"You've nothing to fear," Candlemas said suddenly. He took Aquesita's pudgy hand and patted it. "I'll see that no harm comes to you."
"You will?" Her smile lit up the world as she said, "That's very kind of you, dear Candlemas. That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me."
The mage didn't know how to reply, but didn't need to. The two just sat and stared. And each would have sworn the other's eyes were lit with stars.
Chapter 11
Down in the bowels of the earth, tornadoes like stone cones plotted.
The super heavy magic works its will.
The one named Karsus will blow himself and all the others to destruction soon.
Good. He alone among the humans can sense us.
And the humans think him mad because he rails against us.
All the better.
The Phaerimm had hatched their plot over many generations of humans, leading Karsus to the star-metal and a new application of heavy magic. In all that time, some of these ancient beings hadn't even stirred from the black cavern.
But who is this star-eyed woman with her warnings?
A deity, one of theirs. Not one of ours.
Can she warn them in time?
We'll see she doesn't.
I wonder, can this new super heavy magic penetrate even to our domain?
Best we not find out.
They will destroy themselves long before that.
Perhaps. But we'd best be ready to strike if need be.
We're ready.
Sunbright woke with a start when a small hand with metal on it touched his leg. "Get up, outlander! Something's hunting us!"
Tumbling from his nest of rags, the barbarian grabbed his sword and scabbard before putting on his boots. Knucklebones had shaken him, the brass knuckles across her palm like a branding iron on his bare skin. She was already padding from the cavern, having shouldered aside the iron door.
Sunbright followed, his body alert, but his mind still groggy from another night of dread premonitions. It was one drawback to being a shaman, he knew; they lived in dreamworlds as much as in the real one. Knucklebones had drawn only the smallest stripes of illumination along her wrists and ankles. Sunbright thought that cold light trick the handiest cantra he'd ever seen. He'd have to ask to learn it. If she would deign to teach it to him.
Moving up, he touched her ever so slightly, then whipped his hand back. Sure enough, honed reflexes spun her around with the black elven knife outthrust.
"What?"
"What are we after? How do you know we're being hunted?"
"There're pigeons' eggs in the tunnels. Pigeons always lay in pairs, so the eggs are linked. We steal them from nests in the eaves. Half the pairs lie in my bedchamber. Should someone step on a distant egg, the one over my head breaks and wakes me."
Very neat, Sunbright thought.
"Any idea what hunts us?" he asked her. "Have you been hunted before?"
"At times, when the guards are angry," she said. "Like when two of their members are hacked to death in the street."
Obviously this was Sunbright's fault, she felt.
"Sometimes it's dogs," she continued, "sometimes ferrets. They're not hard to mislead. We lay false trails, walk across mats at crossings and then roll them up. They've never found us yet."
Then why not just do that now? the barbarian wanted to ask. But she'd already moved off, her lean back and buttocks in worn leather reminding him of a mountain goat. He wondered how hard her interior was, for he'd glimpsed a woman's heart earlier. Now he was intrigued.
At cross tunnels, which might run up, down, at angles or even down as pits, she paused, sniffed, listened, and laid her pointed ears against the dirt. But the broken egg had told her that one certain tunnel had been breached, and she steered for it. Once they had to climb a cracked slope with hands and toes. Sunbright's moosehide boots slipped treacherously.
When the tunnel flattened, Knucklebones laid an ear to the floor again, then froze. Slithering on her belly, she inched to a bend and peered around. Sunbright had to lie atop her, half mashing her, to get a glimpse.
He had no idea what he saw.
A pack of city guards with batons lit by cold light waited behind a strange, crouching something. It was hard to see, being stone gray, but resembled a giant spider, or part spider, part man. It had carved features, a frowning elven face with a stone mustache, but the head was hollow. Inside, behind the eyes, rustled a scruffy gray-white shape. The animal's ratty tail slipped out one eye socket, then whisked back in. To Sunbright it looked as if a possum were caged inside an effigy of a black elf. Yet this statue bore six double-jointed limbs with claws like a crawfish. The statue crouched, nose to the ground, sniffing as a possum would.
Knucklebones bumped Sunbright off with her rump. The barbarian slithered backward. Kneeling, the thief drew his head down, planted her mouth on his ear. Her warm breath sent a thrill of ecstasy through him, despite her daunting words.
"That possum's a sniffer. Their noses aren't that much, but magic makes them smarter, so they talk in squeaks. The statue is some kind of golem that follows the possum's movements."
Sunbright nodded as he sniffed her natural perfume: wood smoke, sweat, and that curious breath of wild-flowers. He patted his sword pommel to ask, do we fight?
A pause while she thought, then, "We'll lay a false trail in Blackwater Bog. It's confusing enough. But if they pass that, our hideout is endangered."
Sunbright tapped his chest, made a walking motion with his fingers. Can we lead them astray?
She shook her head, told him, "We've used it too many times lately. They don't fall for the 'cripple fleeing' anymore." But he thought he detected warmth in her tone, as if she appreciated his offer of sacrifice. With a dirty hand, she urged him back down the tunnel.
Since he'd skidded coming up, Sunbright pulled off his boots, tied the laces together, and slung them around his neck to descend the cracked slope. Noise of a slip would bring the guards running. Farther on, before a five way intersection called Blackwater Bog, Knucklebones bade him urinate on the passage floor. She then stepped in it barefoot and padded up a tunnel leading away from the stronghold. Sunbright waited, and moments later she returned, having washed her feet in a puddle. Now she crab walked half up the sloping tunnel wall, grabbing at cracks for support. Signaling he should crouch, Knucklebones squatted and vaulted across the intersection, into his arms. Catching her by torso and thighs, he found parts very soft indeed. But she immediately pushed away and tripped down the tunnel for home.
Farther on, she paused to listen and think, muttering, "This is very bad. Sniffers are one thing; they breed fast and cost nothing, but some top-notch mage worked hard to bring that golem to life. I've seen them used as pickets by doors, to slam axes on thieves, but I've never seen one act on its own, even with a possum thinking for it. The guards want us badly. We may have to abandon the homestead."
Her whispered tones laid the blame squarely on Sunbright, but he refused to take the bait and protest. He only waited until she shrugged and said, "Can't be helped. Let's lay an ambush."
She skittered off down the tunnel-and blundered into another crab-clawed golem.
The thing immediately whirled on Knucklebones, stone legs churning, claws clicking. The thief piped in surprise, but recovered instantly. Doing the last thing it would expect, she leapt in the air above the claws and landed nimbly on its broad back, strong toes latching on.
Sunbright saw two claws snap for him. Reminded they were stone, he flipped Harvester and slashed with the back of the blade, for a cubit-long edge below the hook was unsharpened and double thick for strength. He couldn't swing outright, for he was stooped in the tunnel, but the tempered steel clipped off one clawed arm at the joint like a lobster's leg. The other claw was batted down, and when the golem snapped again, he swiped sideways and broke that off too.