“We have boats waiting.”
“And you can get past the cordon?” The Collossumists had set up a perimeter around Muscud to keep any of the townspeople from leaving: cattle trapped in a slaughterhouse.
Evers patted a bulge in a side pocket, and for the first time Avery realized what a hard-looking sort he was.
“We’ll be fine,” Evers said. “Will you folk be coming with us?”
“Not yet. Find the holy city and scout it out. Once you’ve come back and we have a map of the city and of where it is in the sewers—once we have enough information to develop some sort of plan—then we’ll go.”
“Fine. Um, will you people be able to get out all right?”
“If all goes well, we’ll be waiting for you in the east corridor.”
Evers wasn’t gone five minutes when Pete summoned them to see Boss Vassas. They shuffled down the hall to the Boss’s study, where Vassas stood staring out a huge window streaked with flail snot and drinking from a cut glass. A throb of violet outlined him for an instant, then faded. At first Avery thought him a tower of calm in a mad sea, but then he saw that the hand that gripped the glass trembled. With a pale, drawn expression Vassas turned to them.
“Sit, if you want.” He gestured to chairs and couches.
No one sat. Janx moved to the bar and poured himself a drink. After a moment, Avery went to the bar beside him and poured himself one, too.
“Well?” said Hildra.
Vassas let out a long sigh. He returned his attention to the window, gazing out of it sadly. Through it Avery could see dark figures grouping in the street beyond, waiting silently, grimly, their numbers growing. All wore the trident necklace or some other token of the Collossumist faith. It wouldn’t be long now.
“I can’t believe it’s come to this,” Vassas said. “That I’d have to abandon my own town.”
Hildra stood beside him at the window. With surprising tenderness, she said, “Yeah. This whole thing blows.”
A moment of silence passed. Straightening just a bit, Vassas said, “By the way, a runner found me from one of the other Stink-towns: General Hastur’s given up on finding Denaris. She’s ready to make her move if I’m willing to join up with her.”
“And are you?”
“What else have I got?” To Pete: “Ready the men.”
“They’re ready, Boss.”
The group moved downstairs, joining a larger group of Vassas’s people, goons and pimps, prostitutes and waitresses, casino staff and clerks, all waiting in eerie silence while that abominable singing continued in the background. At Vassas’s arrival, they stirred. Trapdoors were thrown and they descended into what Evers had called the “underneath”, the glorified crawlspace that ran under some of the city, between the floorboards and the water. There boats waited for the gathering. One by one, they boarded the craft, then shoved off, a few going ahead to do what needed to be done while the others lagged behind. When Avery’s craft emerged, he saw the goons just then dumping the bodies of zealot sentries over the sides of their own boats. Through the gloom that surrounded the town it was impossible to see the other members of the cordon that hemmed the Muscudites in, but they were out there, Avery was sure.
With the breach in the cordon made, Vassas led the exodus of his people from the town that he had helped to found and vanished into the darkness of the tunnels.
The group settled in to wait in the corridor east of Muscud, just huddling in the blackness as screams and singing drifted over the foul waters, each of them trying to look at each other as little as possible, until eventually a boat approached out of the mists. In it were several dirty and bloodied men, among them Muln Evers.
“You make it to the holy city?” Hildra said.
“Not in, but to.” Evers sounded wearied to the point of exhaustion. “I can map its location for you.”
Avery paused, then said, dreading the answer, “You were to leave in two boats.”
“It ... had tentacles.”
“Shit,” said Hildra.
“It killed everybody in the other boat. We just barely made it away.” Darkly, Evers added, “It’s blocking the way to the city.”
They all shifted uncomfortably, and Janx said, “Well, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, right?”
Evers set to work mapping the route, and half an hour later they all sat down to study it with Jeffers.
“Well?” Avery asked the boatman, crouched in his own craft.
“I know the area,” Jeffers said. “Vaguely. Went there a time or two in my youth.”
“We can’t go in the front, obviously, or what I’m calling the front—the way Evers went,” Avery said. “Whatever killed those men will be waiting for us there.”
“Think it’s another big squid?” Janx said. “Like in Lusterqal? One with a human brain in it?”
“Very possibly,” Avery said. “At any rate, I doubt there’s more than one of them, two at the most. The Collossum will not have the resources of Lusterqal or the ability to get very many large creatures here. But he does have many followers who will die for him and a city—well, town—that is difficult to locate and, presumably, which can be defended easily. But if we reach it, in stealth, from a direction they won’t expect ...”
He glanced to Jeffers, who let out a long breath and rubbed at his face with a squelching limb.
“Sure,” the boatman said, “there’s a back way or two, but it will take some navigatin’ through the dark. It’s a long way, goin’ round, and tight halls. If ya plan to bring men along, it’ll be difficult to go that way quiet enough not to—”
“No men,” Avery said.
Jeffers raised his eyebrows. “I know Vassas is in touch with more blokes in other under-towns, who’d jump at the chance to strike back, and—”
“This isn’t a mission that will be won by force,” Avery said. “The enemy is stronger than we are. Another five or ten men won’t help us, but they could hurt considerably. Our best ally is stealth.”
Hildra swore. “Layanna said she can’t come with us.”
