| |
She crashed back to consciousness with Hydn pounding on her chest. Her ribs felt on fire. She broke into a cascade of hacking coughs. She lay somewhere hard and flat, with a low roof. Ixxy hurt everywhere.
“Can you keep her quiet? She’ll get us all caught.” Wenna’s voice was echoing, but nearby.
She felt Hydn lift her limp arm and check her pulse. He felt her forehead with his other palm. “You’ll live,” he whispered.
“Thanks to you,” she said quietly. “Did you—resuscitate me?”
“Nah,” said Hydn, “you did that yourself. I just emptied the water out.”
“You saved my life.”
“Well...now we’re evens.”
“I guess,” said Ixxy.
“You live long enough as a pirate and this stuff happens all the time.”
“What happened?”
“You were last down. You missed the second rope I tied down here and took your own way down.”
“Where are we?”
“There was a pipe up out of the water so I piled everyone in here when they arrived. It opens out quite wide, we’re at the back. Wenna and Princess are trying to work out what and who they can Air-sense out there, we’re not alone down here. There’s a huge wall of stuff, but there’s so much chaos down there that it’s difficult to tell what the hells is going on.”
A harrowing shriek played across the end of the pipe. Ixxy jumped.
“You can still move then,” said Hydn. “That’s the second shriek since we’ve been down here.”
“What the hells was it?”
“Who, not what. Folk voices for sure. But gods alone know what’s happening to the poor bastards.”
“I would start to worry about what’s going to happen to you poor bastards.” The voice was low and menacing— and behind them. Hydn’s hand was on his weapon already. There was a clang on the pipe wall, a fingerʼs width beyond him. “Drop it. I have a weapon that can kill both of you from here. Sit against the wall and place your hands on your head.” They did. “How many of you are there?”
Before anyone could decide whether compliance or silence would be the best approach, a shout from Wenna, “What’s that?”
“That answers my question. Invite her down here, why don’t you?” They both stayed quiet and hoped for Wenna to do the same. “Call her, or I’ll shoot one of you in the spleen and let your screams do it instead.”
Hydn cleared his throat, “Cap’n, you need to get back here.”
Wenna grunted angrily in response from the mouth of the tunnel.
Ixxy felt a blade at her rib and yipped. Then a hand muffled her mouth.
“Cap’n?”
They heard a huff and a rustling as the growling form of the Captain filled the tunnel. “Ho, ho, what do we have here?”
“Place your hands on your head ‘Captain’ or I’ll shoot you where you stand. Slow-ly. Easy.”
“And what shall we call you then?” Wenna had no trace of fear in her voice.
“I’m Otec, Spear of the Net. You are trespassing where you should not. You will be taken before the Net and your fate decided!” While he spoke Ixxy felt a hand grasp hers and in one swift motion, with a short rasp of noise, her hands were bound. Whatever it was that was binding her was tight, narrow and bit into her skin. She heard the rasp again and her captor had repeated the trick, with Hydn.
“I don’t think you’ll be doing that with me,” said Wenna.
“You’ll arrive bound or dead, your choice. I also have your crew, Captain.” He prodded Ixxy with the blade again— hard.
“Ow!”
“Okay. Clearly manners and honour are not something you abide by down here.”
“No.”
Wenna stood before him, hands on head. Ixxy wondered how she still managed to make that pose defiant.
“Turn around.”
She did. One quick rasp and it was done.
“Where’s—” Hydn started but was cut off by the Captain’s boot in his shin.
“Quiet!” said Otec and with one hand waving the menacing weapon, which was all spikes, in everyone’s Air-sense, he took a cord and threaded them all together through their bindings, then with the end in his hand he tugged and all of them had to follow.
He led them swiftly to the end of the passage they’d been hiding in, then pushed them through a bulkhead door to the side. He was last through and clanged something shut behind them.
Passage was barred for anyone following them then.
“Walk,” he said from the back of the column, pushing Wenna in the back with his knee.
“Careful!” she growled.
Otec responded by making a ‘chik-chak’ noise with the gun.
Ixxy was now in front. If she ran, would the others get the idea in time? Would they be able to run, trussed as they were? Were they heading to execution, or should she just ride this wave to the shore and see how it resolved? Clearly, they had the single advantage of Princess being out there somewhere, even if the way for her to follow them was now barred. The passage ahead was circular, sloping upwards and wet underfoot. Drips fell on them as they walk-shuffled forwards to occasional driving shouts from Otec behind them. The passage seemed to disappear off ahead of them for some distance, rising as it went. Ixxy shook her whiskers as a huge drop of water fell on her. “Pretty damp down here,” she said.
“Don’t talk—walk,” said Otec.
“Rude,” muttered Hydn.
They all needed to keep their wits about them to keep their feet, though it did cross Ixxy’s mind to fake a fall to overpower their guard. There were, after all, three of them and only one of him, efficient as he was. She figured that the first person to be thinking that would be Wenna though; there had been a couple of occasions where they could easily have gotten the better of their captor, so if they hadn’t, Wenna had a long game in her mind.
Ahead, something scuttled across their path, then from the back of the column, that gun ‘chak’ and a compressed air hiss. Hydn had a hand on her shoulder leaning her over as a projectile shot past her ear, off down the passage.
“Twitchy,” said Hydn. “Fun down here is it?”
“Just walk. We’re nearly there.”
“Where’s there?” asked Wenna, the first she’d spoken since their capture.
“Walk.”
There was no sign of whatever Otec had shot at, but Ixxy estimated where the projectile had fallen when sheʼd heard the ‘chink’ of its landing. There would be no chance to look for it while keeping up the steady pace, without Otec knowing about it. And he had a weapon presumably with more of them in it. Ixxy knew, in principle, about found-things weapons from ‘before’. But she’d never really come across one before. The River-folk preferred handheld crossbows. And knives. That was just how it was. But Otec wasn’t River-folk, was he? He was Folk for sure; same size, shape and smell of her, roughly, but his accent was— odd. The way he spoke was not unfamiliar, but it was almost like he wasn’t used to speaking. Then she found the stray ammo. Stuck in the bottom of her foot. She yelped.
“Quiet!” shouted Otec.
Hydn was already at her side helping her, “If you’d not been so careless waving that weapon about...”
Another round banged into the roof, “Silence! Boy, help her walk. Stay in line, it is just ahead.”
Before Ixxy or anyone else could argue, a loud shrill whistle came from ahead of them. Otec peeped back twice. Three peeps seemed to be the reply, then footsteps sploshed towards them. A figure with a long spear. “Why are you away from your post?” Otec didn’t sound pleased to be met.
“I heard needler fire and—”
“Back to your post!”
The guard clicked in response and jogged not that far back up the passage and waited for Ixxy and Hydn to limp towards them. When they finally reached the flat place at the top of the pipe where a door was hanging open, Otec had not finished with the guard, “Go and tell Her that I have found prisoners.”
Ixxy was slightly concerned at the use of that term. They’d been intruders thus far, which at least left room for explanation and hearing. Wenna still did not seem that bothered, but made a ‘hmm’ noise at the mention of ‘Her’. Meanwhile, their captor seemed undecided where to put them. A jail as such didn’t seem to be a regular thing down here. Ixxy wondered whether that was because they didn’t get all that many visitors, or because... well the other thoughts were too dark to dwell on, so she decided not to.
“You. Go in here,” Otec said and pushed them into a room piled high with plastic of all sorts: bags, bottles, small pieces of gods knew what. Hydn shook himself off on the way in, a spite shower for their guard perhaps? The guard ignored it and said, “There is a vent in the corner. I will return to take you before Her.”