Chapter 14
Fourteen
After Rade’s and Krachma’s victories, we walked back through the Under Slump. The enthusiasm over our four wins out of seven was tempered by the fact our small group had gained an eighth—and hopefully temporary—member.
“She’s a bit of a sour puss, ain’t she?” Rufus whispered to me.
“I can hear you, imbecilic dwarf,” Dathka said.
“That’s no way for a loser to address a winner,” Rufus responded.
“You really want to pick a fight with me while we’re strolling through the dark?”
Light charms were few and far between on these poor streets, especially this late at night.
There were a few lit windows, and the occasional burn barrel with bums huddled about it to stay warm, but the Under Slump was a very dim place at night.
There was no moonlight beneath the Slump, so we navigated entirely by my light charm, which floated in the air above me, providing just enough illumination to keep from tripping over something or stepping in a hole.
Fighting a shadow walker here would be rather unpleasant.
“T’was but a statement of fact, m’lady.”
“Give it a rest,” I said. “She’s got a job. We’ve got a job. Neither side has to like it, but we both have to do it. Bickering’s not going to make the time pass any faster.”
Rade was his usual charming self, “Well, I for one am glad to have such a lovely addition to our ranks. It is good to finally see for myself that the legendary beauty of the women of Surnod Lin has not been exaggerated.”
“She is purty,” Big Bognar agreed.
Dathka stopped, turned, and poked Bognar with one finger.
“Me eye!” Normally, a small woman hitting a large man wouldn’t do much, but Dathka had fast hands and excellent aim, and must have stuck a finger right in the jelly. Bognar mashed his hands against his face. “Saints! I didn’t mean nothing by it!”
“Was that necessary?” I asked.
“I’m not some harlot that your fat goon can ogle my ass. I’m Latrocinium. Don’t you forget it.”
“Why didn’t you hit him, then?” Bognar whined, gesturing toward Rade. “He was staring too.”
“Being from the same realm earned him one pass. That’s used up now.”
Rade flashed a smile and tipped his broad-brimmed hat toward her. “Of course, madam.”
I kept walking. I’d dealt with enough trogshit for one day and just wanted to go to bed.
Krachma apparently agreed. “Shut up, humans. Krachma is weary. Krachma has won many coins. Krachma will buy food and element tomorrow. Now Krachma wants only sleep.”
“You heard the champ,” I said.
Even this late, the Under Slump was a busy place, because many of the races which inhabited it were nocturnal anyway.
It was a very different feeling than during the day.
At night, this place got strange. The Under Slump was a dumping ground for refugees from the various war-torn kingdoms, and every other group that was too poor to have anywhere else to go.
The tunnels of the undercity beneath us were even worse and weirder.
There were shadowed figures scurrying past us, and I could only tell that we were being watched from rooftops and windows because some of the creatures’ eyes reflected my lonely light charm.
A few blocks passed before Krachma’s demand for silence was forgotten. Danny and Sifuso were bringing up the rear of our group, and since both were despondent about their humiliating loss, they’d begun grumbling.
“I’m such a failure,” Danny moaned. “I had a cousin who was a real tough mercenary. He would’ve laughed at how bad I did. I’m never gonna make it as a wizard. At least your match lasted a while. I got knocked out so fast.”
“Mine only lasted because I fled.” Sifuso hung his long head-neck in shame. “I am a disgrace to lacertians.”
“What happened there anyway?” Danny asked. “’Cause no offense, you’re real scary-looking, but then you turned into a chicken.”
“I do not know. I have fought many times. I was ready to fight again. Then so many eyes were upon me, and I suddenly felt weak, like I was small again and had just cracked open my egg and had to hide beneath a lily pad to not be eaten by birds.”
Such loser talk was bad for morale, so I chimed in, “That’s just nerves. Everybody gets those.”
“I don’t!” Rufus exclaimed, in a completely unhelpful manner.
“That’s because you go through life blessedly oblivious to the world around you,” Rade said. “What our large lizard experienced is called stage fright by the thespians.”
“Thespians is those little mole people from the Plane of Earth, right?”
“No, Rufus, those are Turgunian halflings. Thespians are actors.” Rade sighed. “Stage fright is what they call the fear they experience while performing before a crowd.”
“Good thing I don’t get that, because I got five whole Obols in my pocket!”
I noticed that Rufus’ loud boast caused several sets of reflective eyes to turn our direction. “Quiet down.”
“Be proud, Carnavon. You cleaned up yourself! And Krachma made more than the rest of us. I bet between us we’ve got over twenty Obols! Maybe close to thirty even! Our purses clank, heavy with coin tonight!”
I smacked him upside the head. “Shut up.”
It was too late, as he’d already advertised that we were a fat, juicy target for robbery, while we were still half a mile from the safety of the Tube.
“What?” Rufus asked, offended.
“Just keep walking.”
Except something large and hairy leapt off a roof and landed smoothly on the lane ahead of us. Its voice was a strange wheeze. “You have many coin?”
Two more of the hairy things landed behind Danny and Sifuso, and a few more stirred up out of the trash piles of the nearby alleys. We were surrounded in an instant.
“You give to us this coin.” The first hairy beast reached behind its back and pulled out a thick dagger. “Or else.”
Rufus looked at all the strange things who’d come out of the woodwork, and it slowly dawned on him what he’d done wrong. “Oh… I get it now.”
“It’s a good thing you can fight, because you’ve got rocks for brains,” Rade told him.
I glanced back at my friends, saw that most were having a similar reaction to this attempted banditry as I was, which was basically an offended fuck these assholes. Danny and Bognar were clearly terrified, but the rest of us looked angry or bemused by the threat.
“Listen, whatever you are, you’ve picked the wrong band to rob. We’re mages from the Academy of Outcasts. Those coins were earned in the arena. Fighting is what we do for fun and profit. You’d best scurry along before you get hurt.”
“Arena is fake.” The thing waved its blade back and forth. “Steel is real.”
“Yeah, we saw your little knife the first time, shaggy,” Dathka said. “I’m Latrocinium. You nightbolg trash know we’re off limits.”
The hairy shapes shifted nervously at her words, but their leader calmed them down. “It does not wear the black band.”
“I didn’t wear Carcalla’s mark to the arena because I didn’t want to scare whoever I was up against into immediate surrender. So you can fuck right off, or the landlord will send an army down here to burn out your entire hive.”
“It lies. It is not of the black band. It does not want to give up its coin.”
I despised robbers. Taking the fruit of a man’s labor was the same as stealing that part of his life. Having had enough of this foolishness, I reached into my pocket. “Here you go.” But rather than an Obol, I tossed a generous pinch of Red.
I invoked the Shroud of Fire, and all that greasy hair must have been really flammable, because the creature was immediately engulfed.
Rade drew his sword with lightning quickness, slashing at the creatures to the side.
Spiders made of darkness flew from the blade, landed on the monsters, and started biting.
Krachma saved his magic and simply punched one in the ribs, which sent it flying into the dark.
Dathka appeared behind the pair of creatures blocking the rear, extended her two guns, and simultaneously shot both of them in the back of the head.
Brains splattered poor Danny, but not Sifuso, because surprisingly, our lacertian had reacted with incredible speed and leapt onto another monster, knocked it down, and was rapidly stabbing it in the chest and neck.
The rest of the monsters—sensibly—ran away.
The leader, every inch of him on fire, managed to run only a few feet before flopping over and curling into a crispy ball. I’d not intended to cook him entirely, but how was I supposed to know he’d be that flammable? I’d tried to warn him.
Blood-splattered Sifuso got off the dead whatever it was he’d just stabbed forty times. “See? See, humans? I can kill just fine if no one is watching me!”
“Good for you, lizard,” Rade told him, before turning to Rufus. “And you should not speak in public anymore.”
“But—”
“Shush.”
I couldn’t really tell on the crispy one, but the other dead monsters were about orc-sized humanoids with gigantic eyes—probably for hunting in the dark—and were covered in matted ink-black fur.
Even by the dim light of my charm, I swear I could see the lice moving about, they were so thick.
Morton would probably have to use his spell to delouse us when we got back.
“Anybody know what these are?”
“They’re nightbolgs,” Danny said, wiping the nasty bits from his face with a handkerchief. “We had a pet cat once, you know, for the mice, but a nightbolg came up out of the sewer and ate it.”
“A tribe of them got chased out of their realm a couple years ago and moved into a cavern in the undercity,” Dathka explained as she reloaded her pistols. “Roaming up here violates their agreement. We may have to evict them.”
“These things pay rent to Carcalla too?”
“Of course. You’re not special.” She shoved her guns back in the holsters. “Everybody owes someone for something.”