Paul Kemp - Shadow witness

I don't know how we managed to keep this location a secret, he thought. To Cale, now on the outside looking in, the building fairly screamed guildhouse!

No guards presently stood watch outside the front doors. No slingers on the roof, either. All the second story rooms were dark, an unusual state even at this late hour.

Strange, he thought with a frown, because of the snow, maybe?

He considered simply storming the front doors, bluffing his way through the guildsmen to the Righteous Man, and taking the old man down, but dismissed the idea as the ill-conceived product of anger. Unbridled aggression can sometimes be an enemy, Thamalon had told him. He smiled and thought: True enough, Thamalon, true enough.

He observed for a few minutes more to assure himself that he had not missed anything. He hadn't. There were no guards. The whole situation stank like an ambush. He blew out his breath in a cloud of mist and rubbed the day's growth of stubble that peppered his cheeks.

Abruptly, he made his decision-he would enter the sewers at Winding Way and come up through the guild-house basement. No doubt that entrance would be trapped as well, but going in that way would put him closer to the basement shrine, and thus closer to the Righteous Man. Survival had ceased to be his primary concern. Gale had already said goodbye to everything that he had to live for. Killing the Righteous Man was all that mattered anymore.

I'm coming for you, old man.

He lowered himself over the side of Emellia's and nimbly climbed down to street level.

The falling snow melted the moment it hit the cobblestones, so the street was covered in a slushy brown muck. Cale pulled his cloak tight against the wind and sloshed a block to Winding Way. The snowfall made visibility difficult, so he relied on his keen ears to alert him to an ambush. He heard nothing. No one was on the street.

When he reached Winding Way, Cale ducked into an alley and looked through the falling snow to make sure no one was behind him. Still no one. He sprinted to the dry common well that the guild had "mistakenly" dug, and that now provided access to the sewers.

Using his height to good effect, he climbed over the well wall and straddled the top. He braced his heels against one side, braced his upper back and shoulder blades against the other, and began slowly to descend. As he did, he kept his ears focused on the sewer bottom forty feet below. Snowflakes fluttered down the well and landed on his face. They melted instantly in the heat of his exertion. Despite the cold air, sweat beaded his forehead and his raspy, labored breathing echoed off the walls. The stink of waste and organic decay rose up the well to fill his nostrils. He inhaled deeply as he descended, trying to dull his senses to the smell.

He let himself drop the final few feet. Hitting the ground in a crouch, he instantly pulled his long sword from its scabbard. Faint in the distance, he heard the high-pitched squeaks of rats and the scurrying sounds of other vermin. Though too dark to see much, he knew the sewer tunnels branched off in three directions. He wanted east. He pulled forth his flint, steel, and tin-derbox, and lit a candle. In the damp air, its small flame sputtered dim and orange off the crumbling walls.

Long sword and candle in hand, he headed down the east tunnel. He tried to ignore the muck that sucked at his feet. Tales abounded in Selgaunt about the dire creatures that lurked in the city's sewers- creatures such as flesh dissolving slimes and intelligent algae men-but Cale had concern only for an ambush by guildsmen. This portion of the sewers had been sealed off from the main tunnels a few blocks away, and the guild regularly patrolled to keep it clear of anything, or anybody, unwanted.

He had walked less than fifty paces when he began to smell rotting flesh. Shielding the light of the candle with his hand, he crept forward and strained to listen.

He expected to hear the growl of approaching ghouls, but instead heard nothing. Warily, he advanced.

The stench grew increasingly stronger as he neared the turn in the tunnel that led toward the guildhouse. Still hearing nothing, he hugged the tunnel wall and stalked forward, blade at the ready. When he rounded the turn, he saw the source of the stink. Vomit raced up his throat but he gritted his teeth and swallowed it down.

Ahead of him, at the base of the ladder that ascended into the guildhouse, lay a pile of rotting corpses. Black rats, some of them as large as small dogs, feasted on the bodies. Most of them squeaked indignantly at his approach, left their feast, and scurried off.

"Dark," he softly oathed. He shooed away with his long sword two stubborn rats that had not fled with the rest and knelt to examine the corpses.

A ghastly pile of decomposing flesh, the bodies lay heaped atop one another like cordwood, so rotted and intertwined that Gale could hardly tell where one corpse ended and another began. Fifteen or twenty men maybe, he couldn't tell for sure. Dead a tenday at least, maybe two. The stench made his eyes water.

Torn and naked, the corpses had been tossed down from the trapdoor above like garbage. Partially eaten by ghouls-Cale recognized the ragged wounds of ghoul claw and fang-the rats had been at what remained. Puss and blood assaulted his eyes. He tried to scrutinize the mangled faces more closely but could not recognize any of them before he had to turn away or vomit. The grotesque image of a half-eaten arm sticking out of the base of the heap, the limb seemingly reaching for release, stuck in his mind and made him sweat in the chill.

He tried to steel himself, for he knew he would have to disengage the tangle of bodies to clear a path to the

'ladder. It was either that or try to climb over.

Shuddering, he immediately dismissed climbing as a bad idea. A big man, he would likely find himself sinking into the midst of the corpses rather than walking on top of them. The thought of wading chest deep in rot made him gag.,

Holding his breath and stifling retches, he set to work, H" pulled the bodies loose from the pile and hurriedly cast them to the side. Many came apart in his hands. Others leaked so much fluid as he picked them up that pus and blood soon soaked his cloak. He worked as fast as he could. Grab, throw, gag. Grab, throw, gag.

When he finally cleared enough of a path to the ladder, he grabbed desperately at the rusty iron rungs and began to climb. Halfway up he vomited down the front of his cloak. At the same time he realized that he had left his candle sputtering on the sewer floor. He didn't care. He could not go back down, at least not right now.

When he reached the trapdoor, he shouldered it open with a grunt and climbed into the storeroom.

Darkness, but surprisingly, no guards. Light trickled in from beneath the only door out and provided a dim luminescence. Crates and bags lay broken and torn open. Spilled grain and splintered wood littered the ground. Only tattered scraps remained of the filthy rug that once had covered the trapdoor.

Relieved, and in no danger of imminent attack, Cale took a moment to strip his befouled cloak and use a torn burlap grain sack to wipe clean his blood-soaked arms and chest. After transferring his coin and tinderbox into his pants pockets, he tossed the cloak, the sack, and his leather gloves into the sewer below and closed the trapdoor. Still reeling from the sights and smells of the sewer, he put his hands on his knees and allowed himself a moment to recover. He inhaled deeply and enjoyed a breath of cleaner air. The charnel smell of nearby ghouls lingered in the air, true, but that seemed clean compared with the foulness of the sewers.

After a few moments, he stood upright and mentally prepared himself. He did not know what he should expect. The guild seemed to have undergone some kind of purge in his absence. He felt certain that the corpses in the sewers below were former Night Knives. Dabbling with the demonic must have finally driven the Righteous Man insane. The guildmaster was purging the guild of unbelievers and transforming Mask's faithful into undead. The realization caused Gale to despise religion all the more. A man lost himself when he took the rites. The Righteous Man had lost himself. The attack on Stormweather had not been an attempt to get at Cale through his family. It had been merely a ham-handed attempt to get at Cale, an unbeliever. Thazienne's injury and all the dead were incidental.