Tim Waggoner - Thieves of Blood

The elf-woman removed her hand from the halfling’s mouth and motioned for him to retreat a bit down the corridor. He nodded again, turned, and moved off without a sound. Yvka followed, equally as silent. When they’d put a few dozen extra yards between themselves and the raiders, and the curve of the corridor wall hid them from view, Yvka caught up to Hinto and motioned for him to stop. The elf-woman knelt next to the halfling and whispered close to his ear.

“That looks like one of the storage areas Tresslar described,” she said.

“Maybe,” Hinto replied, “but that doesn’t mean it’s the place the raiders keep the prisoners.”

“True, but if it was merely a storage area for supplies and such, why would they guard it, especially this night, when they’ve left so much of the rest of Grimwall unguarded?”

“Good point. What do we do now?”

Yvka thought for a moment. She still had a few tricks in the leather pouch dangling from her belt, provided by the ever-inventive and oh-so-devious wizards and artificers employed by the Shadow Network, but she wasn’t certain any of her toys would prove useful in this situation. Then again, sometimes the simple ways were the best.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.”

The halfling walked down the corridor toward the two guards, weaving with an unsteady gait. At first neither noticed him in the dim light, but as he drew closer, one of the guards whirled around to stare at the halfling.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” the man shouted, sounding more bemused than angry.

The halfling didn’t answer. He took a couple more weaving steps, stopped, stiffened, then collapsed to the floor. Both guards stared at him for several moments, as if they expected the halfling to leap up any moment and yell, “Surprise!” The small man just lay there, unmoving.

The guard who’d shouted at the halfling drew his sword and walked forward, keeping his gaze trained on the seemingly unconscious little man, alert for even the most subtle of movements. The guard reached the halfling and was just about to prod him with his sword when a blur of motion emerged from the corridor’s gloom. The Black Fleet raider looked up to see a woman come cartwheeling toward him, but before he could fully understand what he was seeing, let alone react, he felt a sharp piercing pain in his side. He looked down to see the halfling sitting up and holding onto the hilt of the long knife that had been thrust into his gut. Confused and feeling the first numbing touches of shock, the raider could only watch as the woman-an elf, he thought, though she was moving too fast for him to be sure-tumbled past him. She leaped into the air and delivered a spinning kick to his partner’s head before the other guard had gotten his sword even halfway clear of its scabbard. The other raider’s head spun to the side, the motion accompanied by the sickening sound of snapping bone. The man was dead before the elf-woman landed on her feet, but it took his body an instant longer to realize it and topple to the floor.

The surviving guard looked back down at the halfling, and the little man gave him a savage grin before shoving the long knife farther in and twisting it around. Agony exploded in the raider’s abdomen and chest, but darkness rushed in to sweep away the pain.

Yvka was examining the lock on the gate as Hinto wiped his long knife clean on the shirt of the downed raider. The halfling sheathed his weapon and came over to join her.

“How’s it look?”

“Old and sturdy,” she said, “but I think I can open it.”

“Hello?”

Both Yvka and Hinto started at the sound of the voice. It belonged to a small girl child, and it came from the other side of the gate. With the light from the greenfire braziers so close, it took a moment for their vision to adjust before they saw the child standing a dozen yards behind the gate. She was dressed in ragged dirty clothing, barefoot, and her hair was scraggly and matted. She was also pale and far too thin.

Yvka gave the girl what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Hello.”

The girl hesitated then took a few steps closer. “The others don’t want me to talk to you. They’re afraid you’ve come to do bad things to us, just like you did to them.” She pointed at the prone form of the guard whose neck Yvka had broken. “Have you?”

Yvka tried to peer past the girl to see the other prisoners, but the brazier light interfered too much, and she could only make out shadows behind the girl that might or might not be a huddled mass of frightened people. She sniffed the air and smelled unwashed bodies, urine, and feces. She then recalled what Tresslar had told them about the storage areas. They’re really just large caverns that the goblinoids didn’t do much with, except smooth out the floors some. I can’t imagine it would be a very comfortable place to have your quarters. Considering the girl’s appearance and the smell emanating from the cavern, Yvka thought the artificer had made a huge understatement.

“We’ve come to set you free,” Hinto said.

“Free?” The girl came yet a few steps closer. “What’s that?”

Yvka felt a rush of sorrow at the girl’s question. “It means that you can go wherever you want, do whatever you want. It means that you’ll never have to serve in Grimwall again, and you won’t have to fear Erdis Cai anymore.”

The girl was still a few yards away, but she was close enough now for Yvka to see her clearly. The elf-woman sometimes had trouble telling how old humans were, for they aged so much more rapidly than elfkind, but she thought the girl was five, six at the most. Yvka wondered if the poor thing had been brought here so young that she had no memory of the outside world or worse, that she’d been born here and never been beyond Grimwall’s tunnels and chambers. Either way, it was a tragedy. A human lifetime was brief enough as it was without having to waste any of it trapped in a place like this.

The girl kept coming toward them until she stood just on the other side of the gate. “Promise?” she said.

Yvka smiled though she felt tears threatening. “With all my heart.”

The girl looked into the elf-woman’s eyes as if trying to gauge her sincerity. Finally, the girl smiled, then turned to back over her shoulder. “Everyone! This lady is going to help us!”

At first there was no response, but then the shadowy forms began to come forward from the darkness, resolving into men and woman, children and oldsters, dozens upon dozens of them. Some were wearing simple brown tunics woven from coarse cloth, while others were garbed in tattered scraps no more substantial than what the little girl wore. Many were stooped and hunched over, or walked with a limp or held an arm at their side at awkward angle, the legacy of old injuries that had never healed properly. Worst of all were the gaunt ones with a white pallor and bite marks-some of them fresh-on every inch of their exposed skin.

Yvka hadn’t told anyone, but once she’d learned Erdis Cai was behind the Black Fleet, she’d decided her employers would want to establish a trading relationship with the undead explorer in order to gain access to the treasures, both material and mystical, that he’d acquired during his mortal life. After seeing these poor wretches, she hoped Diran would destroy the bastard and send his soul straight to the worst afterlife the planes had to offer.

Yvka reached into her pouch, removed a pomegranate seed, and inserted it into the keyhole of the gate’s lock. “Everyone stand back,” she said. “This tiny seed is a magical explosive, and it packs a wallop when it goes off.”

The prisoners shuffled backward but not too far, as if they couldn’t bring themselves to move any real distance from the gate and their promised freedom. Yvka figured they were far enough away. After all, it wasn’t that powerful an explosive. She looked down at Hinto.