Chapter Sixty Eight - The Tunnel

     Randall found himself wishing he hadn't abandoned his horse. He could have jumped back onto it and just ridden hard for the nearest city gate. He could have just bowled over any priest who tried to get in his way. Too late now. The horse would almost certainly have been found. They would leave it there as bait and be waiting for him to go get it. He sighed with regret. That was what happened when you came without a plan and ended up making it up as you went along.


     How many priests were there in the city anyway? Enough to guard all the gates? Even if there weren't they would have alerted the guards and the police by now. They would have told them that there was a dangerous murderer trying to leave the city or something. The gates would be closed with armed men watching them.


     Forget the gates, then. Were they any other ways out of the city? Of course not, he realised, feeling a sick despair beginning to creep over him. If people could get out, orcs could get in. Even sewers and water courses would have stout iron bars across them to bar the passage of anything larger then a rat. There was no way out! He was trapped! The soldiers and the police would search for him and sooner or later he would be found...


     An idea came to him. If anyone knew a way to get out of the city secretly, it would be criminals. They might want to bring contraband into the city or get a wanted man out. The latter would be more likely, he thought. After all, the best way for a criminal gang to ensure the loyalty of its members, apart from paying them a lot of money, was to show them that they would be protected if they were wanted by the police. If they got careless and left evidence or witnesses while killing someone, for instance. If the gang members saw their bosses going the extra mile to protect one of their colleagues, they would be confident of receiving the same protection when it was their turn. Randall nodded to himself. Yes, and Loach's gang was the biggest in the city. If anyone could get him safely out of the city, it would be them.


     Fortunately, he was only a few streets away from The Halls of Valhalla. With any luck, if he kept to the shadows and back alleys, he'd be able to get to it without incident...  No! No back alleys! He didn't want to escape the priests just to get his throat cut by a gang of muggers. Best to stick to the main streets and just chance his luck.


     A pigeon saw him almost immediately. It was sitting on a high windowsill looking out across the street and when it saw Randall it took to the air to land closer to get a better look at him. Randall forced himself not to react. He walked normally, his face lowered to keep the bird from getting a good look at it. I'm just come common labourer on my way to get an early start to the day's work, he told himself. Can't lie in bed when I've got a wife and a family to feed. Was that what they would take him for? Would a priest be sent to check him out just to be on the safe side? In a city this size there had to be dozens, maybe hundreds, of men around his size and build walking the streets, even at this hour of the night. Some of them would be criminals, off to burgle a house or rob a bank. People moving furtively, keeping to the shadows. Acting suspicious. They would surely attract the attention of the priests first, he thought, so all I've got to do is not act furtive.


     The pigeon followed him along the street, flying from perch to perch, but no priests appeared. He turned the corner onto Bailey Street, his heart hammering, and the pigeon continued to follow. The main entrance to The Halls of Valhalla beckoned ahead of him, the doors open to allow the brightly lit interior to illuminate the street. A pair of grim looking bouncers were standing on either side of it. They stopped a rich looking couple who tried to enter, passed a few words with them, then stood aside to let them pass through the door.


     He passed a side street, and as he crossed he saw the white robed form of a priest at the other end striding towards a man in a dark brown coat. It took all Randall's willpower to keep himself from hurrying, to get across the street faster and get out of their sight. He kept his eyes firmly on the ground in front of him, forcing himself not to look to see if the priest had turned to look at him.


     He breathed a huge sigh of relief when he reached the far side, but then his heart skipped a beat when he saw a pair of policemen strolling along the street directly towards him, plodding with a steady, amiable gait, one of them twirling a truncheon around the end of his finger. Again, Randall forced himself not to react, but surely his heart had to be pounding loudly enough for them to hear it. This time, all the willpower in the world couldn't keep him from increasing his pace. He tried to slow himself, but instead he was walking even faster from the desperate need to get off the street, to get out of the sight of the people hunting him.


     He reached the doors of the night club and the bouncers moved to bar his way. "Move along, chummy," one of them said. "Get lost."


     "I'm a friend of..." He had to pause while his head phone reminded him of the alias Loach had been using. "...of Michael Pike. You have to let me in."


     "And I'm King David," replied the other bouncer. "Push off."


     Randall reached for the pouch on his belt and pulled out a handful of gold coins, showing it to them. "I'm not trying to bribe you," he said. "I'm sure you have far too much honour and integrity for that. I'm just showing you that I'm not some common labourer. I am a friend of Michael Pike and I need help. Michael Pike will reward you if you help me."


     The two policemen were getting closer, but that could work in Randall's favour. The bouncers wouldn't want to make a scene and attract their attention, not when there was so much illegal activity going on inside. Sure enough, the first bouncer grabbed Randall's elbow and pulled him inside with a scowl of annoyance. "Get him out of sight," he told the other. "If he's lying, he'll wake up in an alley with his throat cut."


     Randall was pulled into the reception area where the bouncers called for some more heavies to take care of him, their obvious intention being to take him straight to one of the rear entrances and get rid of him. "I am a friend of Michael Pike!" he repeated. "It is very important that you get me out of the city. Michael Pike will reward you for it!"


     One of the heavies laughed. "He's working for the police, ain't he?" he said to another. "Thinks we're going to just show him where the tunnel is."


     "Shut up you idiot!" snapped the other heavy angrily. "Now we've got to kill him!"


     Randall felt a shock of terror. "My name is Watt Fletcher! I'm famous! Look at me! Look at my face! I'm not working for the police, I swear it! I'm Watt Fletcher!"


     The first heavy looked at him curiously. "I thought he looked familiar," he said. "I saw him with the nobs when the army came in. And Watt Fletcher really is a friend of the Boss. He went to see him at the Weasel loads of times. What if he's telling the truth?"


     "Can't take the risk. Safest thing is to kill him. Then, if it does turn out he were telling the truth, we just deny the whole thing."


     "Doug saw him come in and he's always brown-nosing up to the Boss. He might tell him this guy were here. Be just like Doug to grass us up."


     The other heavy hesitated, a look of doubt suddenly on his face. He turned to Randall. "Can you prove you're this Fletcher guy?"


     "I can prove I'm more than just some common labourer. Look at this shirt. It's an expensive shirt, right? I just rubbed soot into it to make it look dirty. And I've got gold." He reached into his pouch again to show them the shining coins. "If I were working for the police, wouldn't I have made a better effort to look authentic?"


     Trying to use logic with a couple of common thugs was a risky strategy, he knew, but to his relief they looked more doubtful and uncertain and he decided to keep silent while they worked it out in their heads. "I say we take him through the tunnel," the first thug said. "That's the safest thing."


     "And what if the Woodentops show up mob handed and arrest us all for endangering the city?"


     "What if the Boss comes back and hands us our livers for not helping his mate?"


     The second heavy thought for a moment. "If it all goes wrong I'm saying it's your fault," he said. "I'm not taking the rap for your bad idea."


     "And if the Boss thanks us for helping his mate, I get all the reward. Agreed?"


     "We'll talk about it later. Okay, let's get this awkward git to the tunnel."


     Randall breathed a sigh of relief as they turned a corner and took him down a flight of stairs. They went along corridors and down more stairs until they came to a dark, damp basement that had a dusty wine rack along one wall. The first heavy took a flint and steel from a pouch and used it to light one of the oil lamps that hung beside the door. As the flame grew it pushed back the darkness and Randall saw a large chamber with an arched ceiling buttressed against the weight of the building above.


     There was a strong looking wooden door at the far end strapped with iron and locked with a large padlock. The heavies led the way to it past barrels, casks and crates covered with dust and cobwebs. The first heavy took a key down from a hook, unlocked the door and pulled it open with a squeal of rusty hinges.


     He gestured for Randall to enter and he did so with some apprehension, wondering whether the heavies would simply close and lock the door behind him before walking away, laughing. To his relief, though, they entered after him, leaving the door open behind them. "After you, friend of Michael Pike," said the second heavy, gesturing ahead into the inky darkness. Randall nodded his thanks and began walking.


     The tunnel had been dug through the solid bedrock that underlay the city, but it was still damp and slimy with puddles of water on the floor and patches of mold on the walls. The pitter patter of running rats could be heard somewhere ahead in the darkness but Randall never saw one and he wondered what little gaps and crevices they were finding in the walls to escape the light of the lantern.


     The tunnel ran for several hundred metres and was blocked at intervals by doors of iron bars that the heavies unlocked with the keys hanging on the wall beside them. The air was close and stuffy. Randall's head was soon swimming and he found himself starting to wobble unsteadily on his feet. He wondered whether it was possible for a man to suffocate down there. Tunnels back in his time had always had air vents up to the surface, but he supposed that criminals wouldn't have bothered about things like that while digging it.


     Then the tunnel was angling upwards, though, lined with bricks where it left the bedrock and passed through the layer of deep, fertile soil that covered it. It ended at another stout, wooden door that the heavies unlocked and opened, revealing a wall of dirty, hessian sacks filled with some kind of root vegetable. The heavies gave them a great push and they fell forward to reveal another cellar, although smaller than the one under the Halls of Valhalla. As they climbed over the pile of sacks Randall supposed that one of the heavies would have to remain behind to rebuild them into a wall to hide the entrance to the tunnel before making their way back to the city overland while the other returned through the tunnel, closing and locking all the doors behind him.


     "Well, here we are," said the first heavy. "And now we got to blindfold you while we lead you a few miles away from here. Can't have an outsider knowing where the tunnel comes out. Not even a friend of Michael Pike."


     "Yay," agreed the other. "He really would put our heads on spikes if we did that. This tunnel is our biggest secret. They say the orcs sometimes take prisoners and torture them for information. We wouldn't want them getting into the city this way, would we?"


     "No, that wouldn't do at all," agreed Randall rather drily, while contemplating that if his plans succeeded no-one in the world would ever have to worry about orcs again. Having them all put to death, every Chieftain scrapped, would be the very first thing he would order the machines to do when he was firmly in control of them. He resigned himself to the blindfold, therefore, but then the first heavy produced a length of leather cord. "Er, what's that for?" he asked nervously.


     "To tie your hands," the heavy replied. "Just in case you're tempted to lift the blindfold and take a peek while we're not watching."


     "I wouldn't do that..."


     "We're not taking the chance. Just be grateful we let you use the tunnel at all."


     Randall nodded, therefore, and didn't resist when his hands were pulled behind his back and the cord pulled tightly around his wrists. A new shiver of fear ran up his spine at the sudden feeling of helplessness that came over him, a feeling that was intensified many times over as the second heavy tied a length of cloth around his eyes. Perhaps this was all a trick and the real plan was to cut his throat once they were safely away from the tunnel entrance. Well, too late to worry about that now. He'd put himself at their mercy and there was nothing he could do but follow meekly as one of them took him by the arm and led him across the room to another door.


     He heard the door being opened, and then he gasped with relief as fresh air washed across his face. They took him up a flight of stairs, through another door, across a room and then through a third door. As soon as the third door opened Randall felt a cold breeze on his face and knew he was outside. He had successfully escaped the city. Now all he had to do was hope that these two men wouldn't just butcher him like a pig.


     The two heavies bade farewell to each other and then the first heavy returned the way they had come. "Come on, mate," said the other, taking Randall by the elbow and guiding him away, into the night. "Watch your feet. If you trip and break an ankle I ain't carrying you. I'll just gut you like a fish and dump you in a ditch."


     Somehow Randall found the threat reassuring and he went as he was led for what his head phone told him was over an hour across fields and down muddy lanes until the heavy told him to stop. His hands were freed with a slash of a knife and Randall pulled the cloth from his eyes to see that he was standing by the side of a fairly large road. There was a glow on the eastern horizon heralding the approach of the sun and Randall contemplated that he'd been up and awake for the whole night for the first time since his early twenties. As an eager young businessman, eager to impress his superiors with his dedication to the company, he'd been young enough to shrug off a full night of computer searches and phone calls and still be capable of another full days work with only donuts and cups of coffee to keep him going, but that had been nearly three decades ago. Now, Randall's head was fuggy and his back was still aching from his nighttime bareback ride. His ambition to take over the solar system was starting to take a back seat to his desire for a soft, dry spot on which to lie down for a little while.


     "This is where we part ways," said the heavy. "I'm going back to the cottage. You can go wherever you want, but if you're going away from the city, that's that way." He pointed along the road, to the right. "When you see the boss, tell him Cracker took good care of you."


     "I will," replied Randall, wondering what chance he and Loach had of ending up in the same afterlife. Or perhaps he would be visited by Loach's ghost and he could tell him then. "I will see that you and your friend are well rewarded for what you've done for me. Thank you."


     Cracker nodded his head to him, then turned and walked back the way they'd come. Randall set off down the road, hurrying a little in case the other man had a sudden change of heart and decided to kill him anyway. Dealing with criminals always made him nervous, but it always seemed to be necessary no matter what century he was living in. He gave a wry smile as he continued walking, while off to his left the sun began to peek above the eastern horizon.

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