Princeps’ Fury

A good point. They could do without walking in through the front gates, relying purely upon their furycrafted veils to protect them from detection. Amara, like most Cursors, knew about a dozen different ways to enter all of the High Lords’ cities unobtrusively. It was a far easier matter in a large city than in smaller towns, really.

She signaled Bernard to follow her and started for the slavers’ tunnels that ran under the west wall of the city.

* * *

The tunnels had been sealed prior to the Vord attack, of course, but as she had fully expected, they had been opened by panicked inhabitants of the city as they fled. The tunnel entries all showed the rough, outward-flung ripples of stone moved aside in haste by earthcrafters of mediocre talent, and were wide enough, just barely, for an adult carrying a heavy pack to slip through. Best of all, none of the three entrances within easy reach showed any sign of the Vord, either upon the ground outside or within the tunnels themselves. The only marks were the tracks of booted feet.

It was a good sign. The bulk of the Vord forces had pursued the First Lord and the Legions as they fled to the north. It meant that the city was probably only lightly occupied, rather than being a seething hive. They might be able to move with more speed once they were within.

Amara slipped into the dark mouth of the nearest tunnel. Furylamps were still burning inside, though they were of poor quality and spaced widely.

She drew close to her husband, once within, and crafted a globe of still air about their heads and shoulders that would not allow their words to escape into the close confines of the tunnels. “Lucky,” she breathed, her voice a whisper, harsh from disuse. “We still have light enough to move by.”

Her husband drew her a little closer to his chest and made a low rumble in his throat. “I’d think it was too convenient if I hadn’t lived the past week.”

“They can’t be strong everywhere,” Amara replied. “If there were that many of them, they wouldn’t have needed to pursue the First Lord so closely.”

Bernard frowned at that and nodded slowly. “He’s still a threat to them.” He glanced around at the tunnel, his eyes wary but more confident. “What is this place?”

“The slavers in Ceres had a problem,” Amara said. “A ready market, opposed by organizations of fanatic abolitionists, who would attempt to disrupt shipments of slaves and murder slavers as creatively as possible. The slavers created these tunnels as secure means in and out of the city.”

“Somehow,” Bernard said, a hint of a smile on his lips, “I think that whatever happens, that problem has been permanently solved.”

Amara found herself tittering on the edge of a half-hysterical giggle. “Yes, I suppose so.”

Bernard nodded down the tunnel. “Smells foul, though. Where does it lead?”

“The auction house, in the western city square. It’s less than five hundred yards from the citadel.”

“Excellent,” Bernard said. His eyes went back to hers. “How are you?”

Amara thought it was the simple humanity of the question, in the face of the horror they had seen, that made her chest pang so sharply. She was tired. She ached in every limb and every joint. She was hungry, shaky, and terrified on such a steadily ongoing basis that it had begun to lose its bite and fade into numb indifference. The reminder of a kinder, gentler world, of the times they had shared speaking quietly, or sleeping beside one another, or making love, flared up in a hideously bright, dangerous fire inside her.

She looked away from him and spoke with a shaking voice. “I… I can’t. Not yet. We still have work to do.”

His hands rose to her upper arms and squeezed gently. His voice came out warm, quiet, steady. “It’s all right, love. Let’s be about it. We need to consider-get down!”

She froze in surprise for an instant, even as her husband’s arms drove her to her knees. She lost her balance and would have toppled to one side had he not caught her.

At his curt gesture, she dropped the interdicting windcrafting and they were immediately assaulted by the sounds they would have heard had she not been holding it in place.

Voices echoed in the tunnel. Feet thudded in a careless clatter. Someone-perhaps even their quarry-was in the tunnels with them, and they were crouching in a narrow corridor like perfect fools. No amount of concealing furycraft would do them any good if one of the Vord sympathizers physically blundered into them.

The volume of the voices rose. The tunnels rendered them completely unintelligible, but their tone was clear: an argument. Then a pair of shadowy forms backlit by a dingy furylamp emerged from a cross tunnel ahead of them and turned to proceed farther into the stinking depths of the tunnel that led toward the auction house, away from Amara and Bernard.

She traded a look with her husband. Then the pair of them rose to their feet and began stalking after the retreating figures.