyone else by getting in their way. I shifted from foot to foot, anxious.

  A horn blew from down the tunnel. Something had broken through their ranks. Our only warning after the horn ceased was the rapid scrabbling of claws on stone, then at chest level of Harold and Tess, a drake thrust its head out. It must have been a drake. My mind had no other words for what my eyes saw.

  There had been tiny horned lizards on our trip south. Aella had caught one to give me a better idea of what a drake looked like. We had giggled as its tiny legs kicked futilely until she had chosen to release it. Now I saw comparing a lizard to a grown drake was like comparing a house cat to a gryphon.

  Cold yellow eyes with black slits for pupils were set on each side of a slim, slate muzzle. It took in all of us as its head swung first right, and then left. It occurred to me that it had expected us, though our scent had no breeze on which to travel down the tunnel. As its gaze swept over us, I also felt it take note of me with the intelligence that vastly surpassed the gaze of the little desert lizard. Was it… counting?

  Sharp ridges were set over each eye, and those ridges rose to points. Two more points followed the set, ending with two short twisted horns that flowed backward. Its nostrils flared. A long, thin blue tongue flicked out over razor sharp, yellow teeth, tasting the air.

  The head swayed as it took in my side of our defense. That thoughtful warning hiss stuttered out. My spear trembled terribly in my grip. This was worse than my encounter with Benjamin and the other villagers on the way to Forklahke. At least then I had been able to get my feet to move. Now I had tunnel vision, my training forgotten. All I could see were those teeth, as long as my pointer finger. I wanted to scream. I was going to scream. I couldn’t move. It was rearing back its head as it opened its maw, preparing to spit acid or strike at the nearest human with those deadly jaws.