Hury!
He said, "They're after Hury. Can they get it?"
"No." Ursula was positive. "It is guarded and there is Only one way to reach it."
"Only one way? In a city? You really believe that?"
"Earl-"
"The sewers, Ursula! They're using the sewers!"
Chapter Thirteen
They ran beneath the jewel-like houses and the neatly kept terraces in a maze of twisting tunnels lit at intervals, damp, noisome, their brooding silence broken only by the susurration of water, the splash of adapted life.
"Rats." Ursula shivered as something darted into the water ahead to leave a trail of widening ripples. "This place must be alive with them."
"They won't hurt you."
"Maybe not." She didn't share Dumarest's confidence. "I hate the creatures. They could be everywhere."
If so they stayed but of sight as did other things which had made the subterranean complex their home. Webs festooned the glowing bowls of luminescence, their delicate, lace-like strands turning the cold glare into a nacreous glow which was reflected in broad lines of deposited slime on the curving sides of the passages and the raised concrete platform which provided dry footing. Bridges crossed the catwalk at intervals to provide access to branches and tributary passages. Echoes rose from the impact of their feet to die murmuring in the distance.
In the lead Dumarest halted, dropping to his knees as he examined the path. He rubbed at the surface, examined the grime on his finger, looked again before rising. Ursula looked at him.
"Earl?"
"We could have found their trail. One must have slipped and the edge of his shoe had scraped the concrete."
A guard said, "It could have happened weeks ago."
"No. The mark is recent or it would have been washed clean of fragments." Dumarest stared ahead to where the tunnel branched. "Send men ahead to search for further traces."
They edged past, the beams of their flashlights making hard circles of brilliance against the stained walls, the turgid water. Dumarest felt the woman close to his side. She was shivering beneath her cloak.
"You're cold," he said. "You should have waited on the surface."
"No." She stared at the bobbing lights. "Why don't they hurry?"
"Give them time." Dumarest saw a light steady and heard the call. "They've found something."
A patch of lichen had been scraped from a wall to leave a relatively light patch. Dumarest examined it, felt the ripped patch of primitive growth, and looked at the woman.
"Would this take them in the right direction?"
"They could have taken either path. The other would take them to a main junction and they would have to swing around the initial processing area. This would take them to the tributary inlets from the west."
"This is the way they came," said Dumarest. The marks could have been deliberately placed but the odds were against it, Amateur conspirators would have no time or thought for such deceptions and, as yet, they wouldn't know they were being followed. "Let everyone keep a watch for more signs and avoid making any noise."
The tunnels were sounding tubes and small sounds would be magnified. Something which worked both ways but, though Dumarest had called a halt several times in order to listen, he'd heard nothing.
"Hurry," said Ursula. "We must hurry!"
A reversal of her previous confidence when she had been certain nothing could threaten the Choud. Only when she'd learned of an alternative route to Hury had she displayed a nervous anxiety. One shared by the guards.
Dumarest thinned his lips as one called to him from where he'd halted ahead.
"Keep your voice down, damn you! What is it?"
"A branch." The man pointed. "Which way do we go? Left or right?"
"Ursula?" Then, as she made no answer Dumarest snapped, "What's the matter? Doesn't any of you know how these sewers run?"
"Not the entire system."
"But you know where the target is?"
"Of course, but all these passages are confusing." She kept her voice low, words echoing to be lost in the susurration of the water. "A thing which will have to be rectified but who could have guessed we should need the information?"
"Those who built this place." Dumarest looked at the sides of the tunnel. "If they had had any sense they would have set up maps at strategic points.
"Earl, we have no time to look!"
"We'll look as we go on," he told her. "For now we'll split." His gestures divided the party. "You will take the right-hand tunnel while we take the left. If you hit another junction, split again if you have to. Keep searching until you find something. If you do, slow down and act with caution. We don't want to alert the men we're looking for. And remember-it won't help anyone if you get yourselves hurt."
They pressed on, the passages smaller now, the walls more thickly slimed. Beside the raised platform the water rushed past with increased velocity and the air was heavy with noxious odors. An open area gave some relief, the domed roof studded with lights, the walls pierced with rounded openings.
"A sector junction," said Ursula. "We go that way, I think."
Dumarest looked at the opening she had pointed out."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I-" She broke off, clutching his arm. "For God's sake what was that?"
A cry which echoed all around them, low, mournful, a wail which hung like a dirge. It came again, followed by a high-pitched ululation, a deep booming, a sound which resembled a snarl. Cries made by injured men, distorted, magnified, sent to stir the air in deceptive vibrations.
"Balain," said Dumarest. "The others must have found him."
And had been careless despite his warning. Dumarest looked down at a crumpled figure staring upward with sightless eyes. At another with a charred hole above his heart, a third with a crushed skull, a fourth and fifth burned and lying where they had fallen. Another lying with head and arms in the water as if to follow the one who had floated down to guide the living to the scene.
"Ambushed," said Dumarest. "The fools! I warned them to be careful."
"How?" The guard had been sick and stood beside his own vomit. "How did it happen?"
"They were careless. They talked or laughed or let their equipment strike against the wall. They were too confident and they paid for it." Dumarest stared down the passage, at the open mouth of a side tunnel, at a ledge which rested above eye level. "They were here, waiting, and found easy targets."