Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

Worst of all, his misguided attempt at locating word of Dah’mir through Sharn’s underworld meant that Dandra and Singe would not just have one less ally on which to rely, but that they would almost certainly start using time they needed to locate the dragon on finding him instead. He’d told Dandra he’d be back by dawn. She might already have started worrying about him. He had become a liability. He had to find a way out of this.

He knew Biish, though. Getting out of the hobgoblin’s hands wasn’t going to be easy.

He looked up as the door in the outer chamber opened and several people, to judge by the sound of footsteps, entered. They brought a dim light with them, lighting up the square of the barred window in the cell door. That was interesting, he thought. It meant that not all of Biish’s gang were goblinoids. Someone in the other chamber needed light to see. He rose to his feet.

The large and hairy face of the bugbear from the tavern appeared at the barred window. Natrac glared at him. “Awake,” the creature grunted in Goblin and moved back.

Biish took his place and gave Natrac a leer that showed all of his oversized teeth. “I never thought I’d see you back in Sharn, Natrac,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Asking myself the same thing.” Natrac met his gaze without flinching. “How have you been, Biter?”

Biish’s skin was a deep orange color that turned deeper when he flushed. His ears lay back flat. “No one calls me Biter now, taat!”

From the utter silence that fell among those who had accompanied Biish into the outer chamber, Natrac guessed that the hobgoblin might actually be right. He held his voice steady, not allowing himself to show any sign of fear, and pushed himself up to the bars on the window. “I guess the chib can have people call him whatever he wants,” he said. “Have you been taking care of my affairs, Biish?”

That got a bark of mocking laughter out of him. “They haven’t been your affairs for a long time, Natrac.”

“I heard you closed the arena.”

“You could have sold it to me when I asked, and you would have made money,” Biish said with a cold smile. “You could have joined your gang with mine, and you might still be in power today instead of stuck in a cell you built yourself. The Longtooth is one of the most powerful gangs in Malleon’s Gate these days.”

Biish always had loved to gloat. Natrac let the hobgoblin boast while he looked past him to the band of thugs he had brought into the room. The bugbear, of course. Another hobgoblin. Two goblins, one of which looked very familiar and who glanced away when Natrac’s eyes met his. Natrac remembered him-a street rat with such a talent for picking pockets that he’d brought him into his gang personally. Not everyone had stood up against Biish’s control, it seemed. Natrac’s jaw tightened in anger, but he forced his gaze past the little traitor.

The final person in the room was the one holding the dim light-source, a small lamp. The only non-goblinoid-and the only woman-she was a half-elf, young but with hard and cunning eyes. Her hair was blond with a hint of red and bound into a knot at the back of her head. Her clothes were worn leather, and the only visible weapon she carried was a dagger at her hip, but Natrac had a feeling that wasn’t the only weapon on her. Somehow she didn’t look out of place among Biish’s guard. Instead, they looked out of place in her presence.

And she was watching him.

Natrac wrenched his gaze from her and back to Biish as he finally ran out of words. “If you’re so powerful,” he said to the hobgoblin, “then you have nothing to worry about from me. I’m out of this game. You know it.”

“Are you asking me to let you go?” Biish’s wolf ears rose. “For one, I don’t think you are out of the game. I know you wouldn’t have dared to come back to Sharn and Malleon’s Gate unless you had some important reason. For another, there’s the matter of why I’m using your fine old headquarters instead of mine.” A flush crept back into his face. “They still talk about the explosion in some taverns.”

Natrac looked him straight in the eyes. “As long as you were running me out of Sharn, I wanted to be sure you had something to remember me by.”

Biish’s teeth snapped together-but any response he might have made was lost as the door of the outer chamber burst open and another goblin stumbled through. “Biish!” the little creature said. “Lord Storm is back. He’s waiting for you in the meeting room.”

Natrac thought Biish looked like he was going to explode. If the hobgoblin had been able to tear himself in two-one to stay and harass Natrac, the other to go and meet this “Lord Storm”-he probably would have. After a moment, though, Biish leaned close to the bars of the cell.

“Don’t go anywhere, Natrac,” he growled. “We have a lot of catching up to do. Maybe you’ll tell me how you lost your hand-and maybe I’ll finish what someone else started.” He whirled away and stomped out the chamber door. “Dabrak, sharpen your axes! Benti, come with me.”

The bugbear stood up straight with an eager expression on his face. The half-elf just nodded. They and the rest of Biish’s retinue followed the head of the Longtooth gang out of the chamber. The door slammed shut and darkness fell over the room once more. Natrac sagged in relief.

“Gray-haired Olladra,” he prayed with desperate piety, “see me out of this, and I’ll build a shrine to you in Zarash’ak.”

And may the Sovereign Host bless the arrival of Lord Storm, he added silently. Presumably he was some associate of Biish’s and a major one if he took precedence over Biish’s revenge. Natrac couldn’t complain. He had a reprieve, and he needed to make the most of it. He stood upright and rattled the door of the cell with his hand. Or tried to rattle it. The door was as solid as the day he’d watched it installed. He stepped back and cursed. He wasn’t getting out that way!

But maybe there was something else he could do. He glanced down at the floor.

When he had the small room converted into a cell, he also had the floor reinforced with heavy planks. He didn’t want anyone escaping by ripping up the floorboards. While the carpenter was laying the new planks though, he’d discovered something: hidden beneath a loose board was a cavity and at the bottom of the cavity was a fine screen that looked into the room below. From the lower room, the screen was all but invisible, hidden by shadow and a panel of carved wood.

Magical scrying could be foiled, but there was little that could be done to counter simple eavesdropping. Natrac had the carpenter construct a new access to the hidden cavity, paid him handsomely, and moved him and his family out of Sharn to make sure it stayed a secret. He began holding his meetings in the lower room, and those left in the room to speak in private began to wonder how he learned of their conversations.

If Biish had been using his cell all these years, maybe he was using his meeting room too. Eavesdropping was a small thing to build an escape on, but it was a start.

At the base of one wall, Natrac pressed his hand against a section of plank and pushed it forward, then to the left. An old catch released, and the section rose just enough that he could get his fingernails into a fine groove and turn it on a hidden pivot.

Underneath, the cavity and its screen remained just as he remembered. Natrac cursed silently and wondered if he should have hidden his escape kit beneath the plank.

Light was coming up from the room beneath, though-light and Biish’s voice. Moving carefully, Natrac lay flat on the floor and peered down into the cavity. The view was restricted, but he could see Biish sitting down on one side of a table. The half-elf woman, Benti, stood behind him. Someone else, just a moving shadow and quick footsteps, paced back and forth on the other side of the room. It sounded like Biish was in the middle of offering his visitor an apology.