(4)

“The sewers?” Saurus asked bewildered. He and lady Black were sitting on stools under the cover of Hadwin’s tent. At that moment Hadwin returned eagerly from his journey to procure some food. In his arms he cradled a bundle of cloth; his eyes brimming with enthusiasm.

“Tell him what you told me, my Lady—tell em.” He said sitting beside them hurriedly, unfolding the cloth to reveal: half a loaf of freshly powdered white bread, a wedge of yellow cheese, and some streaks of fatty dried meat. Hadwin began to slice the bread without taking his eyes from Lady Black. It reminded Saurus of a time when Alaric was just a boy, listening to his mother express how fondly a High Magus once regarded him in school.

“The walls of the city are heavily patrolled.” Lady Black said, “But he’s blind to what moves beneath the city.”

Hadwin handed Saurus a slice of white bread, he took it but felt content with just rotating it around in his hands. It seemed almost too convenient for this woman to arrive in the dead of night with a way into the city.

“How do you know this?” Saurus asked suspiciously.

“I—” Black hesitated, “I used to part of the Webbed Children.”

“Who?” Hadwin snapped.

“One of his followers,” Black answered, “They call themselves the Webbed Children. They are the ones that currently operate within the city, maintaining their own brand of law…his law.”

“Him being…” Saurus said.

“The Spider King,” Black answered. Hadwin offered her a slice of bread but she refused it with a wave of the hand. The woman seemed of noble birth Saurus thought. The way she sat, moved, and spoke, were all reminiscent of a few high Lords he knew back in the capital. Saurus discarded the woman’s seemly arrival for the moment, his suspicions overshadowed by the information she was offering him.

“You used to be one of his follower’s?” Saurus asked incredulously. “What changed?”

Lady Black shifted, then locked eyes with Saurus. He felt the sudden urge to break away from those eyes, fearing he would become lost in their depths forever. Despite this, he held it firmly.

“Let’s just say he murdered someone very dear to me, and now I’ll do everything in my power to see him brought to ruin.”

The tent went quiet a moment, a cold wind lifting the tent flap momentarily.

“Even if I did trust you,” Saurus said, “And there was a way to get into the city undetected. What then? Are the three of us going to sneak our way into the Spider King’s bed-chamber while he sleeps?”

Hadwin nibbled at the cheese wedge solemnly, his initial enthusiasm flickering like a dying flame. Saurus was not sure just what he was expecting. The truth remained, they were too few, regardless of what side of the wall they sat on.

“The forces he commands are not as numerous as you might think Saurus,” Black said. Saurus raised an eyebrow at the fact he was on a first-name basis with a woman he had only just met, Hadwin stopped chewing but held his tongue in disbelief.

“More than half of the Royal Guard are dead, most of the current Webbed Children are opportunistic criminals that joined after the Duchess was killed.”

Saurus and Hadwin raised to look at each other. They both assumed the Duchess was dead, but both remained silent to the alternate possibility. Now it had been confirmed, Saurus felt yet another crackle of fire take root in his chest.

“The people outside the walls,” Black went on, speaking faster now. “outnumber the Royal Guard and the WC, two to one. Rally the people in the city, and you outnumber them ten to one.”

“My Lady, these people are not soldier’s but simple folk.” Hadwin said, “Labourers and fisherfolk, not household knights.”

“I can not vouch for the Royal Guard,” Black answered. “But the WC will abandon him if they see the common folk raise up. Only a few of them are truly loyal to him.”

Saurus leaned forward, the bread in his hands now picked clean of all its crust.

“Why do the Royal Guard follow him?” he asked. “A band of criminals is one thing, but Royal knights who promised fealty to their Duchess? That I cannot believe.”

Lady Black shipped him a consoling look.

“If it’s their honour that concerns you,” she said. “I would put that to rest. The things that stroll around in Royal Guard armour are more monster now. He…bites them, you see.”

The way she said ‘bites’ reminded Saurus of Aggie, the woman that died at the Whitegull Inn, the woman that had carapace in her stomach, the woman that spat acid on Hadwin’s face.

“Now just hold on,” chimed Hadwin. “So, if this Many Eyed King can change people to his will by biting them. Why didn’t he bite you, and all the Web Children for that matter?”

Black rolled her eyes as if the answer were obvious.

“Because he needs competent people to do his bidding. After you are bitten, you become little more than a pawn. A puppet, unable to act and think of your own accord. Soon after, you change.”

Saurus saw Aggie behind his eyes, rolling around in that stable, rubbing her back up against the wall. He remembered how…feral she seemed to become during certain moments.

“Is there no way to free them?” asked Hadwin. “The Royal Guard that is?”

Black glanced down at Hadwin’s axe with reverence, giving him his answer.

“Gods be good.” He said following her gaze. “I will not raise my axe to a sworn member of the Royal Guard—I won’t.” He seemed to be saying this to himself rather than anyone else, Saurus could not blame him of course. As a soldier of the Empire, you are trained from a young age to put positions of nobility above everything else. To show deep respect for those that promise their blades to protect the weak.

“Their already dead,” Black said flatly. “If anything, you do them a service by freeing them.”

“Killing them you mean…” Hadwin responded.

He lowered his head into his large hands, disregarding the food at his feet now. Saurus contemplated; the Royal Guard might be past saving, but the people outside the walls, and inside for that matter were still his to protect. He could not expect them to rise and overthrow the city by force. A single Royal Guard in full plate could cut down a dozen unarmoured commoners if not caught unawares. He had no doubt he could take the city by numbers if what this woman had said was true, but it would cost Saurus the one thing he was already drowning in, which was blood.

“Tell me,” Saurus asked, “how exactly you would get us in the city?”

“The same way I left. Through a sewer tunnel that exits out into the ocean on the west side. Once inside, we could open the main gate and storm the city.”

“Royal Guard patrol the docks I’m told,” Saurus said with an air of capitulation. “We’d be seen entering the tunnel.”

“Not if you use a sewer tunnel that runs under the water you won’t.” The woman retorted.

Hadwin woke up at that, freeing his face from his hands; he chuckled.

“Forgive me, my Lady.” He laughed, “But I doubt Saurus and I could fit through the iron bars as easily as you. And if we squeezed hard enough to get a shoulder through, we might get stuck and drown. And as certain as I am, it would fetch a hilarious song, I’m not willing to become fish food to make it.”

Black allowed herself a smirk.

“What if I told you,” she said, “I have already removed the iron bars, and know the sewer system like the back of my own hand. What if I also told you, that I could get you an audience with the Spider King alone, while he’s…weak.”

“I'd say, you’re either leading us into a trap," Saurus said "or giving us the city of Leeside on a silver platter,”