The next morning, Jacelyn rose before dawn and woke Darli. Nerves trembling at the prospect of battle, Jacelyn arrayed herself in her armor and weapons, though she would miss her bow this day. She had fashioned that bow out of a supple hickory sapling she had discovered soon after she and Darli had escaped from Saram. She twisted some tough grass fibers together for a string. It wasn’t as strong as gut, but enough to bring down small game as her aim improved. Though she’d never trained with a bow, she had vague memories of hands helping her fashion a simple bow far in her past—before the slavers and the cult.

Every so often, she experienced a flash of her past that was gone as soon as she recognized it. She had few memories of her time before slavery and her “training” in the cult, and tried to hold on to them when they happened. While she and Darli had traveled across the desert from Saram to Abad’Noir, she’d practiced using the bow until she could hit what she aimed at more than she missed.

When the two had dressed, they stowed their remaining gear, locked the door behind them, and padded down the hallway toward the stairs that led down to the common room. They stepped over the fourth stair from the top, having learned the previous evening that the stair was loose and screeched when they stepped on it. When they reached the common room, they saw that Master Garam was up and had a bowl of sweetened porridge for each of them.

“Top ‘o the mornin’ to ya’s, ladies!” Master Garam boomed as they stepped into the room.

Darli and Jacelyn looked at each other and grinned.

“G’morning, Master Garam,” they said in unison, laughing.

“I reckoned ya was ta be up and about early this day, so I thought I’d make sure yer first adventure here in Port Freehaven gets off ta a good start,” he said cheerfully. “Ya seem like good lasses, and I’d like ta see ya’s come back.”

“Aye, our thanks, Master Garam,” said Darli with a grin.

“We appreciate your thoughtfulness,” said Jacelyn through a mouthful of seasoned gruel. Porridge wasn’t her favorite meal. She’d eaten a steady diet of the tasteless paste while in training, but whatever Master Garam did to his porridge made it taste like manna from the heavens.

As they ate, Master Garam gave them directions to the Barmaren Family Crypt. A quarter bell later, they stood in front of the gate, speaking with Marharyn, Phynneous, and a man they didn’t recognize who turned out to be Jory Barmaren, the family member with the rat removal contract. A few minutes later, they passed through the gate.

The stink hit them as they entered the crypt. Dust, decay, death. And something else Jacelyn couldn’t identify. Skittering sounds echoed through the darkness of the tunnels, and the fine hairs on her arms prickled. She loosened her blades in their scabbards and gripped Darli’s shoulder to steady herself. For a moment, she was back with the cult, in the tunnels beneath the monastery from which she and Darli had so recently escaped.

*****

No way around it, they had to travel through the catacombs to reach the forest. The two wanted to use the main underground passage with its unobstructed path away from their masters, but they found it secured with a heavy lock, and they lacked both the tools and the skill to get past the complex mechanism, despite having tried for years. Darli suspected the new master had it mage-locked and told Jacelyn she hoped whoever put it there wouldn’t be able to tell that someone tried to open it. She hadn’t thought of that when she had first tried to pick the lock with her newly learned skills and rudimentary tools. But when the lock remained, she heard no alarm raised, and the girls discovered no extra security near the door, they continued trying to pick it.

Jacelyn knew when the lock had gone on the gate. Two years before, Brother Vargarian had almost caught her exiting the tunnels after she and Darli discovered the passage that led to freedom. She’d just closed the door and taken three steps down the hall when the priest came around the corner. The next time she and Darli met down in the tunnels, the gate had a lock. Jacelyn had been planning her escape from the cult through those tunnels ever since she had discovered them after waking here as a child. She had met Darli the day the Abbot had purchased her—he bought Darli a few hours later. Not all victims purchased at the slave auctions made it to the “training” academy at the monastery. The masters condemned those with less natural talent to their bedchambers.

The two had used what little free time they’d had over the years to explore the monastery and its grounds. They knew those passages forward and backward. They’d traveled those tunnels so often in the years leading up to their eventual escape, they could find their way out with their eyes closed.

*****

The skittering sounds grew closer. Jacelyn crept deeper into the darkness. Concentrating, she shifted her vision to sense heat. She saw Darli’s fuzzy outline creeping a few feet ahead. The young halfling couldn’t see any better in the dark than she could, but Darli’s other senses were sharper than hers, and working together, they’d have sufficient warning should trouble find them. But by the sounds of the skittering ahead, trouble wasn’t far off. Glancing behind her, she looked for Marharyn and Phynneous, but didn’t see them. She thought they must have taken the side passage she had sensed a few yards back.

Jacelyn could barely see in the almost total darkness, but she had long since learned to use her other senses to her advantage in the dark. Shifting her awareness from her eyes to her ears and nose, she heard the scrape of claws against the stone floor of the crypt and caught the scent of rat. Darli tapped a code on her arm—five giant rats nesting in the passage junction ahead.

Jacelyn lit a torch and tossed it toward the nest. She drew her cutlass and long knife and dropped into her fighting stance, her sweat-slicked hands gripping the hilts hard. She stayed to Darli’s left, protecting the halfling’s dagger side. Jacelyn was left-handed, so they had learned to back up to the nearest wall and fight side-by-side, and if no walls were handy, they backed up to each other and danced in a deadly circle to protect their dagger sides.

As the rats advanced, Jacelyn caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Glancing left, toward the movement, she saw a boot and recognized it as belonging to Phynneous. He and Marharyn had taken the side passage and flanked the nest. Jacelyn lifted her chin to the elf and turned back to the advancing rats. She nudged Darli with her elbow and nodded to the rat furthest from the side passage on the right.

At Jacelyn’s nod, Darli exploded into action. Her short sword took the rat across the throat before it could react, and the rest of the rats rushed the pair. When Phynneous saw the two attack, he and Marharyn burst from the side passage and attacked the pack from the side, sending the remaining rats into a frenzy. The four adventurers exterminated the rest of the rats that had burrowed into the back of the crypt.

Although she still needed practice with her blades, Jacelyn avoided serious injury, and even remembered to clean the blood and gore from her weapons before sheathing them. The rats had destroyed one casket when they breached the back wall of the Barmaren Family Crypt, and Jory tried to blame the party, but the masons Jory had hired to come in behind the party said the rats had done the damage.

As Jacelyn and Darli trudged back to the Dragon’s Claw, they nodded to a familiar-looking older woman walking in the opposite direction. As the woman passed, Darli turned around and, walking backward, watched her walk into one of the many shops lining the alley behind them.

“Wasn’t she on the ship with us?” Darli asked.

“Wasn’t who on the ship with us?” Jacelyn said.

“That old lady who just passed us.”

Jacelyn looked around to see who Darli was talking about.

“What old lady?”

“Never mind. She just went into that shop over there,” Darli said, pointing in the general direction of the shops.

When the women reached the inn, Garam greeted them with a warm smile and a tankard of ale each.

“I heard how ye’s handled young Master Barmaren,” he boomed. “And he dinna have a bad thing ta say about the two of ye’s.” He looked at the pair with a grin on his round face. “Now, yer elf mates, well.” At that, he turned to serve another patron.

Jacelyn grinned at Darli, who had caught the attention of the serving lass, Constance. She asked for a bath for each of them when the girl came to their table. When Constance signaled their baths were ready, they went to their room for clean clothing. They now had enough funds to pay Master Garam for another week’s worth of lodging and meals. They also had enough coin to repair the weapons and armor they had appropriated along the way to Port Freehaven. And maybe even treat themselves to something less worn.

As they bathed, they discussed their situation in low voices.

“Think we’re far enough away?” asked Jacelyn.

“I dunno, I hope so. I feel safe. For now. Don’t mean I’ll let me guard down.”

“Aye,” replied Jacelyn.

“I mean, the ‘Claw seems like the perfect place to lie low. Master Garam seems to have taken a fancy to us.”

“He does seem to want to help us, doesn’t he?”

“Maybe he can help us find simple contracts around the city, help keep our coin purses full.”

Jacelyn sat back in the water, letting the warmth soak the aches of the day away. Even though they could earn the coin to move to the Broken Rudder, her instincts told her that the ‘Claw was the better choice for the moment. They needed to get the feel of the city. To learn who was in charge and where the potential dangers lay. They needed to act like they were any other new adventurers. Technically speaking, they were just that, but they wanted—no, needed—to make sure they were safe from discovery should the cult catch wind of their arrival in Freehaven and send someone after them.