Slavers of the Savage Catacombs (17 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT

It didn’t take long for them to pick up the trail. Cassandra had very obviously dragged her feet as she was taken, and the tracks led them farther up the tunnel toward the catacombs’ entrance. While torches still lit their way in spots, the area was filled with shadows, forcing Kuva and Ran to slow down or else risk blundering into an ambush. Ran assumed the lead from his friend, and they continued. When the tunnel grew too dark to see, Ran bent and let his hand kiss the top of the ground, searching for Cassandra’s tracks. They stopped every ten meters to check and check again, but after several hundred meters, the tracks suddenly vanished.

“What’s the problem?” asked Kuva.

“Gone,” whispered Ran. “The tracks have vanished.”

Kuva turned and looked back at the way they’d come. “Is there a chance there’s a branching tunnel connected to this passage?”

“I didn’t sense any,” said Ran. “You?”

Kuva shook his head. “No, and I think we would have noticed a change in the air if there was.”

“Agreed, which leaves us with only one possibility.”

“That being?”

“They must have noticed what she was doing and picked her up.”

Kuva grunted. “Someone is going to be moving slower than the rest of them, then. That means we have a chance to catch up.”

Ran nodded. “We’ll still have to be careful.”

“If we’re too careful, they’ll get out of the catacombs and be gone before we can save her. I think, my friend, the time for being cautious is nearly at an end.”

As much as he hated the risk of running into an attack, Kuva was right and Ran knew it. They’d so far managed to avoid detection, but what good was that if they risked losing Cassandra once her kidnappers got outside of the catacombs? The risk was real, and the danger to Cassandra was as well. Ran knew that he stood at the brink of either making the right decision or one that had the potential to haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Let’s do it.”

Kuva stood and sniffed the air around them. “They’ll have a rear guard posted as they travel. If they’re smart.”

“We should assume they are.”

Kuva nodded. “I’ll take the lead. Once I engage with the rear guard, you get in there and grab the princess.”

Ran frowned. “Who told you she was a princess?”

“I’ve known plenty of women in my time, my friend,” laughed Kuva. “Cassandra is refined, even though she tries to hide it. Plus, judging by how she holds a blade, someone taught her some skills. And skills don’t come cheap. She was either the daughter of a wealthy merchant or part of the aristocracy. I guessed right, though, apparently.”

“If anyone finds out, she could be in danger.”

“I won’t tell a soul,” said Kuva. “How are your ribs?”

“Feels like someone is standing on them. It’s hard to breathe, but I’ll get through it.”

Kuva grunted again and then smiled in the dark. “I do so love the anticipation of battle. Where others get queasy, I enjoy the uncertainty of it. Life and death hover over you, waiting for the inevitable to happen. One outcome or another. At no other time is a man so acutely aware of his own power and frailty as he is just before he goes into battle.”

“Underneath that burly disguise beats the heart of a poet.” Ran clapped Kuva on the back. “Let’s go get her.”

Kuva dashed up the tunnel with Ran behind him. Their footfalls echoed as they raced on. The tunnel curved slightly and then widened out. The darkness dissipated, and Ran saw the huge door that had stood as entrance to the catacombs. At last they were back to where they’d started. Ran exhaled and then spotted six men. Two of them carried a struggling Cassandra. And one man led them all.

Iqban.

Kuva frowned. “I thought he’d left.”

“The weather was too terrible for him to do so, remember?”

“It feels like we’ve been underground for weeks,” said Kuva. “I don’t even know what day it is.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Ran. “All that matters is getting her back and then getting out of here.”

“Iqban!” roared Kuva.

The party of warriors stopped. Three men drew swords and rushed toward Kuva.

Kuva winked at Ran. “See you on the other side.”

“Fight well.”

And then Kuva stepped forward to meet the first attacker. The man rivaled Kuva’s size, but his sword skills lacked. As he tried to bring an overhead cut straight down upon Kuva’s head, the big man simply pivoted out of the way and backhanded a slash into the attacker’s throat. The movement severed the attacker’s head, which rolled into the feet of the second attacker, forcing him to leap over it as he charged forward. But Kuva was already going on the attack and stabbed the second man in the heart before yanking his blade free and meeting the side stroke of the third attacker with the flat of his blade.

Ran didn’t have time to watch any more of the action. Instead, he dashed forward and met one of the men who had been carrying Cassandra. Before the man could draw his sword, Ran threw the dagger that Yasseh had given him. It punched into the base of the would-be attacker’s throat, and he dropped.

Iqban gestured to the second man. “Get him! Quickly!”

The second man dropped Cassandra to the ground, and Iqban yanked her to her feet. Ran saw the second attacker rush toward him with his sword held up in front of him. Ran feinted to the left and then dropped to his right knee and cut up under the arc of the attacker’s strike, slashing deep into the man’s abdomen. Blood spilled forth, and Ran nearly gagged from the stench of entrails and the pain lancing out from his broken ribs. But he kept moving as the attacker sank to his knees.

Behind him, he was aware that Kuva had polished off the third attacker.

Iqban, however, wasn’t done yet. As Ran and Kuva moved closer to him, Iqban drew a dagger and held it up next to Cassandra’s throat.

“Don’t move or else I will cut her throat.”

Ran shook his head. “And what good will that do? We’ll simply kill you then.”

“Or we might not,” said Kuva. “There are an awful lot of hungry cannibals streaming up from the depths of the earth behind us. Every one of Zal’s men that they’ve killed have been eaten.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” said Iqban.

“I wish we were,” said Ran. “The sights and sounds that we left below are too terrible to wash from my mind.”

“So, if you kill Cassandra, we’ll simply wound you and then leave you here. Can you imagine being eaten while you’re still alive? You’ll feel every bite they rip out of your body. You’ll beg for death. And you’ll die . . . slowly.”

Ran inched forward. Iqban’s eyes showed his uncertainty. He might have suspected they were lying, but he also knew that if killed Cassandra, they’d be on him instantly.

The knife came away from Cassandra’s throat. Iqban shoved her toward Ran and Kuva and then dashed down a side tunnel. Kuva started to run after him, but Ran called him back.

“Do you know where that tunnel goes?”

Kuva shook his head. “No.”

“Then it’s a safe bet that it might lead us deeper back into the catacombs. And we’re so close to escaping now, there’s no sense in chasing him. Iqban’s time is limited. He’ll either find a way out or else end up a meal for the invaders.”

Ran removed the gag from Cassandra’s mouth, and she breathed in a huge gulp of air. “Thank you. Again.”

Kuva shrugged. “Just another day’s work.”

Cassandra looked at Ran. “We need to get out of here as fast as we can. I don’t relish the thought of those invaders coming after us.”

“Neither do I,” said Ran. “I’m betting once we’re outside, we’ll be safer.” He looked at the door barring the exit. “The only question is: how do we get out of here?”

“When we arrived, Iqban knocked three times,” said Cassandra. “But they were clearly expected, and Mithrus must have stationed guards nearby to open the door.”

“All the guards now are trying to deal with the invasion,” said Ran. “Which leaves us to figure out how the opening mechanism functions.”

“You two figure it out while I stand guard,” said Kuva. “Such things as this are a bit beyond my ken.”

Ran nodded. “All right, give us as much time as you can.”

“Will do.”

As Kuva moved to a position that allowed him to view both tunnels, Ran guided Cassandra over toward the iron door. “Would it make sense to try knocking?”

“May as well try,” said Cassandra. “Who knows? It might even work.”

Ran rapped on the door three times and waited. The knocks echoed painfully loud back into the tunnel. Ran grimaced at the thought of the sound carrying deep below and drawing the attention of the invaders. But it couldn’t be helped. If there was any possibility of opening the door that way, they had to try it.

But after several minutes, nothing happened. The iron door remained as immovable as ever.

“So much for that,” said Cassandra. “Let’s try to figure out the mechanism for opening it.” She looked at the hinges on the door and then backtracked toward the wall, running her hands over the rocks. “There’s some sort of channel that runs along the wall. But it’s been covered over with some type of plaster or baked earth.”

“Where does it lead back to?”

Cassandra kept moving, and Ran saw she was getting close to the tunnel that Iqban had fled down. She stopped and looked back at Ran. “It leads in there.”

Ran held up his hand and then came away from the door. If anyone was going into the tunnel, it would be him. With Iqban on the loose, there was no telling what might be hiding inside the tunnel. “Stay here with Kuva. And help yourself to a weapon from one of the dead guys there. If we run into trouble here or outside, you’ll need something.”

Cassandra nodded. Ran entered the tunnel and kept his free hand on the wall. The princess was correct. Ran could feel the channel beneath his hand, and he followed it deeper into the tunnel. He halfway expected Iqban to jump out at him at any moment and try to kill him, but he sensed nothing else moving with him in the tunnel. For the moment, it appeared as though they were safe.

The channel ended abruptly as Ran’s hand grazed an outcropping of metal. He looked closer and saw that it was a knob of some sort. He tried turning it, but it didn’t move. Peering closer, he saw a small keyhole at its base.

Locked.

He frowned and retreated back into the cavern. Cassandra looked up as he came back.

“Find anything?”

“Yes,” said Ran. “It leads to a knob that you can turn to presumably open the door.”

“So why didn’t you open it?”

“Because it needs a key.”

Kuva groaned. “Wonderful. I’m guessing there wasn’t a key by the knob?”

“No,” said Ran. “I’m assuming someone else has it. Perhaps Iqban. That would explain why he ran away. He still had a card to play, it appears.”

Cassandra came closer to him. “What about your skill in picking locks? I’ve seen you do it several times now. Could you pick that lock by the knob?”

Ran took a breath. His ribs ached. “There’s a chance I could, but it’s going to require tools I don’t really have.” In truth, he’d never seen a keyhole that looked like the one by the knob. Even with his expertise, part of him wondered if he’d be able to pick the lock.

Kuva cleared his throat. “Ran, if you’ve got any sort of chance of getting through that lock, I suggest you explore it. And fast.”

Ran looked up. Kuva was pointing back down the tunnel.

“More sounds of battle down there. But it’s getting closer. A lot closer.”

“How much time, do you think?”

“Depends on the people fighting, but I wouldn’t think we have more than ten minutes. We need to get out of here.”

Ran placed a hand on Cassandra’s arm. “Stay with him. If I can get the door open, you two get out of here. Don’t worry about me. I’ll catch up.”

Cassandra started to protest, but then stopped. Instead she smiled. “I won’t insult you by insisting that I stay behind. I know you’d have Kuva carry me out of here by force if necessary.”

“I care for you too much to let anything bad happen to you. You know that.”

“I do.” She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Do your best, Ran. But hurry up.” She glanced over at Kuva and then back with a grin. “Kuva’s not really my type.”

The big man grunted. “I heard that.”

Ran chuckled to himself and then headed back into the side tunnel. Once he was back at the knob, he drew out the slim lock picks he carried inside of his tunic waist band and set to work examining the lock. He slotted in one of the pieces of curved metal and then a straighter one, carefully raking them along what he judged to be the pins of the lock. He tested their springiness and then drew the picks back out before retrying it. This time he felt the pins move individually, and as he moved each into its respective place, he heard the clicks that told him he was on the right path.

Squatting down was making his ribs hurt like hell, though. Sweat poured down his face, and Ran had to use his arm to wipe it away from his eyes twice. He licked his lips and kept pushing the pins into place, hoping that his efforts would soon release the knob.

Two minutes later, Ran felt like he’d reached the last of the pins and slowly drew his tools out of the keyhole. He looked down at the knob and willed that it would move when he place his hand over it and turned.

Here goes nothing, he thought. He wrapped his hand around the knob and twisted.

It moved.

Almost instantly, he heard commotion from back in the chamber. A slow creaking told him that the door must have started to open.

“Ran!”

Cassandra’s voice made his heart leap. “Coming!”

He started back up toward the chamber. They were so close to escape now, he could taste his freedom.

So fixated was he on getting back to Cassandra that he never saw the shadow come up behind him and knock him on the back of the head with the pommel of a sword.