D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (16 page)

Garett felt cold. The mist slithered around his feet, and the wind blew feather-soft on his cheek. He stared down at the drainage grate. “Get it up,” he said.

Blossom directed a pair of brawny watchmen to lift the heavy grate. As they bent to the task, Garett turned toward the South Stream. Perhaps fifteen paces to its banks, he estimated. He envisioned two black-cloaked men emerging from the drain, disposing of a body, and vanishing again. With night to hide them, it would have been swift work and easy. It was only luck that anyone had seen them.

The grate made a loud shriek and clang, metal against metal and stone, as the two watchmen lifted it from its grooved joints, moved it aside, and set it down. Garett noted the noise instantly. His gaze swept along the dark buildings on either side of the stream’s bank. The windows were dark. Not a lamp or candle burned. Such a racket would surely draw attention. He wondered suddenly why Rudi’s witness, the old man, hadn’t mentioned it.

With the grate removed, he leaned over and shone his torchlight down the black hole. The light didn’t penetrate far. He set his foot on the first of the iron rungs, which were set deep into the moss-covered stonework, and began his descent into the sewers.

Brackish water rushed below him. In the stone-lined tunnel, it made a potent roar that filled his ears. The smell of it, a fetid, sour pungency, was almost enough to drive him back up again. He stepped down, seeking the flooring. The water surged around his ankles, up his shins, almost to his knee before he finally found footing. He let go of the rungs, careful to keep his torch dry, and with his free hand tugged the tops of his boots higher over his thighs. Then he unfastened his sword from around his waist, buckled the weapon’s belt again, and slung it over his shoulder so that it hung upon his back. He had no intention of dragging a fine blade or its scabbard through that water.

Burge came down next, and Garett moved out of the way. The light of a second torch did little to repel the oppressive gloom. The water swirled, darkly gleaming, swollen by the torrential rain. Garett moved closer to examine the bricked wall. Mold and lichen had grown thick in the cracks where the ancient mortar had crumbled away. He put his hand out about shoulder height. It was easy to see on the wet stonework how high the drainage had reached during the peak of the storm.

“Ugh!” Burge exclaimed, clamping his nostrils shut with his free hand and making a face as he turned around. “You wanna find the murderers, Cap’n?” he said sarcastically. “We don’t need to go through this. Let’s just walk through town and sniff. If they been runnin’ around down here long, they’ll be easy to spot.”

Another pair of men descended, and the sewer began to brighten with the added light. Garett wasn’t sure that was an advantage, though, as he regarded the garbage and waste that floated by. Something brown and unpleasant brushed against his boot and stuck to the leather until he shook his leg to dislodge the foul mass.

The rest of the party reassembled below, leaving two men above to guard the opened grate. Soon, the patch of tunnel in which they found themselves was as bright as day. Still, Garett wondered if they would find any clues to the Old Town murders, or if the storm had completely washed any evidence away.

The last watchman down hesitated on the final rung and glared around. He made a wrinkled face and muttered. “I’m missing a decent night’s sleep for this?”

Apparently he was one of the daytimers that Blossom had conscripted for this particular duty. “Think of sleep as dying,” she told the man, slapping him rudely on his rump. “Then you won’t miss it so much.”

“She’s one of my favorite people,” Rudi whispered with a snide wink to Burge and Garett.

“Yeah,” Burge agreed, keeping his voice low, though Blossom surely heard every word being said. “But your sense of humor will be the death of you someday. If she’d actually shown up in dress uniform, as you tried to convince her was our fair captain’s order, you’d be her favorite snack food by now.”

Rudi’s lips curled upward in a leer, as if he were actually considering such a fate. There might, in fact, be worse ways to go, Garett had to admit as he regarded his tall, blond lieutenant from the corner of his eye.

“All right,” he called to his watchmen. “Everyone choose a partner. Stay in twos and watch out for each other. Look for anything that seems out of place, anything unusual. Let’s go.”

At this particular juncture, the sewer flowed southward only a short distance before depositing its waste into the South Stream. Garett led his team north instead. He no longer had the feeling that he was being watched, and that allowed him to concentrate on the matter at hand. At the fore, with Burge by his side, his gaze roamed over every brick and stone, seeking anything that would confirm the story of Rudi’s witness that the murderers had come this way.

The smell in the tunnel’s close confines grew worse the farther into the sewer they penetrated, and the filthy water seeped into their boots in no time. Garett was grateful he’d thought to leave his cloak at home. The garment would have been hopelessly ruined. He’d already made up his mind to burn everything else he was wearing.

Up in a corner, where an arch of stone buttressed the tunnel’s ceiling, a faint movement caught Garett’s eye, and he stopped suddenly. A fat black spider, as big as Garett’s thumb, eyed them coolly from the center of its web. The web itself was dotted with the silk-wrapped corpses of luckless insects that had blundered into its sticky strands.

“Oh, great!” Blossom muttered. The tallest of their party, she crouched a little lower, her gaze nervously wandering around the ceiling. “All I need are those things dropping down on me. I hate spiders.”

Burge brought his torch close to the web, the better to see. Then, suddenly, he thrust it at the huge arachnid. Strands of webbing flared and popped, and the flames consumed the creature instantly. “Me, too, Blossom,” he agreed. “Never could stand ’em. Saw a man die from a spider bite once. Not pleasant.”

“That’s enough, Burge,” Garett ordered. He turned long enough to give his watchmen a once-over, and saw how their tension level had gone up. Like Blossom, they were all scanning the upper corners and shadows for spiders. He didn’t need Burge feeding their imaginations with tales. Then he added for the benefit of his men, “Most spiders aren’t deadly, anyhow.”

“Fine, Cap’n,” Burge answered as Garett started forward again, and he followed close at his heels. “Next one we meet, you shake hands with ’im and ask if he’s seen anyone pass this way carryin’ a dead girl. Then, when you’re done talkin’, I’ll wait ’til you move on down the tunnel a little bit before I fry ’im, so’s not to offend your sensibilities.” Before long, they came to a fork in the tunnel. Garett held up his torch and peered both ways. The water in the new shaft seemed more shallow, and a bit less swift. It was also somewhat narrower. He called Rudi up beside him and pointed. “Take five men,” he said, “and follow that. When you come to the first grate, raise it, take a peek, and see where you are. If the tunnel splits, send two men, and two men again the next time. Never less than two. Got that?” Rudi nodded and beckoned to the five nearest watchmen. “Keep your torches dry,” Garett cautioned them as they separated from the main party and waded into the new tunnel. He watched until the smaller group rounded a bend and its torches’ light slowly faded. With a wave of his hand, then, he led his own men ahead.

Not much farther on, they encountered the first evidence that someone else had passed this way. Iron bars, like those in a cell door, blocked their way. Only the center bars had been bent far outward, wide enough for any man to squeeze through.

Garett knew his party was precisely under the Black Wall,

which separated Old Town from the New City The bars had been placed here, and at all such junctures in the tunnels, to prevent the residents of the Slum Quarter and the Thieves’ Quarter from using the sewers as a secret means of passage between the two parts of Greyhawk. It didn’t surprise him, however, to find the bars in such a condition. He had long known that the thieves of Sorvesh Kharn’s guild had some way of traversing the wall without passing through the Black Gate, where the guards would log and record their passage. The sewers were the most logical means, and bars such as these, heavy with rust, would have been a small obstacle to men like Sorvesh Kharn or his predecessors.

Nevertheless, Garett paused to examine them carefully before he squeezed through to the other side and waited while each of his men did the same.

“I fear the rain has washed away anything useful,” Blossom said as she stepped to her captain’s side and peered at the iron bars with him.

But Garett touched her arm and drew her closer. “Maybe not,” he said softly. “Look here.” He pointed at a small yellowish smear about head high on one of the bent bars and pressed his thumbnail into it, leaving an impression. “That is tallow wax, and we all have torches. Someone else has come this way, and recently. If the wax was old, it would be brittle. My nail would have broken it.”

Blossom shrugged. “Then under all this water, there’s probably a trail of tallow droppings that could tell us which way the murderers went.” She leaned her head to the side as she frowned, and a thick blond braid slipped over one shoulder and shimmered in the light of her torch.

“We don’t know who came this way,” Garett cautioned her. “Maybe the murderers, but, then again, maybe not.” He quickly explained to her his suspicions about the Thieves’ Guild and Sorvesh Kharn. “All we know for certain,” he concluded, “is that someone passed this way recently.”

“Could Sorvesh be the one behind these killings?” she wondered.

“I don’t see how it would profit him,” Burge said, interrupting, as he brushed one hand through the damp locks of his long black hair. “An’ Sorvesh Kharn is the kind of man who does nothin’ unless it turns a profit.”

“Unless he thought he could sow enough unrest in Old Town to cause the Directorate to turn against Ellon Thigpen,” Garett suggested, recalling the animosity he had seen on the thief master’s face in the directors’ meeting earlier that day, when he had attempted to turn his fellow directors against Prestelan Sun. And all because Prestelan Sun had supported Ellon Thigpen for mayor. “No,” Garett said, thoughtfully scratching his chin. “I don’t think we can rule Sorvesh Kharn out so easily.”

“If it is Kharn,” Burge whispered, leaning close, “then you’d best take care, Cap’n. As either a city director or a master of the Thieves’ Guild, he’d make a nasty foe. But Sorvesh Kharn holds the resources of both offices. He’ll be a tough nut to crack.”

A little farther on, the tunnel forked again. This time, Garett chose six men and sent them off with the same instructions he’d given Rudi’s team. He waited as they splashed their way up the sewer. When their torches were no more than a distant ruddy glow on the brickwork, he turned away.

Blossom gave a choked scream. Her sword whistled out of the sheath on her back and flashed downward, striking only water. Again she raised it, and again she struck downward as the nearest watchmen fell back away from her, shouting curses, trying to dodge her blows and protect their faces from the foul water she was slinging everywhere.

Garett and Burge reached her at the same time and caught her arm. She looked at them for an instant with an expression of utter repulsion before she began to blush. “It was a rat,” she explained, breathless, “swimming right by me. I almost touched it.”

“First spiders, now rats.” Burge snorted with good-natured mirth. His violet eyes sparkled in the torchlight. “You’re turnin’ squeamish in your old age, Lieutenant.” Blossom dipped the tip of her sword and flipped water upward into Burge’s face. When he twisted aside to avoid taking it in the eyes, she used the flat of the blade to deal his backside a sharp swat. “Mind your manners, elf,” she said petulantly. “It’s not polite to tease a lady.”

Burge grinned as he rubbed his rump where her blow had landed. “My wee and delicate Blossom,” he answered with a mocking bow. “Forgive me. I sometimes forget that you are, indeed, a lady. From time to time, I have to strain my neck to look up an’ remind myself of that fact. Duck, now, cause we’re cornin’ to another arch.”

She had been watching Burge, expecting some retaliation. Barely in time, she reacted to avoid bumping her head on the stone support.

“Look out,” Burge warned, pointing to the dark comer where the arch met the ceiling. “There’s another spider there.”

Unable to stop herself, Blossom shuddered and jumped sideways, splashing water, her eyes darting fearfully up into the empty corner. With a small yelp, she started to slip until Burge caught her arm and steadied her. “Guess I was mistaken, milady,” he said with a broad smile.

Blossom glared at him as she sheathed her sword, straightened her damp tunic, and tossed her wandering braid back over her shoulder. “When we get back up into the real world,” she scolded, “I’m going to severely punish you.”

Burge held up his hands and shook his head. “Not me, milady,” he answered. “But thank you for the offer.” Garett knew his two lieutenants well enough not to worry. Their banter was always in fun, no matter how they insulted each other. Probably no one else but Blossom could continually call Burge an elf with such scorn and escape a beating. And certainly any other man would be a

fool to make fun of Blossom’s size.

The water in this part of the sewers no longer ran swiftly. In places, it was almost still and came no higher than their ankles. But Garett could feel the slime underneath the water through his boots, and the smell was still nearly unbearable. He couldn’t help wondering at the desperation that drove some men to seek employment as sewer sweepers, those poor citizens who, day after day, crawled down here to clear the sludge and sewage. He remembered Kentellen Mar’s father had been such a man.

They came to yet another fork in the tunnels and stopped. Garett realized suddenly how the light had dwindled. From twenty torches, they were now eight, and if he sent men up this new shaft, there would be fewer still. There was nothing else to do, though. Lieutenant Burge and three men moved off, and Garett watched them go. as he had the others, until the light of their torches was gone.