Trail of the Gods: The Morcyth Saga Book Four (10 page)

Taking the horses to the stables, Miko is
surprised to find they’re in better condition than the inn.
Suppose the horses are more important than the guests
themselves.

Finding stalls for each, Illan then tips the
stableboy a silver to give them extra care and some feed. The boy
begins filling feed pouches with grain as they leave the stable.
Illan sees an unused lantern hanging on a peg and asks the boy if
he can borrow it.

“My master would be most displeased if he
were to find it missing,” he replies.

Reaching into his pouch, he pulls out two
silvers and hands them to the boy. “If we don’t return, buy a new
one,” he says.

Snatching the coins, the boy nods his head
and resumes feeding the horses.

Illan checks the lantern and finds it has a
wick and can hear oil in the base when he shakes it. Turning back
to the others, he looks to Miko and says, “Lead on.”

Miko nods his head and moves out of the
stables and toward the street the inn borders on.

Once out of the inn’s courtyard, Miko takes
the lead as he passes through the familiar streets. They don’t seem
quite as imposing as they once did, back before James came along.
Smiling, he wonders what that gang would do now if they found him.
Would they even recognize him?

At the gate, they’re questioned briefly by
the guards before being allowed to pass through. Miko sees the spot
where he first met James that day he arrived. What stroke of
fortune had made James pick him out of all those boys who were
clamoring for his attention? Despite all that’s happened to him,
he’s glad that he did.

Working through the streets they make it
back to the dead end alley the boys had chased them into. The door
where James had held them at bay is broken off its hinges and lies
inside on the floor.

They can smell the sewers as they pass
through the room to the smaller one in the back. The trapdoor
covering the entrance is closed and before Miko opens it, he
pauses. “There’s a gang down there that doesn’t take too kindly to
intruders,” he warns. “If they should discover us down there, it
could get bad.”

“Then we’ll just have to be careful,” Scar
says.

“Don’t worry,” Shorty tells him, “we’re
probably more than they’ve ever encountered down there before.”

“I hope so,” Miko says as he bends over and
pulls up the trapdoor. The smell from below hits them like a wall.
Moving to the entrance, he begins to make his way down the rungs
into the sewer below. Illan follows him next and finally Scar
brings up the rear, closing the trapdoor after him.

Snik! Snik!

Miko sees sparks as Illan uses a flint stone
to light the lantern. A glow begins to fill the tunnel as the wick
catches fire. A shutter on the lamp allows him to adjust the amount
of light it emits. He closes it until only a small amount escapes
so as not to announce their presence to whoever may be down
here.

“Which way?” he asks Miko.

“Follow me,” Miko says as he takes the lead
and moves down the sewer tunnel.

Miko’s able to remember the way fairly well,
the light from Illan’s lantern giving out just enough light for
them to be able to see their way. He continues leading them through
the sewers of Bearn until he comes to a spot where he pauses a
moment.

“What?” asks Illan as he comes up to
him.

“I may have gotten turned around,” he
admits.

“Why do you say that?” he asks.

Gesturing to the area of the sewer they’re
in, he replies, “There should be a body here blocking the flow, but
there isn’t.”

“Maybe it was pushed further along during a
storm, or was removed,” he offers.

“Maybe,” says Miko. “If you’re right, then
it isn’t far.” He continues on and sure enough, they come across a
decomposing body lying up against the side of the tunnel. He
glances at Illan and says, “I guess you were right.”

A little further down, they arrive at a
small passage leading off to the right and he continues past.
Several feet beyond that they hear him sigh with relief when a
crack in the wall appears in the light ahead, the one leading to
the hidden rooms under Lord Colerain’s estate. Stopping in front of
the opening, Miko whispers, “This is it.”

“You sure?” asks Fifer.

“Completely,” replies Miko. “Though I
remember it as being bigger.”

“You’ve grown some since then,” states
Scar.

Getting a grim expression on his face, he
says, “Yeah, I guess I have.”

Illan comes forward and shines the lantern’s
light into the crack, “How far back does it go?”

“About four or five feet then it opens up
onto a small storage room,” he tells him. “At least that’s what
James thought it was. It hadn’t been used in a very long time.”

“Alright,” he announces. “Shorty, you go in
first and take a look around.”

“Right,” he says as he moves to the crack in
the wall. Squeezing through, he finds he has plenty of room. From
the sewer he can hear Scar comment with a laugh, “No way Potbelly
could’ve fit through there!” The picture of Potbelly trying to
squeeze through brings a grin to his face.

Sidestepping, he slowly reaches the other
side and comes out of the other end. “I’m through!” he hollers
back.

Illan hands Miko the lantern and says, “You
next.”

“But what about you?” he asks. “Won’t you
need it?”

“You’ll need it more,” he tells him.
“Besides, I may be able to make it through.”

Miko looks at him doubtfully before stepping
into the crack. He’s able to make it on through with little
problems despite his increased size. Next goes Fifer then Scar who
has the hardest time making it through. Both have to remove the
upper half of their armor in order to make it.

When they’re all through to the other room
but Illan, he says, “Alright, I’m coming through.” Removing his
breastplate, he tries to squeeze into the crack and quickly
discovers there’s no way he’ll be able to make it, even without his
armor. “You guys will have to go ahead without me,” he says when he
once again stands in the sewer tunnel. “I’ll meet you back at the
inn where we left the horses.”

“What should we do if we don’t find you
there?” Scar asks.

“If I’m not there when you get there, assume
I’m not going to,” he says. “If worse comes to worse, just get
James and head back to The Ranch. If you don’t show at the inn,
I’ll make my way back home on my own.”

“Alright,” replies Scar.

“Good luck,” they hear his voice coming from
the other side of the crack.

“You too,” Fifer says, hating to leave him
there alone. Turning to Miko, he says, “Lead on.”

Exiting the room, they follow the corridor
as it moves away from the doorway. “At the end are stairs going
up,” he tells them. “At the top will be a trapdoor with a barrel
attached to the other side. James said it was there to better hide
the entrance leading to this area.”

“Makes sense,” says Fifer as he follows
behind Miko.

At the stairs, Scar and Fifer go up first
and together are able to lift the trapdoor with ease. Everyone
scrambles on through and they set the trapdoor back down.

“Doesn’t look as if anyone’s been here since
you guys were,” Shorty states as he indicates only two sets of
footprints leading away from the hidden trapdoor.

“Good,” Fifer says. “Maybe this way still
remains secret.”

“That makes this a whole lot easier,” Scar
adds.

Miko walks over to the door in the wooden
wall and says quietly, “On the other side of this door is a hidden
passage that runs within the walls of the estate. Once we’re in it,
we should be able to move about the estate and find where they’ve
taken James.”

“If he’s even here,” Fifer adds. “We’re not
entirely sure this is where he’s being taken.”

“True, but we’ve got to start somewhere,”
says Scar.

Miko closes the shutter on the lantern,
plunging them into darkness and then opens the door. The hallway on
the other side is completely dark, he sticks his head out and peers
down both directions. Nothing but darkness.

“Come on,” he says as he opens the shutter a
tiny fraction to let out a small amount of light. Stepping out into
the hallway, he says, “Not sure which way to go. Last time we went
to the right, but I have no idea which way to go now.”

“At least you got us in here,” Scar says
approvingly. To Fifer and Shorty, he says, “I’ll take Miko here and
go to the left. You guys go to the right and we’ll meet back here
in ten minutes.

“Alright,” Fifer says as he and Shorty begin
moving down to the right.

Scar takes the lantern and says, “Let me go
first.”

“Okay,” replies Miko as he relinquishes the
lantern. Behind them, he can hear Fifer mutter, “Wish we had the
lantern.”

Going down to the left, he follows behind
Scar as he makes his way further into the house. “We need to find a
crack of light that may indicate where another secret door lies,”
he tells him.

“But it’s night,” counters Scar.

“A light will indicate a room where someone
is,” he explains. “That’s also likely to be where James is being
held.”

“Good thought,” he says. As they move along,
he periodically closes the shutter so they can better tell where
light may be coming in from. When the ten minutes is about up, they
spot a sliver of light coming from a crack in the wall. Excited,
they move closer to it and discover a small sliding panel set into
the wall.

Ever so slowly, Scar slides it open and they
look through the opening into what appears to be a bedroom, an open
doorway leads from the bedroom out into another room. A lit candle
sits on a small table next to a bed. Scar sees night clothes for a
lady laid out upon the bed. Suddenly from the outer room, a woman
walks into the bedroom, naked as the day she was born. She comes to
the bed and begins putting on the nightclothes.

Scar watches for a moment before sliding the
panel closed. Whispering very quietly, he says, “Let’s go back to
the others.” When he gets a nod from Miko, he leads them back.

“What did you see?” asks Miko when they’ve
moved further away from the spy panel.

“It was a bedroom,” he replies with a grin.
“Nothing of interest.”

“Oh.”

They’re the first ones back at the meeting
spot and wait several anxious minutes before Fifer and Shorty
return. “Anything?” asks Scar.

In the dim light of the lantern, they see
Fifer shake his head, “No. We found one room with a candle burning,
but no one was around.”

“Us too,” he says.

“Now what?” asks Shorty. “We’re running out
of time.”

Just then, they hear footsteps approaching
from the direction Shorty and Fifer had just investigated. Closing
the shutter quickly, they stand there in silence as the footsteps
approach. Whoever it is, they’re walking in darkness so must know
this way well.

Fifer is standing closest to the approaching
footsteps, and when they’re almost upon him he strikes out with his
fist, trying to connect with the person’s chin. Instead, he catches
the person a glancing blow to the side of the head, causing the man
to cry out in shock.

Light suddenly fills the hidden corridor as
Scar throws open the shutter. The man sees them standing there,
blood running down the side of his face from where Fifer had struck
him. He quickly turns and begins running down the corridor away
from them when Fifer tackles him and they both crash to the
floor.

The man starts to call for help and Fifer
knees him in the stomach, silencing his cry as the wind is knocked
out of him. Before he has a chance to recover, a knife is being
held to his throat and Fifer says in a quiet voice, “Make a sound
and I’ll cut your throat. Understand?”

Gasping, trying to get his lungs working
again, the man nods. “Who are you?” Scar asks from behind
Fifer.

When the man finally gets his breath back,
he says, “Gregory, servant to Lord Colerain.” He looks from one
face to another with fear in his eyes.

“Is he here?” Fifer asks.

Shaking his head, Gregory replies, “No, he
left a half hour ago.”

Fifer glances to Scar and then returns his
attention to Gregory and asks, “Where did he go?”

“What are you going to do?” he asks
fearfully.

“Just answer the question!” Fifer says,
pressing the knife more firmly against his throat.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“We’re looking for a friend of ours who may
be held captive here,” Miko says to him. “Is he here?”

Gregory gives them a blank look as he
replies, “No. As far as I know, there is no one here but those who
work for Lord Colerain.”

“Is there anyone here who would know where
he went?” Scar asks.

“Your friend?” Gregory asks, confused.

“No, Lord Colerain,” clarifies Scar.

“Maybe Tillon,” he answers.

“Who’s he?” asks Shorty. “And where can he
be found?”

“He’s Lord Colerain’s administer,” he
explains. “He takes care of the estate and any business the lord
has within Bearn.”

“Where is he?” asks Fifer.

When he hesitates, Scar says, “If he’s not
going to be of help, just kill him. We don’t have much time.”

Eyes going wide he says quickly, “He’s here.
I think he’s still in the office.”

“Is that the room with the large picture on
one wall?” asks Miko.

Surprised at him for having known that,
Gregory replies, “Yes it is.”

Fifer glances to Miko, who says, “That’s
where James and I came out of this secret passage.”

Yanking Gregory to his feet, Fifer says,
“Take us there.”

When the man hesitates, he puts the point of
his knife under his chin.

Defeated, the man says, “This way.” He then
turns and begins leading them down the passage. Fifer keeps a firm
grip upon him and the knife hovers around his throat to prevent him
from doing anything stupid.