Shadows, стр. 28
Tanavuna squeezed through the opening between the trap door and the dusty ground of the plateau. Once inside, the stone beneath his fingertips felt rough and pitted, not smooth. It fell away at a sharp but not severe downward angle into the dimness. At the foot of the ramp, there was a sort of landing, but the illumination wasn’t bright enough for him to make out details. Between him and there lay deep shadow.
Kuun came next and clicked on his flashlight. Tanavuna immediately reached out to block the beam.
“Don’t alert them we’ve found their secret entrance,” he whispered.
Kuun clicked it off as Ammaii and Unaa joined them. The slope forced them to lean backward as they moved down. That threw off their balance enough so they couldn’t keep their rifles trained ahead; if someone spotted them and started shooting, it would get bad in a hurry.
Creeping down, Tanavuna’s main concern was keeping silent. With solid rock walls on either side, even their breathing sounded loud, and he imagined gunmen taking aim at them from the foot of the ramp. Instinct told him to run to the bottom as fast as he could, and six months earlier that’s what he would have done…and it would likely have gotten them all killed.
Approaching the bottom, they heard voices from somewhere out of sight. The chamber at the bottom of the ramp came into focus: a large area cut from the solid stone. Twenty feet above the floor, Tanavuna and his men descended past the level of the chamber roof and the walls to either side ended. Lighting was a combination of lanterns, torches, and what appeared to be sunlight cunningly directed into the chamber from above.
Pausing, Tanavuna motioned his men to crouch as he studied the area. No sounds of battle penetrated so deep underground, which allowed him to trace the voices to their source. Various vehicles parked around the chamber confused him at first, but soon he spied one upon which two men were working. If they knew a fight was happening in the city, they didn’t show it.
Numerous tunnels led off in different directions, some big enough for vehicles, some not. Orienting his team’s position as best he could, Tanavuna judged the far left tunnel to the east was the large one that reportedly led to the cache of medicinals as well as the houses of the wealthy. He’d never actually been inside the tunnel, but he had seen its mouth from the Inner City several times. Four tunnels directly ahead ran to the south, toward the Inner City. The one far to his right, however, headed west, and he knew of nothing in that direction.
Using hand signals, he motioned for his men to follow and take out the mechanics working on the vehicles. They made it to the chamber floor without being heard.
Tanavuna froze. From his left he heard new voices, growing louder. They ducked behind a large vehicle missing two wheels and crouched down to wait for whoever was coming.
* * * * *
Chapter 12
Sweat dripped from Yukannak’s chin onto the mosaic floor of the house where he’d taken refuge. Early in his brief stay in Imsurmik, Zeesar had introduced him to the merchant who lived there, but with his face uncovered and unpainted, and wearing a plain robe, the man not only refused to believe he was the silci, but also shunned him and ran into the depths of his home. The higher social classes of Imsurmik not only wore cloth or masks as protection from sunlight, they also considered an uncovered face a grave social mistake.
Yukannak didn’t care about that now; the only thing on his mind was getting into the main tunnel and finding the archive. There was no way to know whether the Offworlders were raiding the town or conquering it, but it didn’t really matter; the archive would be a valuable bargaining chip. For all he knew, the Offworlders would kill a Kulsian or emissary of the satrap on sight. Even if they left, he still faced possible discovery by the Kulsians—with its potentially fatal consequences—or being caught up in the power struggle between the F’ahdn and the satrap. But if the Offworlders stayed, turning over such an asset would prove his seriousness about defecting. Whatever was in the archive had to have a special value, otherwise why hide it?
Fighting around the waterfall, gate, and wall had died down but not ended. Gunshots still rang out from both the Outer and Inner Cities. Without his identifying paint, he might alternately be thought too insignificant to shoot, an Offworlder to be killed on sight, or a target for anyone trigger-happy enough to shoot the first target to come along. Judging it better not to seem hostile, he returned his pistol to its holster. Closed shutters obscured the events outside the house, so all he could do was listen and wait for silence.
His patience didn’t last long, however. His pulse pounding in his ears, Yukannak decided he couldn’t wait any longer, and he threw the door open, turned right, and sprinted toward the tunnel mouth one hundred feet away. A knot of men rummaging through an overturned vendor’s cart saw him and opened fire for no reason. Kicking his knees higher and fueled by adrenaline, he ran faster than he’d run his entire life. Whether the men intended to kill him or were shooting to chase him away, it backfired. As Yukannak disappeared behind a house, behind him he heard the staccato sound of a sub-machine gun, followed by explosions and screams.
Between the last house on the street and the tunnel mouth lay fifty feet of open ground. To the right of the tunnel was the viewing platform where he’d first learned of the archive…but people running through a combat zone tended to attract attention, and he did.
A voice from the direction of the waterfall called out,