Buzzard slams a big fist into his hand, his expression one of grim approval. “Now we’re getting somewhere. I’ll take the lead.”
“Sword?” Jay asks.
“Don’t need one. I’ve got hands.”
“Taurians in front, then?” Shikra says to me. “We’re the best down here in the darkness.”
He’s not wrong. Stork has to hold a mucking oil lamp to see anything, and Jay probably hasn’t slept in a mucking week. “Aye, we’ll take the lead.”
“Let’s see what they’ve brought us to play with,” Buzzard says, unhooking from the rope tying us together and striding forward. It’s an unspoken rule amongst Taurians—in battle, you detach from the Five so you’re not dragged down. Good for us, less good for the humans.
Shikra knows it, and hesitates before unhooking himself, too. “I fight better unencumbered.”
I do, too, but I see Gwenna’s face in front of mine when I think about untying myself, and how devastated she’d be if I got Jay killed. I imagine Jay’s widow-woman farmer, too, and Stork’s woman—surely he has one somewhere—and how they’d react. Despite the urge to protect my own hide, I shake my head. “I’ll remain with the humans. Let’s stay together. Make sure nothing gets past the front lines.”
Stork readies his blade, and Jay pulls out a heavy mace. It makes me think of Gwenna, and I smile to myself. I’d forgotten that Jay was anexpert with a mace. I should ask him to give her lessons when we get back—
Then the smell of ratlings grows heavy in the tunnel, and my hackles rise. “Stay behind me,” I say to Jay and Stork, clenching my fists in preparation for a battle. “And if things get bad, run for the drop. Take your chances with the rope.”
Forty-Seven
Gwenna
For the firsttime in my life, I am going to be an absolute bother.
Toeveryone.
“I’m telling you again,” I say to the repeater at the drop. I’m trying to keep my voice calm, but I’m failing. “Someone has set up a trap, and we have a team that needs a rescue.”
He looks at me dismissively. “Shouldn’t you be making someone dinner somewhere?”
I resist the urge to curl my fingers around his throat. “Shouldn’t you be doing your mucking job? Where is Raptor’s rescue group?”
“Just like I told you before, there’s no rescue group down in the Everbelow today,” the repeater tells me in the same bored way he’s told me twice already. “Check the documentation.”
I have. There’s a clipboard in the main Drop Distribution Office that shows who is scheduled to go where each day, and there’s absolutely nothing that shows a rescue effort, and nothing that might indicate where Raptor is. There’s a mistake somewhere.
I know he’s in the tunnels. I know it just as surely as I know how to breathe. And I’m not giving up until someone listens to me.
“I’ve checked the documentation,” I say, impatience rising in my voice.“And no one is listed there. Someone’s made a mistake, which I can show you if you let me go down in the tunnels.”
“Can’t,” he says. “You’re a student. You need your teacher with you. Bring him, and we can get you the appropriate passes.”
The urge to choke this man is rising by the moment. “I can’t find my teacher,” I manage to grind out. “But I can prove that I’m right if you just let me down there.”
“No.”
“Then get the head guild master,” I bellow, stabbing a finger in his face. “People are in danger! A rescue is needed!”
He looks shocked that I’d point a finger in his face. “If you keep acting like this, I’m going to have to have you removed.”
I scream in outrage.
Sparrow, Arrod, and Kipp pull me back. “Now, now, Gwenna,” Arrod says. “I’m sure there’s a logical solution to this.”
I try to calm myself, even as the repeater pulls his supervisor over and they both whisper, no doubt discussing how impossible women are. “What’s your logical solution?”
“Well. Hear me out.” Arrod pauses and looks over at Kipp.