Surely he hadn’t taken the urgrosh as collateral? The value of the flawless Siberys shard alone was easily twice what she owed. But the weapon was worth far more to her than simple money, and if she’d lost it over some stupid gambling debt …
“Relax,” Heith said again, producing the shard axe from the shadows behind him and offering it to her. “He’s not stupid; he’d hardly take your only real means of repaying your debt, especially since it’s obvious you’ll never make the money you owe at the card table.”
She reached for the weapon, and he pulled it back, forcing her to take a step closer. As she did, he lunged forward and grabbed her left arm.
“Bit of advice, Marshal,” he said softly, his breath rancid on her cheek. He shoved her shard axe at her, and, as she took the proffered weapon, she toyed with the idea of using it to gut him. “You’re a good player—could be a great one—but you’ve got to learn to quit while you’re ahead.”
With that, Heith disappeared, but not before Sabira caught a glimpse of something like pity in his eyes. It occurred to her then to wonder what a man who could figure rates like a Kundarak accountant was doing working for someone like Sollego. And if his parting comment even had anything to do with cards.
Sabira dismissed the musing with an irritated shrug: Leave philosophy to the students at the University of Wynarn, where they had the luxury of time and funds to pursue it. Right now, she had to find her way out of these Hostforsaken tunnels before something even more unpleasant than the stench dogged her footsteps.
She surveyed the large room she was in, peering up toward the darkness that shrouded the ceiling. Whatever the giants had originally used these chambers for—maintenance of some sort, most likely—they were now a favorite haunt of enormous spiders, and she fully expected to see a garland of cocooned bodies suspended from a network of vast, sticky webs.
Surprisingly, what she could see of the ceiling appeared to be free of webbing, but for a moment the image of another, much larger chamber superimposed itself over this one. And in that phantom space—a cavern, far underground—a body did dangle from the heights, though it was wrapped in thick chains rather than silk.
Sabira cursed and shook the vision away. Damn Caldamus and his mental trespassing, dredging up memories she’d traveled so far and spent so much time—and coin—trying to suppress! Assuming she made it out of this rats’ warren before the changeling was shipped off to Khorvaire, she just might have to pay him one last visit and do to his mind what he’d done to hers. Of course, not being a telepath, her trek through his brain would be quite a bit bloodier.
A quick perusal of the room’s perimeter showed only one exit, so Sabira hefted her shard axe and headed for the opening, sidestepping an oily-looking puddle. Once in the corridor beyond, she scanned the floors and walls for anything not covered in grime or moss. The Quickfoot Gang had a well-known fondness for traps, but any mechanism they used would have to be retrofitted onto the giants’ preexisting architecture and so should look newer—or at least somewhat less filthy—than the area around it.
She almost didn’t see the first one in time. The sewers below Stormreach had all manner of seemingly pointless features, from valves that did nothing to stairs that went nowhere. Some of the most bizarre were the carved heads that dotted the walls at random intervals. Shaped like screaming mephits, the heads might once have been part of some ancient drainage system but now did nothing more than frighten unsuspecting explorers who came upon them in the dark.
Well, most of them did nothing. Some, like the pair she’d just triggered, sprayed acid from those gaping maws onto unobservant passersby.
Sabira jumped back before the vile green stream could make contact, though a few errant drops landed on one thigh and burned partway through the hardened leather cuisse she wore. As soon as she was outside the immediate vicinity of the trap, the nacreous spray ceased, leaving no sign of its passing save the steam rising from the murky water pooled on the stone floor below. An experimental step forward rewarded Sabira with another verdant burst and she scrambled back quickly to avoid the potent acid.
Sabira studied the traps and the rest of the hallway. She didn’t bother looking for any sort of control panel; even if she could find it, she was about as good at manipulating delicate machinery as she was at holding her temper. Any attempt she made to disarm or disable the traps would probably wind up bringing the whole Marketplace down on top of her.
She could just make out two additional sets of mephit heads farther down the corridor; she had to assume those were trapped, too. The heads were positioned a third of the way up the wall, so that the acid would strike the torso of anything humanoid that passed by—probably meant for the kobolds, then, who were shorter and would get the acid right in the eyes. She was short enough herself that she could probably go under the caustic spray, were it not for the effects of gravity. She might not take the worst of the corrosive attack, but she’d still come out the other side needing new armor, and probably a fair bit of new skin as well.
No, under was not an option. Over, on the other hand …
Sabira spent a moment judging angles and distances. With enough speed, and using her shard axe as leverage, she should be able to clear the first stream with no difficulty. Unfortunately, the way these sewer corridors twisted and turned, she wasn’t going to have much room for her initial approach, and even less for the following two. Good thing she had strong legs and was fairly flexible—a combination that Ned had once joked could easily have landed her in another profession entirely. When she’d innocently opined that she was a little too short—and a little too human—to be a Phiarlan player, he’d laughed all the harder.
But Leoned’s warm amusement was the last thing she needed to be thinking about now … or ever, really. It was a sound she’d never hear again this side of Dolurrh, and she’d made what peace she could with that a long time ago.
Or at least, she thought she had, before Caldamus came along.
Damn it, Sabira! This isn’t the first telepath you’ve dealt with, and you’re not some wet-behind-the-ears recruit. Focus!
Gritting her teeth, Sabira resolutely put all other thoughts out of her mind and concentrated on the jump she was about to make. She took several steps away from the acid trap, until her back was almost touching the curve in the damp stone wall. Next, she took a deep breath, held it for a minute, and let it out slowly. And then she ran.
She held her shard axe in one hand, horizontally, and counted off the steps backward.
Six. Five. Four.
On three, she quickened her pace, and on one, she planted the urgrosh axe-side down, grabbed the haft with her second hand and used it and her momentum to launch her body into the air, feet first.
Triggered by her proximity, the mephit heads spat their burning green bile across the corridor. Sabira arched her body and twisted in midair, her abused muscles screaming in protest. She cleared the acidic stream by a good half a foot, pulling the shard axe along after her. She landed on her feet with a splash, and came up in a semicrouch, her face mere inches from the caustic spray that sputtered and died out as she watched.
Well, her shard axe was a poor excuse for a street performer’s pole, and she was no Nat Gann, but she’d take it. One down, two to go.
She turned to face the next one, a scant three paces away. She’d have virtually no approach this time, and would have to rely almost entirely on her leg muscles to propel herself up and over.