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

  Loren’s heart chilled at the words, but she kept it from showing on her face. “Another told me something similar, scarcely a week ago. I shot him with an arrow.”

  “That will not stop me.” Auntie’s eyes fell to Gem at Loren’s side. “And you. The sorest waste of my life. The great traitor. I hope you sleep well thinking of all your brothers you killed today.”

  Gem shifted slightly to half hide behind Loren. “I killed no one.”

  “You brought it on them. And all for the traitor’s whore whose skirts you hide behind. Or mayhap you do more than that with her skirts? Does she love you, Gem? Treat you like your mother treats you?” The weremage ran her tongue along the length of her lips and smeared them with blood.

  “You’re not my mother,” said Gem, his voice gaining strength, “and you never were.”

  “Enough,” said Damaris.

  Gregor stepped forward and hit Auntie again, this time in the chest. Something cracked. Auntie turned her scream into a laugh, returning her gaze to the merchant with a predator’s smile.

  “Have your say, or kill me,” said Auntie. “But please cease to bore me.”

  “Only you hold that power,” said Damaris. “The door. How do we enter?”

  Auntie shrugged. “It has been so long. I can scarce remember. My mind has never been good and has only worsened with age. Though you look to have twice that problem.”

  Damaris rolled her eyes. “How clever. Search her. No, hit her again, and then search her.”

  Gregor sent an obliging fist into Auntie’s face. Her head snapped back, and Loren feared her neck would break. But as she lolled forward, Loren could see that the weremage still breathed—though her eyes wandered and she could not seem to see straight. Blood oozed from a socket and ran down her cheek like a tear.

  Without ceremony, Gregor drew a knife and sliced the strings holding Auntie’s jerkin together, and then cut through the top of her tunic. The weremage winced when the blade kissed her skin. Loren covered Gem’s eyes, but Gregor did not lay Auntie bare. Instead, he reached for something hanging on a chain around her neck and tugged. The chain snapped, and Gregor held up what Loren now saw to be an iron key.

  “My lady,” said Gregor.

  “Well done.” Damaris smiled. “Now, let us be done with this and away. I dislike the smell of this place.”

  Gregor turned to the hallway again. But then Loren remembered the trap falling from the ceiling above, and her pulse quickened. She stepped forward, blocking the captain’s path. “Wait, there’s . . . ”

  Gregor batted her aside as he had Gem before. His hand on her chest crashed like a hammer. Loren stumbled to the side and fell into the water with a cry. She struggled to right herself, the cloak dragging her down, before she could free her arms and find the surface. She pulled herself to the edge of the channel, where Gem seized her arms.

  “Are you all right?” He tried pulling her up, but an ant might as well have tried lifting a mountain.

  “I told you we would brook no more interference,” said Damaris, her voice light.

  Loren ignored them both, struggling out of the water and leaping to her feet. She ran to the hallway where Gregor stood facing the door. Damaris cried out, and one of Gregor’s men made a grab for her, but Loren twisted away and charged toward the captain. His hand rose, and the key twisted in the lock. It stuck, and he tried to pull it back out.

  Snik.

  SkreeeEEE!

  Loren flew through the air and crashed into the back of Gregor’s knees. The captain bellowed as he fell, while the iron grate dropped from the ceiling.

  Loren felt Gregor’s body jerk atop her, and then he lay still.

  thirty-four

  “No, no,” whispered Loren. She pushed and squirmed, slithering out from under Gregor’s heavy legs before finally fighting herself free and rising to her feet.

  Spikes had punctured his shoulder in two places, but his head hung free from the grate, facing the hallway’s mouth. His eyes twitched in pain, gritted teeth visible as his lips split in a grimace. All along his face, muscles spasmed in agony as he fought to contain a scream.

  “Gregor!”

  Damaris fell to her knees before him, holding his head in support. Her hands hovered over the spikes in his shoulder, at once seeking to hold him in comfort and afraid to touch his terrible wounds.

  Loren leapt forward, seizing the bottom of the grate and heaving as hard as she could. It remained as heavy as it had been before, now with Gregor’s added weight. Loren fought and struggled, gritting her teeth, until she feared her arms might rip from their sockets. A low, strangled groan escaped her.

  “Stop!” Strong arms wrapped Loren’s shoulders and yanked her back from the grate. Two guards dragged her back and away, one twisting her hand up behind her shoulder blades until she cried out.

  “Release her, fools!” cried Damaris. Both guards froze. “She tries to save your captain while you do nothing! Help her!”

  Their hands left Loren as if her body had become fire-hot. She winced as her arm came free. Together, the three of them seized the iron grate and heaved. Gregor’s resolve finally buckled as the spikes slid free, and a blasting roar of pain echoed through the sewer. From outside the hallway and out of sight, Loren heard Auntie’s mad cackle.

  As the guards held the grate aloft, Loren released it and helped Damaris drag Gregor clear. They pulled the captain up to the sewer wall, leaning him against it where he panted in pain.

  “Gregor,” said Damaris, her voice verging on panic. “Are you all right?”

  “I will survive, my lady,” said Gregor. “I have suffered worse. Though perhaps we will not go riding for a week or two.”

  It was a weak jest, and Damaris replied with an anemic laugh. Then she placed a hand on Loren’s arm and met her eyes with gratitude. “He would have died without you.”

  Loren ducked her head, uncomfortable. “I wish for no one to be killed.”

  Damaris squeezed her arm. But Loren saw Gregor’s eyes, and no trace of gratitude. She dropped her gaze.

  “The key,” she said. “Give it to me. I will open the door.”

  “It waits in the lock,” said Gregor. “One of my men will open it.”

  “No, Gregor, let her. She knew of this trap and tried to save you. Let us not risk another of our own, when one is here who knows this place.”

  Loren felt a flush creep up her neck and into her cheeks. Damaris spoke as if she were some authority on traps—like a master thief, she thought. Gregor’s look darkened, though he did hand Loren the key.

  She stood and went to the two guards who still held the gate. A third had joined them, and she had to squeeze between them to bend beneath the grate. She glanced back over their shoulder at the guards. “Hold it until I have opened the door. Then try pushing it back into the ceiling. It may lock in place.”

  One of the men nodded, and Loren inched forward until she stood before the lock. She turned the key and found that it easily twisted. But the door did not open, and when Loren tried to bring the key back to rest, she heard a snik within. That was the trap trigger. But how to open the door?

  “Gem!” In moments, Loren heard the pad of bare feet behind her and glanced back to see him on the other side of the grate.

  “What do you want?” Gem said, looking nervously up at the guards.

  “This key won’t open the door. I hoped the greatest pickpocket in Cabrus, a scholar and sometime medica, might have a notion.”

  “I’ve heard of locks what have more than one layer. Try pushing it in farther.”

  Loren turned back to the lock and pushed on the key. To her surprise, it slid another quarter inch into the lock. She twisted, and it turned back in the other direction.

  Still, the door did not open.

  Loren almost withdrew the key again but froze instead. She cautiously removed her hand from the key and slowly backed away, sliding back out from under the grate.

  “What is wrong?” said Damaris. “W
hy did it not open?”

  “I am not sure. But I think there may be another trap in place. Have your men lower the grate.”

  The guards looked at Damaris. She gave them a sharp nod. Slowly, they lowered the grate until again it rested against the door.

  The men moved to lift Gregor, but he waved them off. He slowly rose to his feet, though Loren saw a fresh trickle of blood stream from a shoulder gash under his chain mail. A red streak marked the stone wall where he’d rested. Everyone backed out of the hallway and around the corner, where Gregor sank back to the ground.

  Auntie waited, a vicious grin plastered across her face. It widened when she saw Gregor. She laughed. “Found my door sharper than you thought, eh? Serves you right for sticking your nose where it does not belong.”

  “Silence her,” said Damaris. One of the guards struck Auntie again, and Damaris sighed. “Not like that. Gag her.” Someone produced a strip of cloth, and they tied it tightly around her mouth.

  Loren took a step back into the hallway, but Gem put his hand on her arm. “What do you think you are doing?” he said, voice small and scared. “You cannot go in there alone.”

  Loren removed his hand. “If a trap awaits, the fewer people in danger, the better.”

  “But not you. Let one of these men do it.”

  Loren glanced at them. “I am smaller, and more nimble. If anyone can avoid another surprise, it will be me. I dodged the first already.”

  “Let me do it,” said Gem. “I am smaller still.”

  Loren gave him a little smile. “Not only a great pickpocket, but brave into the bargain. Thank you for your offer, but no. I could not bear it if anything happened to you.”

  That held truth, but Loren dared not tell him the rest: that she wanted to be first in the room, to seize her dagger and escape before Damaris realized that Annis did not wait behind the door.

  Gem let her go with a final doubtful look. She slowly approached the door, each step harder than the last. Fear gripped her tight enough to weaken her limbs. If Loren guessed right, that another trap waited the withdrawal of this key, she had no way of knowing its nature.

  The key poked out, tarnished and dirty. She placed her fingers upon it with effort. First, she tried pushing. The key did not move. She tried returning it to center, but it would not do that either.

  With a slow, measured breath, she tried withdrawing the key. It gave with a snik.

  Loren danced away on the balls of her feet, turning and running low for the hallway. She hit the stones at the end of the passage, sliding and nearly falling into the watery channel. But she came to a stop in time and, after neither sound nor attack followed, turned to look down the hallway again.

  Nothing. Nothing had happened to the door.

  Auntie’s wild, muffled laughter brayed around the gag in her mouth.

  “What? What is it?” said Damaris.

  Loren felt her cheeks burn. Something to distract and delay a would-be thief, but not another trap. Auntie had only led Loren to make a fool of herself. She could withstand the embarrassment, but she did not have to like it.

  She rose quickly to her feet and dusted herself off. “Nothing. I thought I heard something, that is all. I do not desire to find another iron grate falling upon my head.”

  “Well if it is nothing, open the door,” said Damaris, irritation sounding in her voice.

  “Of course.”

  Loren returned to the door. The key still protruded, mocking. Its rusty surface reminded her of a dying tree’s rot. Clearly, it had not been cleaned in some time.

  She sighed and tried turning the key again. It did not move. She returned it to the first position and turned it the other way. Nothing happened, except that she heard the snik that would have released the iron grate, had it not already been hanging down from the ceiling. Loren removed the key and tried the handle. Nothing.

  She tried everything: pushing the key to the second position and turning it the other way; trying both directions from the first position; inserting the key upside down, trying to find a third position. Each attempt seemed more hopeless than the last.

  Loren cursed and nearly flung the key at the floor. She had missed some trick, and from what she had seen of Auntie’s madness, the weremage would not tell them no matter how stringently Gregor’s men put her to the question.

  A thought struck Loren. She looked again at the key in her hand. She saw the rust, so thick it pitted and bubbled the metal.

  A smile found her.

  She stalked to the hallway and headed for Auntie. The weremage grinned through her gag, hazel eyes cruel beneath a shock of white hair.

  “The key is like you,” said Loren. “A false face. The mask that hides the truth, too eye catching and obvious to be ignored.”

  Auntie’s smile faltered.

  “Hold her,” said Loren. Then she knelt and reached for Auntie’s boot.

  Auntie screamed and kicked out, narrowly missing Loren’s ear. Another guard stepped in and seized her legs, holding her powerless and almost suspended in midair. Auntie thrashed and screamed, but they were too many and too strong.

  Loren seized the right boot and pulled it off. “It is the way you hold yourself,” she said, taking no small satisfaction in throwing Auntie’s words back at her. “One foot out and pointed. That might mark you as a dancer in a troupe, but you keep your right foot hidden behind the other while speaking, so the other person cannot see.” She reached into the boot and withdrew a silver key, gleaming bright in the torchlight, its every surface sparkling clean, edges worn from constant use.

  Damaris smiled. “A clever girl you continue to prove yourself, Loren of the family Nelda.”

  “Stay back a moment more,” said Loren. “More dangers may await.”

  “As you say,” said Damaris. Her eyes roved Auntie, who nearly frothed mad from her struggle. “But I think we have discovered the witch’s final trick.”

  Loren nodded. Damaris could believe that, so long as she did not follow Loren to the door—or see what lay beyond it.

  Loren went back and inserted the key. It turned easily, once and in the right direction, and the door swung open under her touch.

  “Did it work?” called Damaris.

  “Indeed,” said Loren. “A moment more. I will inspect the room beyond and ensure it is safe. Gem, your hand, please.”

  The boy came scampering down the hallway. Loren seized the bottom of the grate and hoisted it a couple of feet up. Iron screamed on rock. Once up, she tossed her head at the grate. “Take this. It is heavy, but you can hold it long enough for me to get under.” She leaned in a bit closer. “And back out.”

  His eyes widened, and he nodded silently. His thin hands wrapped the iron, wiry muscles springing to life beneath his hands.

  Loren dropped to the ground and slithered forward. She must be quick. Gem could not hold the thing forever, and Damaris would soon grow suspicious. Once past the doorframe, Loren rose back to standing.

  Only the faintest torchlight penetrated the hidey hole’s gloom. Once Loren’s eyes adjusted, they took in rows of shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. They ran the rim of a room stretching more than twenty feet wide in every direction. A perfect circle. A round table lay in the center, piled high with gold of all types—coins, goblets, platters and other finery, with many purses, fat and bulging. Conquests of Auntie’s children, Loren presumed, for all their strings lay cut and frayed.

  She whines endlessly about feeding her children, and yet here she has enough to feed an army.

  On the shelves lay a thousand and more treasures Loren could not comprehend. Weapons, helmets, haphazard pieces of armor and shields, glass phials stopped with cork and many other things she did not recognize. Dust caked some; others gleamed.

  But the shelves faded from her mind as she saw her dagger resting upon the center table.

  All her mind focused upon it, and at the same time she remembered Gem behind her. Loren ran for the table and scooped it up, sliding
it back into her sheath. For good measure, she took the biggest purse of coins she could find, with strings long enough to tie at her belt. Then she ran for the entrance and dove to the ground, sliding out and onto the hallway floor past a struggling, red-faced Gem. The boy let go once Loren was clear, and the grate came crashing down.

  “What was that?” said Damaris.

  “Nothing,” said Loren. “The place is safe.”

  Guards filed in immediately, seizing the grate and swinging it up. They stretched toward the ceiling and pushed the grate into place, where Loren heard a deep click. The men removed their hands, and the gate remained, held firm by the trap’s mechanism.

  Loren reached the hallway’s end. She wanted to run, before anyone could react. But Damaris stood close by, Auntie behind her.

  “Is she there?” said Damaris, eyes wide and hopeful.

  Loren grasped for the right thing to say but thought too slow. From up the hallway a guard called out. “There is no sign of Annis, my lady!”

  Loren tensed, but Damaris returned her attention to Auntie. She reached up and yanked the gag down so it hung around her neck. “Where is she? Where is my daughter?”

  Loren reached out and took Gem’s arm, gently and without a sound. She took one step back. A moment’s confusion, and then he nodded and followed.

  “Who cares?” said Auntie. “Probably dead in some alley somewhere, and a blessing to the nine lands.”

  Damaris did not scream or cry out. Instead, she reached into her dress sleeve. Her hand emerged with a dagger. The blade sank into Auntie’s side, between the ribs and under her arm. Auntie gasped and tried to scream, but it left her mouth in a wheeze.

  “You can use your gift to heal yourself,” said Damaris, withdrawing the dagger. Her words held truth, for Loren saw the wound sealing itself already. “I will test the limits of that magic, weremage. Tell me where my daughter is.”