The Black Bouquet

CHAPTER 5

"How much farther?" Miri asked.

Her guide glanced back over his shoulder. The wavering light of his upraised torch stained one side of his smirking face yellow while leaving the other in shadow.

"We're almost there," he replied.

"Almost where?" she demanded. He'd led her into what almost seemed an abandoned section of the Underways. No one else was prowling or loitering about, nor had anybody provided a source of permanent illumination. The stink of sewage was stronger there, and puddles of scummy water filled the low spots on the floor.

"Almost to the hideout of the man you're looking for," her companion said. "The thief who was friends with the drunken mage."

"You'd better be right."

"I am. You'd just better pay me what you promised." He tramped on, and she followed, until, without any warning whatsoever, he dashed the torch in one of the filthy pools, extinguishing it instantly.

Miri had discovered the denizens of the Underways retired to their beds around dawn, at the same time decent people were getting up. She'd reluctantly done the same, catching some fitful slumber at the Paeraddyn, then resuming her search in the afternoon. Eventually it led her to the Talondance, a subterranean tavern catering primarily to goblin-kin, lizard men, and creatures even more feral and less welcome in law-abiding towns. A menu scrawled on a chalkboard offered chops, stews, and kabobs prepared with the flesh of humans, gnomes, and elves, and she was far from certain it was a joke.

Yet even so, a few representatives of her own species had chosen to patronize the place. One of them had claimed he could guide her to the rogue she sought, only to lure her down a quiet tunnel and abruptly take away her light. Most likely he himself possessed a means of seeing in the dark.

Reacting instantly, Miri nocked and loosed an arrow. Even though she was shooting blind, the shaft thunked into something solid. A second later, water splashed.

The senior scouts of Miri's guild studied a limited system of magic in addition to their martial skills and woodcraft. She herself had only commenced that phase of her training a year before and proved to possess no extraordinary aptitude for it. Still, she'd mastered a few spells, and when she'd realized she needed to venture underground, it had been obvious which she ought to prepare for the casting.

She recited a rhyming couplet and swept her hand through a mystic pass. Motes of white light leaped from her fingers like sparks rising from a fire. Glowing without heat, they winked out after a moment or two, as new ones sprang forth to take their places. In the aggregate, they shone about as brightly as a candle.

The light sufficed to reveal her treacherous guide lying dead in the puddle beside the torch. As intended, she'd shot him before he could move off the spot where she'd seen him last. She started to relax, then glimpsed a shifting in the darkness, beyond the point where her light began to fail.

Her heart pounding, Miri thrust her sparking hand out as if it was a torch itself. The glow revealed only the earthen walls of the tunnel. Had she only imagined that something was slinking about?

No. The Forest Queen knew, the odious city and the frustrations of her search were wearing on Miri's nerves. Yet even so, she was no timid tenderfoot to start at shadows. Her guide had lured her toward one or more confederates waiting to waylay her-scoundrels who were lurking still, despite the fact that, for whatever reason, she was having trouble seeing them.

She had no intention of standing still while she tried. With the torch soaked and useless, Miri wanted to reach a place where something else shed light before her spell of illumination ran out of power. Nocking another arrow, she retreated down the tunnel. She pivoted this way and that to keep anyone from sneaking up behind her.

Then she gasped as something alien touched her mind. It was like a bitter chill freezing the inside of her head, or rather, it wasn't, but that was as close as she could come. She'd never felt the repugnant sensation before, and she knew no words to describe it.

She was still trying to shake it off when something hissed in the darkness ahead. A huge black viper, longer than she was tall, slithered into view. It was crawling directly toward her.

She shuddered. Whimpered. Recoiled a step. Her arrow nearly slipped from her fingertips and off the bowstring.

She knew it shouldn't be that way. She'd never been afraid of snakes before. The force that had pierced her mind had poisoned her with an unnatural terror, and she had to resist it.

By sheer force of will, she made herself stop retreating. She controlled her breathing, drew the bowstring back, and let her arrow fly.

The missile drove into the viper's body just behind its head, pinning it to the floor. The serpent lashed madly about, and her fear faded.

When it did, she realized that some other threat could easily have crept up on her while she was so frantically intent on the viper. Reaching for another arrow, she turned, and a cudgel streaked at her head.

Two of her foes had stealthily closed the distance. Unlike the accomplice who'd brought Miri there, neither could have passed for human. The one with the club had a manlike shape but scaly reptilian hide. Its fellow, who wielded a rawhide whip, reared on an ophidian tail instead of legs. Both were the same gray-brown as the dirt walls and floor. Somehow, this chameleonlike ability to change color extended even to their clothing and weapons, and it explained their success at hiding in plain sight.

They were yuan-ti, a race comprising a sinister blend of snake and human. Until that moment, Miri had had the good luck never to encounter the species before, but by all accounts, she could scarcely have blundered into graver peril.

She blocked the cudgel with her buckler. The impact clanged, and it stung her forearm. The whip sliced at her legs, and she tried to parry with her bow. Perhaps she succeeded to a degree, but the flexible braided leather whirled around the length of wood and stung her even so.

The bow was the wrong weapon for close quarters. She dropped it and scrambled backward, meanwhile snatching for the hilt of her broadsword. Hissing, exposing their fangs, her assailants lunged after her. She glimpsed other yuan-ti, no two exactly alike but each a fusion of man and serpent, racing up behind them. The inside of her mind went icy cold, reinfecting her with terror, and she purged it by bellowing a battle cry.

She dodged the whip and parried the club. She backed into the tunnel wall, dislodging a shower of loose grit, and knew she could retreat no farther. Fortunately, at the same instant, her sword cleared the scabbard.

At the sight of the straight, double-edged blade, her foes hesitated. In a moment, they'd spread out to flank her and work together more effectively, except that Miri saw no reason to give them the chance. She sprang at the reptile-man with the club. It swung the weapon, but she discerned the blow was going to miss and simply continued her own attack. The broadsword sheared into the yuan-ti's chest. The creature started to collapse. She yanked the blade free, pivoted-

— and was too slow. The whip lashed her sword arm, the impact painful even through her reinforced leather sleeve, and spun around it. The legless yuan-ti yanked the coils tight and jerked her forward. The creature raised its offhand, which sweated a clear slime, to grab her.

Had Miri been panicked, or simply a less experienced fighter, she might have dug in her heels and resisted. But she knew she didn't have time to play tug-of-war. If she immobilized herself that way, one of her other foes would overwhelm her. So she didn't resist the pull. To the contrary, she scrambled forward as fast as she could, and when the whip slackened, she regained the ability to wield the broadsword.

Unfortunately, by that time, she was in such close proximity to the yuan-ti that the harsh smell of its acidic secretion stung her eyes and nostrils, so near that it was difficult to bring her blade into play. The serpent-man grabbed her shield arm, and her armor started to smolder and hiss. She twisted the limb from its grasp, bashed it in the face with the buckler, then hammered the top of its head with the broadsword's heavy nickel pommel. Bone cracked, and the yuan-ti went down. She frantically freed herself from the coils of the whip and turned to meet her next foes.

At which point, she almost laughed at the futility of all her struggling, because for the first time, she had a sense of just how many of them she was facing. A dozen at least. Conceivably even more.

The yuan-ti surged at her. Poised on guard, she chanted the opening words of her guild's death prayer, beseeching Mielikki to welcome her soul into the House of Nature.

A voice cried out in a sibilant language, presumably the yuan-ti's own. The snake-men halted, though their attitude remained as threatening as before. Some reasserted their ability to blend into the background, which plainly worked best when they weren't moving. It was uncanny how much difficulty Miri had making them out, even knowing they were crouched right in front of her.

"You see how outnumbered you are," said the same voice, but in the common tongue. "You can't win, but we don't want to kill you. If we did, we'd come at you with blades and arrows instead of clubs, nets, and whips."

"What do you want?" Miri asked.

"Someone is smitten with you," said the yuan-ti's spokesman. "So much so that he put out the word, he'll pay well to anyone who arranges a rendezvous."

Miri was accustomed to plain speech, and it took her a moment to puzzle out what had actually been said.

"You're slavers?" she said. "I'm a free woman, no enemy of Oeble, and no outlaw. You have no right to lay hands on me."

Some of the yuan-ti laughed.

"I'm afraid," said their leader, "that down here in the Underways-well, anywhere in Oeble, really-we hunt whom we please, without much worrying what the rules say."

"I came into the tunnels to run an errand for a rich and powerful citizen of Oeble. He'll ransom me."

"That's nice, but in our trade, it pays to do business with folk you already know. Less is likely to go wrong. Now be sensible and throw away your sword."

"No," Miri said. "We don't do that in the Red Hart Guild."

"How brainless, when you have no hope of winning."

"But I do. I'll slay more of you before you take me down, and each of those kills will be a victory. Every one will make the world a little cleaner."

She lunged and cut. The broadsword slashed open the throat of a snake-headed yuan-ti before it even realized the battle had resumed.

She spun just in time to spy another creature-a serpent-woman-puffing on a blowpipe. Miri sidestepped, and the dart, which was no doubt drugged, flew wild. She hacked at the yuan-ti, half severing its scaly hand at the wrist. The slaver shrieked and recoiled. Miri leaped out from under an outflung net with lead weights and fishhooks attached to the edges, and then stamped on it when it dropped to the ground, thus preventing the brute on the other end from pulling it back for another cast. The slaver let go, and its limbs and torso so flexible it seemed to have no bones, it curled itself into a posture resembling a human wrestler's stance. Acidic jelly smeared itself across its hide, it pounced, and she whirled out of the way, simultaneously slamming the edge of her buckler into its spine. Evidently it had vertebrae after all, because one of them cracked.

Miri knew she'd been fortunate thus far, and that her luck couldn't hold against so many. Sure enough, an instant later, something swept her feet out from underneath her. As she slammed down on her back, she saw it was a long, lashing tail, She tried to scramble up, but the scaly member whipped back around and slashed her across the head.

The impact made everything seem quiet and far away. Dazed, she nonetheless kept struggling to defend herself, but felt she was moving as lazily as a lost feather floating down from the sky. Her foes surrounded her and lifted their weapons. After the carnage she'd wrought, their faces looked so angry that she wondered if they meant to batter her to death.

Perhaps their chief feared the same thing, for it cried, "Remember, we want her alive, and her face unmarked!"

"Fine," said one of the yuan-ti in the circle. Its speech was garbled, as if its forked tongue and long, flexible throat were ill-suited to forming words. "But we have to beat the fight out of her, don't we?"

It lifted its cat-o'-nine-tails, and a spinning steel ring flashed through the air and embedded itself in the back of its hand. Its eyes wide with shock, the serpent-man dropped its weapon.

A second chakram flew an instant later, shearing into a female yuan-ti's serpentine skull. Then a willowy, fair-skinned woman, clad in a nondescript mantle, robe, and sandals, sprang into the midst of the snake-men. It seemed she had no more weapons, not unless the bindings wrapped around her knuckles counted, but the lack didn't trouble her. Whirling, crouching, and leaping, in constant motion, she delivered devastating, bone-shattering attacks with her feet, elbows, fists, the edges of her hands, and even her fingertips. Though Miri had traveled far in her time, she'd never seen anything like it.

Caught by surprise and accordingly rattled, the yuan-ti fell back. The stranger grabbed hold of Miri's arm and hauled her to her feet. She slipped her toes under the scout's fallen broadsword and kicked it up into the air.

Miri blinked free of her half-stupor and caught the weapon by the hilt. She and the newcomer stood back to back, so no foe could take either of them from behind.

Hissing and screeching, the yuan-ti rushed in, and Miri cut and thrust. She realized she might prevail against her foes. The arrival of her newfound ally had given her hope.

Evidently it had altered the yuan-ti leader's expectations as well, because it decided to take a more active role in the battle, declaiming words that somehow made themselves heard despite the clamor of combat. Once again, the creature was speaking a language Miri didn't understand, but from the rhymes and measured cadence, she was certain it was reciting a spell.

Sure enough, a dark vapor abruptly filled the air, its stench so foul that Miri gagged. She felt dizzy, sick to death, while the reptile-men assailing her with whips and cudgels appeared unaffected.

It would have been witless to imagine that, afflicted as she was, she could continue fighting with her customary facility. If she was to endure, it would have to be by trickery. Acting as if she was even sicker than she felt-if such a thing was possible-she swayed and crumpled to her knees. She let the broadsword slip from her fingers.

Her foes took the bait. Confident she was helpless, they lunged in at her. She snatched up her blade and cut, scarcely aiming, the strokes simply as strong and as fast as she could manage.

The ploy worked. Blood spattered, and her mangled adversaries reeled backward. The noxious fumes started to thin, and her nausea and vertigo, to pass.

But it wouldn't matter if the yuan-ti spellcaster kept tossing curses around. Somebody had to stop it. Praying that it had to wave its arms or something to work magic, that its chameleon skin no longer kept it perfectly concealed, she peered about.

There, by the far wall!

It was the largest and least human of any of the yuan-ti, with only a pair of scaly arms to indicate it was anything other than a colossal rearing snake. It carried a bastard sword in one hand and was already crooking the fingers of the other into cabalistic signs.

"Got to move!" Miri gasped.

She scrambled forward. A yuan-ti with hissing serpents sprouting from its shoulders in place of arms sprang into her path. She chopped at its head, jerked the broadsword free, and sprinted on, splashing through one of the scummy pools. She glimpsed other snake-men darting to intercept her, but the stranger was there, too, punching, kicking, holding them back.

The yuan-ti leader saw Miri charging forward, and it left off its conjuring to come on guard. She believed that was good, though from the way it moved, it appeared to know how to manage its weapon.

The bastard sword leaped at her. She brushed it away with the buckler and riposted with a thrust. The yuan-ti's flexible body twisted out of the way.

At once she renewed the attack, trying to score before the serpent-man could raise its heavy weapon for another cut. Unfortunately, she'd momentarily lost sight of the fact that her opponent had other offensive options, one of which it chose to exercise. Its wedge-shaped head shot down at her, jaws spread wide, drops of venom clinging to the points of the long, curved fangs.

Committed to the attack as she was, Miri was in the wrong attitude to parry. Her only hope of avoiding the yuan-ti's bite was to fling herself down on her belly, so she did. The snake-man's snout thumped her between the shoulders like a hammer, but its teeth didn't rip into her body.

They would in an instant, though, if she didn't hold them off. She wrenched herself over and hacked blindly.

By pure luck as much as anything else, the broadsword nearly severed the yuan-ti's head from its trunk, which then flopped down on top of her.

The corpse heaved and writhed as Miri struggled out from under it. After a moment, her ally extended a hand to help her drag herself clear. The stranger's cowl had slipped back to reveal a downy pate she'd obviously shaved within the past couple days. Beyond her lay only the motionless bodies of other yuan-ti. If any of the slavers retained their lives and the use of their limbs, they'd evidently fled the scene. The fight was over.

Sefris hadn't had much trouble locating the scout. A good many folk had taken note of the ranger tramping about the Underways asking questions about the robbery in the Paeraddyn. Once the monastic found her quarry, she'd tailed her, awaiting an opportunity to ingratiate herself. The yuan-ti had provided a splendid one.

After that, however, came the difficult part, far more challenging than slaughtering a gang of serpent-men, formidable though they were. She needed to present herself as the sort of sunny, altruistic soul the guide would be likely to trust, and which she herself particularly detested. She smiled into the face of the Dark Goddess's enemy, the same face she'd seen in the arcanaloth's mirror, and bowed.

At that same instant, as if in outrage at her duplicity, the tunnel went pitch black as the guide's hand stopped shedding its luminous sparks. The ranger quickly recited words of power to renew the spell. It was quite a simple charm, though, paradoxically, one that would forever lie beyond Sefris's grasp. Sorcerers who drew their power from the unholy well called the Shadow Weave were unable to conjure light.

"There," said the ranger, as the white sparks danced anew. "Sorry about that."

Sefris grinned and said, "It's all right. Though we're lucky it didn't happen a minute or two earlier, or the yuan-ti would have defeated us for certain."

"My name is Miri Buckman of the Red Hart Guild. Thank you for saving my life."

"I'm Sefris Uuthrakt of the Broken Ones."

The Broken Ones were a monastic order pledged to the martyr god Ilmater. Though their philosophy and mission differed radically from those of the Dark Moon, their fighting arts were similar, and by pretending to membership in their company, she'd provided a plausible explanation for the unusual skills she'd demonstrated.

"Thank you as well," Sefris continued. "You protected my back as much as I protected yours."

"Maybe," Miri replied, stooping to wipe her bloody broadsword on a dead serpent-man's tunic. "But you didn't have to jump in and help me in the first place."

"Oh, but I did. I have my vows, as I imagine you rangers have yours."

"We have a code." The scout sheathed her sword, then headed toward her fallen bow as she said, "Believe me, I'm not complaining, but what were you doing in these miserable warrens, anyway?"

Sefris tried to judge if her companion was suspicious, and decided she was merely curious.

"We Broken Ones sometimes wander far from our sanctuaries, seeking to learn the lessons only the bustling world can teach. My travels brought me to Oeble, and into the Underways. I heard the sounds of strife, and I rushed to see what was happening. I would have arrived sooner, except that much of the path was dark, and I had to grope my way."

In reality, Sefris had waited to burst onto the scene until Miri truly needed her. Presumably that would ensure the fool was grateful for her intervention. The delay had given the monastic the opportunity to assess the ranger's archery and swordplay. As it turned out, she was reasonably accomplished, though nothing that would inconvenience a daughter of the Dark Moon when the time came.

"Well, bless you for it," Miri said. "I'll make an offering to the Crying God the first chance I get."

"May I ask," Sefris said, "what business brings you 'below,' as the locals say? I would have expected to meet a warrior like you in a forest glade or along a mountain trail, not rubbing shoulders with city orcs, smugglers, and kidnappers."

"I wish you had," Miri said. She picked up her bow, inspected it for signs of damage, and evidently satisfied that it was unscathed, she dangled it casually in her hand. "I've never much liked any town, and this one's the nastiest I've ever seen. But…"

She hesitated as if realizing she was speaking too freely.

Sefris inclined her head and replied, "I understand. Your business is your own. I shouldn't have pried."

"Oh, to Fury's Heart with it. It's all right, I trust you. Anyway, by now, everybody else in Oeble knows, or at least part of it. The rangers of my guild hire themselves out, if it's honest work performed for decent folk. I undertook to carry a treasure from Ormath to Oeble, and just as I was about to deliver it, a robber stole it. Obviously, it's my responsibility to get it back. It'll be a great misfortune to any number of people if I don't."

"I understand," Sefris said. "May I help you find it?"

Miri's eyes narrowed and she asked, "Why would you want to do that?"

"I told you, I'm sworn to aid others, and I seek the wisdom that only comes from immersing oneself in worldly affairs."

"It could be dangerous."

"And I confess, I'm scarcely the ablest fighter my order has produced. Others are far more competent But I did manage to help you against the yuan-ti."

"I can't argue with that," said the ranger.

"Then let me watch your back for a while longer."

"All right, gladly, if you're sure it's what you want. Why not?" Miri smiled crookedly and added, "We can't fare any worse together than I've done nosing about on my own."

"What tactics have you used?"

"I've offered to pay for information, provided it turned out to be true. But as you've just seen, these rogues would rather cheat, rob, or enslave an outsider than earn her coin honestly."

"Perhaps it's time for a different approach," Sefris said. She found one of her chakrams, pulled it from the wound it had inflicted, wiped it clean, and stowed it away in her robe. Later, when she had the leisure, she'd take a hone to the edge. "If you aren't squeamish, we could ask questions in a less gentle fashion."

"Surely the creed of Ilmater doesn't allow for torture," Miri said, peering at her quizzically.

"We Broken Ones are more practical than people give us credit for. Of course, we would never torture a prisoner in the truest sense of the word. We are, however, allowed to intimidate him and cause some brief discomfort, when it's absolutely necessary to further a worthy cause. But perhaps your own code doesn't allow for such tactics."

"It's a gray area. I've never liked it much, but… I'm sick of these Oeblaun vermin trying to swindle me and sniggering behind my back. By the Hornblade, this lot are yuan-ti, and they meant to enslave me. I think I could rough up one of them, and live with my conscience afterward."

So, gentle Mielikki's servant had a streak of ruthlessness. The implicit hypocrisy stirred the contempt that was central to Sefris's nature, but she made sure no hint of a sneer showed on her face.

"So be it, then," the monastic said.

"The problem may be," Miri said as she surveyed the fallen reptile-men, "that none of them is capable of answering questions."

Sefris smiled.

"That's one advantage fists have over blades and arrows," she said. "Often, they merely stun instead of kill." To be precise, they stunned when she wanted them to, and in the fight just concluded, intuition had prompted her to leave a couple of the yuan-ti alive. "We just need to wake somebody up."