A red-armoured shape resolved out of the shadows as they approached the drain, Frentis looking up at him with half-closed eyes, gratified by the welcoming grin. “No trouble then?” he asked in whispered Volarian, unwisely keeping his gaze on Frentis as they came closer.
“None,” Lekran agreed, he and Rensial dumping Frentis at the Arisai’s feet.
“Thought he might’ve done for one of you at least,” he said, drawing a dagger and crouching to tap the pommel three times on the drain cover.
Lekran glanced down at Frentis, his own grin now genuine. “His legend greatly exceeds his skills, it seems.”
The Arisai grunted and moved back as the drain cover was hauled up and to the side by unseen hands, beckoning impatiently at Lekran. “Get him below, we’ve work to do.”
“No,” Lekran told the Arisai, drawing his gaze as Master Rensial stepped behind him. “You’re done now.”
Rensial’s dagger flashed across the Arisai’s throat, leaving him kneeling on the cobbles, blood seeping through his fingers as he coughed a laugh of appalled surprise. An Arisai’s head emerged from the drain, hands clutching the sides to haul himself free, falling back in a cloud of blood as Lekran’s axe swept down.
“Come on you lazy buggers!” Draker called, running from the shadows and gesticulating wildly as Tekrav appeared at the far end of the street with a dozen or so of his porters, each rolling a barrel.
Lekran raised a bugle to his lips and sounded a single long pealing note, the town coming to life around them as the rebels answered the call, torches flaming and people running to preallocated stations, weapons in hand.
Frentis risked a glance at the blank opening of the drain, jerking his head back as a knife came spinning out of the blackness, missing him by the width of a hair. He could hear the multiple splashes of many feet running through water, but no voices, no sign in fact of any alarm or panic, provoking him to an uncomfortable notion:
“How much?” Tekrav asked, dragging his barrel to a halt at the drain’s edge.
“All of it,” Frentis said.
Tekrav turned the barrel about and Lekran brought his axe round to smash the lid, lamp oil gushing forth into the drain. They tipped the barrel up to empty the contents and followed with another, the other porters sweeping by to trundle their own barrels to every drain in the town.
Frentis looked up at the warehouse roof where Illian now stood, waving a torch to confirm all the drains were now surrounded by at least one company of fighters. “No reason to wait,” he told Tekrav.
The Chief Quartermaster stepped forward, face grim but determined as he raised a flaming torch. “For Lemera,” he said. The torch disappeared into the hole, birthing an instant column of yellow flame at least ten feet high. It subsided to a modest-sized blaze after a few seconds, Frentis straining to gauge the results.
He left Draker and his company guarding the flaming drain, running with Lekran and Rensial to the next one where Ivelda and half the Garisai clustered around the opening, watching as the porters poured more lamp oil into the sewers. A strong stench of burning oil rose from the opening along with a thickening pall of smoke, but it remained eerily silent. “If they’re down there, brother,” Ivelda said, “they know how to die quietly.”
Frentis turned as a shout came from the hole, seeing one of the Garisai reeling away with a dagger embedded in his shoulder as a figure erupted from the drain, launched by his comrades to rise five feet in the air amidst a glittering cascade of water and oil. His sword began to flash as he landed, hacking down a Garisai and wounding another before a pole-axe cleaved into his chest. Two more Arisai were propelled from the drain in quick succession, oil flying from their spinning forms as they hacked and slashed, seeking to drive the Garisai back from the hole. One was quickly cut down but the other fought on, blocking thrusts and inflicting wounds with deadly precision. Frentis ran in, sweeping aside the Arisai’s blade to deliver a kick to his breastplate, sending him sprawling back towards the drain. The man clung on however, arms and legs spread, his comrades’ hands reaching up from below to propel him back to the fight, his grinning face fixed on Frentis in direct challenge.
Frentis snatched a torch from one of the Garisai and tossed it onto the Arisai’s chest, stepping forward to stamp down as the flames engulfed him, returning him to the oil-soaked sewers. The column of fire was taller this time, the blast of heat singeing the hairs on Frentis’s arms as he reeled away.
