Arcadia's Ignoble Knight: The Sorceress' Knights Tournament

Chapter 42

W-where am I...?

Tiffania woke up feeling groggy. She couldn't move, and her head was spinning. She also couldn't see, even when she tried to open her eyes.

"Looks like she's waking up," a gnarled and grizzly voice said. That didn't sound like anyone she knew.

"I thought she was supposed to be drugged."

"That's what the lady said. Guess she was wrong."

"Whatever. Quit yer yapping! We've got a job ter do."

"Yeah, yeah. Damn, who the hell made him our boss."

Tiffania tried to move, but her hands were tied behind her back, and her legs were tied to whatever she was sitting on. Panic shot through her. She tried to scream, but something had been shoved into her mouth. The sound came out muffled.

"She's panicking!"

"What should we do?!"

"The fuck do you think yer doing, brat?! Quit squirming!"

Tiffania struggled harder. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to leave!

She stopped when something sharp pressed against her neck.

"Quit yer strugglin', or I'm gonna carve up yer face," the grizzled voice threatened. Tiffania whimpered but stopped trying to break free. "That's right. Move and I'll cut you up! Now be a good girl and don't be movin'."

As the sharp object left her neck, Tiffania nearly sobbed in relief. Only the voice's threat kept her from crying.

Big sis, please help me!

***

Just like any other city, Axium had its share of seedy districts. The red light district, a place filled with brothels and whore houses. The poor district, where those who lived in poverty took up residence.

Underneath it all was the sewers.

While not a district in and of itself, the sewers was the place where the criminal underworld did their deals.

The Peacekeepers, tasked with protecting the citizens and busting criminals, was not large enough to stop criminal activity entirely. Even if they were larger, Caspian had his doubts that they would be able to do anything. Humans could be quite greedy. All it took was a few corrupt officials being bribed into looking the other way, and the Peacekeepers became useless.

Money was power, after all.

Caspian's footsteps echoed ominously as he wandered through the sewers. It had been a long time since he'd gone down there. The sewer walls looked the same as he remembered, however. The bricks were covered in fungus that clung to its surface, and what could be seen of the walls was faded and chipped, worn down by age and a lack of maintenance.

The sewers were composed from a series of tunnels with rounded ceilings. Brick walkways traveled along either wall, while black water flowed through a channel in the middle. Sometimes the tunnel would branch off into lateral passages.

Caspian's ears twitched beneath his bandana as he listened to the sounds of the sewer. The slowly flowing water sloshed along. Chirps from crickets bounced along the walls. Metal creaked as water put a mild strain on iron grates, adding to the ominous music of the sewers.

His eyes were all but useless here. Without a light, visibility was too low to see more than ten feet on either side—and he could only see that well thanks to his elvish blood.

I wonder if Tiffania is really down here.

There was a chance that he was wrong. If that was the case, then coming down here will have turned out to be pointless. Still, there were only so many places that a group of kidnappers could hide a child. Of those places, this was the most probable one.