Shadow of the Father (24 page)

Sinch’s captor turned her attention from him to Frost. “If I’d wanted Dagger, I would’ve told Dagger to go.”

Frost turned. “
I
wanted Dagger to go.”

The two stared at each other. Sinch’s captor remained stoic, and it was Frost who blinked first. Without any more words, he turned and walked away, chewing on his bone. The darkness swallowed him up as if he’d never existed.

Sinch snuck a look at Valix again. He could hear her rapid breathing and caught the fear in her scent. Her eyes stared straight ahead. He reached over to take her paw to calm her, but it was cold when he touched it, and she didn’t clasp back immediately. He held it nevertheless, and then she did squeeze back.

The three mice remaining near them had stepped back to form a semicircle. Their two original captors, without taking their eyes from Sinch and Valix, produced short black daggers from somewhere and began tossing them back and forth, throwing and catching them in unison. The third mouse padded down the tunnel, returning a moment later with a hunk of meat. The fat on it gleamed white in the darkness.

Sinch felt his stomach lurch again.

It seemed to him that the moments dragged on, one after the other, but the mouse eating his meat had only gotten halfway through it when two shapes materialized out of the gloom at the end of the tunnel. Sinch wouldn’t have been able to tell Dagger apart from the other three, but he knew in a moment which one was Whisper.

Whisper carried himself upright, striding through the darkness so that Dagger had to hurry to keep up. Broader in the shoulders than any of the other mice, he nonetheless walked with a quick, silent grace through the semicircle to face Sinch and Valix. After a moment’s scrutiny, he turned to their two captors, who appeared shorter in his presence. “Well?”

“He can throw,” Sinch’s captor said. “He stuck a fox.”

Whisper turned back to Sinch. “Give him a dagger.”

Sinch couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Before he’d had time to completely process it, his captor had held out one of the black daggers he’d been throwing. “Take it,” Valix hissed under her breath.

Sinch reached out. His fingers closed around the handle, and it was not snatched back from him. When he held it in his paw, he could tell how precise the balance was. Though it was lighter than the knife he’d taken from Divalia and thrown at Maxon, he knew immediately that it would fly true, and he suspected that the blade was sharper than the other had been.

Whisper stepped back to the fringe of the lit circle. “Throw at me,” he commanded, palm flat against his chest. “Right here.”

The others all watched. Clearly it was some kind of ritual. But what if Sinch hit him? If he killed their leader, they would fall on him and Valix for sure. But if he failed, they would think him weak and would likely kill him anyway.

Nobody spoke. Whisper watched him with bright eyes. The others, and Valix watched him with widened eyes. He thought of Yilon, what the fox would do in this situation, what the fox would advise him to do.

“Make me proud,” he thought Yilon might say. Well, if throwing a knife at a mouse in the dark was what they wanted to see, then he would do his best, and if they killed him afterwards, at least he would die proud. He flipped the knife around in his paw, testing its balance, and then swept his arm around in a smooth motion and let it go.

Whisper’s arm moved in a blur. Sinch didn’t even see the path of the black knife; he only heard the clatter as it struck the stone of the sewer wall and fell.

Sinch let out his breath in a long exhale. “Wow,” he said, without thinking. “That’s amazing.”

Whisper bent to pick up the knife. He tossed it to Sinch, handle-first, an easy throw that practically settled into his paw of its own accord. “Keep it,” he said. “Those who know how to use it are rare. Do you want to learn our ways and join us?”

“Join you?” Sinch looked at Valix, to get some sort of hint about who they were, or at least what she thought about the invitation, but she was just staring at him. He turned back to Whisper, who had drawn his own knife and was playing with it between his fingers. “Who… are you?”

The black mouse showed him the faintest hint of a smile. “We are the Shadows,” he said. “We are the opposition to the light. We live in the darkness and watch the city. We strike where others dare not.”

“That sounds okay, I guess,” Sinch said. He turned the black knife over in his paws, feeling more confident with it. “I mean, thank you. That’s very nice of you. What do I have to do beside throw a knife?”

Beside him, Valix made a choking noise. Whisper ignored her. “You have already demonstrated your willingness to fight the Fox.”

“Oh,” Sinch said. “Well, just one fox, really. He hates us anyway.”

“No,” Whisper said, showing the first sign of impatience. “
The
Fox. The power in the society of Dewanne that oppresses the mice, that keeps them in the Warren, that takes their money and their lives, that treats them like cattle. The power that is in
all
foxes, that is what we fight against. Even though some,” and here he looked at Valix, “do not respect our way.”

Valix didn’t look like someone who didn’t respect Whisper. She looked like someone who was terrified of him. “Oh,” Sinch said. “I don’t hate
all
foxes. Do I have to?”

The mood turned cold. “All foxes are complicit in the oppression of mice,” Whisper recited. The other black mice murmured, “All foxes.”

Sinch retreated until the cold stone pressed into his back. “Some foxes are good. I have a good friend who’s a fox.”

Whisper and the other mice all leaned forward, their eyes narrowing. Valix’s muzzle lost the rictus of fear, but the panic that replaced it wasn’t much different. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Why would you—”

“No fox is friend to a mouse,” Whisper intoned. “No mouse is friend to a fox.”

“He’s not from here,” Valix said. “He doesn’t know the foxes here.”

She succeeded in drawing their attention to her. “Who was the mouse with you this morning?” Whisper said abruptly.

“What?”

“The mouse with you, wearing your disguise. The one who took the crown from the cart.”

Valix turned to Sinch. “The
crown
?”

He spread his paws. Whisper sounded irritated. “You did not know what you were stealing?” His eyes slid to Sinch. “But you did?”

Sinch opened his muzzle. “Of course he didn’t,” Valix snapped quickly. “He’s new in town. We wouldn’t take him on a job of… of that importance.”

“Why would you undertake a job of such importance, and then be so careless with the goal? Who organized the job?” Whisper demanded.

“I can’t—” Valix said, and then stood straighter. “It was our job,” she said. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

The mouse who’d been Sinch’s captor said, “Everything that takes place here has to do with us. You should know that.”

“This was—” Valix stopped at a rushing murmur, like water hurrying along the tunnel. All the mice turned to listen, the black mice for only a second before melting away into darkness. Sinch and Valix found themselves alone in the circle of light.

“What’s going on?” Sinch said. “I don’t—” Valix twisted around, and then her eyes went wide.

She slumped to the ground.

Behind her, a black shadow watched her fall. “Foxes in the tunnels,” a cold female voice said, as it pulled a black nice from her back. “Here because of your job this morning. This will make sure they find you.”

Sinch thrust forward with his knife, but his blade cut empty air. Laughter remained behind.

He crouched next to Valix and touched her shoulder. She wasn’t moving, but it was hard to tell if she were breathing. He hesitated before putting his paw in front of her muzzle. The rushing sound in the tunnels was growing louder, so he couldn’t hear any small noises she might be making, and the slight breeze over his fingers concealed any faint breath. He moved them closer, finally felt warmth, and exhaled.

The rushing sound resolved into footsteps, many of them. Sinch lifted his muzzle and sniffed the air, but still could not smell anything but the filth of the sewer. “Help!” he called. “Help!”

For the longest time, all he heard were faint echoes of laughter, and footsteps growing louder and louder. It occurred to him that he might want to get a hiding place, but he didn’t know any, and he couldn’t leave Valix behind. So he waited, straining for some sign through the darkness, some motion of air across his whiskers or some flicker in the gloom, a scent carried through the fetid breeze. All the while, he kept his paw by Valix’s muzzle, clinging to the reassuring warmth of her breath.

He smelled them before he saw or heard them, sharp must cutting through the sewer smell. “Help!” he called again, but crouched at the ready anyway, in case they shot on sight. The first fox to penetrate the circle of light held a crossbow at the ready, but he didn’t fire it. He was dressed in the guards’ familiar grey uniform with a green trim on the shoulders and a crest on the chest.

“Who are you? What are you doing down here?” he demanded in a whisper. Another joined him, wielding a sword, and another. The third one went on down the tunnel while the first two remained behind.

“She’s injured,” Sinch said. “We need to get her to help, fast.”

“What are you doing here?” the fox demanded again.

“Please!” Sinch said. “They stabbed her. Please help.”

The two foxes looked at each other uncertainly. The second whispered something to the first that Sinch couldn’t hear. The first nodded. “I know, but the captain said he didn’t want anything living left behind.”

“We can’t just shoot them,” the second said. “They’re not…”

They both stared at Sinch and Valix. “Get the captain,” the first said finally.

“I don’t know where he is.” They were still whispering, hissing at each other. “I hate this place.”

“I can get us to an exit,” Sinch said. “Just please hurry.”

The foxes exchanged looks again. “We’ll get you to the nearest exit,” the second one said. “But you carry her. Back this way.”

While Sinch was trying to gather Valix up in his arms, the two soldiers held a hurried conference that resulted in the sword wielder leading the way while the other walked behind Sinch, crossbow held high. Sinch knew he should feel reassured at having been rescued, but he kept hearing Whisper’s confident assertion that “no fox is friend to a mouse,” and couldn’t stop looking behind him at the fox with the crossbow.

Their progress was considerably slower and rougher than it had been with the mice as their captors. Sinch slipped more than once, his balance much more difficult with Valix’s weight to account for. Even so, he felt he had the beginnings of understanding about how to navigate the tunnels.

The foxes did not. They kept stopping to check the walls; only the fourth time did Sinch realize that they were checking scent marks on the walls. Clever, he thought, and something the mice wouldn’t be able to comprehend or use. After that, though their progress was slow, he trusted the foxes to lead him and focused on not dropping Valix.

Several times they passed below grates, but the foxes didn’t stop.

Sinch briefly thought he might suggest leaving via one of them, but he wouldn’t be able to scale the wall with Valix in his arms, and the foxes were moving more confidently now. Indeed, after several twists and turns, they came out into a tunnel that was at least twenty feet wide, and the scent of foxes in clean, open air overwhelmed him.

The tunnel was full of soldiers, coming and going, all in the same grey and green uniforms. Besides the tunnel they were emerging from, at least three more led away from the wide space, but most of the comings and goings were to the large exist at the far end. Though soldiers were posted at the entrances to each smaller tunnel, they did not appear particularly tense; the two Sinch passed laughed and jeered at him, unsheathed swords hanging loosely in their paws.

He stumbled forward, whiskers twitching as he raised his head to get a better sense of the space. As a result, he nearly tripped over a pile of dead black mice, four or five of them. He pulled Valix more tightly to his chest and followed close behind the soldier who’d found them, who was moving quickly now, scanning the crowd ahead.

The fox’s ears perked up and he raised a paw, hurrying so that Sinch almost had to run to keep up. “Captain!”

A tall fox with grey at the tips of his ears turned. “Dellis,” he said, and then his gaze sharpened as he caught sight of Sinch. “What’s this?”

“Prisoners,” Dellis panted. “We found them in the tunnel. It looks like they—the Shadows—caught them.”

“Please,” Sinch said. “She’s hurt very badly.”

The captain shrugged. “We have casualties of our own,” he said, and only then did Sinch notice that the foxes leaving the tunnel were carrying stretchers between them. “What were you doing in the sewers?”

“She might die,” Sinch said. He couldn’t stop staring at the growing patch of red on her back. The smell of fox was stronger than the scent of blood, but he could tell it would not be for long.

The captain’s muzzle twisted. He looked away. “You can take her back to the Warren, but leave your name and where we can find you. We’ll want you to come back tomorrow to report on any information you have about the Shadows.”

“We won’t make it back to the Warren!” Sinch cried. “Please, you have to—you can’t just—” He heard Whisper’s voice again, and his words died in his throat.

“You don’t think we’ll waste or own chirurgeon’s time on a mouse, do you?” The captain waved a paw. “Dellis, escort them out.”

“Yes, sir.” Dellis gestured with his head for Sinch to follow him.

“Where’s Yilon?” Sinch said desperately.

The captain’s muzzle snapped back to face him. “What business is it of yours?”

“He’s my…” Sinch swallowed the word ‘friend.’ “He’s my lord too. I… I demand you take me to him.”

“You… demand?” The captain’s smile showed his sharp canines. He leaned down until his nose was almost touching Sinch’s. “Do you, now?”

If it hadn’t been for the weight of Valix in his arms, Sinch would have backed away. “If he won’t see me, then I’ll… I’ll go quietly. Otherwise I’m going to start shouting for him.”