At full speed, he rammed into something solid and fell backwards to the ground. Groaning, he rolled over onto his hands and knees, head hanging down, pounding. He felt his way forward until his hands struck earth. Hard, packed earth.
A dead end.
“No!” The cry burst from him and he rammed his fists into the wall. The passage had been open when he left. Why was it closed off now? Had Cade done it to avoid discovery . . . or had the Khelari buried the Underground?
In either case, the way was shut.
But somehow the ability to simply give up no longer resided in him. Whether it had been beaten from him by the fists of the pirates, or sliced from him by the chill of a knife’s edge against his skin, or bled from him by the miles he had tramped since leaving the desert, it was gone.
He staggered to his feet and began clawing at the wall with his bare hands, pausing now and again to thump at the wall with his fists and call out for the runners. If anyone still lived in the Underground, they must hear him, recognize his voice, and let him in. How long he’d been hammering and digging and calling, he didn’t know, but when at last he paused for breath with a clump of packed earth in either hand, there was something scraping on the other side of the wall.
Then a muffled voice spoke, and he couldn’t recall ever hearing a sweeter sound. “Oi, laddy-boyo, can you hear me?”
Ky fell against the wall and pressed his sweat-soaked cheek to the clawed up earth. “Paddy . . . is that you?”
“Shure an’ shake me if I’m wrong an’ it isn’t Ky himself returned at last. Hold yourself easy there, laddy-boyo. We’ll get a hole cleared in a jiffy so you can enter.”
Paddy’s definition of a jiffy must have been somewhat different than Ky’s. At any rate, it felt much longer as he paced back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists, listening to the rhythmic clunk-scritch of shovels and pick-axes within the cavern. Finally the nose of a pick-axe broke through the earth at the top of the wall, sending rock-hard clumps skittering down around Ky’s toes. Fire-glow filtered through the opening, and in another jiffy, the runners enlarged it enough that Ky could crawl through.
He emerged in a shower of loose dirt to see a familiar grimy face smiling down at him beneath a shock of red hair, then Paddy seized his hand in a firm grip and hauled him to his feet.
“Shure an’ it brightens the world t’ see your filthy mug again, friend.”
Ky clapped Paddy on the back and found that he could scarce speak, his throat felt so thick. A tattered blouse draped Paddy’s thin frame like a sail slack in the wind, and behind the smile, hollows lurked in his cheeks and behind his eyes. Ky might have endured weeks in the hold of a pirate ship, but the Underground looked to have fared little better.
“Meli . . . Aliyah . . . the others, are they well?”
“Well enough—”
But Ky didn’t give him time to finish. He brushed past into the heart of the Underground. His gaze roved over the cavern, barely taking in the sealed tunnels, the weak fire sputtering over a bed of damp peat clumps, and the diminished number of runners clustered around the central fire ring. Right now, there was just one thing he was looking for.
“Ky!” Meli’s shout reached his ears a split second before she threw her arms around his waist. Gently—oh so gently—he patted her hair. She tilted her head back, wisps of brown hair hanging in a tangled mess over her face. But he could see her eyes—huge they seemed, as big as the sea, and ringed with the shadows of hardship. A tear ran down her cheek and left a damp spot on Ky’s fringed jacket.
“I knowed you’d come back,” she exulted. “I just knowed it.”
“Promised, didn’t I?” And in the face of such unwavering trust, Ky wondered how he ever could have doubted it. He lifted his face to the rest of the runners slowly climbing to their feet and approaching with surprised and hopeful expressions on their faces.
Meli pulled him into the middle of the crowd and they closed around him, clapping him on the back, gripping his hand, and punching him in the arm with the fierce camaraderie he’d missed. But there was a sort of desperation to their affection. Runners who’d scarce noticed him in Dizzier’s shadow, now laughed and elbowed his ribs and called for stories about where he’d been and how he got into the city.
But Ky had heard enough hollow laughs to recognize one, and he’d grinned too many forced grins not to notice the taut expressions beneath the smiles on every face. They looked almost as battered as he’d felt during his time in captivity—battered but still standing, when standing was triumph enough.
He stood in a sea of familiar faces, but it was the faces that were missing that he noticed most. Over Meli’s head, he met Paddy’s gaze. “Cade . . . where’s Cade?”
Hacking coughs rebounded from the store-room walls, paired with the groan and rattle of the hard-won breaths of the fever stricken. Ky stood in the entry, fringed collar pulled up over his mouth and nose, breathing in the stale stench of sweat and animal hide as he surveyed the rows of occupied bedrolls. Nearly a dozen runners lay there, ashen-faced in the light of a single torch.
“The first fell sick almost a week ago,” Paddy muttered behind his sleeve, forehead scrunched with a grim expression that looked utterly out of place on his normally cheerful face. “I’m surprised it took so long. S’pose we’ve been protected down here. We shunted our supplies out to the armory and turned the store-room into an infirmary of sorts.” He gestured toward a girl kneeling beside a pallet, scarf bound around her head and mouth, brown hair hanging in a braid over one shoulder. “Jena’s been caring for ’em.”
“And Cade?” The words seemed to stick in his throat.
“Must’ve been one of the first, but he didn’t let on ’til yesterday morning.” Paddy’s nod directed Ky’s focus toward the near left corner of the cave where Cade’s dark hair and tall frame were easily distinguishable on a too-short pallet. Aliyah sat by his side, crutch propped against the wall, mopping his forehead with a damp rag. Sweat streaked his face, and he clutched a white-knuckled hand to his chest. His eyes flickered behind sealed lids, and a grimace wrenched his face into a terrible expression.
Cade wasn’t one to show an ounce of weakness. Not to Ky leastways. Probably not to anyone, except maybe Dizzier. The sight left Ky desperate for the chance to sink a slingstone into a Khelari, if only to prove that he was not helpless. He wanted a physical enemy. Someone he could meet in pitched battle and grind into the dust.
If even Cade could be brought low by this thing, what chance did the rest of them have?
“Aliyah hasn’t left his side since he was taken sick. Not that I blame her. We buried Neil yesterday.” Paddy’s voice grew even fainter than before. “Two others the day before. Behind one of the sealed tunnels.” He turned away from the store-room, drifting more than walking over to the stack of barrels that had once served as the armory, and from the look of things, now housed their remaining food supplies.
“It began not long after you left.” Paddy halted before an open barrel, and Ky joined him there, shoulder to shoulder, hands resting on the iron rim, gazing into the pitifully empty depths. A sack of dried beans. Shriveled chunks of cheese. A handful of apples. And loaves of bread with crusts that looked even harder than the sling-bullets Migdon had given him.
Little enough to feed over thirty runners.
“A swarm of ravens broke o’er the city that mornin’, and the dark soldiers descended on their heels like hounds loosed for blood. They tore through the city, raidin’ shops, tearin’ into houses, overturnin’ carts, stealin’ what food there was and smashin’ any they couldn’t carry. But they didn’t kill . . . no, they didn’t kill.”
In Paddy’s tight-lipped expression and haunted eyes, Ky read the rest of the tale. For the past five years, the dark soldiers had controlled the city and destroyed any shreds of its former government. Now left to their own devices, the citizens must have di
ssolved into a panic like none other, more so once their fate and the impossibility of escape became clear. He thought he knew the answer, but couldn’t help asking anyway. “Anyone get out?”
“Shure tried—some sneakin’, others fightin’. They learned soon enough that even when you’re caught—and you are caught—there’s no relief in death. The dark soldiers just beat you up and toss you back in here to rot.”
“I heard fighting on my way in.”
Paddy grimaced. “That would be Nikuto and his men. Things were bad enough, then he came along and promised to feed anyone who would swear allegiance to him. Folks started flockin’ to his banner, and he set ’em to terrorizin’ their neighbors and stealin’ whatever they could get their hands on.”
Ky toed an empty crate onto its side and sat with his elbows propped on his knees. From this position, he could see a cluster of runners shoveling earth to seal the passage he had entered through. “What about the tunnels?”
Paddy straightened at the question. “Cade ordered all but one of ’em closed off soon as we spotted the army. Feared they’d try to dig us out—too much work, if you ask me. Guess they thought so too. Better to let us starve. Though in faith, we’ve fared better than most above since we already had a goodly bit of food stored up, and Nikuto and his men don’t know we’re down here.”
The emphasis on had was faint, but it was there. Paddy didn’t need to say more. The truth was evident in the barrels and crates before him. Whatever supplies they once had were fast running out, and there was no hope of harvesting any more from the city.
Between sickness and starvation, the Underground was doomed.
“Still—” Paddy shrugged, and a hint of levity crept back into his voice “—we can outlast the rest of the city. Mayhap the dark soldiers will grow weary of the wait and wander back to whatever new dark purposes their dark master has for ’em, eh?” He kicked his heel against the barrel. “Best chance we’ve got.”
“Chance? There’s no chance in waiting.”
“Really and what did you have in mind, master runner?”
Ky scuffed a toe across the floor, tracing a wide-armed V in the dirt—the hawk, chosen for the great outlaw Hawkness as the Underground’s sign, to symbolize the will to fight for freedom. It represented everything the Underground stood for.
But sometimes the hawk was forced to flight for freedom too.
His gaze wandered to the one remaining tunnel. “Leaving, Paddy . . . leaving’s the only chance we got.”
“For the last time, I tell you Cade won’t like it.” In the narrow expanse of the passage, Paddy’s voice rebounded from the walls, punctuating each word with added emphasis, and filling Ky’s ears with a dozen nagging voices speaking as one to persuade him to give up and turn back.
He wouldn’t mind so much if it would be the last time, but he knew Paddy well enough to know that once he had an argument by the throat, he would worry it to death. He’d been vocal enough over the past hour they’d spent wandering in the wake of the sputtering torch in Ky’s hand, so much so that Ky finally stopped listening and focused instead on the shaky start of a shaky plan rattling in the back of his mind.
It was a bit like following the patterns of invisibility. He knew the steps were there . . . somewhere . . . but sometimes, you just had to piece it together bit by bit and wait for the dust to clear before it made sense.
The shivering flame painted the bulbous roundness of the tunnel with looming shadows. Ky paused to run his fingers over the walls and found them free of tool marks, bumpy with a natural roughness. According to Cade, most of the tunnels had either been created outright by the outlaws or expanded when they first claimed the Underground as their headquarters, but no man would design a tunnel so full of twists and turns and narrow squeezes.
It was too wild and meandering to be anything but natural.
“Why this tunnel?”
Paddy broke off his argument mid-sentence. “Pardon?”
Not until Paddy answered did Ky realize he’d spoken his question out loud. “Just curious is all. Why close off all the others but leave this one? Don’t think I’ve ever been down it before.”
“That’s the point, laddy-boyo. Only has a single entrance and exit shaft in a part of town we don’t much care to frequent, so it’s never been used on a raid. Wasn’t ever enough of a crowd to blend into. Works for the occasional pop out and grab, though . . . not that there’s much of anythin’ to grab at the moment. Cade figured folk were less likely to know about this tunnel ’n any of the others, less likely to give it away if the Khelari or Nikuto started asking questions.”
“Huh.” Ky shrugged and logged it away. Just another step in the pattern. But he couldn’t resist a parting shot. “So, you’re saying Cade left us an escape route?”
“No, I’m sayin’ he didn’t want us buried down here.” Paddy’s grip on his sleeve snapped him to a halt just before the next bend in the tunnel. “Haven’t you been listenin’ to me? Cade wouldn’t want us to just give up on the Underground. This cavern—it’s our home. This city—it’s ours. We can’t just leave.”
Ky plucked Paddy’s hand from his arm. “Cade’s sick—”
“So you think you should take his place?” Paddy’s voice dropped into a dangerous growl. “In faith, Ky, I don’t know what to make of you. Do you think you can just waltz in here after being gone for months and expect to take charge just because Cade is down? Given up on him already, have you? Maybe we should summon the burners to take him away.”
“I didn’t—”
“Do you think we’ve been sittin’ around twiddlin’ our thumbs waitin’ for the great Ky to come back and tell us all what to do?” He shoved past Ky, pushing him against the wall, and strode down the passage. “It’s like I don’t know you at all.”
For a moment, Ky was so stunned he just stood there, back to the wall, listening to the fading slap of Paddy’s bare feet. Anger was one thing he was accustomed to. Life with Dizzier had always been an outburst waiting to happen. But Ky never would have expected such ferocity from Paddy. Looked like he wasn’t the only one who had changed over the past months.
Straightening his jacket, he broke into a jog and caught Paddy just around the bend. The redhead stood with one heel propped against the wall, hands stuffed in the pockets of his coat. Torchlight captured the furrow between his brows and the forward set of his jaw.
Ky eased against the wall at his side. “Cade’s going to get better.” Anything else was unthinkable. “I’m not trying to take his place.”
Silence stretched between them, then Paddy finally grunted. “Just who do you imagine has been keeping things running around here?”
The answer should have been obvious sooner. Sure there were older and bigger boys and girls, but Paddy had been a member of the Underground longer than most, and in Cade’s eyes, experience counted for far more than age or size.
“Paddy …” Ky swallowed hard. “All I want is to make sure we survive, and right now, that means leaving this cursed city.”
“So sure of yourself, are you?”
“Yes, I am.” And for once, Ky knew he actually believed it. That knowledge enabled him to stand straight, look Paddy in the eye, and hold his gaze. This was the best course of action . . . the only course of action . . . and he had to believe it could work, that there actually was a way to survive the city’s doom.
“Fine.” Paddy broke eye contact first. “But I’ll lead.”
He plucked the torch from Ky’s hand without a word and started off. It wasn’t long before a breath of deeper air stirred across Ky’s cheek and the entrance shaft appeared above, iron rungs set into the wall to his right. He scaled the ladder and eased the trapdoor open just enough to peek out into the dull gray of evening.
No one in sight.
He slid the trapdoor another couple of inches until he was able to twist his hea
d to see in all directions. The entrance was hidden beneath a set of wooden steps at the base of a brick mansion—and what a mansion! Small wonder the Underground avoided this place. No chance rags would blend in here. This was the rich corner of town, where fine gentlemen once strolled along in feathered caps and fur lined cloaks, and jeweled ladies, clad in gowns with enough fabric to sail a ship, promenaded at their sides—Ky wasn’t entirely sure what promenaded meant, but Cade had used it once, and it sure seemed fitting to describe whatever it was rich ladies did.
He allowed himself a blink across the wide cobblestone street, taking in the imposing row of columned mansions on either side, the fireless lamp posts spaced at regular intervals like so many sentries on patrol, and the piles of refuse and rubble accumulating at the base of stone steps. Even here, they had begun to feel the effects of the blockade and Nikuto’s mob.
“You see? No way out here.” Paddy grunted when Ky dropped back into the tunnel. “Lot of good their riches have done them. They’re just as bad off as we are and no closer to getting past the Khelari watch-fires.”
Ky nodded toward the tunnel curling away before them. “Anyone ever follow it all the way to see where it goes?”
“O’ course. Doesn’t go much of anywhere. Ends in a cave-in not too far down the line.”
Ky shrugged. “Can’t hurt to take a look.” He started down the passage again, counting his steps now to keep track of the time and distance, trying to visualize where each turn of the tunnel took him in relation to the city above. It was something he knew instinctively could be important to a plan—once he had one—even though he couldn’t yet say exactly how or why.
At nine hundred and eighty one steps, he caught sight of the cave-in ahead. The passageway abruptly disappeared in a mound of earth and rock that blanketed ten feet of the floor before rising to meet the sagging ceiling overhead. At one thousand and five steps, he picked his way across the rubble strewn floor, balancing with both hands outstretched, trying not to cringe when rocks shifted beneath his feet. Halfway up, he gave up any pretense of dignity, dropped to his knees, and crawled the rest of the way.
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