Chapter 50: Rainfall

  Kor'ik finds his voice a few days later.

  Not much of one. He speaks quietly, in the Frogman language first, then catches himself and switches to Lizardman with a visible effort.

  "In my culture," he says, addressing no one in particular, Facing north, toward the open marsh we couldn't see, "there are seven days of mourning after a significant death. The body returns to water. The name is spoken three times each day so the marsh remembers. So the person... doesn't become nothing."

  We're quiet.

  "I've been speaking his name," he continues. "In my head. Three times since we placed him in the water. It's not the right water. It's not his marsh. But I don't know what else to do."

  Gorvash shifts his bulk carefully. "Say his name. We say it too."

  Kor'ik looks at him. His throat sac pulses. "Bog Goblins, like Lizardmen, only receive a name when they fully evolve. He called himself… Grib."

  "Say it out loud," Gorvash encourages him.

  Kor'ik is quiet for a long moment. "Grib."

  Gorvash repeats it. Thrak'zul, after a pause, does the same. His pronunciation is odd, with the consonant heavier than it should be, but the intent is clear.

  I say it last. "Grib."

  It sounds inadequate. One syllable for someone who died buying four other people a few seconds. One syllable for those yellow eyes and that defiant chittering.

  But Kor'ik exhales slowly, and some of the tension in his shoulders releases.

  We repeat it twice more, quietly, before letting the silence back in.

  ____________________________________________________________________________

  The next day, rain starts falling for the first time since we entered Sunken City.

  Light but persistent, the kind that doesn't announce itself dramatically. The marsh mist thickens below us, turning the city into something eerier and more mysterious as fog rises from below. The Orcs' dawn patrol doesn't happen this time.

  Counting the days, the exit path should close very soon. We must get out soon or be left to whatever gruesome fate rests on whoever stays inside this cursed ruin.

  "We need to move," I say. "Soon."

  "The injuries…" Kor'ik starts.

  "I know. But we can’t keep waiting until everyone is in top condition." I glance at the big warrior, who gives me a look that is equal parts understanding and resentment. "Two more days. That's our outside margin."

  Thrak'zul grunts. He's been watching the sky too. "Route?"

  That's the question. The way we came in, the path through the outer buildings that leads back to the marsh approaches, requires going south.

  Just through the streets the Orc patrol uses.

  "We need to make a detour." I say. "I don’t want to meet the Orcs again."

  "So we leave tonight," I say. "When it's darkest."

  The rain picks up as the morning stretches until the mist below has swallowed everything beneath the third floor. The patrol routes the Orcs have used all week vanish behind the gray curtain.

  Good cover. Bad footing.

  Thrak'zul weighs this with his eyes on the fog. His crutch tip grinds slow circles on the stone. He nods once.

  The detour means swinging east before circling south toward the outer wall. I've been studying that route for two days, memorizing the bridge positions, the water levels, and the gaps wide enough to cross without swimming. Gorvash's arms won't carry him through deep water.

  I need dry surface underfoot the whole way.

  And mostly, I think I have it.

  We spend the day in the careful economy of waiting. Kor'ik checks and rechecks his club, running his fingers down the haft. Gorvash sleeps in short intervals, waking each time a new sound rises from below. Thrak'zul eats sparingly from the remaining stock and says nothing, but his eyes never stop moving.

  The rain keeps falling. The mist keeps thickening.

  ____________________________________________________________________________

  We leave at the deep hour, when both moons are either set or hidden and the city below is black as a closed eye.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  The bridge off our tower narrows to almost nothing in the dark, and the rain has made the stone slick. I go first, arms out, moving in careful weight transfers rather than steps. Gorvash follows without complaint, his splinted arms tucked tight against his chest, trusting his feet the way a warrior trusts old instinct. Thrak'zul comes after, his spear crutch striking the stone with deliberate, metered contact.

  Kor'ik watches our backs.

  The eastern buildings are worse than I'd hoped. The water has risen from the morning rain, covering two of the crossing points I'd mapped. We're forced into a longer arc through a half-collapsed colonnade, moving in single file between broken pillars while the water below churns quietly against the floor.

  Time stretches. The route folds back on itself twice before opening onto a wider platform I recognize from the tower view.

  I stop the group with a raised hand.

  Silence. Rain. The faint lap of water against rock.

  Nothing moves.

  We start again.

  The market district swallows us in its tangle of arched doorways and merchant stalls, everything stripped and silt-caked from centuries of submersion. The street underfoot is uneven but mostly dry, raised above the current waterline. Our footsteps sound loud to me even when I know they aren't. Just suffocating silence pressing in.

  Halfway through, Thrak'zul stops.

  His whole body goes rigid. Crutch arrested mid-swing.

  I hear it half a second later.

  Footsteps. Heavy ones. The distinctive pattern of large bodies moving in coordinated silence.

  The Orcs.

  Far from the usual schedule, the rain appears to have changed their pattern somehow.

  Gorvash presses himself against the nearest wall without being told. Kor'ik's throat sac pulses twice and goes still. Thrak'zul eases into the shadow of a collapsed archway, crutch held horizontal so it won't catch stray light.

  I draw both daggers without a sound and step into the deep shadow of a doorway.

  The footsteps grow louder. Then stop.

  Fifteen meters south. Maybe less.

  Through the gap between two fallen columns, I count them again. Two warriors in front, moving wide. The Chief behind, halberd laid across his shoulder with that same careless confidence I've watched from the tower for days, while the gauntlet chains hang still against his arm.

  And he's looking at the colonnade.

  Not at us. At the colonnade we crossed twelve minutes ago. His head tilts, and in the faint glow where clouds thins over the amber moon.

  Our footprints. Displaced silt on the wet surface.

  His eyes track the direction.

  South.

  Straight toward us.

  None of us breathe. Gorvash has flattened himself against the wall with his broken arms pulled in, looking smaller than I've ever seen him manage. Kor'ik is a crouch in the dark, motionless, his club pressed against the stone beside him. Thrak'zul's eyes find mine across the gap between our hiding spots.

  He shakes his head, barely a motion.

  Not yet.

  The Chief takes one step forward. His warriors mirror him, a practiced half-step on each flank, opening their formation as the street narrows between the stalls.

  The rain keeps falling. Soft, relentless, drumming against rock and water and the back of my neck.

  He takes another step.

  I look at the distance between his position and ours. I look at the street we need to cross to reach the outer fringe. I look at Thrak'zul's crutch and Gorvash's splinted arms and Kor'ik's grip white-tight around the haft of his club.

  We can't run. We can't hide. The colonnade behind us is open ground if they push forward another ten meters.

  The Chief stops again. His nostrils flare.

  And I realize the question isn't whether he finds us.

  It's whether we let him choose the terms.

  ____________________________________________________________________________

  I catch Thrak'zul's eye and tip my head east. Back the way we came.

  He reads it. Gives nothing away, but the crutch shifts.

  Moving before the Chief takes another step is the only option that doesn't end in a fight we can't win. Four wounded against three fresh Orcs, one of them carrying a weapon that carves through stone.

  No way. At least not here.

  I press back deeper into the doorway and find solid wall behind me with my palm. The building is intact enough.

  I go through.

  The interior is black and reeks of standing water and old silt. My foot finds the floor two inches lower than expected and I catch myself on the frame without sound. I hold the opening for the others. Kor'ik comes first, then Gorvash, then Thrak'zul, whose crutch I guide through the gap and lower to the floor myself before letting him follow.

  We move with very low visibility through the building, one hand each on the wall, trusting it to lead us somewhere.

  Behind us, the Chief's footsteps resume.

  Slow and deliberate. The footsteps of someone that has time.

  A gap opens on our left. Another street, narrower, running back north-east. So we take it without discussion.

  The rain is heavier here without the market overhang above us. It hits the water between the building islands with a flat, constant hiss that covers our sound. Small mercy.

  Gorvash keeps pace without complaint, but I watch the set of his jaw. His arms are burning. The splints aren't enough padding for this kind of movement, and every jostle costs him.

  I scan what I can see of the buildings around us. Low walls. Collapsed facades. A narrow stone bridge over a deep channel to our right, barely wide enough for one person.

  My mind turns the space over.

  One way in.

  The bridge is a chokepoint.

  I catch Thrak'zul's arm and pull him close enough to speak without sound into the side of his head. He listens. His eyes move to the bridge, then back to me, then to the channel below.

  He nods. One sharp motion.

  I pull Gorvash next. His expression doesn't change but something shifts behind his eyes. He looks at the channel, at the narrow bridge, at the building on the far side with its gap where a man could press behind and disappear.

  His mouth curves, barely.

  Kor'ik understands before I reach him. His throat sac pulses once and his webbed hand tightens on his club. He tips his head at the roofline above the building on the far side. A question.

  I shake my head. Too high. Too slow.

  Ground level. Let them come to us.

  We cross the bridge fast and quiet. Gorvash nearly slips on the second step and catches himself with a shoulder against the handrail. A loud thud and we freeze.

  The footsteps behind us pause.

  Ten seconds of nothing but rain.

  They resume. Closer.

  We get off the bridge and press into the shadows of the far building. The crumbled low wall gives us cover on the south side, enough to crouch behind. The bridge entrance sits eight meters in front of us across open stone.

  Eight meters of clear sightline.

  Thrak'zul moves left without prompting, deeper into the shadow where the building corner juts out. He plants his spear crutch, tests its weight, and caresses its blade.

  Gorvash positions himself at the right side of the wall. His arms are useless for fighting, but his mass isn't, and he knows it. He'll break anyone who tries to come over the wall on that side the same way a boulder breaks a wave.

  Kor'ik is already low, pressed against the wall, club across his knees.

  I take the center. Both daggers out. Rain running down the blades and off my knuckles and into the dark water below.

  The bridge sits empty in front of us.

  The footsteps stop at its far end.

  Silence.

  Then the Chief steps into the opening. His halberd comes off his shoulder. The gauntlet chains shift, catching no light.

  The clouds have closed again and the amber moon is gone. But his broad silhouette is unmistakable. The silhouette of something that has found what it was looking for and is in no hurry.

  He looks at the bridge.

  His warriors fan wide behind him, checking the flanks.

  He looks at the far side of the bridge.

  Directly at the wall we're crouched behind.

  I press flat against the stone. My breathing slows to nothing. Beside me, Kor'ik is a statue. Thrak'zul, in the corner shadow, is invisible.

  The Chief takes one step onto the bridge.

  I look at Thrak'zul. He's watching the bridge over the top of the wall, eyes steady, spear low.

  He takes another step.

  The Chief is four steps from the end.

  Three.

  Two.

  I tighten my grip on both daggers, and wait.