Nancy Berberick - Prisoner of Haven

Even better though, the tunnel below Rose Hall was revealed as a wonder, for around the next bend was the side branch they had never used. They’d always believed it doubled back to become a dead end, the way blocked by years of stone and rubble from an old collapse. The storm and the river’s backwash had changed that, undermining what had seemed an impassible blockage and revealing a stone-walled cavity that might have started out as a cave but ended up as a catacomb. Past the old rock fall, the level of the floor dropped fully the length of a tall man’s height. There had been bodies-old bones and skulls-washed out from their burial niches in the flood and dragged into floors of the maze. Best, though, the catacomb was part of a network of burial chambers, little rooms leading one to another, each stoutly walled by the bones of the earth, some passageways arched in stone, others rough as the world had made them.

Every one of those chambers-“Little jewels on a necklace,” Dunbrae called them-was solid, and a man could walk the path of them and find himself in places below the city Qui’thonas or pirates had never dreamed existed.

It all looked dwarf-built, from before the time of Old Keep, or so Dunbrae said. And then he went on to praise the work of dwarves, to assure Aline that this string of catacombs was exactly what Qui’thonas needed.

“Go out to map,” Aline had asked Madoc. “If it’s as Dunbrae says, it will be more than we ever imagined we could hope for or have.”

In truth that was everything Madoc wanted-that Aline could have all she hoped for. So he mapped, slogging in the tunnels with Dunbrae in the days after the storm. Some days were bad, most were worse, but today, despite what he said to the dwarf, today wasn’t so bad. He’d gotten into the catacombs yesterday, left kits for torches and leather bottles filled with water. He’d get back there today, and he’d leave more. Qui’thonas had a new way out of Haven, one not even Aline herself had known about.

Madoc stood as best he could-knees stiff, feet wet-and took a lamp from the dwarf. He saw to the tarred sack on his back, shifting the weight of brands and wicking and oil. Dunbrae’s light grew faint behind him. Ahead the beams holding the dripping ceiling glittered, and the stone walls glistened. The passage had been risky here yesterday, a slog through mud and standing water. It had changed since then. Madoc caught glimpses of a floor lower than it had been. Like a sculptor, the great storm had carved something out of Haven below ground no one now living had known how to see.

At the intersection where the first burial chambers were, Madoc stopped and shifted the load on his back. He listened to water drip. Behind, Dunbrae moved in such a way that his light was obscured. Breath held, Madoc waited to see it again. He didn’t. He drew breath to call out, and something itched in his mind-the old feeling of knowing, a warning to keep quiet. Dunbrae must have moved, for his light winked again in the darkness.

Madoc kept still, listening to the sounds of the tunnel and the quiet beat of his heart. The silence erupted in sudden shouting.

“Mage!” Dunbrae bellowed. “Bring ’em in!”

The tunnel filled with the sounds of panic-splashing, cries of terror, and Madoc recognized Dezra’s voice, quick and commanding.

“Run! Don’t turn! Go straight! Go, go, go! ”

Madoc ran for her, splashing into a part of the tunnel he hadn’t seen yet today, hoping no sink hole had opened, no walls had collapsed.

“Dez!”

Lantern high, he saw only the flash of light on wet walls and the golden gleam on puddled floors. He swung the lantern in an arc, hoping that Dez was close enough to see and be guided.

They came out of the murk and the darkness-white-faced, an old man, a child, and a tottering woman whose white hair clung to her face and neck in filthy snarls. They were a battered lot, every one of them with scratches and cuts, even the child bruised and torn, as though they’d fled and fought and fled again. As Madoc reached them, Dez turned and swooped the old woman up into her arms. Madoc thrust the lantern into the man’s hand and snatched the weeping child.

“Ahead,” he told Dez. “Dunbrae is there.”

Gasping, Dez shook her head. “No. We can’t.”

The child sobbed, and the old man said, “We been found by knights.”

Madoc looked at Dez, who nodded.

“I collapsed the tunnel back there. Not hard. It was all mud and sliding. But it won’t keep.”

“Worse,” Madoc said. “They know it’s here.”

Dez sifted the light load of the half-fainting woman and slogged on. Her voice like a knife’s edge, she said, “You can’t imagine how much worse.”

He learned. Dez had gone out with two others of Qui’thonas on a route scouted well in advance to a safe house found in one of the fishing villages downriver. They’d been met on the road by knights.

“Killed the child’s father,” she said, her voice low. “And killed Konal.”

Madoc winced. Konal had been the only elf left to Qui’thonas, a young woman working for what she’d proudly called a debt of honor. Konal’s had been one of the first families rescued from Qualinesti after Aline’s marriage funded the effort.

“Who else?” Madoc asked.

“Dead? No one.”

Madoc’s belly went cold.

“Barthel’s been captured.”

With a great splashing, Dunbrae came down the tunnel, sloshing through muddy water up to his shins, lantern as high as he could hold it. His face all shadow and white eyes, he jerked his head back the way he’d come.

“No one’s going that way,” he growled. He stood, a steely-eyed guardian at the gate. “No one’s leading knights any farther.”

The old woman moaned.

“There are no knights,” Dez said, walking past him.

Dunbrae got in her way. “You said they found the tunnel.”

Madoc wouldn’t have needed a shred of his old divination skills to know that Dez stood on the ragged edge of her temper. The pulse pounded in her temples, and her jaw was a hard, clenched line.

“I collapsed the damned thing, Dunbrae. Let it be.”

The dwarf stood stone stubborn.

“I don’t care. They know it’s there. They’ll dig or think things through. Whatever they do, they won’t let it be till they find where it ends. No one’s getting near-”

He didn’t speak Aline’s name, he didn’t have to.

“He’s right,” Madoc said, lip curling a little at the irony of affirming Dunbrae’s case. “We can’t go farther, Dez. Or not the way we used to.” He nodded to Dunbrae. “Barthel’s been captured. He’ll hold out. Maybe. Or maybe not.”

The dwarf’s face shone white above his dark beard. He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his onyx ring.

“Might be you don’t know him so well as I do. He’ll hold out. So get it into your head. I’m not leading a pack of damned knights right to where Barthel is going to die to keep them from getting.”

“Could we not do this?” Dezra snapped. “Later, if we live. But not now.”

Dunbrae grunted, but Madoc ignored him.

“The catacombs,” Madoc said. “We’ll go that way.”

Dez shook her head. “No one knows how far they go. You could wander around down there for days.”

“No dwarf with half an eye wanders anywhere like that for days,” Dunbrae said. “You think people just dig and go and dig and go? There’s always a plan and a structure. These are catacombs. People like to find their dead when they’re lookin’ for ’em. Just because Haven forgot about it doesn’t mean the place isn’t orderly. There’ll be a way in and a way out.”

“But out where?”

“Anywhere not on a… dangerous doorstep,” Madoc said quietly, “is a good place to start.”