The Entean Saga - The Complete Saga

by C B Williams

  Between the constant stream of other dreams and memories, Entean continued to remind him, “When you awaken, my Champion,” She said, “remember the many lessons you have learned. They will serve you again.”

  Chapter 2

  Sub-City

  Flick snickered and Wren kicked him out of their bed.

  He landed on his backside with a curse. “Aww, Wren, there’s no call for that,” he complained, his grin twitching to life at the corners of his mouth.

  She glared at him until his grin faded again.

  “All right, I apologize,” he said, hoping her good nature would bubble up again.

  Wren continued to glare, her grey eyes flinty. “I’m serious, Flick. If we are to become like them,” she jerked her chin upward, to Above, where the ruling classes lived, “we are going to have to behave like them all the time. And,” she pointed a finger at him, “no wind should ever come out of your ass in the presence of a lady. Ever.”

  “Ass?” he asked, rubbing the offending bit of his anatomy. “You mean where I just landed? You can still call it an ‘ass’ up there?”

  “Bottom,” she amended. “You just landed on your bottom. Or backside. We don’t say ‘ass’ either. Argh!” she sighed, scrubbing both hands over her long mop of coilmats. “It’s so hard to remember all these futing niceties.”

  “I don’t think ladies are supposed to swear, Wren,” Flick commented, accepting when she held out a helping hand.

  She grunted as she hauled him up. “If the lady is a leader, she is permitted to speak in a manner her subjects will understand,” she told him. “And you understand, me, right? No. More. Bottom. Wind. Or I will be forced to find someone else to share my bed.”

  “No more, I promise,” Flick replied.

  Such a little, thing he thought, their leader. Wren claimed to have no knack, but he was pretty sure she was wrong. She had the knack of leadership, and a powerful good leader she was, too.

  Her sparkle came back. “Good. I’d hate to lose such a cuddlesome bed warmer,” she replied. “Let’s begin the day, shall we?”

  Not waiting for his reply, Wren left Flick’s room and walked down the short hall to her own. They weren’t lovers. She didn’t have a lover. Didn’t like to be touched that way. But she hated to sleep alone. After the childhood she suffered, nobody blamed her, especially Flick, who had watched it all.

  Wren shook off the chill of childhood memories and pulled off her nightshirt, stepping naked into her bathing pool. With a sigh, she eased down the two steps and curled into the warm, fresh water.

  When the water felt this good, she thought while shampooing her coilmats, gratitude trumped guilt. She knew how hard it was to come by fresh water every other day for her bath. She also knew it was a tribute from her Kin, a way for them to show their respect and affection for her. If she asked them to stop, it would do more harm than good. And did she really want to go without her bath? Decidedly not.

  She finished washing and ducked under the water to rinse. Resurfacing, she leaned back against the pool’s ledge to think.

  Her Folk were in trouble. There would be a Culling soon. She felt it coming. It had been too long since the last one. Maybe she should send Mouse and Flick out to gather information. Maybe she would go on a solo, too. It would be a good excuse to take a little trip Above and get out of Sub-City for a span.

  Gods, she hated Sub-City. Hated the stink, the brutality. Hated the fact that no matter how hard she tried, her Folk were never truly safe. So easy to get hurt in Sub. It was why she had decided to try something new—teaching them how to blend in Above and act more like an UpperUpper. If they were successful, maybe they’d finally get off Spur, live on one of the colonies. Wouldn’t that be something?

  Wren reached for the towel someone had left folded by the pool’s steps, climbed out, and dried off before wrapping it around her. With quick strides, she went to where her meager wardrobe was slung haphazardly over clothes pegs, grabbed an undershirt, tunic, vest, and leggings, and pulled them on. Then she crossed over to a tarnished mirror and finger combed her damp locks. Making a face at herself, she turned and headed downstairs.

  A few of her Kin still lingered at the table, although most had gone about their business. Some thieved, some begged, while others had honest jobs that unfortunately paid very little, jobs that no one Above wanted to do, such as cleaning the cesspools, dressing the dead for burning, or whoring. People living in Sub-City had to do whatever it took—no matter how unpleasant—to survive.

  Flick and Mouse looked up when she entered.

  “Morning,” Mouse said while she picked at the few remaining crumbs on her plate. Like Wren, she was slight and delicately made, with pale skin and huge eyes. Unlike Wren, her eyes were dark, and her straight dark hair was gathered into a short braid at the base of her graceful neck. She was dressed in grey, a color that helped her move invisibly through the murky streets of Sub-City. Looking at her, it was hard to believe Mouse was one of Wren’s most competent assassins, but she was. Wren had two, and she used them both when necessary. She didn’t like giving a kill order. But she would. She had.

  Wren sat across from them, placed a napkin in her lap, and accepted the plate of bread and cheese Flick handed her with a nod. Mouse poured her a flagon of diluted ale.

  “Feel like taking a little stroll?” she asked while she piled a thick slice of cheese on a piece of bread and took a bite. At least the pungent cheese masked the bread’s stale taste.

  “Where to?” Flick asked. He touched his napkin to his mouth while he watched her with calm grey eyes.

  She smiled at her cuddlesome bed warmer, appreciating both his loyalty and his attempt at good manners.

  Flick had been with her since the beginning. His round, open face concealed a fluid intelligence and a steady heart. He was large for someone born and raised in Sub-City, with thick, meaty hands that could punch and strike. They were hairy hands, light brown to match the hair on his head. She sometimes teased him that his father had been some huge, hairy beast his whore-of-a-mother had lain with. She wasn’t swearing. Most of the KinFolk’s mothers were whores.

  “I’m going Above,” she answered. “It’s been some time since the last Culling. I have a feeling we’re due.”

  “Might be,” he replied. He laid down his napkin and stood, holding out a hand for Mouse to hand him her plate so he could take them both to the sink.

  “Where do you want us? Above or Sub?” asked Mouse.

  “Sub,” Wren replied. “But have a care if you go beyond the borders of my KinSpace. Fergus and MacMichaels are talking about banding together again to take me out.”

  Flick snorted. “I’d like to see them try.”

  “Yeah, well,” Wren replied. “It’s hard enough to survive without adding a border war. I’d hate to have to go on a killing spree on account of them hurting either one of you.”

  Wren herself was the other competent assassin.

  “Not to worry, Wren,” Flick said. “Mouse and I will take good care of each other—er, one another.”

  Mouse looked at him and smiled.

  “We’ll accompany you until the tunnel, then,” Flick said.

  Wren nodded, washing down her meal with the rest of her ale. “Your company would be most pleasant,” she said, dabbing her mouth daintily with her napkin. She rose and carried her plate to the sink to soak with the others. “I’ll just fetch my knives.”

  There were two ways to get Above. One used the many moving stairways and checkpoints, which were monitored by the Martials, and were intended for those who had legitimate business Above. The other was through the tunnels. Within the borders of Wren’s KinSpace there were five such tunnels, all guarded by her KinFolk. These tunnels were long-forgotten passageways housing now-defunct electrical cables or dried-up sewage systems which had been boarded up and blasted closed.

  Wren and her Folk had painstakingly dug through the debris and reopened every one of them. Not only did they now serve as s
ecret entrances to Above, but they also provided storage chambers for food, water, weapons, and clothing, as well as places to hide the very old, the very young, and the infirm during a Culling.

  Flick and Mouse walked with Wren to one of the tunnels before heading off to loiter at various checkpoints and eavesdrop on the Martials.

  Since she was there, Wren went over the stored supplies to see if it was time to organize a food raid. Stale bread was common, but the bread she’d eaten this morning bordered on moldy. She eyed the surplus.

  “What do you think, Skip?” she asked her Grainier while they studied his list of stored items and circled those needing replenishment. “Think we should find something a little better packaged?”

  Skip tugged his ear. “P’raps in a day or two I’ll send the runners to forage.”

  “Make it a day,” Wren replied. “I don’t want us to get so low our bellies fuss.”

  “Will do, m’lady,” Skip said with a brisk nod, jotting it down on the list. “I’ll send my runners tomorrow at first light.”

  His two young sons were the runners. They were good at their job, little thieves that they were, but Skip worried. This worry sometimes hampered his judgment. Wren knew this but didn’t hold it against the man. She would have killed to have a father like Skip.

  She patted him on his shoulder. “You’re a good man, Skip. I’m going Above next. Not sure what route I’ll use on the way back, so I’ll say good-bye for now.”

  The reopened tunnels were in reality a warren, and it was easy to get lost. But Wren had made it a point to know every passageway and where it led from each of the tunnels within her borders. She could lose herself within them, but she was never lost. Lighting a torch, Wren entered the black and began the climb to Above. Since some tunnels were pitch-black and others shadowed and grey with Above light eking through, it was always prudent to use a torch.

  She could have found where she was going this time blindfolded, even though it was a long trail through a labyrinth of twists and turns. Some tunnels were dank and slippery and forced Wren to tiptoe to avoid splashing her clothes, her fingers lightly skimming a slimy wall for balance. Others tunnels were dry and dusty, her feet making little puffs of dust with every step. If she walked too briskly, the puffs could make her sneeze. Occasionally she came across still-active tunnels, with the energy humming through cables looped and bracketed along the walls. Those were the tunnels where she was most cautious. Active tunnels meant there were other, known, openings from Above.

  For more than an hour she walked, the flickering shadow cast by her torch her only companion. And her thoughts. She could always think better when her body was in motion.

  There would be a Culling soon. She could feel it; she just needed the confirmation she’d get when Flick and Mouse returned later tonight. She should also know then how much time she had. But she would still have enough time make plans. How much time would determine how to plan.

  With each wary step closer to her destination, Wren wove different scenarios, and by the time she reached her destination, she had a number from which to choose. By the time she came to the entrance of the last tunnel, felt the dry wind on her cheeks and smelled the fresh air, one decision was finalized. She had decided where to hide her Kin during the next Cull.

  This tunnel’s opening was hidden behind metal latticework. Out of habit, Wren hesitated, keeping to the shadows until she was certain she was alone. She had never found anyone in this particular part of the Above, but she wasn’t about to take chances. Caution First was her number one rule. She demanded it of all in her Kin, especially herself.

  Seeing and hearing no one, Wren slipped from the shadows and came around from behind the lattice to stand in the middle of a lovely little square which the moveable City of the Above had long since abandoned for newer, more modern residences. A circle of ramshackle stone buildings that had once been proud homes enclosed the little square. Now only empty windows stared blankly down at her. But to Wren’s eyes they were still beautiful. The rosettes and carved vines trimming the sides and outlining each of the windows, and the rusty, curlicued iron railings on balconies charmed her. The stones were cream and grey. Although cracked and old, their grandeur was undiminished.

  In the middle of the square was a fountain, in its center the figure of a woman, a pitcher in her hand. Water bubbled out of the pitcher and pooled around the woman’s feet, a little oasis in an abandoned square. When the City had moved on, no one had even taken the time to disconnect the fountain from the water supply.

  Wren crossed over and dangled her fingers in the water. Precious water some fool had forgotten to redirect. Their loss, she thought, her gain.

  Wren had found this square in an hour of need when she was very young. When her life was bleak. When she lived in constant pain from daily beatings—gifts from her whore mother and her drugged-out father. One day she had been beaten unconscious. It had been one of those occasions when her parents simultaneously had a go at her. Thinking she was dead, they had tossed her outside to be carted away with the rest of the garbage. When she came to, she was buried underneath refuse and debris and other things she would rather not remember.

  She did remember crawling into the nearest tunnel. And crawling, and crawling, willing her damaged body to obey her. Throughout the dark of the tunnels she crept, determined to keep moving until she could go no farther, crawling as far away from the ugliness as possible. When she heard the liquid sound of a gurgling fountain, she followed it until she finally came upon this abandoned square.

  Wren reached over and touched the center figure. The lady with her pitcher, and the fool who left the water on, had saved her life. It had taken her weeks to recover, most of which had been spent huddled in the shadows, close to the fountain, trapping small birds and rodents who came for a drink. She ate them raw.

  As she grew stronger, she began to explore her surroundings, both the abandoned square and the tunnels. She found a room overlooking the square she claimed as her own. She learned to merge with the crowds, and to steal food from street vendors and clothes from merchants. Always a quick learner, she imitated the mannerisms and speech patterns of those in the Above.

  After watching and listening, she slowly and carefully selected new companions while she redesigned her life. She met Mouse in a pub where she often worked for food. It was one of those instant friendships, and Wren readily agreed to let the girl recruit her as an assassin. Since she’d vowed never to be helpless again, she became quite skilled in the trade, quickly surpassing Mouse.

  She joined the guild, was invited to social gatherings among the UpperUppers. Did favors. Called in favors. She created her own network of those loyal to her in the Above. And then, fifteen years later, with Mouse as a companion, she abruptly vanished back into the tunnels.

  She soon reconnected with Flick and a few others who remembered her from her childhood, but to her disappointment, she learned her parents had been Culled and died shortly after her disappearance. She would have liked to have killed them herself.

  For several months she observed the KinLeaders, explored the tunnels, and accepted assignments from the UpperUppers in both the Above and Sub-City, efficiently building a reputation as someone it was best not to trifle with. When the time felt right, she challenged Jig, the KinLeader of the tribe she had been born into.

  It had taken mere seconds to dispatch Jig. He had grown old and soft, too dependent upon cruelty to get his way. She took his seat without challenge and with Mouse and Flick by her side, began to implement what she had learned in her years Above, creating as safe a haven as possible in Sub-City for those KinFolk under her protection. The numbers in her tribe doubled and then tripled, and as they did, so did the responsibility of keeping them safe during a Cull or a KinLand dispute. Thanks to her tunnel system and the rigorous training she insisted on for all her Kin, they all knew the closest escape routes.

  Wren was known to be fair-minded, but firm. If her rules were broken, she did n
ot hesitate to punish the offender to the degree she felt necessary to keep the peace and her leadership intact.

  She did not trust many of her Kin. It wasn’t that she doubted her Kin’s loyalty, but the simple truth was, loyalties shifted like sand. Her profession had taught her how cheaply life could be bought or sold.

  Caution First.

  “And you say you have no knack,” Flick, who was sitting across from Wren at the dining table, scoffed. “Culling will happen in a month.”

  She laughed as she popped a bit of dried fruit into her mouth. “No knack, just keen observation skills,” she said between chews. “There hasn’t been one for a span, and it’s getting crowded in Sub-City. The Martials don’t like it when there are too many of us to handle. We’re not so easily controlled.”

  When she was finished with her snack, Wren put her hands on the table and rose, nodding to the Kin who gathered her plate and utensils. “Okay, then, Flick, let’s call for a KinTalk in thirty.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Mouse found out more. She’s waiting for us in the Narrows.”

  The Narrows wasn’t a place. It was their code word for privacy. Wren would find Mouse in her bedroom, the safest place in their compound for a private talk.

  Wren nodded and waited for Flick to join her. Together, they made their way up the stairs to her sanctuary.

  They found Mouse, arms folded, gazing at Wren’s bathing pool.

  “I’d love to have one of those in my room,” she said without turning.

  “You can always use mine.”

  Mouse shook her head, her dark braid swinging slightly. “Couldn’t. Wouldn’t be fair.” She flashed the smile that made her beautiful. “But your offer means a lot. My thanks.”