shoulders, and back, trying to work the kinks out of her muscles. The other women watched her with interest, but they did not stir from their resigned languidness. Medb realized that hope was something they had learned not to cultivate in the slave-pit.
Sahr was not so far gone. "You can work magic!" she declared in an excited tone. "Can you get us out?"
Medb looked down at the girl. She was surprised at how short she was. If she embraced her, she'd bury Sahr's face in her breasts. Which under different circumstances could have been a pleasant experience, but now was neither the time nor place, and the girl was too young to interest her in any event.
Before answering her, Medb walked into the shaft of sunlight and looked up at the opening. It was half again her height above her head, and opened onto a tunnel that stretched several stories straight up through solid rock, before coming to a grate that closed off the mouth. She could reach the base of the shaft if she stood on another's shoulders, but it looked too smooth for her to climb, and then there was the grate to consider even if she could manage it. Morgiana probably could do it, she reflected, and for a brief moment she wished the thief had been captured with her. But then she realized she almost certainly would not have been strong enough to shift the gate.
"The slavers lowered you down through there, then one followed to chain you to the wall," Sahr explained. "They deliver our food and water the same way."
"To where does it lead?"
"The courtyard of a villa on the outskirts of the city. It's surrounded by a high wall patrolled by guards, and portaled by a wooden gate a few inches thick, reinforced with iron."
"I have friends on the outside who will be looking for me," Medb announced. "They can rescue us, but they won't try to break into the compound. The question is, then, do we wait for them to find another way to get to us, or do we find our own way out?"
"We can't get out on our own," Sahr said, shaking her head, "but whatever your friends plan to do, they had better hurry. The slavers' ship is returning sometime today. When it does, we'll be taken up, cleaned off, and sent upriver to the market in Sinara, to be sold to the chiefs of the Liranian Desert."
"Damnaigh," Medb swore. "Then we have to get out now, on our own, and try to meet my friends in the city."
A titter of suppressed laughter swept through the other women, which prompted Medb to glare at them. "There is no way out," Sahr responded. She sounded dejected, but firm.
Medb ignored her as she went over to the drain. As she expected, it was not covered and it was big enough for her and the rest of the captives to get through.
"On the contrary," she replied, grinning in triumph, "the slavers left us a back door."
"The sewer?!" Sahr shrieked. "You must be mad! There're bound to be wamps, and worse. We'd never make it!"
Medb gave her a sinister chuckled. "I can handle wamps. As for 'worse', we shall just have to wait and see."
"It's too dangerous," Sahr pressed.
Medb turned to scan the pit. "Anyone who wishes may come with me," she announced. "If you choose to stay, be assured, I will come back to release you all." The other women ignored her, but Medb did not expect a response.
Looking at Sahr, Medb said, "Will you brave the dangers with me, or do you wish to remain?" Sahr just stared at her dumbfounded and backed away.
Shrugging, Medb replied, "Suit yourself." Turning back to the drain, she looked down into it. She could not see its bottom, but she had to take the chance. Taking a deep breath, she stepped off the edge into the darkness. Fortunately, she fell a distance of only twice her height; unfortunately, she landed in something gooey and noxious, that stank like feces. Grimacing, she just then realized where the captives must have disposed of their bodily wastes.
Looking back up, she saw Sahr staring down for her, an anxious expression on her face.
"I am all right; it is not very deep. I will return as soon as I can." The girl said nothing.
The little light that penetrated to the bottom of the drain barely illuminated the opening of a tunnel shaft that plunged into darkness through the bedrock. Medb took a few tentative steps forward, and almost sipped. The tunnel sloped downward at a steep angle, and the floor was covered with a thick coating of slime. However, the path was not very wide, and its edges were bare rock. By placing her feet on either side and bracing herself against the walls with her hands, she was able to negotiate her way down in a careful, if slow, manner. Even so, she had to walk bent over.
By her reckoning, it took close to an hour to arrive at the bottom. Most of that time was spent in total darkness, but as she got closer she began to discern a weak glow far ahead. Her eyes soon adjusted, and by the time she stepped out onto a small ledge, she could see as well as in dim twilight.
The shaft had opened up into a larger flattened oval tunnel carved from the living rock. It was half-filled with a dark liquid that flowed from right to left. The glow came from patches of slime that covered the ceiling of the tunnel. The putrid reek of decayed flesh, human and animal waste, and rotting garbage was so intense it made her choke, much to her surprise; she expected her stomach to be stronger than that. At least she did not add to it by vomiting. The stink was in fact so strong it hung in the air like a cloying miasma, clinging to anything it came into contact with, like a mass of tenacious cobwebs.
She stood on a small shelf that overhung the tunnel. She could see no ledge or path cut into the tunnel, which meant that she would have to climb into the sewage itself to make her way upstream. Assuming it wouldn't eat the flesh off her bones. The problem was, there was only one way to find out. Kneeling, she carefully dipped her hand into the liquid. It was lukewarm and left a thin coating of slime on her skin, but she was relieved to discover that it was still just water.
From far up the tunnel she heard a faint surprised yelp, followed by a long, drawn-out scream that rapidly increased in volume. As Medb turned around, Sahr shot out the tunnel on her backside, but the former queen managed to catch her before she flew off the shelf into the sewer. The girl clung to Medb's arm, panting in fright, but then she gulped, gagged, and threw herself onto her stomach and over to the edge just before she began retching. Medb held her hips for the moments it took her stomach to empty, then the few minutes of dry heaves that followed, until Sahr collapsed from exhaustion.
"What are you doing here?" she asked when the girl rolled over onto her back.
"The slavers came to collect us," she gasped out. "I realized then that I would rather die than live as a slave, especially as some man's whore. I tried to convince the others, but they wouldn't listen. So before the slavers could reach us I jumped into the drain." She then giggled with mild hysteria. "I'm afraid I slipped when I entered the tunnel."
"It would have been more sensible to stay with the others," Medb admonished in a stern voice. "Even life as a bondmaid is better than death."
Sitting up, Sahr demanded in a piqued tone, "Then why are you here?"
With a straight face, Medb replied, "Someone has to try to rescue you and the others, and I have the best chance."
She stood then, and held out her hand. As she pulled the girl to her feet, she remarked, "Well, you cannot go back the way you came, so you might as well come with me."
"Where?"
Medb pointed upstream. "The sewage is flowing from that direction, so the city must be there. My friends should intercept us somewhere along the way."
Dubious, Sahr eyed the tunnel. "There's nowhere to walk," she reported.
"Of course there is," Medb declared in an impatient tone, and before Sahr could object she sat down on the shelf, dropped her legs into the water, then eased off until her feet touched bottom. She then waded out into the middle. She grimaced as she stepped into a thick layer of viscous muck that had settled to the bottom. The water level rose the farther she went, but when she finally reached the middle it was no higher than about mid-way up her thighs.
She turned and said, "Come, the water is fine."
Sahr shook h
er head. "It's filthy, and probably disease-ridden."
"You are welcome to remain there if you wish, but I and my friends will not be coming back this way."
Sahr hesitated; she hugged herself and trembled, obviously afraid, but finally she imitated Medb and entered the water, apparently more fearful of being left behind. She waded out to her, but suddenly stopped when she reached the muck.
"Come on, we do not have all day."
"There could be anything in this goo!" she shrieked, horrified.
"No, nothing can live in this level of sewage, except disease, and as long we do not cut ourselves we should be safe from even that. Now, we are wasting time, we must be off."
Sahr gritted her teeth and came the rest of the way out to Medb. She looked like she would be sick again, but she managed to control herself by the time she came abreast of the former queen. Being shorter than her, the water level came up to just under her hips.
The two women started off upstream without another word. They had only gone a short distance, though, when Sahr said, "You seem well versed in magic."
Grinning, Medb replied, "I have some talent, yes."
"You also appear fairly strong," the girl added, and Medb realized she must have been taller and more massive than any other woman Sahr had seen before.
"If you have a point to make," Medb responded with mild irritation, "please make it soon."
"I was just wondering how the slavers