10. Tahlia

Chapter 10

Tahlia

B etween two three-story buildings, Tahlia trailed Marius down the set of stairs the safe house contact had told them about. They found one torch and the bag at the bottom of the stairs.

"Keep watch behind us," Marius ordered as he worked to light the torch.

Watery light from the street level filtered down to Tahlia and the noise of the crowd bounced off the carved pale stones. Wind from farther into the catacombs blew lightly like the breath of a ghost. Tahlia shivered.

Marius held the fiery torch up. "All right. I will go first. Every ten steps or so, be sure to look back to check for anyone creeping up behind."

"Will do, Commander."

The plain stone walls gave way to stacks of elaborately organized skulls, femurs, and ribcages. Some skeletons were arranged to appear like they were walking along the wall. Others lay in carved-out alcoves. A massive triangle of skulls marked an archway. The right-side passage was marked with the little carved crown that the safe house contact had mentioned. They turned in that direction and more bones greeted them.

"This is wild," Tahlia said, eyeing it all by the light of the flickering torch Marius carried.

Marius made his thinking noise.

"Their bones look like ours," she said, pondering humans in general.

"But they aren't like ours at all. Our bone density is three times theirs."

"How do you know that?"

"Albus," Marius said.

"When did he teach you?" she asked.

"For a while, as a youth, I thought perhaps I could learn some Healer skills for the battlefield. Beyond basic bandaging and how to stop bleeding."

"Why did you stop training?"

"To be honest, it bored me."

Tahlia huffed a laugh. "I can imagine you taking notes from Albus and longingly watching dragons take off outside the window."

"That is an accurate imagining."

"I never could sit still for learning either," Tahlia said.

They came to a room of sorts with a high, domed ceiling and began searching for the crown carving. Five corridors branched off from the room. A particularly large display of femurs created the shape of a lion that stretched from one side of the ceiling to the other. Tahlia went to the first corridor on the right to look for the crown.

"Nothing here."

Marius was across the room, smoothing his hand over the archway on the middle corridor. "I haven't found one yet either."

Tahlia went to the second corridor's entrance. Most of the passageways were stone, but this one had a wooden lintel. Old paint showed the faded remains of a river and three large structures set around its snakelike form. Beneath the right side, a crown had been painted in black.

"Do you think this counts? It's not carved, but it's definitely a crown."

Marius joined her and studied the painted image. "Since we can't find another, I think we should try it."

They continued onward, the sound of the city above silenced by the depth of the catacombs.

Marius stopped and Tahlia ran into his back.

"What is it?" she whispered, her heart hammering.

"Footsteps."

Tahlia drew her dagger and held her breath to listen. His ears were so much better than hers. It was frustrating.

"They're coming. Two males. Humans."

The sound of whispering and quick boot steps echoed through the dimness. Two men in muddied clothing rounded the corner, faces going slack with shock.

One with a red beard recovered first. A sly grin slithered over his mouth. "Well, well. A couple of guards keeping watch on the old bones." He rubbed his hands together. "Ripe for the picking, seems like to me." He jerked his chin in the direction of Marius's tomato hat.

"I assure you that you do not want to bother us," Marius said.

The fool was too dumb to be scared of that tone and he lunged for Marius. His friend, a man with a tiny knife and only one tooth at the front of his mouth, went for Tahlia.

Marius slammed into Red Beard, knocking the man into the wall. He exhaled in a gust of curses and raised a fist to strike.

Tahlia lifted her arms and dove into Toothy's attack—one forearm at his neck and the other hitting his arm. Her left hand slid down that arm until she had his wrist held firmly with his sad, wee knife locked away from her body. She looped the hand at his neck around the back of his skull and bent him low. She kneed him in the nose. He shrieked, dropped the knife, and fell against the far wall.

Marius had his assailant on the ground, his foot on the man's chest. Marius's eyes burned with unspent fury. "Did he injure you?" he asked Tahlia.

She grabbed the tiny fallen knife, then grabbed her attacker and threw him down beside his friend. "Nope. I'm fine. Should we tie them up?"

"Yes. We can report them to our superior once we have finished canvassing the catacombs."

Ah, right. He was pretending to be a city guard. Tahlia frowned, watching how his eyes burned as he looked at them. Yes, they were terrible people, but that rage… seemed over the top. Maybe it was because she was his mate. Males did become rather insane with protectiveness once fully married and mated. Or was it because they were humans and they dared to attack them? And human pirates had killed his sister. He did seem to hate humans with a special level of passion.