Chapter 18: Sewer Songs and Broken Bones

They say a city’s soul can be found in its streets. But Graywatch? Graywatch keeps its soul buried somewhere deeper, under layers of stone and filth and rot, beneath the grinding wheels of industry and the hush-money piety of its guild towers. You want to see Graywatch for what it is? You don’t look up at the spires. You go down. Where it’s wet. Where it’s cold. Where it stinks like a midden left to bake under a guilty sun.

I didn’t need a torch. The elven blood in me handled that just fine. But seeing didn’t make it better. The chamber I’d dropped into wasn’t much bigger than a butcher’s back room. Maybe ten paces wide, just as deep, with a ceiling low enough to make a troll stoop and a quarter-giant like me feel like she’d just crawled back into the womb. The walls didn’t match the rest of the stonework in the sewer. Too crude. Too fresh. Someone had carved this place out after the dwarves laid the bones of the city. After the engineers were long gone. Which meant someone wanted it hidden.

And that kind of secrecy? It always costs something.

The smell hadn't changed. Damp, sour, with just enough mildew and unwashed regret to remind you exactly where you were. Whether you were in a basement tavern or a sanctum of sin under a brothel, Graywatch always found a way to smell like itself.

I heard them before I saw them. Soft feet on stone, the clink of a weapon brushing a belt hook, a whisper too sharp to be friendly. They surged into the entryway like water through a cracked dam. Mixed races, lean bodies, no uniforms. No humans. Just shadows with knives and names I didn’t care to learn.

They stopped when they saw me.

Somebody had cast a light spell. Not a bright one, just enough for them to get a good look at who they’d cornered. And what they saw... well, that gave them pause.

I stood to my full height, all muscle and bad intentions. My shoulders scraped against the ceiling as I rolled them. The stone under my boots creaked a little with the shift of my weight. Then I cracked my neck, one side then the other, slow and deliberate, the sound sharp as a jawbone splitting. My knuckles followed, the pop and grind echoing in the chamber like distant drums. The kind you hear right before the blood starts flowing.

“This,” I said, my voice low and calm, “is gonna hurt.”

Not me. Them. That was when the music started.

A tavern tune, cheeky and half-drunk, curling into the space like smoke from a dirty pipe. I didn’t need to turn to know where it was coming from. The little bastard had his tricks, that much was clear.

“Oh the brewer’s wife had a wandering eye,

And legs that knew no prayer,

She’d kiss your mouth, then steal your coin,

And blame it on the air.

But I still drank her kisses down,

Like whiskey poured on sin,

For every lie she whispered low,

I’d let her in again…”

I glanced over my shoulder.

The pygmy troll, Murk he’d called himself, was singing with that same sly grin he wore when I found him in the cage. His pipe glowed like a lightning bug in a whiskey glass. The song slithered out of his throat and slid into the air, soft but rising. I felt it snake along my skin. A bard’s tune. Old magic, the kind that doesn’t brag but just works. The kind that lives in the breath and the bone.

He winked at me. Then, like fog under a rising sun, he faded. Gone. But the song kept going. A phantom chorus echoing off the walls. I took a breath. Rolled my shoulders once more. If I was going to dance, at least I had music. And I was about to make someone bleed to the beat.

The moment the first boot broke the threshold, I felt the old rhythm settle into my bones. Tight quarters, stone walls, nowhere to run, just the way I liked it. Only two or three could squeeze through at once, which meant they came at me polite, like dancers at a waking funeral. I obliged them with the kind of courtesy you learn in a warzone.

The first one, a wiry elf with daggers and more confidence than sense, got a fist in the ribs before he could finish his flourish. I felt the crack echo up my arm. He folded like a bad hand of cards. His friend behind him tried to step over, swinging low, but I caught the club on my forearm, turned, and drove my elbow into his face hard enough to rearrange his plans for the week. Blood and teeth hit the stone in the same wet patter.

The rest weren’t much better. A half-orc came in bellowing, fists wide, like a brawler who thought weight meant something. I grabbed his shirt, pulled him in close, and introduced his forehead to the wall with enough force to knock the torchlight crooked. He slumped, eyes rolling back like shutters in a storm.

I lost count after six. I think one of them got a blade across my ribs. Felt the sting. Sharp, sure, but nothing my hide couldn’t chew through. Pain’s a funny thing, it clears your head if you let it. Reminds you you’re still here. Still swinging.

By the time I’d worked my way out into the corridor, my coat was torn, my knuckles were wet, and the smell of blood mixed with sewer rot in a way that would stick with me for days. Behind me, the floor was a mess of bodies—some moaning, some still. Ahead of me stood a man who didn’t look like much. No robe. No staff. But his eyes had that flicker, that dangerous gleam, and his hands danced with that oily light I’ve come to hate.

He was already casting before I could say hello.

The spell came fast. Too fast. A shimmer of blue light corkscrewed toward me and split like mist, wrapping around my head. I felt the pull, like warm hands on my temples trying to lull me down. The song from Murk still echoed faint in my bones, and that, along with my bloodline’s stubborn streak, gave me just enough edge to shake it loose.

The mage blinked. That was his last mistake.

I didn’t give him time to think about a second spell. I closed the gap, shoulder low, and hit him with enough force to lift his feet. My fists did the rest. One, two, three—just to make sure. He hit the stones like wet laundry and didn’t get back up.

And then the damn alarm went off.

Some enchantment he managed to squeak out lit up the walls with a red sigil and a high-pitched whistle sharp enough to rattle my teeth. I snarled something particularly foul, pulled from the bottom drawer of my vocabulary, and turned as footsteps echoed from every direction.

It only took moments before I was surrounded, again. Bigger room now. Wider. No more stone bottleneck to protect me. A fresh set of thugs, all armed and eager. Clubs, knives, cudgels. Mixed races again. Almost no humans. All of them looked hungry to prove something.

I adjusted my stance, spat blood to the floor, and waited. Whatever was coming, I planned to give as good as I got. They say curiosity kills the cat. But no one ever mentions what it does to the quarter-giant girl with blood on her knuckles and a bone-deep grudge. I hadn’t come looking for trouble, not exactly. But I wasn’t shy about kicking in doors when the trail got cold.

This wasn’t a door. It was a pit. He stepped out of the shadows like he owned them. Tall, slim, cloaked in layers of velvet so dark it seemed to drink the light. Pale face painted with amusement, and eyes like smoke curling around a knife’s edge. Behind him, thugs shifted in the gloom, armed and eager, but quiet. Waiting. Always a bad sign when the muscle waits for the boss to speak.

“Wandering into the dark without an invitation?” he said, voice slick as oil and twice as flammable. “How… unsophisticated.”

His accent was clipped, polished, like he’d been educated in a court and corrupted in an alley. He tapped the head of his cane against the ground, and the sewer light flickered like it flinched at the sound.

“Belsursin Cruic,” he continued, offering a theatrical bow. “Leader of the Sanguine Veil. Perhaps you’ve heard of us. Though I doubt you’re the type to keep up with the finer circles of vice.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“I don’t keep up with trash,” I muttered.

He chuckled. “So you’ve brought your fists to a knife fight. How quaint. Did you really think you could crawl through our tunnels, knock over our men, and not get noticed? You are large, yes. But subtlety is not your craft.”

I ignored the ego trip, tried to steady my breathing. My ribs were sore, my shoulder screamed every time I moved, and my vision was starting to tunnel from the last blow. But I wasn’t done. Not yet.

“Where’s Fessy?” I asked, voice low, raw with smoke and threat.

For a flicker, something shifted in his face. A blink too long. A moment too still. Confusion, maybe. Like he didn’t recognize the name. Or maybe he did and didn’t want to admit it. Either way, he recovered fast. Instead of answering, he turned toward his waiting thugs and gave a lazy shrug.

“Alive or dead, gentlemen. Your choice. But the bounty is better if she’s still breathing.”

That was enough to light the fuse. They came at me like hounds on a blood trail. Clubs. Chains. Magic flickering behind hungry eyes. I moved on instinct, old instincts from battlefields where orders were barked and men died fast. I pivoted, ducked low, and slammed my fist into the knee of a charging half-orc. It bent sideways with a sound like a door being torn off its hinges. He howled. I followed through and sent another man into the stone wall with a crunch.

Two more took his place. A knife slashed across my arm. I grabbed the wielder by the throat and tossed him into the sewer channel. He didn’t come up. A spear caught me in the ribs. I turned, roared, and yanked it free with one hand, snapping it in two. They were circling now. Hesitating. But not for long.

Belsursin lifted one elegant hand and murmured something in a language I’d heard screamed in darker places. My vision twisted. The walls danced. Shadows stretched like claws. The tunnel floor rippled beneath my boots.

I staggered, swinging at ghosts.

And that was when it hit. A flicker of movement behind me. Too small to be one of the brutes. Fast. Nimble. The chain coiled around my legs before I even had time to cuss. My balance vanished. My knees slammed the stone. Pain flared.

They were on me in a blink. Boots. Blades. Fists. I fought like a cornered animal, took one down with a head-butt and another with a wild elbow. But they were too many. And I was tired. And I was bleeding. The last thing I saw was a shadow looming over me, massive and scaly. A lizardman, grinning through jagged teeth. He lifted his club like it was personal.

And then everything went dark.

****

I didn’t know how long I’d been out, only that the first thing I felt when the world started leaking back in was the sickening sway of motion. Carried. Like a sack of turnips headed to market. Or maybe something worse. My stomach lurched with each step they took, boots slapping wet stone, the air thick with mold and piss and the faint copper tang of my own blood. Somewhere far off, water dripped with a slow rhythm that sounded too much like a clock counting down.

Instinct kicked first. I twisted, kicked, snarled, tried to break free. My limbs didn’t listen the way I wanted them to. Felt like they’d been unhooked from the inside, turned into dead weight hung from nerves on fire. I managed to elbow someone in the ribs and heard a grunt. That earned me a drop.

I hit the floor hard. Boots circled. Laughter that had no humor in it followed close behind.

Graywatch sewers. Still. Damn gods, was there no place lower? Oh right. I’d come down here on purpose, sniffing after shadows, trying to dig up a clue about a missing girl with a heart too soft and a sister too scared. Seemed like lifetimes ago. Seemed like a mistake.

The thugs didn’t give me long to think about it. They started in before I even rolled over. Kicks, fists, a boot to the kidney that made my vision go white at the edges. I gritted my teeth, tried to curl up around the pain, but they were practiced. They knew how to work someone over without ending them too quick.

A lucky swing caught one square in the kneecap, and he folded with a scream. Another got my heel in his gut. Two more down before the rest swarmed me like rats on a corpse. It wasn’t a fight, not really. Just noise and pain and my own pulse hammering behind my eyes like a war drum that had long since lost the beat. I was fading again when one of them leaned in close, breath sour with rotgut and arrogance.

“Stay out of our roots, Blackthorn. Or we’ll bury you under them.”

I didn’t have a witty retort. Not one worth spitting. But somewhere in the fractured rubble of my ribs and the haze behind my eyes, I found enough hate to twist my head and slam my forehead into his nose. Felt the crunch. Heard him yelp. Saw teeth scatter across the stones like dice spilled from a crooked hand.

Then the dark surged in again, heavy and complete.

I was only dimly aware of them dragging me again. They’d had their fun. I heard them argue whether I was still breathing. Heard a voice say, “Doesn’t matter. Toss her. She won’t crawl far.”

The world tilted, and I landed in a shallow channel slick with runoff and time. They didn’t even watch me hit. They walked away. Their laughter echoing like ghosts down the tunnel. I didn’t move for a while. Couldn’t. Just breathed in shallow pulls and stared at the stone above me, wondering which part of me hurt most and deciding it was probably all of it.

So this was retirement.

I’d imagined something quieter. Maybe a little whiskey at the end of the day, a soft bed that didn’t stink of mildew and death, maybe even a second-hand dog. Instead, here I was bleeding into dwarf-carved drainage, with a jaw that felt cracked and a soul that wouldn’t stay numb the way I wanted it to.

No one tells you that walking away from the army doesn’t mean the fight stops. You just stop getting paid for it. The battlefield had rules. Kill or be killed. Trust your squad. Don’t flinch. The streets? They had no rules, just consequences. And people like me? We don’t adapt easy. I’d spent too long breaking bones and taking orders. Now I was supposed to sneak and scheme and play nice with people who smiled while sharpening their knives under the table.

I wasn’t good at subtle. Still ain’t.

I’d tried to punch my way through the problem like always, and now I was bleeding out into the city’s forgotten veins with nothing to show for it but a name whispered in the dark and a growing body count. Somewhere above me, people walked clean streets and sipped spiced tea. Somewhere a girl named Fessy might still be alive. I just had to live long enough to find her.

If I had any whiskey left, I would’ve toasted my own idiocy. Instead, I closed my eyes and let the dark take me again, hoping this time it didn’t keep me.

****

I didn’t know how long I’d been out. Time didn’t tick down here. It oozed, thick and slow, like the sludge seeping past my boots. Every thud of my heart sent a jolt of pain through my ribs, each beat reminding me that I was still alive, even if it was a cruel technicality. Somewhere behind the pounding in my skull, I heard singing.

It started as a hum, low and wandering, then blossomed into a slurred verse that didn’t belong anywhere respectable. Definitely one of those after-hours tunes sung by men who’d run out of coin and shame in equal measure. The kind of song that clung to the walls of smoky taverns and never quite got washed out, no matter how hard you scrubbed.

“Her name was June, or maybe Jade,

Her love came cheap but seldom stayed,

She poured my drink, then stole my pay,

And still I miss her every day…”

I knew that voice. Unfortunately.

Murk.

The memory of him sharpening a spoon in a magical cage came crawling back like something uninvited through a cracked window. I had half a mind to groan in protest, but even that seemed too painful. My body had become one giant nerve ending wrapped in sadness.

The tune kept going as the little gremlin of a troll finally stepped into view. I didn’t turn my head. I couldn’t. But I saw him at the corner of my vision, all mossy skin and patchy fur and pipe smoke, looking far too pleased with himself for someone haunting a corpse.

"Gods, you’re heavy,” he grunted, giving a heroic tug on my arm that moved me all of two inches before he let go with an exaggerated sigh. “Built like a siege engine, you are. If the sewer gods wanted a statue, they’d carve you outta granite and weep at how soft it’d be in comparison.”

He crouched next to me, dug around in one of those too-small pockets of his coat, and came up with a dented bottle. The label was half-peeled, the glass chipped at the lip, and the contents shimmered in a way that suggested it had once been magical but had since reconsidered.

“Only half full,” he muttered, “but better than dying. Probably.” With a quick flick of the cork and a muttered apology I barely caught, he poured it down my throat.

It tasted like old honey and burnt copper, with an after-kick that could strip rust from iron. The potion hit my gut like a warm coal, slow to burn, but steady. I could feel it knitting things back together, little by little. Not all at once. Not fast. But enough.

Murk sat back on his haunches and relit his pipe with a finger-snap that glowed more flash than heat. Smoke curled into the damp air like lazy ghosts.

“Couldn’t let ‘em kill you, Tallface,” he said, between puffs. “You still owe me a thank-you cigar.”

I managed a groan that might’ve been a curse or might’ve been a laugh. Hard to tell with the blood in my mouth. The potion did its work like a reluctant medic: slow, grumbling, and efficient. I pushed myself into a seated position with arms that shook like winter branches. Every joint protested. My ribs felt like cracked stone under shifting weight.

He held something out to me. A flask. Looked a hell of a lot like mine. I patted the inside of my coat. My pocket was empty. I stared at him.

He grinned, wide and toothy.

“You dropped it,” he said.

“Sure I did.” My voice was gravel dragged across old concrete. I took the flask anyway, popped the top, and took a pull long enough to make the world slow down and spin right. Fire ran through my throat, but it cleared the cobwebs better than any tonic.

Murk pulled a crusty chunk of bread from his coat, the kind that looked like it had been in there since last winter. He offered it up like it was some sacred gift. I took it, bit down, and tried not to think about where it had been.

I coughed up more blood, wiped it with the back of my hand, and muttered, “We’re even.”

He chewed on the end of his pipe and shook his head slowly. “Nah. Now we’re partners.”

I turned to him, wincing as my neck cracked like an old book spine. “I don’t do partners.”

“You do now.”

I squinted. “What makes you think I won’t just walk away and forget this ever happened?”

He chuckled. “Because you had the chance already. Twice. And you still cracked my cage and took the punches meant for ghosts. Besides, you’re terrible at subtle, Tallface. You need someone to keep you from charging every locked door headfirst.”

“And you’re volunteering?”

“Think of me as… quality control. Also, I already lifted your map, your backup dagger, and that silver coin in your boot.”

I glared. “Give it back.”

He grinned wider. “Didn’t say I still had ‘em. Just that I lifted ‘em.”

I stared at him a long moment, then finished the rest of the flask. It burned like a confession.

Partners, huh?

Gods help me.