Chapter Seventeen
Hidden in shadows cast by the foothills of the Gur Grehar, and the sound of their movement masked by the rushing rapids they had followed upstream, the group crouched silently, observing the entrance to the Under. As they did, Ahearn put a calming hand on his soundless wolfhound; the fur along the length of Raun’s spine was standing stiff and upright.
Kaakhag peered through the underbrush, then nodded and signed to Umkhira, who translated in a rough whisper. “The dog has spotted the guard beasts where Kaakhag suspected they would be. Also, as with many that lair near small tunnel openings, they are feral.”
Again, Druadaen was the only one who needed clarification. “Please explain why that is important.”
Umkhira looked at him as if he had asked why one drank water through one’s mouth. “Small openings, such as the one in this rock shelf, are not much used by underkin. So any animals maintained near its entrance are merely wild creatures that lair nearby because the urzhen put out scraps of food.”
Druadaen frowned. “So, the creatures cannot be ordered to attack. Their value lies in the probability that they will become agitated and so alert the guards when intruders approach.”
Umkhira nodded. “Correct, which is why naturally combative breeds are preferred. As is the case here.”
Ahearn groaned. “Let me guess: badgers.”
Umkhira nodded again. “Kaakhag sees only one burrow and two creatures. Both have darker pelts, so they are younger. It is unlikely that they have offspring old enough to be lairing nearby.”
The wolfhound’s eyes were riveted on the animals; he snorted hoarsely. Druadaen glanced from Raun to his master. “I have never seen a dog so well trained to silence.”
“And you’re not seeing one now,” Ahearn said, shrugging one shoulder. Seeing Druadaen’s puzzlement, he expanded: “‘Raun’ is an Old Teurond word, meaning ‘mute.’”
“So, he was whelped this way.”
Ahearn’s brow furrowed. “No, some bounty hunter is responsible for that. No scar though, so they probably did it while the litter was new.”
Elweyr cocked his head. “Or it was faunamancery. It’s said to be tricky knife-work, cutting voice cords.”
Druadaen shook his head. “But why do it?”
Ahearn pointed at the tunnel entrance, not fifty yards away. “So that he can be brought this close to quarry. There’s some bounty hunters as pay good coin for that.” He ground his teeth. “Meaning there’s always someone willing to mangle pups for profit…the bastards.”
Druadaen nodded at the bitterness in Ahearn’s voice. “You sound ready to mangle them.”
The swordsman nodded back, then expelled a great breath. “Sitting in the bushes won’t get this done. S’ythreni, how quickly can you get off a second shot?”
Druadaen turned, expecting to see the aeosti with a bow in hand, but was surprised to discover her readying a complicated crossbow. Its mechanism was not as heavy as the counter-geared steel-sprung arbalests he knew from Dunarra, but the already-taut lathes were made of glossy, jet-black wood: almost certainly Solorin ironpith.
“I will need a five-count,” she replied, apparently determined not to notice Druadaen’s interest in the weapon.
“What?” hissed Ahearn. “No faster than that?”
Her brows knitted. “No.”
“Druadaen?”
“Yes?”
“Are you any good with that bow of yours?”
Druadaen decided to consider Ahearn’s phrasing as brusque banter rather than actual doubt. “I am competent.”
Umkhira looked away. Elweyr sighed. S’ythreni smirked. Kaakhag made the gravel-gargling sound that was his equivalent of a smothered chortle.
Ahearn closed his eyes with a long-suffering look on his face. “The targets: can you hit one from here?”
Druadaen was beginning to think that Ahearn did, in fact, doubt his abilities. “I am confident that I can.”
“We need certainty: Yes or no?”
He turned toward Ahearn. “Are you asking about my skill as an archer, or as a soothsayer who can anticipate every twitch of the wind?”
S’ythreni may have snickered appreciatively.
Ahearn was not amused. “You don’t inspire confidence, Dunarran.”
“And you ask for that which no mortal can promise.” He waited, shaft nocked. “I see that Umkhira has a self-bow. I have seen a wrapped longbow among your own gear. I am not the only archer. Choose one or several. It is of no matter to me.”
The eyes of the group moved between him and Ahearn in the following silence.
Ahearn waved away their staring match. “Just hit a damn badger.”
Druadaen nodded, stood next to S’ythreni, moved until the foliage did not block his aim nor the draw of his bow.
“You’re stiff,” she muttered. “Just like a human.”
He ignored her. “The one on the right or the left?”
“The one on the right is bigger. That’s mine.”
“I concur. My bow hasn’t the power of an ironpith crossbow. I will fire on your count of three.”
S’ythreni murmured “One…”
Druadaen focused the way his father had taught him: aware of his body, the bow, the target, the space between, but not calculating so much as absorbing the relationship between them all. Alert to subtle changes, ready to shift in accordance with them.
The instant S’ythreni fired the crossbow on her count of “three,” the smaller badger’s head halted in mid-turn, perhaps hearing the weapon’s string slapping against its lathes. Druadaen checked fire to follow the target’s motion and loosed the shaft—at the same moment S’ythreni shouted, “Shoot!”
Even as her quarrel hit and rolled the larger animal, the smaller one was already beginning to reverse direction—just as Druadaen’s arrow drove into its belly. It kicked and flipped, a surprised hiss starting to rise into a squeal—
Which Druadaen’s second arrow killed in its throat.
S’ythreni was staring at him as he recovered to the ready stance; loosing two shafts so rapidly had uncentered him.
“That was pretty ‘competent,’” Elweyr muttered behind him.
Druadaen shrugged. “I hit a still, unsuspecting target. That is hardly proof of great skill.”
“It’s good enough for me!” Ahearn said emphatically before remembering to whisper. “Now, we’ll angle west until we come up against the skirts of the outcropping. Then we’ll work along it until we reach the tunnel mouth. With the noise of the falls behind us, even bat ears like his”—he jerked his head toward Kaakhag—“won’t hear us coming.”
* * *
Ahearn’s prediction was correct; the two Bent just within the opening to the tunnel did not hear the group coming. They probably wouldn’t have even if the waterfall had somehow been silenced; they were engaged in a heated exchange that was completely audible to Druadaen and the others as they crouched close around the entrance.
One voice was high-pitched, arguing—or complaining—so constantly that it was hard to imagine how the speaker breathed. The other voice was more typically urzhen and was bored and dismissive whenever it deigned to respond. Which wasn’t often.
Kaakhag made quick hand signs. Umkhira turned, explained. “They are arguing about who shall return to the closest darkstream—erm, underground river, which is apparently shared by their two tribes. The bigger one is an urzh and is telling the other to fetch more water before they run out. He refuses.”
“Why?” asked Ahearn.
“Because he is a g’ban and has gone the last three times.”
Druadaen shook his head. “G’ban?”
Elweyr muttered over his shoulder. “Ur gaban. Smaller, wiry, never seem to sit still.”
“Or to shut up,” Ahearn sighed. He drew his sword. Kaakhag saw, made rapid movements of negation. “Oh, be still, you great green lump. I’m not such a fool to just stroll in and lay about. If they get the chance to sound an alarm, we’re done before we’ve begun.”
Kaakhag was gesturing frantically, Umkhira falling behind in the translation. “He suggests that we wait. The urzh shows no willingness to go and they are both hungry and thirsty. Eventually, the g’ban will relent and go. When he does, we can rush the urzh. With our numbers we will kill him so quickly that he won’t have a chance to sound an alarm. Then we can follow behind the g’ban at a distance.”
“Why?” S’ythreni asked sharply. “So we can find both their tribes and be drawn into an even larger combat?”
“No,” Umkhira said carefully, studying Kaakhag’s rapidly moving hands. “He says that it would be unusual for any surface entrance to lead straight to a darkstream. Most water in the Under is gathered from, eh, drippings. It is not pleasant in one’s mouth or in one’s gut. Access to a river is often like a crossroads on the surface: a place where many gather and trade. They are often h’adzok-gar—truce-places. We would come upon more guards before getting there.”
Elweyr sighed. “So we’re cut off from going deeper.”
“No. That is what he is explaining now. There are almost always tunnels that go around a h’adzok-gar, particularly one with running water. That way, tribes may move, hunt, attack each other without bringing their business into or through a truce-place.” She stared at Elweyr and Ahearn. “How do you not know this, if you dwelt in the Under?”
Ahearn’s smile looked more like a feral display of teeth. “Because as I said, we had to go—and stay—deep, where such niceties as this don’t exist. So, if I follow Kaakhag’s reasoning, he’s suggesting that when we’re done with the g’ban’s lazy chum here at the entrance, we follow along behind the little grubber until we find a side tunnel, and use that to go further in.”
Umkhira nodded. “Yes. He says that side tunnels to the surface tend to be narrower and are only used if a group wishes to exit or enter the Under without encountering others.”
“Well, that describes us well enough.” Ahearn looked thoughtful, then shifted his glance to Druadaen. “You like Kaakhag’s plan, Dunarran?”
Druadaen spoke slowly. “It has merits.”
“But…?”
Druadaen shrugged. “Our objective is to enter undetected. There are two threats to that.” He pointed into the cave mouth. “We should eliminate both, if possible.” He held a hand up toward the now-frowning Kaakhag. “I mean no disrespect, but have you actually been in this tunnel before?”
The urzh crossed his beefy arms, looked away, but shook his head.
As I thought. “Then we cannot know how sound carries. Or if there is a bolt-hole with an escape passage that is large enough for the ur gaban but not for us. There are other possibilities, but they all point to the same conclusion: the only way to be certain that our entry remains unreported is to quickly eliminate both of the beings that could report it.”
Ahearn looked at Kaakhag. So did Umkhira. The urzh’s frowned deepened and he grumbled before looking away again.
Ahearn studied Druadaen from the corner of his eye. “So, what’s your plan for getting the little grubber before he can slip away?”
Druadaen had to force aside a wave of reluctance. His daydreams of Legion service had always conjured images of faceless ranks of human enemies. But this? This was as intimate and yet as impersonal as killing rats: worse, because these were thinking beings, regardless of their proclivities. Speaking about killing them as if they were vermin—well, his boyhood visions of life as a Legior hadn’t prepared him for that.
No matter. You sought this. See it through. Druadaen glanced at Raun. “Shortly after leaving Menara, you mentioned that you had just recently bought, er, barding for the dog?”
Ahearn nodded. “It’s in the pack with the rations and pots. Figured we’d need it once we were in the tunnels.”
“We need it now. Ready him while I explain.”
* * *
Umkhira slipped into the dark cleft in the rockface with no more sound than a gust of wind. Kaakhag followed, considerably louder.
Druadaen snapped “Now!” at those behind him and leaped into the cave mouth.
As he plunged into the darkness, he shifted the patch over his right eye to his left, then drew his dagger.
He bumped around a corner and heard, rather than saw, a loud melee breaking out just a few yards ahead of him. Covering his right eye for a few minutes had made it slightly more sensitive to the limited light but not much. He kept his weapons in a guard position, muttered, “Ready.”
Beside him, S’ythreni muttered back. “Here.” More loudly: “Elweyr…now!”
The sound of the melee up ahead stopped…just as a shaft of yellow lantern light streamed in over S’ythreni’s head and Druadaen’s right shoulder.
Umkhira and Kaakhag had leapt away from the urzh in different directions, leaving an open path to the desperate Rot guard. And the aeosti was at the other end of that path, head down over her crossbow.
The bolt snapped away from the lathes as Umkhira shouted, “The g’ban!”
The Rot, blinking in the brightness, came forward—straight into the quarrel. He grunted, fell back heavily, would have sprawled if he hadn’t been so close to the wall.
“Ahearn!” shouted Druadaen.
The broad swordsman rushed in, shortsword out and the dog at his heels. He pointed into the darkness. “Chase!” he shouted. “Hold that light higher,” he added as he headed after the bounding wolfhound. Elweyr complied, and Druadaen took a moment to assess.
The chamber was an uneven, rough-walled oval. Umkhira and Kaakhag had already jumped back into engagement with the staggered and bleeding urzh. S’ythreni was reloading. Ahearn had disappeared into the gloom, cursing. Maintaining his defensive guard in front of Elweyr, Druadaen asked, “Alarm?”
“Not that I can se—yes! Just behind S’ythreni. Pot hung as a gong.”
At which point multiple attacks connected with the urzh, who fell his length with a strangled cry. S’ythreni raised her crossbow, aimed it down the black passage Ahearn had plunged into—and out of which came a high-pitched shriek. Then two howls. Then silence.
“Ahearn?” called Druadaen.
“Keep it down, Dunarran. Are yeh trying to call them on us?” The swordsman emerged from the tunnel. “Don’t shoot me, lass!”
“I’ve been watching you the whole time,” S’ythreni muttered. “Urzhen aren’t the only ones with good night-eyes, you know.”
Druadaen made a mental note of that as he asked, “The ur gaban?”
Raun emerged from the darkness, his maw dark red.
“Never mind,” Druadaen amended. He made to join the others.
Ahearn waved him back. “You just keep Elweyr safe.”
“I can fight as well as the rest of you,” the dark man said. Judging from his equipment and armor, Druadaen had no reason to doubt that claim.
“Aye, but you’re my only friend, you damn fool.”
“I’m also the only mancer you have.”
“Well, that’s true as well. Now keep watch and protect us while we take a look at these bodies.”
* * *
Druadaen realized soon enough that “taking a look at the bodies” was simply a euphemism for searching, stripping, and then dragging them outside. When Druadaen raised an eyebrow, Umkhira explained, “In hours, scavengers will arrive. They will leave nothing behind. So there will be no hint of the fate they came to, or that there was even a battle here.” Which was certainly prudent.
Equally prudent, but also unanticipated, was the businesslike review of the dead’s possessions. It was not the speed and thoroughness of the process which Druadaen found arresting, but the ghoulish detachment. Druadaen volunteered to stand watch as the others inspected the weapons, tools, portage, cookware, coins, and assorted baubles. He wondered aloud, “How will we carry all of that?”
“Well,” Ahearn answered, “Kaakhag is traveling light; escaped with his hide and not much else, we were told. So whatever he can’t carry, we split amongst us. I just wish the g’ban hadn’t been ready to take a second cut at Raun. Might have taken the little grubber alive if I hadn’t had to take his hand off. But he could’ve gutted that damned fool of a dog.”
“Raun was a ‘fool’?”
“Yeh: tried to hold the bugger rather than take chunks out of ’im and so got quite a swat from the grubber’s hatchet. A second one might have broken bones through the leather—or worse, sliced through.”
Umkhira looked up as she dragged the body of the ur gaban closer to the lantern. “And then you let the dog finish him?”
“Aye. Shame, though. Could have used the gobbler as a porter. Maybe ask ’im some questions about these parts of the tunnels.”
Druadaen goggled at the idea. “But he would have fled. Given us away.”
“Always a risk in the Under, Dunarran, but it’s the way of life down here. The weak serve the strong if they want to live. And all he would have known is that we’re a strange but dangerous bunch—and that if he didn’t make a clean escape, he’d be as good as dead. He’d have been useful, for the short time we’d ’ave needed ’im.”
Umkhira was frowning. “I understand that this is how you and Elweyr survived in the Under, but I share Druadaen’s misgivings over increasing our numbers. A task such as ours must depend upon speed and stealth.”
Ahearn glanced at her, then turned to look at Elweyr.
Who shrugged and nodded. “They’re right. Old habits die hard, but they’ll get us killed, this time.”
“Ah, I suppose you’ve the right of it.” He studied the rusty knife blade he’d extracted from the rubbish of the urzhen’s rude camp. He smiled. “This was like coin to us, down here. Remember, mate?”
Elweyr nodded. “But this isn’t our world anymore, Ahearn. So unless we mean to stay, that’s not worth the weight of carrying. We’ve found and packed everything we can use. So leave off, you lazy bastard, and help me get the second body outside.”