Summoning all his strength the young thief pulled himself up into the shaft, and in a dangerous move, released his hold on the top of the grate, dropped his hands to his side, and pushed upward. He slapped his palms backwards and braced his back against the wall of the chimney, and pulled his feet up, jamming them acrobatically against the far wall. He heard the scrape of steel on iron as someone shoved a sword through the grating. Limm knew that had he hesitated, he would have been impaled on the point of that long blade.
A voice swore and said, He vanished up that chimney!
Another voice said, Hes got to come out somewhere on the level above!
For an instant Limm could feel the shirt on his back move as the material slipped against the wall and his bare feet skidded on the slimy stones. He pressed harder with his feet and prayed he could hold his position. After an instant of downward movement, he stopped.
Hes gone! shouted one of the men who had been chasing him. If he was going to fall, hed have been out of there by now!
The boy recognized the voice of the leader. Head back up to the next level and spread out! Theres a bonus for whoever kills him! I want that rat dead before morning!
Limm moved upward, one hand, one foot, another hand, another foot, by inches, slipping down an inch for every two he gained. It was slow going and his muscles cried out for a pause, but he pressed on. A cool whiff of air from above told him he was close to the next level of the sewers. He prayed it was a large enough pipe to navigate, as he had no desire to attempt another passage downward and back through that grate.
Reaching the lip of the shaft, he paused, took a deep breath and turned, snatching at the edge. One hand slipped on something thick and sticky, but the other hand held firm. Never one for bathing, nevertheless he looked forward to scrubbing this muck off and finding clean clothing.
Hanging in the silence, the boy waited. He knew it was possible that the men who had pursued him might appear in a few moments. He listened.
Impulsive by nature, the boy had come to learn the dangers of acting rashly in dangerous situations. Seven boys had come to Mothers, the Mockers safe haven, at roughly the same time, within a few weeks of one another. The other six were now dead. Two had died by accident: falling from the rooftops. Three had been hanged as common thieves during crack-downs by the Princes magistrates. The last boy had died the previous night, at the hands of the men who now sought Limm, and it was his murder the young thief had witnessed.
The boy let his racing heart calm and his straining lungs recover. He pulled himself up and into the large pipe, and moved off in the darkness, a hand on the right wall. He knew he could negotiate most of the tunnels hereabout blindfolded, but he also knew it only took one wrong turn or missing a side tunnel in passing to become completely lost. There was a central cistern in this quarter of the city, and knowing where he was in relationship to it provided Limm with a navigational aid as good as any map, but only if he kept his wits about him and concentrated.
He inched along, listening to the distant sound of gurgling water, turning his head this way and that to ensure he was hearing the sound coming down the sewer and not a false echo bouncing off nearby stones. While he moved blindly, he thought about the madness that had come to the city in recent weeks.
At first it had seemed like a minor problem: a new rival gang, like others that had shown up from time to time. Usually a visit from the Mockers bashers, or a tip to the sheriffs men, and the problem went away.
This time, it had been different.
A new gang showed up on the docks, a large number of Keshian thugs among them. That alone wasnt worth notice; Krondor was a major port of trade with Kesh. What made this group unusual was their indifference to the threat posed by the Mockers. They acted in a provocative fashion, openly moving cargo into and out of the city, bribing officials and daring the Mockers to interfere with them. They seemed to be inviting a confrontation.
At last the Mockers had acted, and it had been a disaster. Eleven of the most feared bashers the enforcers among the Guild of Thieves had been lured into a warehouse at the end of a semi-deserted dock. They had been trapped inside and the building set afire, killing all eleven. From that moment on, warfare had erupted deep in Krondors underworld.
The Mockers had been driven to ground, and the invaders, working for someone known only as the Crawler, had also suffered, as the Prince of Krondor had acted to restore order to his city.
Rumour had it some men dressed as Nighthawks members of the Guild of Assassins had been seen weeks before in the sewer, bait to bring the Princes army in after them, with the final destruction of the Mockers as the apparent goal. It was a foregone conclusion that had the Princes guard entered the sewers in sufficient numbers, everyone found down below the streets assassins, false Nighthawks, or Mockers all would be routed out or captured. It was a clever plan, but it had come to naught.
Squire James, once Jimmy the Hand of the Mockers, had foiled that ruse, before vanishing into the night on a mission for the Prince. Then the Prince had mustered his army and moved out and again the Crawler had struck.
Since then, the two sides had stayed holed up, the Mockers at Mothers, their well-disguised headquarters, and the Crawlers men at an unknown hideout in the north docks area. Those sent to pinpoint the exact location of the Crawlers headquarters failed to return.
The sewers had become a no-mans land, with few daring to come and go unless driven by the greatest need. Limm would now be lying low, safe at Mothers, save for two things: a terrible rumour, and a message from an old friend. Either the rumour or the message alone would have made Limm huddle in a corner at the Mockers hideout, but the combination of the two had forced him to act.
Mockers had few friends; the loyalty between thieves was rarely engendered by affection or comity, but from a greater distrust of those outside the Guild and fear of one another. Strength or wit earned one a place in the Brotherhood of Thieves.
But occasionally a friendship was struck, a bond deeper than common need, and those few friends were worth a bit more risk. Limm counted fewer than a handful of people for whom he would take any risk, let alone at such a high price should he be caught, but two of them were in need now, and had to be told of the rumour.
Something moved in the darkness ahead and Limm froze. He waited, listening for anything out of the ordinary. The sewer was far from silent, with a constant background noise made up of the distant rumble of water rushing through the large culvert below that took the citys refuse out past the harbour mouth, a thousand drips, the scrabble of rats and other vermin and their squeaky challenges.
Wishing he had a light of any sort, Limm waited. Patience in one his age was rare outside the Mockers, but a rash thief was a dead thief. Limm earned his keep in the Mockers by being among the most adroit pickpockets in Krondor, and his ability to calmly move among the throng in the market or down the busy streets without attracting attention had set him high in the leaderships estimation. Most boys his age were still working the streets in packs, urchins who provided distraction while other Mockers lifted goods from carts, or deflected attention from a fleeing thief.
Limms patience was rewarded, as the faint echo of a boot moving on stone reached him. A short distance ahead, two large culverts joined in a wade. He would have to cross through the slowly-flowing sewage to reach the other side.