After a second, Esvar obeyed.
Murtagh gathered his will and said, “Waíse heill,” as he drew the blade out of Esvar’s chest.
The youth arched his back, and cords of muscle stood out on his neck as his clawed hands scrabbled at the floor. Blood welled out around the broken blade as it slid free, and then muscle and skin knit back together, leaving behind unblemished flesh.
Esvar fell back on the floor, limp, and Murtagh sagged with sudden exhaustion. “Why?” whispered Esvar. “Y’ swore an oath, Task.”
Murtagh clenched and unclenched his hands. “I’m sorry. The watch isn’t all you think it is.”
As he turned to leave, he spotted something around Arven’s neck. On a sudden hunch, Murtagh bent, dug his finger under the magician’s collar, and pulled free…
A bird-skull amulet, identical to the one Sarros had been wearing in Ceunon.
Murtagh stared for a second and then covered the amulet with his hand and yanked it off Arven’s neck. He tucked the amulet into the pouch on his belt—next to the one from Ceunon—as he stood. Looking back at Silna, he said, “Come.”
The werecat trotted after him as he strode out of the garden and through the rooms beyond.
As Murtagh stepped into the catacomb tunnel, he heard voices and clattering armor echoing down the staircase that led to the barracks.
What took them so long? he wondered.
To his left, the tunnel ran under the fortress. That way lay more enemies and uncertain escape.
To his right, the passageway would take him out under the main part of Gil’ead. It was his best chance of slipping away without another fight.
Silna attempted to run past him, but he caught her around the belly. “Ah, ah. I don’t think so,” he murmured, and scooped her off the floor.
She tried to wriggle free, but he pressed her close against his side as he turned right and sprinted into the unknown. To his relief, she didn’t bite or claw.
The sound of his pounding footsteps outpaced them in the darkness.
The tunnel curved. Once the staircase was out of sight, Murtagh whispered, “Brisingr,” and formed a small red flame above his head so he could see his way.
Silna growled at the light, and her pupils contracted wire thin.
“Quiet.”
A few hundred feet later, he arrived at an iron grate blocking the tunnel. He grabbed the bars and yanked on them. Flakes of rust showered him, but the metal held.
“Jierda!” The metal snapped like rotten wood, and Murtagh shoved the grate against one wall and hurried past.
His boots splashed in water. A thin rivulet ran down the center of the tunnel, and the walls dripped with moisture. A rat the size of a small dog squeaked when it saw him and the werecat and scurried into a hole in the stone wall.
Behind him, Murtagh heard shouts and curses and spears beating against shields. He quickened his pace as much as he could without losing his footing on the wet rocks.
Silna squirmed in his arm, and he tightened his hold.
The tunnel split in four directions. Uncertain, he took the leftmost branch. Not much farther, it split again, and then yet again, and Murtagh realized he didn’t have the slightest idea which direction he was going. He didn’t despair, though. Tornac had taught him a trick for besting the hedge maze at Lord Varis’s estate, which was to turn in only one direction—left or right, it didn’t matter, as long as you were consistent. Solving a maze in such fashion might take a while, but if there was a path to the other side, doing so would always find it.
So Murtagh turned left at every opportunity. Twice more he had to cut through iron grates, but unlike before, he took the time—a few precious seconds—to reattach the grates, both to inconvenience his pursuers and to hide his trail. He just hoped that the catacombs had more than one exit and that he wouldn’t come out to find half the city’s garrison waiting for him.
Even with the werelight, the darkness was oppressive, and the walls seemed uncomfortably close. Murtagh felt as if he were no more than an insect creeping through the bowels of the earth. He hated the dark and the damp and the memories of being imprisoned beneath Urû’baen.
He tried to avoid remembering, but thoughts of Esvar and the cell hidden behind the door of stone were no less unpleasant. Oathbreaker, that’s what I am. And he knew it was so, for oathbreaker was part of his true name.
The werecat continued to struggle and complain, so at last he said, “Fine. You want to go down? Here.” And he plopped her on the wet stones.
Silna hissed, fur still fluffed out, and she crouched and looked up and down the dark tunnel, uncertain.
Murtagh studied her. Cats weren’t as trusting as dogs, and werecats were even more of an enigma than ordinary cats, but he was beginning to wonder what more he would have to do to prove himself to her. “It’s all right,” he said in a soft voice. When that failed to evince a response, he motioned in either direction. “What’s it to be? Hmm? I don’t know about you, but I’d like to escape here with my hide intact. Come with me, and I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”
The tip of Silna’s tail twitched.
Murtagh took a step down the tunnel. He looked back.
The werecat didn’t move.
He took another few steps. Still, Silna refused to budge. In the gloom, her patched coat nearly vanished, just one more shadow amid the larger darkness.
He kept walking, and as the glow from his werelight faded from Silna’s position, he heard the faint pad of paws following him.
When he turned to look, Silna immediately sat and started licking a paw, as if nothing had happened.
He snorted and resumed walking. He felt sure she would stay close, but for safety’s sake, he opened his mind and let out a tiny feeler, just enough to sense her presence.
In like fashion, they continued.
The two of them wandered for what seemed like hours. They should have long since left Gil’ead behind, but the tunnels were a tangled nest of intersecting and overlapping openings. Who dug these? Murtagh wondered. In places the tunnels almost resembled natural formations; he even bumped his head against a stalactite in one dark corner. The warren made no sense. It reminded him of the lines dug by beetles under the bark of trees.
Still, they pressed onward, and Murtagh did his best to avoid any passage that led deeper into the earth, even if it meant bypassing another left-hand turn. If they ended up on a lower level, he doubted they would ever find the way out, barring a spell to burrow back to the surface.
At times he thought he heard voices behind him, ahead of him, to the sides, but they were always phantoms. The speakers never materialized, and he began to wonder if he were imagining things.
Throughout, he didn’t dare try to contact Thorn. If Arven or any other magician from Du Vrangr Gata—or even an elf—were looking for him, they would be sure to notice his mind reaching out.
So Murtagh confined his thoughts to himself, and he and Silna trotted along in silence.
Finally!
A faint silver glow brightened the tunnel ahead of them, and Murtagh heard the steady burble of running water. “Stay close,” he whispered to Silna. Then he snuffed his werelight, drew his cloak around his waist so it wouldn’t tangle his legs, and crept forward.
The passage narrowed until he was half hunched over, and the light strengthened until…
He saw an end to the tunnel. An end covered by an iron grate, which overlooked a small stream with low, muddy banks. Arching over grate and stream was a wooden bridge. Numerous footsteps echoed off the bridge.