Page 64 of By the Horns (Royal Artifactual Guild #2)

Forty-Six

Raptor

Earlier

I eye the repeater in front of me with a scowl. “What do you mean, we need to go to a different drop?”

The student shrugs. “That’s what I was told. How should I know? I just pull the lever. I was told the rescue party was coming and I should send them to Drop Twenty-Seven.”

I glance over at the others as we wait for the lift.

At my side, Stork consults his message, the same as mine.

He’s a tall, gawky human, but with a mane of peppered gray hair and a stern expression.

I’ve worked with him before, and he’s got no time for anyone’s nonsense, which means I appreciate him. “My message says Drop Seven.”

“Mine says Drop Seven, too.” I hold the note out to him to compare. “Maybe whoever was scribing it was rattled and didn’t know which drop to write down.”

Stork eyes both and then shrugs, glancing over at the other human who’s been rounded up to make our rescue team.

It’s Master Jay, which strikes me as damned strange.

The man’s in mourning for his student and rarely takes on rescue missions, but he was requested for this particular rescue mission, just like me, Stork, Buzzard, and Shikra.

Three Taurians and two capable humans. It’s a good team, I must admit, even if it’s not all Taurians as the note suggested it would be.

“Well, it’s not the first time we’ve been given bad instructions, and I doubt it’ll be the last,” Jay says.

He shoulders his pack and then ties it at the front of his waist to keep the weight of it in the center of his back.

“We can check Seven, and if everything on that level seems in order, we go down to Twenty-Seven.”

No one else has an opinion. Buzzard examines his weapons, Stork just looks impatient to go, and Shikra is unruffled, but Shikra is always unruffled. “Fine. Ready the basket for Seven first, and then we’ll hit Twenty-Seven.”

The repeater frowns. “But—”

“We’ll make sure both are clear,” I all but growl at him. “The more time you waste up here is time we’re not rescuing someone, understand?”

I’m in a bad mood. It’s not that I’ve left Gwenna with Kipp and Arrod, which bothers me, but that everyone seems incompetent today.

Should have taken that potion, I chide myself again when my temper flares.

It would let me remain calm and collected while we work, instead of my thoughts focusing entirely on my vulnerable mate.

I didn’t take it because I was anticipating some alone time together, and now I’m going to suffer.

Nothing to be done except make everyone else suffer along with me, I suppose.

I glare at the repeater again, and he flinches back, even as he changes the settings on the pulley.

There are ten total drop stations, each one with a platform and basket to lower up and down.

The numbers correspond with how deep we have to go in the Everbelow, and it makes no difference to me if we’re in Seven (which is close to the surface but notoriously unlucky) or if we’re deeper in at Twenty-Seven. It’s all just part of the job.

We pile in, our packs on our backs and a rope tethering us at the waist. Seven isn’t a long drop, so I lean against the edge of the basket and mentally check off my gear—axe, foodstuffs, more rope—but my thoughts drift back to Gwenna again. I wonder if she’s heard from Rooster—

The basket lurches. The pulley creaks, and we all jerk our heads up to look above just in time to see the repeater changing the drop setting. He loosens the rope, giving it more slack, and the basket careens down.

“It’s supposed to go to Seven,” Stork calls up, even as we lurch farther down, so quickly that my hooves lift off the bottom of the basket.

“I have my orders,” the repeater calls, and then disappears as the basket lurches in a free fall.

I clutch the side, and Shikra grabs the ropes, reaching for a ledge as we try to stop our speeding progress.

Then the basket abruptly jerks to a halt, and we sway wildly in the middle of the dark cavern, the ropes creaking.

We manage to pull the basket over to the closest ledge and quickly get out. There’s a heavy metallic stink in the air and a scent that reminds me of old garbage. The tunnels always have a strange, vaguely sulfurous smell to them, but today it seems especially pungent.

The fact that we’ve landed at Drop Twenty-Seven isn’t lost on any of us. “What the muck was that?” Buzzard asks.

Shikra gazes up the cavern, back where the rope dangles, cut. “That was the work of a repeater who’s going to get my fist in his face when we get back up there, that’s what.”

“Anyone recognize him?” I ask, flexing my arm and rotating it. I hit the side of the cave wall as the basket careened down, but I can still use the arm, so all is well.

No one volunteers a name.

“No one?” I say, then sigh with frustration.

I’m starting to think we’ve been fooled by a uniform.

I know I didn’t bother to look closer. Too many years of just blindly assuming that whoever is running the lift is also employed by the guild.

It’s my own damn fault. I’ve been distracted.

I should have known that whoever is behind all of this—framing Gwenna, killing Hemmen—has their claws sunk in deep.

I flare my nostrils and I could swear the stink around us becomes stronger.

“I think we need to assume that we’re walking into a problem, my friends. ”

Stork squints in the darkness. “Where are all the lights?”

“Lights?” Shikra asks. “What lights?”

“The ones that should be down here to light the way for humans,” Stork replies, putting a hand out in the darkness. “There aren’t any.”

He’s right. I’m so used to low lighting due to my excellent Taurian vision that I didn’t even notice.

There’s normally an array of magical items scattered on high shelves or hanging from hooks along the descent to light the way down, and to provide lighting for the more trafficked tunnels.

They’re small, unimportant objects like cups or paperweights or even children’s toys, but they save the guild quite a bit of coin on lamp oil.

Normally the cavern is peppered with them, but today it’s empty.

There’s not a speck of light down here except for what’s coming from far above at the top of the drop.

“It’s entirely possible that they’ve been moved to a more trafficked tunnel,” Master Jay says, his voice faint and growing stronger. “Twenty-Seven has been closed to exploration since last year.”

“And you’re just now pointing this out?” Buzzard huffs with irritation.

“Like you, I thought we were going to Seven.” Jay clears his throat. “And…I admit I have not been myself lately.”

Silence falls. I immediately feel guilty that I haven’t given more thought to how Jay is taking the death of his student and the failure of his Five.

I’ve been so wrapped up in Gwenna that I haven’t noticed just how much Jay is suffering.

I go to his side and give him a comforting slap on the back, which is about as close as a Taurian gets to hugging another man.

Jay stumbles forward in the darkness, and I have to catch him.

“Here, I’ll light a lantern,” Stork finally says. “This is starting to smell like a trap.”

“That’s funny, because I smell ratlings,” Shikra adds.

Buzzard grunts. “I smell them, too. Their scent is thick in the air. This begs the question: Who is it that wants us down in this particular drop that’s not being used and is full of ratlings, and why?”

I scratch at my jaw, wondering how much I should admit. They deserve to know, since we’re in the thick of it, I suppose. “I might have an idea.”

Everyone turns to me.

We stand in the sputtering light of an oil lamp as I explain about the thieves targeting the guild and the dead repeaters, and my role in all of it.

Jay looks affronted. “How did I not know any of this? How was it that I wasn’t informed that my students were under scrutiny?”

“How did you not think anything was awry when they put this big lug on your team and let him keep his name?” Buzzard gestures at me. “That didn’t clue you in?”

Jay clenches his jaw, and I feel bad for the man.

He’s getting it on all sides. I step in to take the blame and put it where it belongs.

“Rooster was keeping things quiet because he didn’t know if teachers were involved as well, since it has to do with repeaters.

It was easier to keep it as a small investigative group. ”

“But at what cost?”

I have no answer for Jay. If it had been a more widespread hunt—or a faster one—would we have lost Hemmen? Or would we have found even more murdered repeaters on our doorstep because the thieves knew they were being hunted? “Just know that the guild is taking this seriously.”

“Well, if there’s a gang of thieves, I’m guessing we’ve found how they’re removing their loot from the city.” Stork holds his lantern up and eyes the yawning tunnel ahead of us. “Easy enough to bribe a repeater in charge of the portals. Easy enough to sneak through a tunnel that’s out of use.”

“Unless there’s ratlings. Which there are.” Buzzard flicks the ring in his nose, his long ears twitching. “I can smell them everywhere.”

“Which means we know why they sent us down here,” Stork continues. “We’re either in the way of their plans, or they want their tunnel cleared out. Or both.”

“Something tells me we’re not expected to arrive back at the guild hall and tell everyone what’s going on,” Jay says in that somber voice of his. “If we try to make it back out through the lift…what then?”

Buzzard gestures at the open drop zone. “Too dangerous. If it was me, I’d drop something on anyone who tried to climb that rope.”

He’s right. “Then we fight our way through the tunnel?”

“Unless you know of a better option? We’ve got two ways out of here, and I’m willing to bet that they’ve engineered things to ensure we go the way they want us to go.”

“But they’ll be found out. Someone will come after us.”

“When? Who knows we’re down here?” Stork asks.

“I filed with the guild that we were sending five in response to the request, but that can be easily removed from the records if there are repeaters working against us. Which there seemingly are. Will your Five know how long a rescue mission takes, Jay?”

“It might be several days before they worry. They know rescues happen, just not how long they take.”

I rub a hand down my muzzle. Well, the good thing is that if we die, Gwenna will know. And if I die down here, at least I’ll be able to say my goodbyes, even if they’re done as a ghost. Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel better.

“Let’s head in. We’ve got a skilled, capable group,” I say to them. “I don’t want to think of another Five coming down here hunting for us and getting slaughtered by ratlings. If anyone’s going to survive, it’s this Five. Might as well put it to the test.”

Buzzard slams a big fist into his hand, his expression one of grim approval. “Now we’re getting somewhere. I’ll take the lead.”

“Sword?” Jay asks.

“Don’t need one. I’ve got hands.”

“Taurians in front, then?” Shikra says to me. “We’re the best down here in the darkness.”

He’s not wrong. Stork has to hold a mucking oil lamp to see anything, and Jay probably hasn’t slept in a mucking week. “Aye, we’ll take the lead.”

“Let’s see what they’ve brought us to play with,” Buzzard says, unhooking from the rope tying us together and striding forward. It’s an unspoken rule amongst Taurians—in battle, you detach from the Five so you’re not dragged down. Good for us, less good for the humans.

Shikra knows it, and hesitates before unhooking himself, too. “I fight better unencumbered.”

I do, too, but I see Gwenna’s face in front of mine when I think about untying myself, and how devastated she’d be if I got Jay killed.

I imagine Jay’s widow-woman farmer, too, and Stork’s woman—surely he has one somewhere—and how they’d react.

Despite the urge to protect my own hide, I shake my head.

“I’ll remain with the humans. Let’s stay together.

Make sure nothing gets past the front lines. ”

Stork readies his blade, and Jay pulls out a heavy mace. It makes me think of Gwenna, and I smile to myself. I’d forgotten that Jay was an expert with a mace. I should ask him to give her lessons when we get back—

Then the smell of ratlings grows heavy in the tunnel, and my hackles rise. “Stay behind me,” I say to Jay and Stork, clenching my fists in preparation for a battle. “And if things get bad, run for the drop. Take your chances with the rope.”