The Heirs of Death

24. Fihéra

FIHÉRA

The winds were whispering. Had been doing so since the moment we’d left Leander's shrine. And did not stop.

Not even when the sky was in turmoil, when the trees wailed as the storms almost plucked them all out, old and frail, young and weak. One word. They kept hissing one word, slipping it between the trashing of the world, over storm-tossed waters nearing with every step we took, and kept sliding it through their hollow echo between the walls of the sewers.

One word that was clear and stark in a foreign tongue, in a language only I could understand. And I hummed it along them for days, still doing so as I eyed every movement, every flicker of shadows on the rough, brick-paneled walls cast by our fire. Long and sleek, a blur of dark shapes that swayed as we moved, little more than monsters dancing with the howling, raging word and its unrelenting winds.

This was the eleventh day, a few hours before midnight, and the port Téors had spoken about only a few more minutes of walking through this fetid hell.

Hours. It had been hours since we'd found our way inside this canalization beneath the small town rounding the port. Hours since my lungs begged for the clean, crisp air, for salvation from the rancid smell.

A small squeak bounced from wall to wall, a bunch of mice catching the direwolf's attention—the animal not bigger in size than a cat as it rested on my shoulders, curled up and claws pierced through the fabric of my cloak. It spared the small creatures a moment's glance before those fire-forged eyes went back to stare at the path ahead. At Aedis and Saél who walked in front of me, the latter clutching the wall at her side with all her might, eyes dodging back and forth between the pathway carved at the side, and the growing streams on our right.

The waters reeked of dead bodies thrown down here and sewage. And more things I didn't even want to know about. Sometimes, those waters, thick and dark, would carry a decapitated head or a loose finger. Sometimes, the flow came accompanied by a thick layer of goo on top. And sometimes, bubbles would form and burst, splashing gods-knew-what on us.

If this was not enough to make us look like real fugitives, I didn't know what would. 

Still grasping the walls with bone-white knuckles, the witch turned to stare at me as I swore under my breath, throwing something that was either a snake or a worm off my half torn boots, and feeling wetness touch the sole of my feet. My toes curled. My spine arched. Disgusting. She eyed the waters once again, how the rain that seeped between the cracks above our head fell in long, fat drops, then turned back her attention to Aedis who led the way, not once halting to wonder which way to take, the map Téors and Siltheres had shown us well inked in his memories.

"Do you always take the sewers?" she asked in a mumble, her first actual words those past hours besides grunts and swears.

It was Aedis that answered, still moving as he stared over his shoulder, "Sometimes, and too many, these conduits are our only way. Especially when fishing growing nests of traitors or hunting down snuck-in beasts beneath Cantelot.'' He paused for a moment, wondering whether Saél would black out if he told her more. But she still nodded, needing to hear a sound echoing around us that wasn't quacking animals or growling storms.
So he added, "I had men, recently enough, engaging against growing meshes of spies beneath a city surrounding the capital. The unfortunate ones slept for nights outside their houses because their wives and sisters didn't let them in for how bad they smelled. The even more damned ones reported words that the water tastes even worse than it smells.''