The Tides of Blood!

by Lucien Soulban

Chapter One: Misadventure Is Our Name

Earth and sky rumbled, the hellish magma-filled fissures radiating out from the necromancer's crumbling manse.

Darvin pulled himself up, hand over hand, from one of the terrible rents as more of the stronghold fell into the inferno. A tower tumbled and broke not a dozen feet from them, showering the cleft with bricks and certain death. Darvin ignored the sweltering heat, intent on saving the plump maiden on his back, her ebony arms around his neck, her squeals of panic tickling his ears.

Fife, his halfling companion, was already standing over them, pulling Darvin up with as much muster as his diminutive strength allowed. Suddenly, Fife screamed and pointed past Darvin. A mass of amputated hands, animated by the necromancer Malificar, crawled out from the labyrinth of passageways exposed by the fissures and tremors.

"There must be hundreds of them!" Fife said as Darvin cleared the edge of the fault with the maiden Charlotte in tow.

Darvin only needed to glance at the hands that scrabbled and vaulted up the rock wall to know, "Five-hundred and forty hands to be precise."

"How many arrows do you have left?" Fife asked.

"Two," Darvin said through gritted teeth. "I'll make them count."

A deep rumble shook the land and almost sent the trio to the ground. The tremors widened the fissures, a blast of heat like the breath of some dragon smelling of sulfur and hot death with a side order of rancid. Charlotte squeezed his arm and pressed it between her bosoms.

"What's happening?" she screamed.

Darvin looked into her soft black eyes and stroked her cheek. He said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes and promised: Ignore the flood of hands cresting the fissures with the sole intent of adding six new hands to their numbers. You're safe with me, Darvin, now. By the way, this is my half-brother, Fife.

She nodded calmly but Fife screamed, "Run!" Two dozen feet ahead of the half-brothers and the woman, the ground burst open and giant fingers emerged from below, each as large as a human knight, and armored too. The fingers dragged the giant amputated hand out from the manse's undercroft, digging trench-like troughs in the soil. The large monstrosity blocked their escape.

"The Hand of Malificar!" Fife said.

Darvin surveyed the dire situation. Behind them skittered hundreds of hands, ready to slice them with bladed fingers before overtaking the sleeping town below. Ahead, the enlarged appendage of the very necromancer they'd just killed blocked their escape.

"Well, old friend," Darvin said, drawing his bow. "Looks like things have finally gotten out of hand."

∗ ∗ ∗

Everyone stared at Darvin, blinking uncertainly. Tankards thunked wood softly, voices murmured, the smell of clove ham wafted from the kitchen and mixed with the rich tobacco smoke of long pipes.

"Looks like things have finally gotten out of hand," Darvin repeated more slowly. Again, no reaction. Darvin glanced at Fife. "Uh."

"You're not speaking their language," Fife whispered. He pushed his chair out, careful to avoid the steady drips from the ceiling.

"Aren't we all speaking Taldane?" Darvin asked.

"Honestly," Fife said, shaking his head. The halfling looked at the crowd of mill workers who now stared at him. "What my brother meant to say was"—Fife lowered his voice in the best impression of Darvin he could muster—"Fife, old friend, our asses are on the chopping block."

Cries of "Oh!" and "Why didn't he say so," exploded from around the table, the listeners suddenly all smiles and laughter. "Go on!" others cheered, encouraging Darvin.

Darvin glanced at Fife, his expression wide and lost.

"The Lumber Consortium rules here," Fife explained with a smile. "Know your audience."

"Save me!" Darvin hissed.

"With what? My, um, what did you call it? Ah yes, ‘diminutive strength?'" Before Darvin could respond, Fife headed deeper into the crowd, blissfully ignoring him.

"Go on!" a patron demanded. "Get to the plump wench!"

Fife chuckled and moved out of earshot, sidling closer to the rock-rimmed fire pit in the center of the Sawhorse Inn's common room as the fire drove the damp cold from his bones. The others seated around the flames looked miserable. The river town of Oregent survived on schedule and order, but the long rains had muted the complicated system of bells that regulated the lives of Oregentans (Orangutans? he wondered). Now the rain-pregnant waters of the Arthrosh River had overrun their boundaries and flooded the mills and lumberyards.

In short, life for the highly regulated employees of the Lumber Consortium had been thrown into chaos. No work meant no money, no money among the commerce-savvy citizens meant no investments or earnings. That left them to brood and squabble.

A low argument slowly filtered into Fife's consciousness, the words becoming clearer over the thrum of rain and the crackle of fire.

"The clattering take you both!" a woman proclaimed. "I tell you we're in for trouble."

Fife turned to the exchange, trying not to eavesdrop, but curious. A human woman with wide shoulders, black hair, and the arms of a mill worker sat with a burly man with a wild red mane for a beard and a gray-haired gnome woman who smoked on a long cork pipe and blew smoke from her button nose.

"It's a flood," the man said. "Nothing anyone can do about it."

"It'll be a week before my employees can work and that's after the rains end." The human woman bit her thumb.

"You and everyone else," the gnome replied, taking sage puffs from her pipe. "But the Consortium is primed for a shake-up. Perhaps not among the inner guilds, no, but among the cousin guilds there's room for expansion, growth... acquisition for Woodland Enterprises." The gnome's gold eyes glittered.

"You're talking about reopening the mills before anyone else does," the man said.

"I'm talking about stealing contracts out from under some of your rivals. Like Dannigan Lumber?"

"But that would mean predicting when the floods will retreat," the man argued, "and not even Dannigan can do that until someone reaches the blasted knife gates."

The trio at the table fell silent and Fife almost drifted away from the table when the human woman cursed softly: "Damn monsters."

Fife was instantly at their table with a smile and a heart beating fast at the mention of...

"Monsters?"

The gnome waved Fife off. "Go away, child. This is grownup talk."

"Hey!" Fife said, indignantly. He showed them the soft hair on the roof of his feet. "I'm halfling."

"As I said," the gnome replied, smiling sharply.

"You're the same height as me!"

"Whatever you're selling, we're not buying," the man said, barely glancing at Fife.

Fife grinned sweetly. "I'm offering my brother's and my services as experienced monster hunters."

"The last ‘hunters' who entered the sewers included a wizard—" the woman began, but Fife interrupted her.

"Our work is pro bono, payable at completion of the contract against five percent projected gross earnings of your mill over a one-month period, in addition to operating expenses for equipment and a food allowance."

All three eyed Fife through squinted and suddenly wary eyes. The human woman leaned forward. "One percent against one week's projected gross earnings, and an allowance limit of 10 coppers a day."

The four of them were quiet, staring at one another like gladiators wielding their favorite weapons of war. Fife cracked his knuckles and smiled in anticipation of the coming fight...

∗ ∗ ∗

Years later (or perhaps an hour later; it was hard to tell when it came to Fife), Darvin would remember the moment with horrible clarity, his mind refusing to forget. It was inexorable, like one of the three certain tragedies in life: Death, taxes, and Fife's desperate need for adventure.

Darvin remembered regaling the Sawhorse Inn with his exploits in "Malificar and the Hands of Doom," the audience enraptured by his skill in hand-puppetry and how it made shadows on the wall. Then, in mid-pantomime of his great battle against the legion of hands (and honestly, if anything shadow puppets were made for was the showing of a war of hands), Darvin turned to see...

...Fife extending his arm to shake the hand of a seated woman. A sudden dread hollowed him. He bolted from his chair all too slowly, as though trapped in amber, like time congealing. He extended his arm out, his mouth opening to scream, "Nooooooo—"

The chair clattered to the ground in slow motion, Darvin pushing past patrons. Drinks flew from their hands, Orengentans (or was that Orangutans?) pushed backward as Darvin barreled past them and Fife gripped the woman's hands.

"—oooooooooo—" Darvin continued. He brushed by the serving wench, upending her tray and marveling for a moment at the sparkling rain of mead and ale that hung in the air. Fife's hand began pumping the woman's hand in return.

"—ooooooooo!" Darvin leapt and skidded across a tabletop, arriving at Fife's side just in time to hear the halfling conclude with the three words Darvin feared most.

"It's a deal."

∗ ∗ ∗

"I don't see the problem," Fife complained as they made their way through the wet streets.

The rain had polished the cobblestones slick, but closer to the river, Darvin knew they'd start hitting the flooded and muck-covered streets. He wanted to punish his brother with good dose of the silent treatment, but he was too angry. From beneath his hood he glared at the halfling.

"We discussed this," Darvin said. "We deal in stories. That fiasco with the hands," he said, waggling his fingers. "We agreed after that, no more misadventures."

"No more misadventures!" Fife said, cheering.

Dannigan Lumber doesn't mess around when dealing with competitors.

"Fife! We're not cut out for the real thing!"

"This won't be like that business with the hands. Ah!" Fife glanced down at the iron grate set by the side of the road. "This should be it. Help me."

Fife removed the iron spanner from under his cloak and wedged it between the grate's bars.

"You're beyond help," Darvin said and sniffed. He refused to budge and he refused to be budged.

Fife shrugged and used the spanner as a fulcrum with his body as the weight. For a moment he hung there, his feet scurrying through the air, before the grate shifted. Fife struggled it off the hole and peered down while cinching the cloak tighter around his body, shifting his backpack and books.

"Ooo," Fife said, but Darvin refused to be baited. "Look."

"It's a sewer."

"It's a flood drain."

"Where the sewers empty. I am not swimming in that."

"We won't," Fife said, grinning. "There's a small boat down there. The mill owner said so."

"Then let her go sailing in that." Darvin motioned toward the hole.

"She'll be grateful," Fife sang.

"So?"

"She's plump."

Darvin swallowed hard and shook his head. "No, I don't care how plump she is. We're not—"

A chuckle interrupted them. A stranger seemed to materialize out of the rain, his wide shoulders cloaked in gray, his face hooded but for the stub of small tusks poking out past his thick, green lips.

Half-orc, Darvin realized as the stranger spoke.

"Are you the agents of Woodland Enterprises?" the half-orc asked with a voice as grizzled as his chin.

"No," Darvin said.

"Yes," Fife said at the same time.

The cloak split open. "Then Dannigan Lumber regrets it must terminate your position!" His hand flashed out and Darvin watched in horror as the blade struck Fife in the chest.

Fife looked down as well, startled and pained. "My... book," he gasped, opening his wool cloak to reveal an impaled journal in his breast pocket.

The half-orc snarled and flung another dagger with the flick of his wrist. Darvin tried to push Fife out of the way and only succeeded in spinning him around. The dagger struck Fife in the back.

"My other book!" Fife cried. "He's after my books!"

"He's after us, you idiot!" Darvin shouted back and, before he could reconsider, pushed himself and Fife into the exposed hole. Darkness surrounded them, and the roar of the flooded sewers enveloped them...

Coming Next Week: The perilous sewers beneath Oregent in Chapter Two of Lucien Soulban's "The Tides of Blood!"

Lucien Soulban is an accomplished fantasy and science fiction author who's written shared-world fiction for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Black Library, and more, including the novels Blood In, Blood Out and The Alien Sea. For more information, visit his website at www.luciensoulban.com.

Illustration by Michael Rookard

The Tides of Blood!

by Lucien Soulban

Chapter Two: Up the Creek

They struck the raging sewer river hard, the cold lacerating them and the turbulence spinning them around. The rushing water caught them in its torrent and Fife scrambled for purchase. His fingers scrabbled slimy brick and then water, and then brick again.

"Darvin—" he half-managed before he swallowed a foul mouthful of their surroundings. The halfling coughed and tried to gasp down air, but the waves closed around his head, his books and sodden wool dragging him down. Fife reached up, panicked.

A hand grabbed his and pulled him up and over rough wood.

Fife spent a few minutes coughing and waiting for the pain in his shoulder to subside. He looked up at Darvin, who was wet and huddled on the bench of the small boat that rocked at the end of a taut rope.

"You're going to say I told you so," Fife said, unable to meet his brother's gaze.

"I... swallowed poo water," Darvin said.

"Go ahead. Say it."

Fife is never at a loss when striking a deal—making good on it is another story.

"You made me swallow poo water."

"You pushed us in," Fife offered.

"Nothing will ever taste the same again."

"The assassin!" Fife suddenly looked around. A shaft with iron rungs stretched above their heads, heavy runoff pouring down from the hole. The tunnel itself was well past half-flooded, the curved ceiling within reach.

"I'll taste things," Darvin continued, his eyes hollow and unblinking. "Honeyed ham, ale, warm sourdough bread, salted beef, sugar figs. And suddenly I'll remember that this tongue also tasted poo water. And then the taste, that taste, will return. The taste," he whispered. "The taste..."

"Darvin! The assassin is up there!"

"If he knew what I'd tasted..."

"You're annoyingly melodramatic." Fife pulled his knife and cut the mooring rope. A knick from Fife's dagger was all it took to unravel its taut braids.

The boat lurched and careened down the sewer passage, jolting Darvin from his shock. "Wh—what are you doing?"

"Committing us to a course." Fife grabbed one of the peeling gray oars and handed the other to Darvin. "Keep us off the walls."

∗ ∗ ∗

Keeping them off the walls was easier said than done, Darvin knew. The waters spun them around and sent their boat scrapping and thudding against the tunnel's brick-lined flanks. Then the route ended at the junction of another passageway with them hurtling toward the junction wall.

Darvin screamed, "Left or right?" against the roar of the water. It wasn't until he looked back and saw Fife's eyes go wide that he realized Fife didn't know.

The joint of the passageways surged the water upward before the merge, and both Darvin and Fife ducked as the ceiling rushed down to scrape their heads. Then the torrent dipped into the new corridor with a lurching drop, and Darvin fell off the bench as the rush twisted them to the side. The prow of their boat slammed off the wall, a jarring crunch that splintered wood.

As Darvin righted himself, he heard, "Uh oh."

"‘Uh oh,' what?" Darvin screamed.

"Nothing," Fife said, fighting with the oar and doing his best to grin amiably.

"‘Uh oh' is never nothing!" Darvin said. "‘Uh oh' is code for run or duck or—" and then he realized the bottom of the boat had vanished under rising water. "—or that! We're sinking?"

"It's just a small crack," Fife said, pressing his naked foot against the bloom sprouting in the bottom of the boat.

"You know what you call a bucket with a crack? Broken!"

"A bucket holds water in," Fife said, his brows furrowed. "A boat keeps water out. I don't think you're making the point you were hoping to make."

"Wall!" Darvin shouted. The boat surged on a swell and the two brothers pushed hard against the wall with their paddles. The boat scraped the greenish brick, splintering jagged bits of wood. More water spilled into their boat, but they managed to push off all the same, the muscles in Darvin's shoulders screaming in exertion.

"Oof!" Fife said, sounding like the wind had been knocked out of him.

Darvin looked back; Fife was no longer in the boat.

"Fife—?"

Fife's oar was sticking out of the wall, the spade half buried between the bricks, and Fife hung from it, his feet treading water.

"How—?" Darvin cried, and then saw. The oar was wedged in a large crack in the wall, and Fife had accidently thrust it in when he tried to push them off.

Darvin scrambled to grab Fife, but it was a fool's notion. Too many yards separated them, and the gap was increasing rapidly. They locked eyes, Fife's large circles of panic mirroring the ‘O' of his mouth.

Darvin dove into the water.

∗ ∗ ∗

Fife almost lost his grip on the oar. Darvin had gone under and had yet to surface. "Stupid," Fife muttered, almost in tears, fighting to stay up. He'd wedged the oar into the wall and it'd sheared him off as the boat slipped away.

"Stupid!" he screamed at the tumult, desperately searching the rapids as the boat careened and spun and slammed into a wall farther down. A moment later, it was gone, pulled around the corner by the torrent. He was alone.

Fife's shoulders hurt, his joints pulled by the weight of books. He had to let go, to swim downstream and find Darvin.

A hand grabbed the brick wall, slipped on slime, and grabbed again. A face emerged from the white surf: Darvin struggling to pull himself forward brick by brick.

"Grab my leg!" Fife cried, pushing his foot forward.

"Grow longer legs!" Darvin shouted back with a grin, and was almost swallowed under.

"Stupid!" Fife shouted again, but now it was with a fierce smile. "Why'd you jump in?"

Darvin clawed forward another couple of feet, his fingers jammed into the groove between bricks. "You're welcome!" he managed.

"The boat had rope!" Fife shouted.

"Did it?" Darvin managed between gulps of air. "Fancy that."

Darvin was a few feet away now, a look of sheer determination on his face as he pulled on bricks against the surge. Fife thrust his legs out again despite the ache in his shoulders. Darvin pushed forward from the wall with a desperate look and grabbed the cuff of Fife's trousers.

Fife wriggled, his shoulders crying out at the sudden pull.

"Stop bucking," Darvin said, holding on to Fife's pants.

"You're pulling my pants down," Fife screeched. He was trying not to laugh, but he couldn't help it, the ridiculous of the situation hitting home as his pants steadily lost their grip on his hips. It was all too much, and Fife's fingers came undone at the same time his trousers did.

A year passed, a moment, time irrelevant in the chaos, all of it spent spinning, upturned, in the foul-tasting water. Hands grabbed for him, pulling him up. A moment later, he was pulling Darvin up. They were each other's ladder in the tumult.

"Trying... to... save you!" Darvin gasped.

"Saving you!" Fife retorted.

And down they both went again.

Fife wasn't sure when it happened. He didn't know who found the ledge first, who pulled whom up, or if they both clambered up. The tunnel here was higher, or maybe there was less water; the ledge was only an inch submerged. It hurt to breathe. Darvin sucked in heavy gasps next to him.

"How'd they... send an assassin... after us... so quickly," Fife said between gulps of air. He could still see the half-orc materialize out from the storm, throwing daggers.

"He was at the... inn. Likely spying on... your clients."

"Our clients," Fife said. "You're in this mess now."

"A detail I'll rectify later. I call it ‘flogging the halfling.'"

"I've heard that about you."

"Pervert," Darvin said, giving his brother the measure of a half push.

"Besides, I'm already half-flogged," Fife said after a moment. He managed to draw measured breath but still coughed as the water pooled around them both.

"You all right?"

Fife nodded. "You?"

"Have I mentioned? You made me taste poo water."

"Trust me, that part won't make it into the tales."

"What about the part where you lost your pants?" Darvin asked.

Fife raised his head and looked down at his small clothes, his hairy legs and large feet. He waggled his toes and groaned. "Heroes are supposed to wear pants."

"My heroes work best without their pants," Darvin replied, waggling his eyebrows obscenely.

Wet pants hit Fife in the face before he could retort.

"I held on to them," Darvin continued.

Fife nodded and slipped them on, freezing as they were, and looked around. Better with them than without, he thought, despite the chill.

"You have no idea where we're going, do you?"

"I don't need to." Fife pointed to where the water fled. "The water flows to the knife gates. We need to get them fully opened to flood the lowlands."

"And why isn't the city handling this problem?" Darvin asked, getting up slowly.

"They sent people down to clear the knife gates, including a wizard!" Fife said, checking his books. The water-resistant ink and candle-waxed pages had protected the writing. "The men never returned."

"Excuse me?" Darvin said. "Define ‘never returned'!"

"Um, you know?" Fife said, trying to look nonchalant in a manner that suggested he was completely chalant. "I thought I'd mentioned it."

"You did no such thing!"

"Oh... fancy that."

"Don't play coy. I saw you hesitate."

"Well," Fife said, smiling up at his brother. "I knew you'd overreact."

Darvin motioned around them. "Really! I wonder what would coax such mortal terror from me?"

"Certainly not a fear of hyperbole."

"No, no, no," Darvin said, pointing. "It's the terror of being your brother!"

"See? Hyperbole. We're half-brothers at best."

"We're in the flooded sewers!" Darvin said. "Lost, cold, hunted by an assassin, and whatever killed those men..." He trailed off.

Fife sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Something is behind us, isn't it?"

Darvin nodded and backed away one step.

"The thing that killed the men?"

Darvin took another step back. "Things. What do you fear other than spiders?"

"Gnomes," Fife admitted softly. "In fool's motley."

"Good," Darvin said. "This isn't that."

Fife turned, knowing he'd regret it, and instantly at that. He was right on both counts.

A wall of black bodies covered the ledge not two dozen yards behind them. Wet fur in mangy tufts, diseased scabrous skin in brown and black patches, thousands of red beady eyes, fist-sized bodies, yellowed fangs bared. More disturbing still, the largest one measured the size of a dog, with a long, wormlike, chewed and bitten tail. They made no sound, no hint at motion, just watched.

"Are those...?" Fife whispered, backing away.

"Rats," Darvin said.

"And the bigger one?"

"Bigger rat."

"I was wrong," Fife said, almost apologetic.

The swarm of rats took a step forward.

"About coming here?"

"No," Fife said. "Gnomes dressed in fool's motley has now dropped to fourth-worst fear."

"What was second, then?" Darvin asked.

"Another time, perhaps? I don't want to give the fates ideas."

"Point. Shall we run?"

Fife looked down at his own hairy feet. "Oh," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I thought we already were."

Fife and Darvin turned and ran in earnest. Behind them, the sound of rushing water was drowned out by the new din of scrabbling claws...

Coming Next Week: Desperate tactics in Chapter Three of Lucien Soulban's "The Tides of Blood!"

Lucien Soulban is an accomplished fantasy and science fiction author who's written shared-world fiction for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Black Library, and more, including the novels Blood In, Blood Out and The Alien Sea. For more information, visit his website at www.luciensoulban.com.

Illustration by Michael Rookard

The Tides of Blood!

by Lucien Soulban

Chapter Three: The Rat Race

"Run!" Darvin screamed. Behind them, the wall of rats fell over each other as they raced along the partially submerged sewer ledge.

"I am running!" Fife said, his small arms pumping.

"Run like a human!"

"I'm faster than you!" Fife retorted. "My strides are shorter!"

Darvin struggled to stay on his feet, the wet bricks slick, the runoff from the storm chasing a hard course through the tunnels and spraying everything in a shower of sewage. He heard Fife stumble, but when he looked back, the halfling was already back on his feet, the rats half a dozen feet behind.

"Why... are we always... running... down corridors?" Fife huffed. "The hands, now rats. Heroes don't flee."

"We aren't heroes!" Darvin shouted back. "At best we're unwilling appetizers." He searched, trying to find some escape from the roiling mass of vermin on their heels. The swarm would soon run them down. It wasn't just that the rats were faster (they were in spurts). Or that there were so many (there were). It was that, as rats fell back, more scampered forward, always gaining on them.

Then there was the large one that ran in their midst, the one the size of a dog, urging them on with a grating, high-pitched screech and blood-red eyes.

The passageway narrowed, the ledge thinning, and Darvin saw a glimmer of hope. The rats had gained and were now a handful of feet behind them. Darvin slowed a step, just long enough to grab Fife by the collar and the belt...

"Hey!"

Darvin doesn't mind his half-brother's stories—
as long as they're made up.

...and heaved his half-brother across the seven-foot-wide sewer torrent. Fife screeched and landed on the opposite ledge just as Darvin ran another couple of steps to the edge. Several rats jumped onto his back, trying to bite through the wet wool cloak, but Darvin leaped with a roar.

He struck water, his hands scrabbling across the ledge, the rapids pulling him down the tunnel.

"Not again!"

Fife raced to grab his hand, but water pulled Darvin with angry strength, too quickly for the halfling. Inches separated their outstretched hands, then a foot, and then another. In desperation, Fife slid forward, swinging out with his rucksack. Darvin caught the bag, fingers clenched around fabric with an aching ferocity.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow!" Fife said. The sewer waters pulled Darvin along, and bounced Fife across the slimy bricks.

At this rate, Darvin realized, Fife would end up in the foul drink in a matter of yards where the tunnel turned to the right. "Dig in with your monkey feet!" he said.

Fife grunted something that may have been in pain or in insult. The halfling tucked his body into a fetal position, slowing them both down as the yards slimmed to inches.

Darvin grabbed the ledge at the corner of the turn, and Fife helped him back up to solid ground.

∗ ∗ ∗

"We need to stop meeting like this." Darvin lay on his back, panting hard as Fife looked around.

The pack of rats watched them from the opposite ledge. They acted restless, but the leader kept its beady red eyes on the two humanoids. There was something unpleasant in its gaze, something profoundly angry and vicious. Fife couldn't stop staring, until finally, the king rat lifted its head and uttered a series of angry squeaks.

"What did you say?" Darvin asked, sitting up.

"That wasn't me, you idiot." Fife nodded at the rats.

"Ah, yes," Darvin said, calling out to them. "Are the four-legged fiends at a loss? Has their dinner outwitted them?"

The king rat snarled and squeaked louder. The rats broke into two packs, half going back the way they had come, the other half scurrying up the passageway and around the corner.

"Oh dear," Fife said. "I think they're looking to outflank us."

"Ah," Darvin said. "Tactics. That's... upsetting. Run?"

"That would be best." Fife helped his brother up as the packs vanished in opposite directions. "It's just..."

"Just?"

"I'm tired of running. Aren't you?"

"I'm surprisingly good at it," Darvin replied.

"That's the problem. So am I."

Darvin looked down at his half-brother and sighed. "What do you propose?"

"We turn the tables."

∗ ∗ ∗

They followed the water flow, crossing wood bridges over the smaller passages. Of the rats or their king, they saw no sign; the ledges and corridors created a maze.

"Turn the tables how?" Darvin asked, when he realized his half-brother had never added anything.

Fife looked up at him, a flicker of surprise in his face.

"Do you even have a plan?" Darvin asked.

"I had an idea," Fife admitted.

"I hear an 'if.' Or a 'but.' Maybe a 'well.'"

"Well..."

"There it is."

"I came up with one plan," Fife said, "but we don't have a wheel of cheese."

"In this situation, we are the wheel of cheese," Darvin said.

"And then I thought about trapping them in a large maze."

"We are the ones in the maze?"

"Are you suggesting that we're the rats?"

"I'm not that profound. I think the sewers are getting to you."

"And then I thought, why aren't the sewers flooded?"

"Aren't they?" The waters that sloshed at Darvin's feet were a good inch above his soles, and he could barely feel his cold toes.

"For the amount of rain we've had? The water's being dammed up somewhere and that's causing the streets to flood."

"The knife gate," Darvin suggested.

"That's at the lowest point of the sewers. The flooding would back up, not—"

"Yes, thank you," Darvin said. "I have a general understanding of slopes and how they work."

They arrived at an intersection and Fife looked up and down its length. He smiled and waggled a finger for Darvin to follow. After a few minutes of this, Darvin realized what he was doing. "You're heading up."

Fife nodded. "I'm following the streams with the smallest flows."

"To find the blockage. Look, if adventurers failed, with a wizard no less, why don't we just find a way out?"

"Why escape when we could undam the sewer, wash away the rats, and get paid in the process?"

"Hold," Darvin said, putting his hand on Fife's shoulder. "We're getting paid for this? Why didn't you say so?"

"I didn't need to," Fife said. "'We have a deal' means 'we get something in the exchange.'"

"Did you negotiate for the rest of your missing height?"

"I bargained for a smarter brother."

"I guess we both came up short."

Fife punched Darvin in the thigh. From off in the distance came the echo of a rat squeak. Fife hesitated, then started jogging. He kept looking back, the sound of the rats growing louder, and Darvin knew he had to keep his fretting half-brother preoccupied.

"I don't know with you anymore," Darvin said. "You seem intent on jumping into danger. Well... hopping in your case."

"There's nothing wrong with trying to be the hero," Fife said, huffing.

"But we're not heroes."

"We could be," Fife said.

"And the payment? Is that what heroes do?"

"Only to disguise their noble intentions. Besides—never mind," Fife said, his expression sullen.

"What?" Darvin asked.

"It's just... I know you'll never come on adventures with me unless there's money to be made! Or a chance to meet a plump woman."

In response, Darvin reached down and punched Fife in the shoulder, almost hard enough to send him into the water.

"What was that for?!" Fife snapped.

"Coin is nice, and plump women are better," Darvin said. "But you're my brother. You think I'd let you go on an adventure alone?"

"So you punched me because you love me?"

"I punched you because you made me say it."

The rat squeaks grew louder from somewhere behind them, but Darvin saw none of the red-eyed vermin, just rain water rushing off into the darkness. Fife paused at another intersection of sewer tunnels. The larger passage on their right angled up, the water diminished. They took it.

"You love me," Fife said, almost singing.

"Don't make it a thing," Darvin said.

Behind them, the sound of rats grew louder, but at least Fife wore a grin. It was all too easy for the halfling to get lost in the needs of the world, without sharing in its joy. That's why he needed Darvin.

∗ ∗ ∗

Fife did his best to ignore the skittering of nails on brick. Beside him, Darvin followed his lead, tracking the trickle of water back to the blockage.

That was good. It was all too easy for Darvin to distance himself from the world, to ignore it and go about his own affairs. Fife liked to believe that Darvin was better than he thought of himself; all he needed was a little encouragement to perform outside his own narrow motives. Fife could provide that incentive.

Fife glanced back and caught a hint of movement deep in the darkness, perhaps a foot beyond the limits of his vision. The shadows along the ground squirmed, though that could have been the water. He nudged Darvin, and without another word, the pair jogged more quickly.

The ten-foot-wide sewer passage angled up and ended at a large tunnel. This new avenue stretched wider than the others, to nearly twenty feet, with a low arched ceiling and small side feeders angling off sharply at intervals. The slope grew more pronounced, the water a thick ribbon down the center trough and still too little for the rains and flood.

"The portway drain," Fife said. When Darvin glanced at him, he explained. "The portway runs the river's length and links the mills to the river port. If this is blocked..."

Darvin nodded, and Fife led them upward. The rats gained, however, untiring in their advance. By the time the pair had crowned the sloped passage, the rats were within sight, as was the dam of splintered timbers, dislodged topsoil, and nests of roots. It blocked the passage save for the water leaking through the imperfect plug.

Standing before the blockage of castoff stood the half-orc assassin. He'd been examining the dam and the water cascading over the embankment, but he turned at the sound of their steps. His expression of surprise lasted but a moment, then gave way to a sharp-toothed smile. Behind Darvin and Fife, the rats ran and screeched up the slope. A glance back told Fife they were less than fifty feet back, their bodies nearly indistinguishable in the writhing mass, but for their eyes and yellowed incisors.

The brothers shared a glance and Fife knew immediately what his brother was thinking. They were finally in familiar waters.

"Oh, look," Fife said. "It's our favorite assassin."

The half-orc casually pulled his cloak open, revealing the glint of daggers. "No escape this time."

"Yes, about that," Fife said, "we've picked up something along the way."

"Vermin," Darvin said.

"A plague really."

"A plague of vermin."

"Isn't that redundant?"

The rats were thirty feet back and the excitement of blood drove them faster.

"Can you say vermin of plague?"

"I—don't think so," Fife admitted.

"Then I guess it isn't redundant."

"Enough babbling. Why do you keep looking ba—what are those?" the half-orc asked, noticing the swell of rats that had cleared the slope of the tunnel.

"The plague of vermin," Darvin said, not bothering to look back.

"They're with us," Fife said.

"Charge!" Darvin screamed, and the half-brothers bolted forward.

Coming Next Week: Here comes the flood in the conclusion of Lucien Soulban's "The Tides of Blood!"

Lucien Soulban is an accomplished fantasy and science fiction author who's written shared-world fiction for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Black Library, and more, including the novels Blood In, Blood Out and The Alien Sea. For more information, visit his website at www.luciensoulban.com.

Illustration by Michael Rookard

The Tides of Blood!

by Lucien Soulban

Chapter Four: A Rat and a Hard Place

Darvin wasn't sure whether the bluff worked or not, but the result was the same. The sewer rats were chasing Darvin and Fife and the two storytellers were chasing the assassin, trying to make him believe the pack was under their control.

In the face of the swarm, the half-orc panicked and clambered up the blockage of branches, tree limbs, uprooted clumps of soil, and stones. When he reached the top of the embankment, he began kicking at the debris in desperation.

He's trying to dislodge the rubble and flood the tunnel, Darvin realized, but that could collapse the whole dam, washing them all away.

"Grab him!" Darvin shouted, snaring one leg while nimble Fife leaped up to grab the other. The half-orc screamed in his mad scramble to dislodge rubbish. More water poured through the opening.

The rats were less than ten feet away now, the king among them screeching furiously and driving the rats forward.

Fife planted his feet against the slopes and yelled, "Pull him down or the rats will never eat his eyes!"

Darvin gave him a look and shook his head, but the half-orc screamed and dislodged more debris in his panic.

Oregent's sewer rats suffer no trespassers.

A rumbling followed that shook the tunnels themselves, and a big beam of timber shifted, firing a jet of compacted mud and slop that shot down the passageway.

Darvin and Fife stumbled back, and only then did Darvin remember the rats. The rats had come to a stop, water roaring through the small gaps of the dam, wood creaking under tremendous pressure, the half-orc crying triumphantly.

Then it all came down, the pressure of the dam firing smaller debris like arrow shot. A chair leg shot past Darvin's head, and he yanked Fife away just as the top of the dam disintegrated and cut a trough down its center. A V-shaped cascade of water shot through, and Darvin was running down the slope, grabbing a handful of Fife's damp cloak.

Debris-strewn water punched straight down the spine of the tunnel, cutting a line through the swarm. The rats were scattered, and even their king turned its eaten tail to the flood and ran along the side, pulling its retinue with it.

Darvin and Fife stuck to the walls of the tunnel, but the breach widened and Darvin watched in horror as the flood fanned out toward them.

∗ ∗ ∗

Fife pulled behind his half-brother, the flood splashing around his ankles and almost shoving him into Darvin. Debris tumbled past them, along with the half-orc who screamed as he sailed past.

A moment later, the assassin disappeared over the arc of the tunnel's slope and Fife and Darvin followed on their butts.

"Wheee!" Fife cried, throwing his hands up.

Around them, dozens of rats scrambled for purchase and vanished back under the churning tumult. Some climbed atop Fife and Darvin and dug in with teeth and claws, but the pair tore them off.

From behind them came a roar that shook the tunnel, and Fife realized that the rest of the dam must have given way. In his mind, he saw the wall of pent-up water and timber from the mills that had fallen into the storm channels. Anyone caught inside that avalanche would be crushed utterly.

"Darvin!" Fife shouted, but his brother had already understood the danger. They grabbed at walls, at grooves and rough stone. Darvin tried to hook the edge of a side-feeder, but only slowed himself enough for Fife to slam into him and send them both spinning around.

Rats bit at them, and pebbles and stones sent flying stung them as the avalanche bore down. Fife spun in front of Darvin as his half-brother grabbed at the edge of another side-tunnel and lost his grip. A log toppled end over end past them and down the slope. They were on the verge of getting swept away.

A dark spot loomed on the wall and Fife threw his weight behind his bag. The momentum hooked him on the side-feeder's edge, his legs kicking against the flood that tried to yank him back out. A great weight struck him. Fife almost lost his grip, the pressure of Darvin's weight crushing. A moment later, the weight was gone. Fife almost cried out in panic, but Darvin was pulling him into the collector.

Pieces of the broken plug rumbled past them, timbers and rocks slamming into the wall with crushing force. The ceiling groaned, the walls shook, as the sewer collapsed under the sudden punishment.

Fife was horrified as masonry crashed down around them, water pushing into the side passages like geysers. Fife didn't feel Darvin pulling him until he himself scrambled to his feet and began running.

"Are we heroes yet?" Darvin yelled over the tumult.

"Shut up!" Fife said. The rising water raced past his shins, panicking rats clambering up them both. Fife spun and scraped the walls to dislodge them. Sometimes Darvin struck rats from him, and sometimes he from Darvin.

There was no way around it, however: the waters pushed them along and they had no recourse but to follow the flow down the spiral of the sewers. Rumbles followed elsewhere as parts of the flooded and strained tunnels collapsed. Then a thundering that sounded all too close was followed by a horrific crash.

The brick wall behind them exploded as a battering ram of a tree smashed through, followed by a surge of water that swept over them. Fife was off his feet instantly and, in the tumult, he could see Darvin fighting to swim. Fife extended his backpack to Darvin, sputtering and screaming for him to grab hold...

∗ ∗ ∗

Darvin blinked, blinked again. He was... somewhere. A domed stone ceiling stretched overhead, held in place by the ribs of arches. His head thundered, his sides hurt, his right arm numb.

"Fife?" He raised his head, looking around. His numb arm was wrapped around the strap of Fife's sodden bag, but no Fife. Despite the pounding in his head, he sat up. His head swam before the room steadied. Fife squatted next to a pile of rags, a makeshift torch in his hand.

Not rags... a body. "The assassin?" he asked.

Fife shook his head and continued thumbing through the tome next to the body. "The wizard from the first group our employers sent," he said. "It's a spellbook, I think."

Darvin groaned, his back popping and snapping as he stood and stretched. "Is that safe? Wizards are tricky."

Fife shrugged. "I don't think he was all that good. Most of the baubles were colored glass, and not all that impressive."

"You searched his body?"

"Yes."

"I'm so proud of you!"

The persistent thundering Darvin heard was the runoff from the feeder tunnels emptying into the circular chamber. A wooden grate braced with iron brackets covered the floor and sieved the water pouring in to somewhere below, but splintered logs, large rocks, shattered crates, and more covered the floor, all too large to fall through the grate.

Three bodies in total, torn and cut and savaged, lay in indignant repose. Darvin dropped Fife's bag next to him and searched through the bodies, plucking at coin pouches.

"How'd we get all the way there?" he asked, nodding to where he'd awoken. The nearest tunnel was a good dozen feet away, the castoff a steady gush of noise.

"I dragged you to the side."

"Pff, you're not strong enough."

"Okay, I kicked and rolled you like a barrel," Fife said, engrossed in the book.

"That I believe. Can you read that?"

Fife smiled. "No, but I get the gist of it. Now this symbol is either warmth or fiery death."

"I'm sure the wizard carried around a spell of snuggly warmth." Darvin found a beautiful stiletto blade weighted expertly. He slipped it into his belt.

He reached for another body when he saw the pair of large gleaming red eyes glaring at him.

"Uh," was all he managed before the eyes, teeth, and claws were on him.

∗ ∗ ∗

A shout shook Fife from his studies, the rubble around them a sudden fury of rustling and squeaks. Darvin thrashed, something large and brown and glinting with teeth clawing at him.

More rats darted forward, leaping nimbly toward them, and Fife swung his torch, striking the closest. The angry embers of red eyes surrounded him. He raced to his brother who wielded a stiletto blade Fife had never seen before. The king rat leaped away as the halfling jabbed the torch at it, but Darvin managed a slash across its hind flanks.

The large rat hissed and darted off, sending the other rats into a panic.

"Get it!" Fife said. "Before they rally!"

Fife and Darvin scrambled over logs and clumps of moss. The large rat darted from hole to niche, but Fife jammed his torch into the shallow warrens, driving it back out. Darvin slashed at it and any rat too brave for its own good, helping Fife outflank the bigger rodent and kicking down precarious hovels to scatter the packs.

The king rat ran for the nearest tunnel a dozen feet away along the curved wall. It vanished under a plank and Fife jammed his torch beneath; something sharp and unforgiving stung his hand. He yelped, dropping the torch as he fell back. The large rat was atop the plank in a blur of fur, leaping for the halfling.

"Fife!"

The stiletto flashed by, overshooting the king. Suddenly, it sheared down sharply, impaling the rodent through the back and into the wood.

The rats stopped suddenly, Darvin and Fife themselves stunned silent. The king rat thrashed against the blade momentarily, and then stilled. With that, the rats vanished into the nearest holes, the spell broken.

"Did you see that?" Darvin shouted, exultant. "The way I made it curve down?"

"I think the dagger's magical."

"It's that wrist thing that I do."

"The one that makes you miss everything? Birds, bottles, the sides of barns? The dagger's magical."

"I was incredible," he was flicking his wrist appreciatively.

"Magic will do that," Fife said, touching the pommel. He pulled it from the rat and handed it back to Darvin.

Darvin sheathed the dagger as Fife collected his backpack and the book of spells. He had much studying to do.

"Come on," Darvin said. "We have a knife gate to open."

Fife smiled. "Really?"

"Yeah. Heroes don't leave such things unfinished, right?"

"Right," Fife said, beaming ear to ear.

∗ ∗ ∗

The rains stopped two nights ago, leaving the stars free to shine brightly over Oregent. The streets remained muddy but traversable, the bells sounding out loud and clear as lumber workers returned home from a day of repairs.

Along the portway, crews had erected a lattice of wooden beams to repair the street that had collapsed into the sewers. As Darvin and Fife moved past the construction, the Halfling tore down a wall poster: a drawing of them as the heroes who had opened the knife gates and saved Oregent from flooding. He folded the poster, and pocketed it with a grin.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay and enjoy the celebrations?" Darvin asked, looking back. He'd never had a party thrown in his honor, but there was only so much mead he could drink.

"I'm sure," Fife said with a smile. "Besides, who was it who taught me to leave when the going was still good?"

"Did I? That sounds entirely too responsible to be me."

"Well, you didn't exactly say it as you did live it by outstaying your welcome."

"Which time?" Darvin said, defensively.

"Every time," Fife pointed to the river lands beyond. "Shall we?"

Darvin smiled. "More misadventures await."

"To more misadventures," Fife agreed, shouldering his pack and stepping in line with his brother.

"You still made me taste poo water," Darvin said.

Fife merely smiled.

Coming Next Week: The River Kingdoms await in a sample chapter from Michael A. Stackpole's The Crusader Road

Lucien Soulban is an accomplished fantasy and science fiction author who's written shared-world fiction for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Black Library, and more, including the novels Blood In, Blood Out and The Alien Sea. For more information, visit his website at www.luciensoulban.com.

Illustration by Michael Rookard