He muttered the last part. It was heavily concealed within an exhaled breath. I’m not sure that even Marren caught on. I stared at him questioningly. He seemed oblivious, preferring to keep his eyes forward. I considered asking him what held his thoughts but decided better of it.
We followed the gatekeeper through the woods, sticking near the edge of the trees. It kept the wall of the city in sight. We stopped at a small stream where the runoff came from an archway barred with iron, rusted with age and exposure and large enough to crawl through. From the appearance of the wall, and the side of the castle that towered above, we stood on the back end of the city. The torches were extinguished, leaving the wall and everything around us shrouded in darkness. Even the moon’s light seemed far too pale to reveal much more than fleeting shadows. No one would know we were here.
“The iron bars aren’t solid. The races that came back ‘accidentally’ found this and decided that they could use a way in and out of the city without detection,” the gatekeeper said.
“They?” I asked.
He nodded. “Ye’ll see.” He moved over toward the arched iron bars and pulled them free from the wall with little noise. He set it to the side, then motioned for me to go in. I hesitated, staring at Marren, hoping he would argue my being first. He only nodded once, crushing my hopes of him intervening.
I approached the opening, dropping to my hands and knees. The cold water seeped into my clothing and skin. It reached into every nerve ending, threatening to freeze me solid. At the far end, something twinkled. Quickly, I dismissed it and glanced one last time behind me at Marren, now standing in the water beside me. With a smile from him, I returned my gaze ahead of me and started to crawl through.
The tunnel was dark. Nothing gave off an aura. I swallowed the lump in my throat that reminded me of the time I was in the Tombcell. Everything in my situation had mimicked the other in all of the most frightening ways. The dark, the damp, the tight space, the way the air seemed so much thicker and harder to breathe. A small surge of panic inside me, adding to the already cramped space.
A wave a fresh air entered my nose. It was cold and carried a high level of stone and iron. Everything was quiet around the opening, but clambering in the distance came as if there was just as much business after dark as during the day. Or there was a celebration. Either way, no one would be paying much attention to strange figures in black robes crawling from the city’s runoff.
I poked my head out, keeping my eyes alert to any movement. Stacked against the walls were wagons and old broken down carts. This must have been storage of some sort, long forgotten and unvisited. All the better. I crawled out and noted that the iron bars that sealed the runoff rested against the wall to the side of the opening. A roof made from wooden shakes provided shelter above us. We were well hidden.
Marren crawled out, along with the small man who had done more for us than any other stranger would do. I had to know why. I waited for him to finish replacing the bars into the opening and dusting his pants off before I said, “I don’t understand one thing. Perhaps you could clear it up for me?”
His eyes were clear, free from emotion, but his lips pressed together in a soft, yet firm smirk and ever so slightly, his jaw clenched. “Anything.”
“Why help us?”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Relena, not right now,” Marren said.
“Yes, right now, Marren. I want to know why he’s so willing and eager to help us after such little propositioning while everyone else in the world would happily behead us without a moment’s thought.” My eyes never left the man’s. Nor did his leave mine.
“It’s quite all right. I’ll answer her question.” His eyes clouded slightly, and in a lower voice. he said, “As ye can see, I’m short in stature, far too thin to be a dwarf, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not part-blooded.”
He paused as he lifted his head proudly into the air.
“My grandfather was full-blooded dwarf. He was all I had. All that tied me to my heritage…to who I am. My mother was human. My father, a dwarf. It caused friction within my father’s family, and so they disowned him until my birth. When I came out short in stature, my grandfather made an appearance and continued to be in my life regularly throughout my years.
“Mother endured constant ridicule by everyone in our village. People would refuse to trade with her and would speak openly about her actions as if she wasn’t standin’ there. It killed her. And my father, who spent his years trying to hunt for food and build a roof over our heads, followed her within weeks.”
He shook his head, as if he thought that would shake the tears that had formed in his eyes. He took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly with his hands on his hips.