Lil nerva's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Lil Nerva reached the empty road past the wall and thought she had won. Then she heard dogs. She turned. Three raiders came through the far tunnel mouth, the one Scar had sent her through. They had found the hatch. Now they swept the dry ground beyond the wall, heads low, fanning wide. One pointed at her boot prints in the dust. The open road offered nothing. No wall, no alley, no shadow to hide her green skin. She ran. The road climbed and bent. Ahead stood a low stone house with a weathered face and a dark arch cut into its base. It looked ordinary, but the arch swallowed the light like a throat. She had seen that kind of door before. Smugglers built such places to hide what moved under them. She sprinted for it and dove into the dark mouth. Inside, the air hit her like a wet rag. The passage sloped down. Shelves lined the walls, crowded with a smuggler's leavings. A dented suit of armor stood in one corner, swords crossed behind it, catching her candle's light. On a shelf sat small sealed jars. She grabbed one and read the faded label. Fox musk. Trappers used it to throw hounds off a scent. The dogs bayed at the arch behind her. She twisted the lid. The amber musk stung her nose. She smeared it across the stone floor and backed deeper into the tunnel, dragging the jar as she went, laying a thick false trail toward a side passage. Then she pressed herself flat behind the armor and went still. The raiders crowded in. Dogs hit the musk and went mad, hauling their handlers toward the side passage, away from her. The men cursed and followed the dogs. Boots scraped past her hiding place. One raider paused an arm's length away. She gripped the dagger. The red stone was dark in her fist. He breathed, spat, and moved on after the others. Their voices faded down the wrong tunnel. Lil Nerva waited until she heard nothing. Then she slipped out from behind the armor and found the shaft she needed, a narrow chimney with iron rungs climbing up. She set the empty jar on a shelf and climbed. The hatch at the top gave onto a quiet slope, far from the dogs, far from the road. She lay in the grass and caught her breath. The raiders were in the ground now, chasing a fox that was not there. They would come up empty and furious. They had lost her, but they knew she lived, and they knew which way she had run. Scar had bought her the district. This house had bought her the open ground. She had the warlord's sleeping place in her head. For the first time she was not running from the raid. She was walking toward the man who ordered it.