“What’s the problem?”
“We’ve found that bunch who’ve been using the sewers, and who probably killed your men.”
“Where?”
“Near that point where Kirby was found, over by Five Points. There’s a big tannery that was burned to the ground during the battle, but it’s got a subbasement, a big one, and a long water entrance to the bay, as well as the usual sewer dumps.”
“I want to see this.”
“I thought you would.” He started walking away when Trina said, “Dash?”
He stopped and turned around. “What?”
“The Old Man.”
“How is he?”
She shook her head slightly. “Not much longer.”
“Damn,” said Dash, and he surprised himself at how sad knowing that his grandfather’s brother was dying made him. “Where is he?”
“Someplace safe. He won’t see you.”
“Why?”
“He won’t see anybody but me and one or two others.”
Dash paused, then said, “Who’s going to take over?”
The girl grinned. “I would tell the Sheriff?”
Seriously, Dash said, “You will if you get into enough trouble.”
“I’ll think on this,” said Trina.
They hurried through the night, and when they reached the abandoned northern quarter of the city nearest to the old tanneries and slaughterhouses, Trina led Dash through a series of back alleys and abandoned buildings. Dash memorized the route and realized that it had been cleared by the Mockers so they would have a fast avenue of escape.
They reached a burned-out row of shanties, barely more than a few charred walls and portions of roofs, bordering a large watercourse, a stone-lined channel that would flood during the rainy season, or that could be fed by water gates off the river that bordered the northeast corner of the city. In summer, with the gate destroyed, only a little water ran through the very center of the manmade stream. Trina jumped over it nimbly and Dash followed her, marveling at just how lithe she was. She wore her usual man’s shirt and black leather vest, tight leggings and high boots. Dash could see she was both strong and fast.
She headed straight toward a large open pipe in the far bank. It was old, fire-hardened clay, circled by a heavy iron band. Pieces of the clay had fallen away over the years, where the pipe extended from the bank, and a three-foot length of metal could be seen at the upper lip of the pipe. With a prodigious leap, she vaulted to where she could grip the bar and swung herself into the pipe, vanishing from view.
Dash waited a moment to let her get clear, then duplicated her leap. He discovered why as he swung over broken crockery, glass, and jagged metal. Landing behind Trina, he said, “Not the normal garbage one expects.”
“It discourages the idly curious.”
She moved on without another word, and Dash followed her.
They moved deeper into the sewer network, the woman leading the way surely, though there was almost no light filtering down through the burned-out buildings above. At the first turn right, she turned and stopped, felt around, and produced a lamp. Dash smiled, but remained silent. The system still hadn’t changed.
She lit it and shuttered it. The tiny bit of light that was allowed to escape would provide ample illumination for their purposes, and someone more than a dozen feet away would have to be looking directly at the light source to notice it.
Trina led Dash deep into the sewer system until they reached a confluence of two large pipes entering a third, with two smaller—though big enough for a person to crab-walk through—emptying into the large circular cavern. This was Five Points. Trina pointed at the upper left of the two smaller pipes. As he poised to jump, she whispered, “Trip wire.”
Dash pulled himself up and moved slowly and quietly in the dark, feeling around before him in case there might have been any additional alarms added. Trina would have warned him had there been one she knew about, but Dash’s grandfather had impressed on him that people who took things for granted in these situations were called corpses.
As he inched along, he found himself thinking of Trina. He had known many women since the age of fifteen, being handsome, noble, and the grandson of the most powerful man after the King in the nation. Twice he had been infatuated to the point of thinking he might be in love, but both times the notion had quickly passed. But something about this woman thief, with her mannish clothing, unkempt hair, and piercing stare caught his imagination. It had been quite some time since he had known a woman and that was part of it, but there was something more, and he wondered if circumstances would ever permit more than a casual flirtation.