Page 66 of By the Horns (Royal Artifactual Guild #2)

Forty-Eight

Gwenna

“Wake up.”

A hard slap across the face snaps me awake. I jerk, startled, and stare up at Rooster’s round face and his crappy little mustache. He’s got blood trickling down his nose and a cut above his eyebrow, and his clothing is torn. He holds up an oil lamp, looking me over.

“Good,” he says in a flat voice. “You’re alive. Can you sit up?”

I honestly don’t know. I stare up at my surroundings, and a bit of dust drifts into my eyes.

It’s dark, but I can see a few dim lights far, far up on the ceiling.

It takes me a moment to realize that those are the lights from the drop, and we’re somewhere at the bottom.

Then I remember the look on the supervisor’s face, the way the basket we stood in tumbled in free fall, and then… nothing.

My head throbs, but I don’t feel the skin-crawling, gut clenching sensation that tells me that there’s someone newly dead nearby. Just lots of old, old dead, but they aren’t bothering me too much due to the other aches and pains in my body, and I can ignore them at the moment.

I manage to sit up, wincing. “Everyone’s alive.”

“That’s what I’m checking,” Rooster says, and then pauses. “Wait, you mean…”

I nod, pressing my palm to my throbbing temple. “I’d feel it if they were dead.”

He lets out a long breath. “Thank Romus for his mercy, because I can’t get Karref to wake up.” He gestures at one of the enforcers, tumbled on the far side of the basket. “I’ll let him rest, then.”

I glance up again, at the tall, impossibly tall, shaft. “The thieves tried to kill us. How did we live through that?”

“The baskets are padded underneath. Lots of pillows to cushion things in case something broke. Or, you know, was deliberately broken.” Rooster limps over to one of the other men and taps him on the cheek. “Wake up, Jenkins.”

Jenkins groans, but that’s a good sign, I suppose.

I try to get to my feet while Rooster wakes the other enforcers.

Leaning on my hand sends a shooting pain up my arm, and I bite back a gasp and roll the other way to avoid using it.

When I get to my feet, I’m a little achy all over my back, and my head throbs like I’ve been binge drinking for days, but I’ll survive.

My arm is the worst of it, and I cradle it against my chest as I gaze back up at the drop shaft, looking for sunlight.

There is none, which means the drop has been closed over.

Mucking bastards. How are they going to explain away this one? I wonder. An accident that just happened to take out the guild leader? Do they have another person they plan to place as the guild leader, then? Or was this just a spur-of-the-moment decision?

One by one, the men are roused, except for Karref, who has taken a nasty hit on the head and won’t awaken.

He’s breathing, but it’s clear he needs a medic.

Everyone else is a bit shaken but able to move about.

Rooster’s still limping, and one of the enforcers had to pop his arm back into its socket.

“What now, sir?” the nearest enforcer asks.

Rooster shakes his head. “I can’t believe they’ve betrayed us like this. Broke the lift deliberately. Did anyone bring a rescue beacon?”

No one did.

“We weren’t planning on going into the Everbelow, sir.” The enforcer cradles his bad arm against his chest. “What drop are we at?”

“If we’ve fallen to the bottom of Shaft Seven, then…Thirty-Seven or Forty-Seven.”

Whispers fill my mind, along with a mental image of a different area, higher up. “This isn’t the right spot.”

Rooster and the enforcer turn to look at me. “How do you know?”

I tilt my head, exasperated. Seriously? “How do you think I know?”

No one makes a sign to ward off evil, which I’m relieved to see. Instead, Rooster approaches me, holding the oil lamp aloft. “You know where we are?”

“No, but I can ask.”

“You can?” The guild leader looks dumbfounded.

I nod reluctantly. “When I’m down here…the dead whisper at me. I can’t understand them, but they send images, too. I’m able to tell from those.”

Silence falls in the tunnel.

Stating my ability aloud in front of everyone is…

awful. It’s like being stripped naked in front of a crowd.

I stare at their faces, the enforcers wearing a mixture of confusion and fear, and Rooster’s grim, determined expression.

I hate that I can’t blend in with the crowd, but if me tearing off the mask means that I can save Raptor and his companions, I will.

I only hope this doesn’t turn into a lynch mob.

“You truly can talk to the dead,” Rooster states, as if reaffirming it. I nod.

“There are dead people here?” The enforcer sounds horrified.

“Not everyone got out of Prell alive, Smythe. Of course there are dead here,” Rooster snaps.

“But…I thought when you died you went to Romus, and he sent you through the five hells.”

“The newly dead loiter,” I say reluctantly. “Until the ten days pass and the ceremony is performed. But there are still voices down here. I think they must have something they want to share, and that’s why they linger.”

“Ghosts.” He sounds horrified.

“Not really. Just people like you and me. I haven’t felt any malice from anyone.

No one’s trying to scare us. I think they just have things they want to say so they can be at peace.

” I shake my head, resisting the urge to scratch at my skin as the babble of the dead washes over me.

“This only started happening to me once I came into the Everbelow as a student. I think it has something to do with all the magic here. It’s only been happening for a few months, but I’ve never felt threatened.

Just like…they’ve found the one person who will hear their whispers, and so they won’t be quiet. ”

“Well, let them mutter at you and see if they can find out where we’re at, exactly.” Rooster’s mouth is a flat line of disapproval. “We can’t stay here forever and hope for a rescue. Not if someone’s attempting to take over the guild.”

“And not if there are ratlings nearby,” Smythe adds helpfully.

“Yes, thank you,” Rooster snaps at him. “We haven’t forgotten.”

I close my eyes, concentrating on the low hum of voices. I don’t know why there are sometimes images mixed in, but maybe it’s that some ghosts are just stronger than others. Show me , I tell them. Show me where I am.

I get a mental flash of the basket descending past one tunnel after another, and I count them. One…two…three…

“Thirty-Seven,” I say, even as ice-cold sensations wash over me. It’s the ghosts, and now that I’m paying attention to them, they’re all over me like moths drawn to a flame. “We’re at Thirty-Seven.”

“And where was Raptor’s crew?”

“Above.” My voice grows faint as more oppressive feelings sweep over me. The ghosts aren’t done talking, and I have no choice but to listen. They babble in my ears, voices frantic. Cold touches brush all over my skin.

One ghost is insistent, drowning out all the others.

The voice gets louder than all the rest, and I shake my head, but it keeps pushing, shouting in that strange, unearthly babble of the dead.

With it comes a flurry of images, and I realize whoever this ghost is, he’s trying to show me something.

I relax…and dozens of images flash through my mind.

The room grows deathly cold. My teeth chatter. More images crash through my mind, flooding in like a surging tide. Tunnel after tunnel, some empty, some not, races through my thoughts. I see where the dead are lying, I see artifacts half-buried, I see—

A hand smacks me across the cheek, jarring me back to the present. “Ow!”

“Stay with us,” Rooster says, his face looming over mine.

I jerk backward, touching my cheek. “Why do you keep slapping me?”

“You sagged and looked as if you were going to fall over. And then your eyes rolled back in your head, and all we saw were the whites.”

“And you shook,” Smythe adds, giving me a wary look.

“Oh.” I rub a hand over my face, trying to scrub the flood of thoughts from my mind. “I just…I’m not very good with this yet. One of the ghosts is more persistent than the others. He’s pushing a lot of things into my mind. It’s hard to focus.”

“Are you all right?”

I nod. “I…I think I know a way out.”

“You do?” Rooster is shocked.

I touch my aching head, as if that will somehow help my thoughts clarify.

I’m shown the same image again, of a thin wall between the tunnels.

They’re like a warren hollowing out the ground, the tunnels of the Everbelow, and this one snakes on for a stretch and then comes very close to another tunnel.

A tunnel where they’ve been digging in the wrong place to find the artifact trove that’s very close nearby. It’s an old collapsed temple, and as I stare into the darkness, it forms in front of my mind’s eye. “Oh.”

“What?” Rooster demands. “Is it ratlings?”

I shake my head. I don’t know if what I’m being shown is still there, or if it’s an old memory long past and has been cleaned out. But the spirits seem to think it’s all still there. In fact, they’re urging me to go, their thoughts pushing and full of insistence.

“Why do you want me to go and find the treasure? Isn’t it your people’s?”

“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘treasure’?” Rooster asks, but his voice is faint. I’m too focused on the dead in the air around me.

A cold, spectral hand brushes over the torn sash on my shoulder. Ah. It’s not the ghost of some ancient Prellian, but an artificer who died in these tunnels and wants to show me what he was never able to claim.

“We have to get Raptor first,” I say to the air around me. “Does our tunnel cut to his? Or another?”

The vision cuts away, showing me the tunnel up from us, and then hordes of ratlings, biting and chewing on flesh. I scream, clawing at my clothing, as the vision fades.

I jerk back to myself just in time to see Rooster raising his hand again. “Do not!”

“You were jabbering,” he says, frowning at me.

“I was being shown the way. The tunnels are parallel to each other for a while, but this one rises up deeper in, and the one above us lowers, and so there’s a place we can break through.”

“And that’s what made you scream?” Rooster asks, doubtful.

“No, I screamed because it’s full of ratlings, and I think that’s what killed the ghost who’s helping me.

” I shiver, rubbing my neck with my good hand.

“But that means there’s probably a lot of ratlings in there yet, and that’s why the thieves sent Raptor and his group in.

They want it cleared out and made safe. That’s where we need to go. ”

“I don’t know that any of us have experience with ratlings,” Smythe says, his hand on his sword belt. “We’re enforcers in charge of keeping people in line, not animals.”

“Ratlings were people once,” Rooster comments. “Cursed people, condemned by the gods. But it doesn’t matter. If we want out, we must go through that tunnel. And if you’re not ready for ratlings…” He pauses and eyes our group. “Get ready.”