Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) Read online

  “Do not be ridiculous.” Annis slapped her arm. “You must promise me—promise, you understand—that you will be careful.”

  “I promise, and willingly.”

  As Markus summoned the carriage driver, Annis changed to a fresh dress of muted grey. She and Xain wrapped themselves in rags stained with shoe polish, gifts from Markus’s refuse heap. They would pose as lepers one last time, hoping for constables to give them a wide berth as they left the city.

  “We will ride south until sundown and find a place to wait,” said Xain. “On the third night from this, we shall depart. I hope against chance that you will be leaving with us.”

  “I will be there if I can,” said Loren. “If I am not, see Annis safely to the next city. Beyond that, I will not burden you with her.”

  “I will do as you ask.” Xain turned and boarded the carriage.

  Annis approached next. The girl’s usual bluster had fled. Her lip quivered as she looked up at Loren.

  “Will you not think upon it one last time, and come with us?” said Annis. “I promise, I will buy you a finer dagger than you have ever seen if you will swear to leave this stupid city.”

  “I will see you two days hence. Spare no worries on my account.”

  Annis nodded, but looked miserable. “Here, take this.” She reached into her cloak and pulled forth her bulging purse. “In case you need it. I hope I shall not require it upon the road.”

  “Thank you.” Loren only hoped that the coin would not find its way into Auntie’s hands, pulled from her own cooling corpse. She stepped forward, speaking low. “Do you still bear a certain package? One of brown cloth?”

  Annis’s eyes flashed. “I do. It has not left my side since our escape from my mother.”

  “Take care. It may prove most useful. But do not tell Xain, whatever you do.”

  Annis looked curiously at Loren. “Why? What is it to him?”

  She thought of the constables, and what they had said when they caught her. Magestones, they had called the black rocks.

  “I do not yet know. Only that he should not be wise to your possession. Please, be safe.”

  Loren helped Annis board the carriage. The driver, an obese man with only one eye, snapped the reins, and the carriage rolled off down the street.

  “Now there goes your best chance of escaping this city,” said Gem. “I say your best chance, of course, for it’s well known that nothing can kill me.”

  “Well known indeed,” said Loren. “Come, let us eat. We have a robbery to plan.”

  twenty-seven

  Markus fed them small bowls of gruel, served in his cellar. He did not speak overmuch, nor did he linger after offering their bowls. “If you remain in the city by nightfall, you may sleep here if you wish. Come here, to the cellar. I will have my granddaughter fetch you blankets, and open the door if you knock.”

  Then he vanished before Loren could thank him.

  “I find that one most strange,” said Gem. “Why should a cobbler be in the smuggling business?”

  “Will you keep your voice down?” said Loren, keeping hers to a murmur. “One should always respect one’s host. And why should you expect a cobbler any less than any other? What profession should a smuggler find herself, to your mind?”

  “Something . . . natural. Like a carpet maker. Or a brewer. Someone who makes big things, the kinds of things you can stuff a body in.”

  Loren shuddered. “A body living, or a corpse?”

  “Either.” Gem spooned the last of his gruel, slurping noisily as it slid down his throat. The boy ate like three men twice his size. A symptom, Loren supposed, of rarely having enough.

  He leaned back in his chair and fixed Loren with a hard stare. “What’s this all about to you, then?”

  Loren swallowed her spoonful, wincing at the slimy way it sat in her mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I heard what you said to Xain. But anyone in your case with a pound of sense would flee this place with half a chance. You had more than that, and yet you’re here. I cannot see it.”

  Loren scowled at the table. “A great thief cannot let others rob her and simply accept it. Who would respect her?”

  “And that’s the other thing. Look at you. Tall. Strong. Not ugly, I suppose, though I’ve seen much prettier.”

  Loren glared at him.

  Gem cleared his throat. “You don’t look like you’ve gone hungry more than a day in your life. So what brings you to Cabrus, seeking Auntie and a pickpocket’s life? Who goes about searching for a way outside the King’s law?”

  Loren scoffed. “You are one to talk. You have lived without it your whole life.”

  “No other opportunity presents itself to one such as me,” said Gem. “If I have to lift a coin or slice the occasional purse strings, well that’s what I must do. But you could build yourself a little house in the forest, next to a river. I’ll bet you could live there fine, find yourself someone to live with and all. Yet you come here with half the nine lands breathing down your neck, looking to lift purses you do not need.”

  “I would never take from those with none to spare.” Loren felt her temper rising, blood rushing to her face.

  “Oh? What of the girl in the pink dress Auntie sent you after?”

  “That was Auntie herself!”

  “Aye, and you did not know until you had your hands on her purse.”

  “She looked rich,” Loren insisted. “Anyone who can afford a dress like that can lose a purse of coins and retrieve another.”

  “Some might say the same about your cloak.”

  Loren’s hand went to the black, velvety fabric. Stroking it gently, she softly said, “This was a gift.”

  “Mayhap that pink dress was, too. Or mayhap she only bought that dress from coin what she earned. Earned doing things you would never do, that you would consider beneath you. I know many pretty girls with fine dresses what pay for those dresses with rich men’s failings.”

  Loren pushed her bowl away and stood from the table. “It is time to go.”

  “I have an idea I like better,” said Gem, rising as well. “You can take those coins that Annis gave you and buy us a horse so we can leave this city forever. Find Annis and Xain upon the road, and together we’ll ride off to the outland kingdoms where they have never heard of Cabrus and we have never heard of them.”

  “I will not leave this be!” Loren slammed her hand on the table. “No one steals from me, especially not that simpering witch!”

  Gem paused, letting Loren’s angry words hang with all the heavy meaning beneath them. She came to herself and withdrew her hand.

  “Where do we start?”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “My dagger. Or Auntie, though not if I had my wish.”

  “She will have put it in the hidey hole.”

  They fetched more rags from Markus’s workshop and wrapped themselves tight—neither Auntie nor her children had seen that trick the day before, and mayhap it would see them through again. Loren left her cloak in the cellar, folded neatly beneath the table.

  She led the way up from the cellar and out the back door, but Loren let Gem walk in front once out on the street. Sometimes, he led her across the avenues, occasionally for a brief stint up a rain gutter and across rooftops that burned hot even through her boots. She could not imagine how he stood it, but then the urchin had probably walked barefoot through his life. Other times, their course dipped through the sewers, but never too long. When they had to enter that dark place, Loren could feel her pulse like thunder, every echoing noise like a slap at her ears to send her jumping in fright.

  The wandering course let her appreciate the city’s three levels. Most of those who lived in Cabrus only ever knew the one: streets and alleys, which probably held enough darkness and danger for the average man or woman. Above stretched the roofs, Loren’s favorite. There she was like a bird, looking down upon and scoffing at the petty lives of those underfoot. The sewers she liked least, and
yet Loren saw their advantage. No one wanted to go there. Only those willing to brave the darkness and wretched scent would venture into the sewers, and such people were few.

  After a time, Gem led her back under the streets, on a winding course through the drainage and waste. Oftentimes, the tunnel branched in three or more directions, but Gem always chose his course without fear.

  Loren saw that not all the tunnels channeled the city’s waste and refuse. Some ran with water instead. She would not have drunk it, but it certainly smelled better than the other tunnels. Twice they came to long, sloping slides that descended farther into the city’s underbelly. These always ran with water, and after Gem led the way, Loren flung herself down with wild cries of delight. Wind rushed past her ears as she slid down, down, down into the darkness.

  After the second slide, Gem paused at every intersection. He would sidle carefully up to the corner, poking an ear around it, followed by an eye. Once satisfied, he would lead the way forward, but Loren took from his manner that speech was forbidden.

  Here the daylight no longer came from holes in the street above. Instead, torches sat in wall mountings, casting a dim orange glow every thirty feet or so. Darkness stretched between them, and twice Loren stumbled over something in the dark—what it was, she could not have said and did not wish to know.

  “Let us take a torch,” she whispered to Gem. “I cannot see a thing.”

  “Neither can they. Take fire, and you’re a target. Light bounces in all directions.” He shook his head and kept walking. Loren pointed her tongue at his back.

  Ever onward they pressed, and ever slower Gem’s footsteps became. Finally, he stopped where two tunnels collided and then split in four directions. He waited for Loren to draw close and motioned for her to lean down so he could whisper into her ear.

  “The hidey hole awaits round the next corner. It will be guarded. We cannot go too close.”

  “Just let me see it,” said Loren. “Then we may determine our course.”

  Gem nodded and stepped around the corner. Loren crept behind him, keeping close to the curved wall.

  Another torch sat in the wall thirty feet away. Gem crept forward until his feet neared the light’s edge. He pointed to the tunnel’s end, but Loren had already seen them. Two guards, fifty yards away, mayhap more, at a joint where the tunnel split both left and right. A small hallway lay opposite the divide, no more than twenty feet long. At the end of that corridor stood a tall wooden door.

  “There,” said Gem, “is the hidey hole.”

  Loren looked it over. The wood seemed thick and strong. She could see the gleam of a metal lock at the handle. The walls bore many torches, and their burning light made it hard to see details from so far away.

  “What does she keep in there?”

  “Anything special to her. Clothes. Souvenirs. Sometimes, the big boys—those are two of them there—will steal something beyond the norm, and she will stow it in the hole. None of us are allowed down here, except the big boys she sends to guard it. I have only been here before because I am . . . well, I was . . . ”

  “Her favorite.” Loren heard the twinge of pain in his voice and sought to reassure Gem with a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  He looked up at Loren but did not smile. “That’s it, then. What now?”

  “Now,” said Loren, “we find a way to—”

  A clanging screech tore through the tunnel. Her fingers tightened so hard on Gem’s shoulder that Loren feared she might draw blood.

  The hidey hole door swung wide, and Auntie emerged. She had another boy with her, following at her heels like a dog.

  “It’s her!” said Gem. “We need to go!”

  “Hold a moment.”

  “Why?”

  Loren watched without giving an answer. After the boy stepped out behind her, Auntie turned and closed the door. She pulled something from her neck—a key—and turned to walk down the short hallway leading out. The guards straightened their postures at Auntie’s approach, like soldiers coming to attention.

  Auntie stepped up to one of the guards, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. She yanked his head low and placed her mouth on his. Loren could not see at this distance but winced as she imagined details. Then Auntie stepped away, seized the other boy, and did the same. Neither boy wrapped his arms around her, nor did either let the kiss linger overlong.

  “What . . . does she . . . ?”

  “Any boy has to kiss her when she wants it, and more besides.” Gem’s voice had grown suddenly small, so quiet Loren barely heard it. “If you don’t, she’ll hurt you. You learn quick. Some of the boys like it all right, especially the other things she does. Most of us don’t.”

  Loren looked at him sharply. Gem’s eyes refused to find hers.

  Her throat was suddenly dry, and Loren felt the slow-burning anger rising inside her again—the rage that always seemed so near to her now.

  Her eyes returned to Auntie, now burning with fury. The weremage walked forward, leaving the two guards behind, coming down the tunnel with only the one she’d had in the room.

  Loren grabbed Gem’s shoulder hard. He whirled around with fearful eyes. Together, they slunk back, utterly silent, and vanished behind the corner. He led Loren down the tunnel until they found a small alcove that delved a few feet into the wall.

  “Here!” he said, his voice a sharp whisper.

  “It is not big enough!”

  “Trust me.” Gem vanished, ducking around a corner within the alcove. Loren blinked and followed him into the darkness.

  The alcove sharply curved to either side. They huddled together, hiding in gloom, gently flowing water the sewer’s only sound. But soon Loren heard something else: soft, padded footsteps approaching.

  She leaned out slightly, peeked around the corner, and saw her: Auntie, strolling idly by as if on an afternoon walk. The boy walked behind her, tall and strong, his bare arms looking like they could crush a skull between them. And mayhap they could.

  Loren almost listened to her inner voice, screaming attack, telling her to leap upon Auntie and tear at the weremage until she lay bleeding in the sewer. But Auntie had her knives and guard. Loren had only a blade made for hunting.

  And most importantly, Nightblade did not kill.

  So Loren let them go. As the footsteps were fading to silence, she heard Auntie’s smooth, languid laugh drifting out of the darkness, chuckling at some remark from the boy.

  Loren turned back to Gem.

  “I will take back what she stole. And perhaps not now, but one day, I will make her rue the moment she thought to cross us. How does that sound?”

  Loren had never seen Gem’s eyes wider.

  “You’ll get no complaints from me,” he said.

  “Good. Let us start with my dagger. I have an idea.”

  twenty-eight

  Loren explained her idea to an unimpressed Gem.

  “They could catch me and gut me like a fish!”

  “You are only saying that because you are the one they will chase,” she said. “But they will never catch you. I have heard stories about how fast you can run.”

  Gem glared at her. “This is different, and you know it.”

  Loren put a hand on either of his shoulders and rocked him back and forth until he could not help a small smile. “Come now. You already proved that Auntie had no better boy on the roofs. Now you have shown many times your worth in the sewers. Do you really think they will be able to lay a hand upon you? Who knows this place better than you?”

  “No one,” said Gem.

  “As I thought. Come now. Destiny awaits. I am the one who must wait in plain sight for someone to sneak up behind me and slip a knife between my ribs.”

  Mollified, Gem stepped with Loren from the alcove and led her around the corner, back to the hidey hole’s tunnel.

  In truth, Loren filled her voice with confidence she did not feel. It seemed a solid plan, but she was a stranger and knew little, only hoping that the
gaps in her knowing would not cost Gem his life. She could not bear the thought nor stand to walk away.

  They snuck back to the torchlight’s edge, the tunnel yawning before them. Loren pointed to a small plank bridge spanning a channel to the guards’ right and whispered. “You will want to avoid that. They will cross more easily there. On the other side, they will be cautious.”

  Gem nodded. His eyes had grown large, and Loren could feel him tremble beneath her hand. She thought of speaking more encouragement but feared to rekindle his doubts and decided upon a gentle nudge instead.

  “Go, master pickpocket. And remember, keep out of their reach until you are out of sight. Then disappear.”

  “Right,” said Gem. “Very well. Here I go. Do not let this be for nothing.”

  He bounced on the balls of his feet twice, and with a sharp cry ran pell-mell down the tunnel toward the guards.

  “Help! Help! They’re coming!”

  Both boys shot to attention, exchanging a glance before turning to Gem. One of them squinted, leaning forward to get a better look at the boy.

  “Who’s coming?” The guard’s voice sounded low and resonant in the dank space.

  “Constables!” said Gem. “We’ve been betrayed!”

  The guards reached for the cudgels at their waists. One leaned forward. “Hey, wait! It’s you!”

  “It is indeed.” Gem skidded to a stop at the tunnel’s end and turned left, disappearing around the corner. With a furious cry the guards gave chase, cudgels clutched in meaty fists.

  It had been her idea, but still Loren marveled that it had worked. She had feared only one of the guards would chase Gem, and had had no idea what to do if the other remained.

  She stole down the tunnel and paused at the corner to peek around it. Torches stretched down the left-hand tunnel as far as Loren could see, but she saw no sign of Gem or the guards. She gathered herself and leapt across the channel in one quick jump. She did not hesitate but darted into the small hallway leading to the hidey hole door.

  There it stood, dark and imposing. The wood appeared old, ancient even, but solid and without any rot. Polish still covered its surface, and as Loren put a hand against it she found it bone dry, not damp as she would have expected. The door had no damage, save a grid of indents grazing its surface. She studied them, curious. They spaced perfectly across the wood, a mesh of dents with six inches between each, from one wall to the other.