Chapter Twenty-Six: Dissent in the Ranks

  As Selriph and Hagan made their way to the relative quiet of the Benalsin residential district. Selriph signalled for Hagan to make a right turn into an alleyway, no doubt possessing another manhole cover to the sewers, at least in the eyes of the woodsman.

  One swift corner, past a wall of scrawled markings, Selriph stood over the manhole, pausing over it, as if contemplating the very notion of jumping back into the filth.

  “Getting squeamish, boy? Did the lass’s disdain rub off on you?”

  Selriph was unreachable, far off in the depths of his mind, seemingly focused on a vision only he could see.

  “Lad..? Are you in there?”

  Selriph looked up, his features hardened into a mask of pure seriousness. As he placed his finger on his lips and signalled for the woodsman to follow him, leaving the manhole ever so slightly ajar as they walked past it.

  As he followed the boy through the alleyway, Hagan’s expression conveyed his silent disagreement, his lips firmly shut.

  Selriph led Hagan through a winding maze of alleys and narrow streets—left, then right, then two more lefts. Hagan grumbled but said nothing.

  Then, after a final turn, they emerged… they found themselves standing on the same street they’d left behind minutes ago.

  Hagan slowed, his brow furrowed. “Boy! I may be no city dweller, but isn’t this—” Hagan’s voice came swift and firm.

  Selriph’s palm shot out, a silent command, his lips curled in as his stance and visage portrayed a disciplinarian sternness that gave the woodsman pause.

  The youth before him scanned left, then right, before deftly moving across the street, returning to the same alley.

  Once they crossed the threshold into the alleyway, he drew his estoc just as they passed the wall of scrawled markings once more.

  Over the very manhole cover they’d supposedly entered, a figure waited, poised to enter the sewers. Just as they were on the verge of descending, Selriph appeared in their vision, forcing their hands skyward in mock surrender as the boy’s hostile approach and gaze bore down on them like a predator. Blade held in a one-handed stance in a poised strut—a presence that exuded pressure even Hagan felt in his gut.

  “Who in the abyss are you? Why have you been following us?” He brandished his sword at the figure, whose eyes were laced with fear and shock at the unexpected, sudden encounter.

  [Forty-five minutes earlier]

  The low murmur of the city surrounded them as Hagan and Selriph discreetly walked through the streets leading out of the Tollerton district, eastward towards the Benalsin district in the lower quarter.

  This route was far from ideal; they had not anticipated the surge in morning activity following the unfortunate events of the previous night. The streets bustled with activity, typical of Sufnus—the 6th day and week’s end.

  “Hard to believe the city is back to being so lively after yesterday… it’s like the chaos never happened.” Hagan said, his voice in a whisper as they passed a row of merchant carts.

  While an air of normalcy had indeed returned to the city, Selriph could hear the undercurrent of rumours, all coalesced into an important piece of information—the chaotic activities of last night impacted four festive gatherings. Two in the suburbs, two in the lower district.

  The colloquially named middle districts—the border between opulence and scarcity: Modesty. The air carried another thread of information; criers called out fervent calls for the swift execution of those responsible, praising the swift action of the city guard and the militant arms of the Eldeitian Strata. Among them, the Knights Templar, praised for their pious and altruistic service and the holy clerics and priests who offered aid to the victims.

  Selriph’s gut twisted in disgust at the unwarranted reverence as the active bustle of the street assaulted Selriph’s senses, every overheard whisper contributing to the abundance of rumours. They all revolved around one thing:

  When will the perpetrators face justice?

  A public spectacle, no doubt, and a particular delight for the upper class. who had leisure to spare amid their affluence. Selriph’s memory flashed with the days his mother would force the performance onto him, an exercise for the young boy to stomach the realities of dispensing justice. Something the former heir of the Daryth family had to learn from a young age.

  When he was still a son.

  Hagan’s eyes darted nervously, a rare sight for the usually calm woodsman. The unfamiliar city, a jungle of stone, and the looming shadow of Vickthar’s execution clearly unnerved him.

  “Selriph, we need to get into the sewer soon, a way into the prison complex. If they are planning to hang the resistance members, Vickthar would surely be among them.” His voice was low yet laced with tension, like a coiled spring.

  Selriph’s voice came as a near whisper, though tinged with the slightest hint of irritation at the woodman’s obvious statement. “Working on it, but surely you have a plan that goes deeper than just an invisibility concoction?”

  “Of course, lad, I’m no fool. We have other items that’ll come in handy for our infiltration,” Hagan said, subtly patting the secondary, smaller pouch he carried.

  Selriph briefly felt relieved at the assurance of a deeper level of complexity, though this did little to fully alleviate his concerns about the monumental task facing them in the coming hours. “Then we talk about it in detail when we are back in the sewers. For now, no words pass our lips.”

  Hagan gave an affirmative nod as Selriph’s eyes continued scanning the streets before him. Beneath the unease from their task, another undercurrent unsettled the boy, though he could not ascertain it.

  In all previous instances of unease, it had been a magical presence that had been its source: the milky eyes of the gaunt man, the ghoul-raiser in the woods. This time, his intuition was screaming a different warning.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  A gut feeling that something was amiss.

  Its source was not the potential failure of infiltration; that thought burned like a flame. No, this was something else. Could it be that someone had already recognised him? After all, his face was as plain as day.

  Though he deliberately steered clear of any guard patrols, a civilian might have already alerted the guard—and, by extension, Thorne—to his presence. Perhaps they were already being watched, tracked.

  Selriph gazed down at the stone, both in a half-baked attempt to conceal his face from potentially scrutinising eyes, but also to reach out with his arcane senses, reaching out to confirm or allay his fears: that they were already being tailed by someone.

  A minute passed as they paced, nothing. No individual, or clusters of two or three, seemed to follow them—standard patrol teams for the guard.

  For the moment, no personnel from the justice apparatus were on them.

  Yet, the relief he felt diminished as they moved into the boundaries of the Tollerton district; Selriph’s intermittent glances back corroborated with a persistent, faint signature that both stood out and remained with them in their amble.

  A simple fact became clear:

  Not a group, but someone had indeed been following them; for how long, Selriph could only speculate.

  Their gait was odd, not in the poised strut of guards in a patrol group. But neither were they the shuffles of an intoxicated individual. It was somewhere in between, almost unnaturally so.

  There was a calculated aspect, whether the impairment was genuine or feigned. They always maintained a safe distance from the two, always behind a group of other denizens, such that they would not be first in the line of sight.

  This continued as they moved away from the bustle of the Tollerton district, as it made way for the relative quietude of the Benalsin district.

  Still, the figure followed, this time just barely out of Selriph’s perception range with his arcane senses.

  No shadow of a doubt remained; the truth stood plain as day; they were being followed—there was only one way to ascertain why:

  Confronting the individual away from prying eyes.

  [Present Time]

  “Talk. Now. Before you end up as another corpse in that tunnel you were so eager to crawl into.” Selriph stepped towards the figure, estoc pointed and brandished towards their shadow, who clumsily crawled out of the manhole, a grunt of exertion or perhaps pain escaping their lips.

  Selriph’s eyes were drawn to the man’s pointed ears, which sharpened into view as the figure rose to his full height. The man’s features were a blend of human and elven, a half-breed.

  The most striking detail, however, was the extensive bandaging wrapped tightly around his neck, extending down his upper garment, past his torso, and completely covering his left arm.

  The figure stumbled backwards, revealing a pronounced limp in his right leg; the source became apparent: a swathe of reddish, burned skin, a testament to a severe thermal injury. The freshness of the numerous scars and wounds on his body suggested the recency of the injuries.

  “Peace, friend … I can hardly harm you in my state.” The figure backed up against the wall, eyes landing on the woodman.

  “Look, tell your friend he can disarm me, pull out my sword,” as he gave two sharp upward flicks of his chin.

  Selriph gave a knowing look to Hagan, gesturing for him to stay alert as he approached the figure.

  “Go, if he so much as twitches…” Hagan said, his voice low, hand gripped tightly on his sickle.

  “I know.” Selriph’s acknowledgement came in a whisper. As he cautiously approached the bandaged man.

  Selriph drew his sword back, ready to thrust, and his offhand slipped the figure’s armament out of its sheath. Selriph examined it briefly, half expecting some notable feature to meet his eye. Instead, a seemingly mundane steel longsword was in his hand.

  He held it in his grip, tight as if it were a critter that could scutter away at a moment’s notice.

  “There, see, I am unarmed. Hopefully, by the end of this conversation, you will see me as a friend, an ally.” The figure’s voice was calm, although taut with nervous tension.

  “We are far from friends, especially since you have been tailing us for some time. Explain.” Selriph held the tip of the blade a mere inch from the man’s chest.

  The figure paused, pondering a choice of words that would not provoke the boy from plunging the blade through his ribcage. “We have similar goals. We want our comrades free, the same as you.”

  “How would you know what we want…” Selriph’s gaze briefly landed on Hagan, held in a preparatory stance, face lined with caution.

  “They hold my comrades in the same prison; they are due to be hanged tomorrow. Need your help,” his voice came briefly, sweat dripping from his forehead.

  Then came an ardent plea.

  “Please,”

  Comrades? Prison? Is he…?

  “You’re with the resistance, aren’t you?” Hagan stepped forward, his sickle lowering towards his knees, his voice intoning upwards, tension and caution ebbed away as the revelation dawned on him.

  “Yes. Others, holed up in the warehouse in the old docks district. We are planning a breakout before our friends lose their heads,” his voice came, now steadied at the first sign of affirmation from his two people encompassing his vision.

  “That seems strangely convenient.” Selriph’s voice laced with venomous scepticism. “Why tail us then? Why not just approach us?

  “You hardly gave me a chance. I followed the moment I saw someone of your likeness. You are the kid who everyone said gave the inquisitor a black eye? With the earth mage that got dragged out of the ratway?”

  That wasn’t me. Vick’s handiwork. Even so…

  Hagan’s voice peaked with the slightest hint of enthusiasm, despite the veneer of his gruff exterior. “Yes, we are here to rescue Vickthar, you and your allies. We could work with them; secure an infiltration route. This lad can help you with that. We have supplies that can help.”

  “Hagan, I don’t think—”

  An enthusiastic bellow cut Selriph’s voice from the man, threatening to spill into the streets. “Yes! That is exactly what we had hoped. We need someone to open our infiltration route; the rest of us will handle the gear and the distraction.”

  Directed at the wall-plastered man, Hagan’s voice began to keen with mildness, dulling the air of hostility that precipitated the interaction. “By nature’s grace, if this is true, we are fortunate to have met you. We will work with you. We will free your comrades, and Vickthar.” Hagan moved towards the figure still plastered to the wall, an amicable air now permeating his strut.

  That sentiment was not shared by the fugitive youth, whose frame remained poised for a flash of steel.

  Really? I can believe that this ‘resistance’ would also want to free its comrades, but this feels too opportune…

  “Hagan, wait…” Selriph reached out his left hand that held the steel sword, the blade held up at waist level as a cautionary gesture to the approaching woodsman.

  In that moment, a flash of recognition—the hilt, the steelwork. All familiar.

  The craftsmanship bore the features of standard-issue Caer Eldralis guardsman equipment, from Haruk’s grand smithery.

  A wave of dread washed through Selriph.

  “Stop! This person is not what he claims to be.” Selriph brought his Estoc to bear, this time within striking distance of the man’s neck.

  Hagan froze, his frame tensed into half surprise from the sudden bark of hostility, half into readiness—no doubt from the words that the warning carried.

  “Why do you have a guardsman’s sword if you are with the resistance? Answer. Now,” Selriph’s eyes flashed with cold fury, ready to strike.

  Selriph braced for panic to wash over the man, perhaps even for the shattering of a deceitful facade, ready to pounce like a coiled cobra.

  But it did not come; instead, the man stared back, the unblinking gaze held only candour, free of any artifice.

  The voice came as a simple, undeniable assertion. “Why can’t I be both…?”