Zuna took the lead as they left the library. Kran followed behind, his infatuation with Korthax apparently satisfied for now.
Vorrin fell in beside Jendara. “How do you think we can find them? Boruc had the map. I don’t even know how you got down to that level in the first place.”
“We got in there from the cliffs by the ulat-kini camp, but I don’t think we should try to go that way again,” she said. “I don’t want Kran climbing up and down those cliffs. These hallways might be dangerous, but I know those cliffs could kill somebody. I won’t see him slip again.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Maybe…” She paused, thinking back. Yerka had run down this same hallway when Boruc and Tam had come after her. There had to be a connection.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she nearly walked into a distracted Fylga. She gave the dog a dirty look. She knew dogs relied on their noses as much as she did her eyes, but the dog’s constant sniffing didn’t make walking any easier. She took a diagonal step to avoid the yellow-and-white animal.
Then she stopped in mid-swerve. Vorrin walked into her with a rattling of his teeth.
“Fylga!” She shook her hands in frustration. “This place is so strange, I stopped thinking straight. We’ve got a dog. Damn it all, we can track them! Kran!”
The boy hurried back to her side.
“Remember how Fylga was so interested in that other hallway? Do you think she smelled Boruc and Tam?”
He shrugged, then nodded.
Jendara squatted to look in the dog’s eyes. Too small to pull a cart or help bring down a boar—ever since Kran had brought Fylga home, she’d been waiting for the dog to prove itself useful. “Now’s your chance, dog,” she said. “Show me you’re not just a lazy sack of fur.” She screwed up her face, thinking hard. “I wish I had thought of this back on the Milady. I need a shirt or something, something that smells like one of them.”
Kran caught her eye, tapping his temple.
He untied the makeshift bandage Boruc had wrapped around the dog’s leg—Boruc’s handkerchief, Jendara remembered—and held it out to the dog. He snapped his fingers. Fylga sat up straight. Kran leaned closer and let the dog get a good noseful of scent. Then he made a series of odd clicks with his tongue. The dog stood and hurried up the hallway, headed for the junction.
“That was amazing,” Vorrin murmured as they followed behind boy and dog.
Jendara watched Fylga sniff the ground around the entrance of the second hallway and then hurry around the corner. “I never thought about him training her. I just assumed they played together and loafed around. Any good behavior she had, I figured was luck.”
“Me, too,” Vorrin said. “I’m ashamed to admit it. I know how smart and strong Kran is, but sometimes I guess I underestimate him.”
“I do, too.” Jendara smiled. “He really doesn’t let anything hold him back.”
Vorrin put his arm around her shoulders. He kissed her cheek.
Up ahead, Glayn had stopped to examine something sitting on the floor. He picked it up and turned to show it to Vorrin. “I think we’re on the right track.”
Jendara leaned down to get a better look. The gnome had found a small glass bottle, its top broken off and its sides salt-stained, that held a faint blue-green blob.
“Glow weed,” Vorrin said.
“Drying out, but definitely the same stuff.” Glayn shook the jar and made the hunks of weed flop around. A thin rime of salt showed at the bottom of the jar. “I’d guess they put a little water in there to keep it fresh, but it looks like the water dried up.”
Jendara played her lantern’s light over the ground. “There’s a bit of glass here. Whoever was using this as a lamp must have dropped it and left it behind.”
“Pretty sure it was deep ones,” Zuna said from a few feet ahead. She held out a piece of something pinched between her fingertips, and the trio hurried to see.
Jendara’s nose crinkled at the rank smell of spoiled fish. “Is that a fin?”
“I think it’s part of one.” Zuna dropped the bit of flesh and wiped her hand on her pants.
Kran caught Jendara’s eye. He pointed at the fin and a scuff on the floor, then waved back at the spot where she’d seen the broken glass. Then he pointed down at the ground again and motioned her over. Jendara hunkered down to see more clearly. A faint trace of blood caught her eye.
“A footprint,” she said. “Not human.”
Kran nodded. He brought up three fingers, hesitated a moment, then raised a fourth.
Excitement built in Jendara’s chest. “Three, probably four deep ones. They found Boruc, Tam, and Yerka here in this hallway. Then they fought, and the deep ones won.”
Kran nodded. He pointed down the hallway.
“And they continued down the hallway—” She squinted, catching another faint scuff mark on the ground. It was hard to make out a track down here. When they’d first entered these hallways, she’d gotten the sense that someone had cleaned these halls, and that sense had only grown stronger as they’d continued exploring them. Now she knew why. The deep ones were using this hallway as their major thoroughfare, and they didn’t want anyone to track them. “They must have been dragging one of the prisoners in an upright position. Those marks look the toes of someone’s boots being rubbed along the ground.”
Kran grinned and bobbed his head. She smiled back at him. “Nice work, boy.” She knew he’d been learning a lot about tracking from Yul, but this was amazing work. Most adults she knew couldn’t have read this scene as well as her boy just had.
Vorrin studied the empty hallway ahead. “So this is the right way.”
“Yes.” Jendara helped Kran to his feet and watched him take the lead with Fylga. Jendara couldn’t stop beaming.
The hallway continued, just as clean as ever: no dead and dying creatures to crunch underfoot, no mud or debris to show tracks. It must have taken a big crew a long time to clear out the hallway this much. Jendara bit the inside of her cheek, trying to work out just how big and how long.
They hadn’t passed any doorways since they left the junction off the first tunnel, but now doors began to appear. The cleaners had concentrated their efforts on the floor, leaving the usual encrustations that sealed shut the doors of the island. Whatever religious item interested the deep ones, it wasn’t tucked away inside this hallway.
She wondered just what they had found. What could make a place sacred to creatures like that? She wasn’t even sure what gods they might worship.
Fylga’s bark of warning cut through Jendara’s musings.
“Kran!” she shouted, pulling out her sword as she broke into a run. She couldn’t see a thing in the darkness beyond the boy, but she knew something was wrong.
Then she could hear the slap of webbed feet striking stone. As she reached her boy, her lantern caught the green frog-face of an ulat-kini. She shoved her lantern into Kran’s hands and brought up her sword.
“Get back!” she shouted at him.
Fylga snarled and sank her teeth into the ulat-kini’s leg. The frogman shrieked, but there were a half-dozen more at his side. Jendara parried the injured creature’s awkward stab with its trident. Where had they come from? She tried to scan for an open doorway, something, but the ulat-kini lunged again. Wounded or not, the damned thing was eager to kill her.
But he’d overextended himself and exposed his entire side. She drove her blade into his ribs and felt the bones shatter against the force of her blow. His face went suddenly still. Jendara drove her palm into his chest to clear her blade. There were too many of the bastards to risk getting her sword hung up in anyone’s spine.
Somewhere another ulat-kini shrieked in pain and fear, but Jendara stayed focused on the ones in front of her: two ulat-kini with sturdier tridents than the one she’d just fought. Vorrin was keeping them at bay, but he couldn’t keep up his pace for long. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Kran with his back pressed against the tunnel wall, his seax at hand and a snarling Fylga at his feet. There were no ulat-kini nearby—for the moment, he was safe enough.
Korthax grabbed her arm. “Wait!”
She shook him off. She wasn’t going to go easy on these scum just because one of their kind had bought passage on her ship. Jendara charged at the nearest ulat-kini and sent it sprawling.
“Help!”
That was Zuna’s voice, sounding strained. Jendara kicked the fallen ulat-kini in the head and felt it go limp. She risked a quick glance around to find Zuna.
Zuna had managed to disarm her opponent, but now the big ulat-kini had wrapped its hands around her throat. She clawed at the creature’s webbed fingers. If Jendara didn’t do something, Zuna would be dead in seconds.
“No!” Korthax shouted. “There’s something—”
And then a cloud of white webbing covered Zuna and her attacker. For one moment, they stood frozen together, and then the netting went taut and the package of Zuna and ulat-kini flew sideways and disappeared into the darkness.
“Zuna!” Vorrin shouted. He shoved his attacker aside. “Zuna!”
Another sheet of webbing shot out, just missing Vorrin to land on the floor. The ulat-kini Jendara had stomped groaned and tried to push itself upright. Its hand touched the webbing. The ulat-kini tried to pull away, but the webbing was too sticky.
The web went taut. With its free hand, the ulat-kini caught Jendara’s leg and held tight. She kicked at its ribs, but the creature didn’t loosen its hold. Her boots began to slide across the floor.
“You bastard,” she growled. She kicked it again, but then a wet ripping sounded and the web pulled away from the ulat-kini’s palm as its skin gave way. With a screech, the ulat-kini scrambled away, clutching its hand to its chest. One of its kind pulled it to its feet and the pair raced away.
“Is everyone all right?” Jendara called. Kran ran to her side, patting her shoulder and arm with his free hand. She grabbed his chin and made him look in her eyes. “I’m fine. Are you okay?”
He nodded.
“Zuna’s gone,” Vorrin said. He pointed at a dark hole in the wall. “There’s a staircase right here. The ulat-kini must have been coming out of it.”
“They were running away,” Korthax said, his voice hollow. “They were afraid, and they were running away, and you killed them.” He pointed at three dead ulat-kini lying on the floor. “You did not even talk to them.”
Jendara tightened her lips to hold back angry words. She’d done what the situation had demanded. She had to protect her family. It was her first duty.
“The one with your friend,” Korthax managed to say. He trembled as he spoke. “That was my brother, Fithrax.”
Vorrin stared into the dark stairway. There were no sounds whatsoever. Nothing to encourage them on. “We’ve got to go after them.”
“Yes,” said Korthax. He pushed past Vorrin and raced into the dark.