Chapter 2

“That must be it,” she thought. “That’s why the torch, not an oil lamp.” Before she tried putting the torch in the socket, she put her ear to the wall and listened. She heard sounds that made her heart sink, the sound of swords striking wood, metal and flesh.

She could faintly hear the voice of a man speaking on the other side, “That’s the last of them in this tunnel sir. None of the rats got out of the tunnels this way.”

The second voice she knew from her encounters with the guard commander in the past. “Damn it,” he said, “The girl was supposed to come this way to escape according to the informants we had planted in the guild. Any word from our agents above yet?”

“Yes sir,” said the other voice, “The men in the main headquarters fought to the last. They weren’t able to take any alive.” Brena heard splash as if something heavy had been dropped into waterway. She had a sick feeling it was one of her folks bodies. The second voice went of, “The last two, the old man himself took a poison pill before they could stop him and the last guard fought until he bled out. They still took his head for the pikes though.” Brena felt her heart sink to her feet from learning of her father’s fate.

“That cuts it then, she’s still in the tunnels or sewers.” Another splash, “We have to find her, the Duke wants to make an example of her for the crimes committed against the city by those gutter rats.” said the guard commander. Brena seethed at that insult. “Get the rest of this trash in the water and spread out to the outer edges of the city. She has to surface sometime. I am growing concerned that we have not caught one member of the assassins. They just up and vanished before our forces arrived.” After hearing several more splashes, the voices faded away in the distance discussing a search pattern to capture the girl.

Brena waited in silence, the way ahead was closed to her and she did not know these tunnels. Her heart was pounding as her temper wanted to explode, but she calmed herself and waited, and tried to think of a way out. She didn’t even know who made them, and she thought she was well versed in the under ways. What really upset her most though, they had had traitors in the guild, men and women that had given them away to the Duke’s forces. If she ever found out who they are, she would kill them herself. She got ready to head back up the tunnel when a hand covered her mouth and pulled her arms behind her. She had not heard or felt any movement in the air.

“Make no noise girl, or the throat gets cut.” The voice was barely a faint whisper behind her head. “Did your father sanction the theft of that damnable ring Brena Sizemore?” the voice asked. She shivered in fear. here was a true professional and he had her cold.

She slowly shook her head in the negative. She now suspected she knew who owned these tunnels, who it is that held her, The Brotherhood of Assassin’s. “Did your father send you down this way Brena Sizemore?” Again, she had barely heard the whispered words in the flat air of the tunnel.

She nodded in the affirmative. “He took a grave risk girl. Understand that down to your very soul.” The hands that held her did not move or loosen in the slightest. “We had only a moments warning from our own watchers and guards, but we were able to escape down the secret ways of our own making before the Duke’s agents could trap us.” He paused to see if she would comment, she did not so he went on by asking, “Is the way safe beyond, you may speak, but keep it no more than a breath of sound.”

The hand uncovered her mouth, “No, guards on the other side watching for me just killed the ones I was supposed to meet with. They may have left a sentry in case I or others to show up.” She breathed the words so not to be heard more than a few inch’s away. “The guard’s commander is rightly pissed that he didn’t capture a single member of your Guild. We had traitors that sold us out in ours I just learned.”

“It is well then Brena Sizemore that you arrived before us then.” He motioned and the group of black clad men, women and children made their way back up the tunnel. The man released her arms and she followed them back the way she had come down. At one point well short of the entrance she had used, they turned into a covered way she had not noticed on her way through earlier.

The ceiling was low, only six feet, but again it was dry and silent. She noted the stone was well cut and tight. The lack of echo’s though, that was disturbing to her. “Up ahead is a way we can be certain of. Once used though, it will not be safe to use again, at least not in our lifetimes,” said the leader of this group of refugees. The group sped up and soon passed the indicated point in the tunnel, a low arch that carved in patterns the seemed to warn of danger in her mind. One carved figure was of the death goddess at the center of the arch. As she looked at it, she felt as if eyes from the carving looked at her and judged her. She was not certain if that was good or bad.

The man spoke to her again, his mouth next to her ear, “It is well she approves of you Brena Sizemore.” He moved back again and the group continued on a short distance.

The party stopped and woman placed a small metallic looking bird shaped figurine in a matching slot in the wall. She saw the wall had been carved with dozens of the shapes, but only one would fit the figure. With only the faintest click to her trained ears, she heard a lock release. The panel slid aside with the faintest whisper as if freshly oiled. Everybody quickly moved to the next chamber beyond the low arched door. Once the tunnel was clear, the leader slid the panel shut and again the faint click as the lock reset. He did something to the panel above the door and she heard what sounded like rocks falling beyond it. “Now we head out of the city this way,” the voice of the man who seemed to be her keeper said in her ear. Not one word was spoken the entire time by any of this group, only him to her. “We will close the ways behind us as we travel, the Planes Guard will be closed to the Brotherhood, but only for a very short time.” He almost seemed to chuckle at that, “a very short time indeed.”

They moved silently, even the youngest children making no sound as they walked. Brena was amazed at the skill shown at such early ages and she was being hard pressed to match them. They walked for what seemed like hours, but Brena knew it was not more than thirty minutes. Once a side panel opened and more black clad members of the Brotherhood joined them. This group she could tell were priest of the death goddess. If the Duke was after them as well, he had truly lost his mind. She remained silent, moving with the nearly same level of silence the others showed.

When they came to a panel at a dead end, the leader of the Brotherhood gestured for her to join him at what was the exit from this tunnel. “Here we return to the world of light.” He whispered into her ear. “Be warned though. It is not a safe place for you or us at this moment. Our Brothers on the other land across the Summertine Sea have sent a warning in one of the ways we have. The Blood Queen has risen and will be coming all too soon to take what she believes to be hers alone. To be honest Brena Sizemore, I don’t understand the meaning of the message, only that it’s a warning of impending danger. The other part of the message was that I was to tell, was to you, the Queen of Thieves of the coming danger before we parted.”

“I’m no Queen of Thieves,” she snarled quietly.

“Ah child, but you are.” he chuckled. “You are the last of your chapter house’s leadership. You are its Queen, and one day you will return and take your rightful place at it’s head.” He pushed her towards the blank wall. “Go girl, but be extremely careful out there.” He said as his folks headed up a different side tunnel that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.

“What about you and your people? What will you do?” she asked.

“We always have a place to go to ground in. This move has been long planned for and practiced by all of our sect.” he paused before going on, “When you take your place, you should plan in the same manner as this so you will not be caught out in the open again. Duke Greymont has angered our Mistress. She will see to his ending soon enough, and avenge the death of those undeserving the fate he sent so many this night. He must pay, for he rounded up and killed the children of the street Brena Sizemore.”

Brena felt a cold stab of rage at this news. Those children didn’t deserve to be killed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” she said coldly, then continued, “Be safe and safe journeys to you and yours.”

She continued a second later, “One more thing, thank you for helping me.” She blinked and there wasn’t anybody in the corridor. “Ok, that’s a neat trick. I have got to learn to be that stealthy.” She looked at the panel and saw the holder for a torch. Looking down at her left hand, she still held the long burned out torch she had started with. She seated it in the mount and there was a very faint click in the wall to her left, then another to her right. It was when a small hatch opened above her that she saw a small lever. ‘Oh no, it’s never that easy.’ she thought. I quick study of the chamber showed it to be six inch’s deep and six wide and high. The lever was a metal rod half an inch in diameter three long. The shadows in the box hid any traps unless one knew where and how to look for them.

A careful examination of the lever and the small space it was seated showed that a needle trap had been built into it. If she flipped the lever, she would be pricked by the spring-mounted needle that would drive out and hit her in the hand. She could tell from the faint coloring on it, it had a really nasty poison of some sort on it. She slowly worked the needle loose in its socket with a small set of tweezers she had in her basic lock pick kit. She was able to remove the needle from the rod it was attached to without triggering it.

When further examination didn’t reveal any other visible traps, she made ready to flip the switch. Just before she touched the lever with a finger, she stopped herself. Brotherhood traps had layers upon layers rather than just a single event. She used a metal rod from her kit. It was only six inch’s long, but it made an excellent probe for situations like this. With it she flipped the lever down. It was well she had taken the extra precautions. Another better concealed needle stabbed out from the lever itself and hit the rod, then an instant later the panel lid snapped shut hard, but silently. Had she used her finger, she would be dying of poison, and minus fingers.

A second after the small door had closed, a quiet click sounded in front of her and the wall panel slid a few inch’s to the left then stopped. Brena started to move to the side and peaked though the narrow slot, then stopped herself. ‘Getting careless being a hurry girl,’ she thought. She listened for noises beyond. She heard a horse snort in a room nearby and faint voices of men talking some distance away. After a few minutes when nothing happened, she peered around the edge of the panel. The room beyond was closed and dark. It also had an odor she knew very well, freshly oiled leather, new and old alike, along with the smell of horse nearby. She must be coming out in a tack room behind the stables of the home or business. She tried to think about any place she knew of that had a stable and tack room built into a hill- side. The only place that came to mind was a road inn about four miles outside the old city gates. She was still in the city’s outskirts then, but no longer in the directly controlled area of the Dukes men. She pushed on the panel to slide it further open, but it didn’t want to move right away.

She managed to get it open six inches. She looked around the edge of the panel and saw a saddle blocking the slide of the door. This made her think this exit was far older than the Brother had let on, or possibly knew. She reached around the edge and found a hay rake hanging on the wall to the right of the panel. She was able to, with some effort to work it loose from the rack and slide it to the saddle that was blocking the sliding panel. With the blockage moved, she was able to open the panel another six inches. Now when it stopped, she felt the blockage was the next wall over. This was as far as it could open. Twelve inch’s though was enough for her to slide through. With effort, she could have made it through the six inch’s, but it would have been slow and painful going for her. She had grown in ways of late that made such maneuvers more difficult. She slid her pack and cloak off, and set them where she could reach them from the other side.

She slid out of the tunnel into the tack room. It was small for a room of this purpose, maybe six feet by six feet, the ceiling only six feet high as well. After a short examination of the room and seeing the way out, she reached back into the tunnel and pulled her travel pack and cloak through to her. Next, she cleaned up her entry into the tack room. She blocked the panel open, then reached around the edge and pulled the torch from the holder. The panel jerked and tried to snap shut, but her blocking it open with a chunk of wood prevented it from taking her arm off. When she had made sure she had left nothing behind in the tunnel, she pulled the block and the panel slid shut with a solid snap and was followed by a series of clicks as locks and traps reset. She considered the dead torch, looking it over in the dim light from the next room. The torch end itself was just that, a torch. It was the end of the torch handle that was different in appearance. It had carvings and patterns in it. These fit in the holder in a specific way to release the locks. ‘Keep it,’ she thought. ‘It may come in handy someday. Now to see about getting away from the city and on the road to Tarin’s Crossing.’

She went about returning the floor in front of the panel to a more natural state by smoothing the scuffed dirt. Then spread the hay around it so that even those traces were covered. She hung the rake back on the hook it had come from, then made sure the saddle that she had moved was back against the wall where it belonged. This done, she secured the torch on a loop on her pack then with a last look for any removable trace of her presence, she made her way to the door stepping around the hanging saddles, ropes and assorted riding gear. At the door, she found it was not locked and opened it a few inches, wincing at the squeaking it made as she moved it. ‘I wish I had had time to gather all my special tools.’ she thought. ‘The complete lock and door kit would have been great to fix that mess.’ Looking into the stable, she could make out a number of horses in stalls and she saw that dawn had started to catch up to her from the faint glow. Not seeing anybody, she opened the door just enough to continue. The horses mostly ignored her as she sneaked by. One looked at her and gave a quiet snort then returned to what ever it had been doing, sleeping hopefully. When she reached the far end with the double doors, she was looking out on an Inn’s stable yard. The packed dirt area could easily hold a dozen horses or several small carts. She watched as a boy dumped buckets of water that hung from a shoulder yoke in a trough for the horses and then disappeared around the corner, only to reappear less than a minute later with two more filled buckets of water. She noted the buckets hooked to the short hoops of rope on the rod ends on the boy’s shoulders.