Shadow’s Lure (52 page)

Josey tried to smile. Hubert saved her the awkwardness of having to mouth an encouragement that the adept neither wanted nor needed.

“Majesty.” Hubert leaned close to be heard. “Major Volek suggests we move inside quickly. Something about too many places for hidden eyes to watch us out here. I can’t say I disagree. This place makes my skin crawl.”

“I agree, and this weather isn’t making things any easier.”

“We could burn the place down,” Hubert suggested. “Safer than entering the spider’s lair.”

“No. We don’t know who’s inside. There could be innocents. Have Captain Drathan find us a way in.”

Hirsch lifted his hand, his index finger pointing to a cellar door set against the side of the building. With a nod from Josey, Hubert hurried over to the captain, and together with the guardsmen they approached the entrance. Josey helped Hirsch over the muddy ground. The soldiers pulled open the cellar doors as Josey and the adept came over to stand beside Hubert and the captain. The light of their lanterns showed worn stone steps falling away into darkness. Before the freezing rain washed them away, Josey saw wet patches on the steps. Footsteps.

While Josey shivered against the adept, Captain Drathan selected two to remain outside with the horses, giving them strict orders to ride back to the palace for assistance if the party was gone for longer than a candlemark. The other two he sent down the stairs first. As the soldiers descended, crossbows held ready, the circle of their lantern’s light pushing back the darkness, the captain looked to Josey.

“Majesty,” he said. “I would prefer that you return to the palace.”

She shook her head, sending droplets of icy water flying from the ends of her hair. “No, Captain. We will all go in together. Lead the way.”

With a nod, Captain Drathan took up a lantern and went down the steps. Hubert and Josey each took one of the adept’s arms. Although Josey had the feeling Hirsch didn’t want the aid, he didn’t complain. The major and Sergeant Merts came last, both men wearing grim expressions beneath the half-visors of their helmets.

They went down a dozen steps to emerge into a crude root cellar. Strange smells filled the place. The brick walls were pocked with holes, possibly to hold shelves, and the floor was littered with dirt, tree branches, and withered leaves. Hirsch paused at the bottom of the steps to catch his breath, and Josey felt ashamed. The adept was pushing himself too hard.
Don’t crumple
!
Honor his loyalty with strength
.

More wet patches formed a trail across the cellar. Leaving the adept with Hubert, Josey followed Captain Drathan and his men to investigate. As she came up behind the soldiers, she realized Major Volek and the sergeant had come with her. She’d grown so accustomed to the presence of bodyguards that she hadn’t registered the footsteps behind her, which was a little unnerving. She smiled to the major, and he returned a brief nod.

Her guards stood around a hole in the wall. Bricks and chunks of mortar were piled on the floor in front of the aperture, which was big enough to accommodate a man. Beyond the hole extended what looked like a tunnel through solid rock extending as far as she could see. Josey’s mind boggled to comprehend the amount of labor that must have been required.

“This can’t be the work of the assassin, can it?” she asked.

Captain Drathan held his lantern higher. “This would take a team of engineers months to dig out. It’s … I don’t know what to make of it.”

“—combs.”

Master Hirsch shuffled up to stand beside Josey.

“What did you say, Master Hirsch?” she asked.

The adept coughed into his hand. “Catacombs. Carved from a system of caves under the city.”

“Who made them?”

“
Why
did they make them?” Captain Drathan asked.

Hirsch wheezed as he inhaled through his nose. “Predecessors of the modern … Church found the”—he coughed again—“caves and used them to meet in secret. Later … they enlarged them to bury their dead where they would not be … disturbed.”

Josey remembered from her catechism that the Church had been outlawed by the empire at one time. Tolerance came eventually and the True Faith had spread, but this was the first she’d heard of catacombs under Othir. It bothered her that something like this could be hidden from common knowledge.

“Why would they believe that their dead were not safe in the boneyard?”

“Your ancestors.” The adept nodded to Josey. “They ordered the remains of those who worshipped the upstart Prophet to be removed from their graves, wherever they were found … and thrown into the Memnir. A heinous desecration in those times.”

Josey peered through the crack. The walls of the tunnel were unfinished, as was the floor. “Master Hirsch, are you well enough to lead us?”

“My men and I can go first, sir,” Captain Drathan said.

“Thank you, Captain. But no, this falls under my purview.”

Holding onto the rough edges, Hirsch stepped through the hole. The palace guards went next, with everyone else following. Their footsteps echoed down the tunnel like the march of a gigantic, shambling beast. Josey stayed near Hubert and his lantern. The closeness of the stone walls didn’t bother her as much as she had thought it would. In a way, the tunnel reminded her of the terrifying voyage through the city sewers with Caim, him bleeding all over her. But she had survived that nightmare and found strength in it. She wanted to think she wasn’t the same sheltered little girl she had once been.

Then Josey muffled a yelp with her hand as something skittered over her foot.

Captain Drathan spun around with his lantern over his head. “Majesty?”

She swallowed. It was just a rat. “I’m all right, Captain. Proceed.”

With a nod, he quickened his pace to catch up to Master Hirsch. The tunnel forked ahead of them. Without pausing, Hirsch headed down the branch to the right. As she passed the split, Josey glanced down the other direction. It was an identical tunnel as far as she could tell, running as far as the lanterns could reach. She shivered as she hurried after Hubert, who waited for her with a tight smile. It was cold down here, especially as they were soaking wet, but it wasn’t the cold that made her tremble. The thought of being trapped down here alone, without a light, jangled her nerves. To take her mind off it, she focused on the captain’s back.

They passed a smooth stone face set into the tunnel wall. Josey paused a moment, and Hubert stayed with her. It took her a moment to grasp that it was a grave marker. Dust filled the indentations of rigid characters carved into the stone. Hubert brushed away the accumulation, and Josey recognized the script as old Nimean. It listed a score or so names, and a number had been chiseled at the top of the stone—816. Josey reached out to trace the date.
So much history, lost for centuries. What other secrets hide down here in the dark?

“Stirring, is it not?” Major Volek asked, standing beside her. “To think that on this spot, more than three hundred years ago, men and women who didn’t know if they would live to see another day gathered to mark the passage of their brothers and sisters into the Prophet’s arms.”

“Are you a religious man, Major?”

“Without the Light, how could we find our way in this dark world?”

Josey was surprised to hear such words from the stoic soldier. Sergeant Merts watched the exchange without reaction, as impassive as the stone around them. Josey and Hubert continued on, followed by the heavy trod of the soldiers’ boots.

The tunnel split again, and then again fifty paces or so after that. Each time, Hirsch chose the right branch, and Josey began to worry that the adept had lost his sense of direction.
No
.
He’s gotten us this far
.
Have faith
. But faith was an expensive commodity down here.

A few steps farther the tunnel widened, and Josey heard a sound in the darkness. A rhythmic plinking.

“Water.”

Hubert turned his head. “What?”

“Listen. It’s dripping water.” She reached out to the wall. The stone was slick with moisture. “We must be under the river.”

Hubert tapped his toe in a small puddle on the floor. “How far do these catacombs extend? Majesty, we should send a team down here to search for hidden ways into the city.”

Josey gave him a short nod, hiding her smile as she looked down the tunnel and began to hope that they were coming to the end of it. She stood on her tiptoes to look over Hubert’s shoulder. For a moment she thought she saw something in the shadows. A brief flicker of movement, too quick for her to be sure. She was about to forget it when a loud yell echoed from the front of the party.

Josey tried to push past Hubert, but she jumped when something from the ceiling bounced off her shoulder. She looked down to see a small rock on the floor. She looked up and didn’t have time to shout a warning before the world collapsed.

T
he corridor zigzagged as Keegan shepherded his men through the castle. He waited until the last person entered the hallway before hustling back to the front.

You’re not fooling anyone
,
Keegan
.
They all know you’re not the leader type
.
They’re just humoring you
,
but when the shit storm hits you’ll be left all alone holding your pecker
.

For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why Caim had chosen him to lead this mission. There were plenty of fighters here with more experience, like Vaner or Taun. Even Malig could do a better job, and he hardly talked except to complain.

Keegan thought about Dray, staying back with his brother. Would he do the same if it had been Liana? Just the thought of his sister shoved a burning spear point through his heart. He nodded to the men as he passed.
Act like you know what you’re doing
.

He was almost back to the head of the group when a shout reached him, followed by a fierce war cry. Keegan pushed through the press until he burst into a small room furnished with little more than a wooden table and chairs. One chair lay on its back beside the sprawled figure of a large man in a dyed cloak. The rest of the outlaws held back, looking in all directions. Only Vaner had the guts to approach the open door on the other side of the room, torch in hand.

Keegan went over to the fallen man. Blood leaked from a puckered gash across his cousin Gaelan’s throat. Even knowing he was too late, Keegan tore off his cloak and tried to stanch the flow, but it seeped through the material and kept running.

“What happened? Bring me more light!”

Men clustered around. They tried for more than a minute, but by the end Gaelan was dead. Keegan sat back on his heels. His arms were drenched up to the elbows in blood.

“Damned thing just came out of nowhere and cut him down.” Yosur pointed across the way. “Then it flew out that way like the Dark One himself.”

Vaner hadn’t moved during Gaelan’s ordeal, but kept staring through the open doorway. Keegan snatched his sword and stood up.

“Was it one of those shadow men?”

“Maybe.” Vaner raised his torch higher. “I think I see it. There. Standing against the wall.”

Keegan couldn’t see anything down the dark hallway, but he backed up to the others while keeping his eyes on the doorway.

“Okay. Caim said don’t stop for nothing. When I give the call, everyone rush through that door. If you see something that ain’t us, kill it. Otherwise, keep moving.”

Everyone nodded. Keegan was surprised no one argued with him. His forearms itched. The urge to scratch was almost overpowering, but he pushed the thought aside. Caim was counting on him.

Keegan raised his sword. Just before he gave the signal, something detached from the gloom in the corner of the room, like a black cloud with arms and legs sheathed in black metal. He started to yell a warning, but his voice froze in his throat for a fatal heartbeat. That was all the shadow man needed to slip his sickle-shaped knife across Yosur’s stomach and rip out his guts. Lumel was the next to fall, split open like a side of beef. Then old Taun collapsed near the back of the group. Keegan spun as another figure in black darted through the darkness.

The clansmen backed away, but Keegan stood his ground. The sickle glinted dully in the torchlight; the shadow man swung a length of thin chain in his other hand. Keegan took a wide stance as Caim had taught him and tightened his sweaty hands around the handle of his sword. When the spiked end of the chain rushed toward him, he expected to die. But something urged him not to give up. He stepped out of the way and smacked the chain with the flat of his sword. An awful tone rang from the contact, but Keegan got the satisfaction of seeing the chain fall limp to the floor. Before he knew it, he was running
at
the shadow man, who seemed a little confused himself. At least Keegan hoped it was confusion, but he didn’t have time to think about it. He launched an overhand cut with all of his strength. The shadow man slid out from under the attack as neat as anything he had ever seen. The sickle came up and across in a slash that would have sliced out his liver, but Keegan shoved his heels into the floor and fell straight back, not gracefully by any measure, but the sudden change in direction saved his life.