Dougal pointed at Kranxx's glowing light. "Can you put that out?"
Kranxx pulled a heavy sack from his pack and hooded the stone with it, blocking its glow. Dougal stared ahead into the darkness until his eyes adjusted to it.
"Yes," he said, "I can see some light up ahead. I think we're near the entrance."
"Good," said Riona. "Now we just need to figure out how to get there-without dying."
Dougal glanced around, and his eyes fell on Gullik. He pointed at the norn's axe and said, "Give me that."
"You're as mad as Raven," said Gullik. "No warrior gives up his weapon until the fight is finished."
"I'm going to use it to fight the trap." Dougal put out his hands. "Trust me."
Gullik screwed up his lips as he evaluated the man and the moment, then reversed his axe and handed it to Dougal by the handle. "I expect it back in one piece."
Holding the weapon, Dougal realized just how heavy the thing was. He wasn't sure he could swing it over his head. Fortunately, he didn't have to.
He set the axe down on the walkway, then lowered himself into the sludge. It was just as nasty as it had been before. No matter how much he braced himself for the stench and the cold, it was horrible.
He took the axe and put it headfirst into the sludge before Gullik could stop him. Then he bent down deeper into the sludge until it came up to the tops of his shoulders. With a bit of wiggling, he managed to wedge the ax up under the ramp. He tested it for a moment, then let go. It was jammed in there hard enough that it stuck.
"I want my axe back," Gullik said. "I haven't lost a weapon since an icebrood I was fighting took my spear from me and used it as a toothpick."
"I just need to release the grating," said Dougal. "Then you can have it back."
He climbed out of the muck again and then beckoned Kranxx to come with him. "I need your lamp," he said, "and you're light enough to not trigger the trap with me." He looked past the aura. "The rest of you stay here. We'll be right back."
Dougal worked his way forward along the ramp on his hands and knees, waiting for the axe's handle to snap or to feel the telltale tipping sensation that meant his life would soon end. As he drew closer to the end of the ramp, he saw the outside.
The sewer exited the mountainside beneath a rocky overhang, which was why they could not see any daylight sooner. Even so, the light seemed muted, and Dougal guessed that the valley beyond the grate was probably still deep in shadow. The end of the sewer was sealed with an iron grate that had been coated with rust and slime over the past two centuries. The water surged through the grate, forming a cascade of muck that disappeared in fog below. The grate swung outward, but there was a lock on the grate that functioned only from this side, and it looked serviceable enough.
With Kranxx's light over his shoulder, Dougal crept forward until he could reach the grate and put his weight on it instead. It held as steady as the rocks in which it was anchored. He slipped his pouch of lock picks out of its pocket in his jacket and went to work. Because of the rust and filth, it took him another half-minute longer than it should have to force the lock to give, but it did.
The grate, however, was stuck.
Dougal smacked it with his hand, but that didn't do a thing. Then he tried a shoulder, but that only bruised his arm. Standing up, he charged right at it.
It gave, suddenly and too well.
As the grate swung wide, Dougal lost his footing on the wobbly ramp and pitched forward. Kranxx reached for him with the hook but missed. Unable to recover his balance, Dougal did the only thing he could think of instead: he kicked off from the ramp and stretched out into the gaping maw of fog and shadow before him.
His fingers closed on the slimy, slippery bars of the grate as it swung away from him, and he clung to them for his life. He glanced down below his dangling feet and saw that he hung over a dizzying drop that deposited Ebonhawke's sewage onto a cluster of jagged rocks. Despite himself, he shouted in terror, sure that he would not be able to maintain his tenuous grip on the treacherous grate.
"Hold on!" Riona said.
He could not turn to see what she and the others were doing, but he hoped it involved saving his life, and soon. A moment later he heard Kranxx's voice saying, "What? Wait! No!"
Then the asura came sailing past Dougal's head and straight over the grate. A rope attached to his waist drew taut, and someone on the other end of it held it fast so that Kranxx did not tumble to his death. Then that same someone yanked on the rope to bring Kranxx closer.
Once Kranxx had the grate in his grip, Dougal glanced back to see that both Ember and Gullik held the far end of the rope and were pulling hard. The grate swung shut with a satisfying clang, and the flowing sewage pushed the lower half of Dougal's body hard up against it. He used this opportunity to find a foothold and then haul himself up out of the flowage.
"Thanks!" Dougal shouted backward.
"Hey! What about me?" Kranxx shouted from the other side of the grate.
"What can you see, Kranxx?" Dougal asked.
"That I'm about to die!"
"No, I mean down below you. Is there any way to get down from here?"
"Sure, lots!"
"That doesn't involve dying."
"That narrows it down quite a bit. Hold on!" Kranxx swung himself around on the end of the rope and craned his neck at all angles. "Hard to see through all the mist. Looks like a fairly sheer drop down about fifty feet or more."
The asura rummaged around in his pack and produced another coil of rope. He tied one end securely to the grate and let the other end play out below him. Dougal worked his way over to where the lock stood. "Let out the rope," he said to Gullik and Ember. "Slowly!"
They did, and the pressure from the flowing sewage pushed the grate open on its hinges again. Once the gap was wide enough, Dougal swung himself around to the other side of the grate and grabbed on to the rope.
"Why didn't you get started down?" he asked Kranxx.
"Slide down on a filth-slick rope into a monster-infested wilderness?" The asura shook his head. "You go first."
Dougal motioned for Ember and Gullik to let the rope play out until the grate swung back far enough that it no longer hung over the sewage-coated rocks below. Then he stuck out one leg and wrapped the rope around it. He checked Kranxx's knot and found it solid, then lowered himself down.
The going was easy at first, until he got to the section of the rope that had dangled in the flowage. It was slick and nasty. Dougal had already been covered with so much filth that he didn't care much about the stench, but he had to hold on with all his might to keep from sliding down too fast. This soon proved impossible. No matter how he tried to clamp his hands on the rope, it was too slippery, and down he went in a barely controlled slide.
Dougal hit the ground hard, his legs buckling underneath him, but he rolled with the impact. He lost his grip on the rope and feared for a moment that he would tumble back into the pool at the base of the falls, or into a deep crevasse hidden in the darkness. He came to a stop, though, against a wall of jagged boulders instead.
The charr warband that had been waiting there burst out from behind the rocks and surrounded him in an instant.
Dougal cried out in surprise and leaped to his feet. Before he could draw his sword, one of the charr knocked him back down again, sending him sprawling face-first into the dirt. Another leaped onto his back, pinning him there.
"Scream, human, and I rip out your throat," the charr hissed in his ear.
Dougal wasn't sure he could draw enough air to scream with anyhow, so he nodded in assent. He tried to get a count of how many charr there were but, lying facedown on the ground, it proved impossible. Most warbands had less than twenty members, to keep them mobile, but there were always exceptions.
Dougal tried to raise his head to get a better look, and a paw drove his face back into the hardscrabble dirt. He grunted in pain and felt the tip of a claw pressed into the softest part of his throat.