Call of the Ancestors

Chapter 19: Stealth in the Sewers

"The tracks end here, it's most likely they figured that someone would be following them…"

Miarko swore under his breath, shaking his head. Clearly frustrated, the Captain kicked up some of the dark soil with his paw and looked back at the Captain of the Shadows. He shrugged.

"I don't know what to say, the path ends here. It's almost like someone just picked them up and flew away-"

Creak. Whoosh!

Miarko fell to the ground, followed by Sethelis, the two dragons pressing themselves flat against the underbrush, crouching down to all fours. As the two dragons hid they could see a dark shadow enveloped the clearing, blotting out the sun. A large, flying ship with red and white painted sails...hovering in the air? Fellmuth.

Miarko put a claw to his maw, telling the Captain to stay down and out of sight. The last thing the two officers needed was someone onboard the ship seeing them and warning their fellow pirates. They would move or kill Spyro before the Captains would ever get the chance to find him and their base. Sethelis nodded and the two moved from brushes and up against a set of close-growing shadowy trees, trying to keep pace with the the slow-moving ship while staying hidden underneath the foliage. The ship was moving slowly, which meant its dock was likely nearby, the pair of warriors simply needed to follow it until it came to a halt. Luckily, they didn't need to wait very long.

Even more slowly, the ship began descending. On the horizon, mostly obscured by the trees, Miarko could make out what seemed to be a line of masonry. Walls. Miarko held up a fist with his forepaw, stopping Sethelis. The underbrush concealed both of them to the guards they could now see patrolling the walls a dozen meters above them as they approached.

Turning to her, he grimaced and swore again, "Fortress out here. Must have been rebuilt after the War. Thought we had taken care of all of their power bases. What do you want to do?"

As Miarko halted her, Sethelis almost bumped into his deep red scaly paw, she seemingly had been busy observing the small piece of patrolling the guards were doing far above their heads.

"If they took over a old abandoned fortress belonging to the Dark Master we better be careful. Who knows if they've gotten the defences back up?" The dragoness pondered, before glancing along the brick wall they halted before.

"Well, given that they most likely took the Director in here, there must be a main gate we can sneak in through. Flying will obviously not be a option unless we'd want to be shot out of the sky." Sethelis spoke, eyeing up to the guards once more, "And I suspect we need to hurry. Cynder will have our heads if she finds out we've let Spyro get abducted. And worse, we'll lose one of our strongest dragons. I say we try to find something akin to a window, or even sewer drain."

Miarko nodded in return and looked around. Nothing seemed to be jutting out of the landscape on this side of the walls. Luckily for the two Captains, the Fellmuth didn't seem to quite understand land-based defensive tactics and hadn't cleared the foliage more than several meters away form the walls, allowing the pair to continue to conceal their movements around the encampment without being spotted by the less than attentive guards posted far above the two. They seemed to be discussing something, but the Fire Captain had neither the time nor the patience to listen in.

He could hear something else, however. A flowing sound. Another stream; perhaps this one connected to the fortress in some way? He motioned Sethelis forward again. Sure enough, after a few moments of creeping through more flora, they came across a...stream. It wasn't pure water, however. It wasn't even the poisonous purple-pink-esque contaminated waters that was common in these woods. It was waste. The Captain shook his head with disgust and observed the flow direction of the outtake stream. Sure enough, the flow was coming from a sewer grate.

Turning back to Seth, Miarko grinned and winked, "So, ready to slink through some sewage?"

The dragoness was visibly biting back her disgust, reluctantly eyeing the bits of waste and discoloration of the waters. "As ready as I'll ever be. I suddenly remembered why I was happy to get a desk-job." The Shadow dragoness admitted, looking over towards the entrance to the sewer, which was covered in a weak and old rusted over metal grate.

"So… You first?" She then urged on, walking over and nudging Miarko slightly. "I may be able to slip right through that grate, but you will have to melt it or break it somehow. Unless you'd wish to… Submerge." She spoke to her companion, visibly gagging at the thought.

Miarko laughed under his breath, shaking his head, "Let's see what I can do. Going to make an opening, see if I can burn through that wrought iron; it doesn't look to be very strong, from what I can tell."

With a final wink he was off, looking for an opening in the guard patrols. They wouldn't see him at the base of the walls, but he'd need to get the short distance from the untamed forest to that point without being seen. The Fire Dragon looked up, able to see one guard that was looking generally in their direction. The Fellmuth seemed to be barely paying any attention, but would still be able to see any movement below him until he turned around...

As if on cue, the guard yawned and turned from the wall. Immediately, Miarko took his chance, quietly sprinting to the base of masonry. Obscured in the shadow of the approaching ship and the natural blind spot created by the height of the structure, he could get to work.

The sewage grate was weak iron that had been cast long ago, easily heated to the melting point by a dragon's fiery breath. Focusing, Miarko created a small fire stream in his throat and burned away the connections of the grate to the stone around it. Just a handful of moments later, the metal bars fell into his paws. Looking in the direction of the Shadow Captain, he waved her over. Silently, he set the grate inside the outtake tunnel and funneled himself inside, setting the grate back into its place as best he could.

Once the grating was back and attached to the wall as best as it could be, Sethelis saw her chance. One moment the dragoness' yellow eye was the only thing visible amongst the leaves of the purple flora, and then it was naught but a silhouette that seemingly blended into the shades cast by everything from straws of grass to the murkiness in the water. Miarko did however hear the Shadow cringe as he saw circles form on the water, if even a mere light and night inaudible squeak.

Sethelis re-materialised behind her partner, tapping his right hind leg with her tail, "Keep your head low, but for the Ancestors' sake, do not dip it in the water…" She murmured, as the two started wading through the sewage.

The two dragons had to press their wings tightly to their bodies, the bottom of the sewer-tunnel feeling oddly… mushy, and generally disgusting. The Fire Captain tried to not give it too much mind as he followed his night-blue companion. The two waded on for maybe five to six minutes, the stench being nigh-on unbearable, leading to short and brief breaths from both operatives. But eventually they found a small tunnel leading upwards.

"Think this to be a… sewer grate?" Sethelis stated, glancing up into the tunnel above them.

"Your powers of deduction never cease to amaze, lass," Miarko stifled out a laugh.

Sethelis in turn rolled her eye, "Always that one spark of humor. No matter the dire circumstances." She muttered, extending her claws and starting a arduous climb upwards, digging her claws into the brick and mortar.

Miarko let Seth lead the way, grinning for a short while. The sewers seemed to be of ancient construction, earning to the hypothesis that the Fellmuth had simply occupied an abandoned Malefic fortress.

"There has to be an exit somewhere down here that isn't a manhole in the middle of the arena or the fortress. What do you think, Seth?" the Captain pondered aloud. I

t took maybe a minute or two of soggy wading before he got a reply, "All we can hope for is that the best exit leads to a service tunnel, and that the worst case scenario..."

The dragoness pressed her way past another grating, her slim form allowing her to pass through without using her magic. Miarko had to take some more time to widen the hole, though utilizing his fire breath to melt the metal away. The red hot material fell sizzling into the water.

Miarko stepped through, asking, "Yes, what is the worst case scenario?"

His fellow captain groaned. "That it leads out to a place we'd really not wish to climb out of. All we can hope for is that The Dark Master had a good plumber and janitorial staff…" And as her words passed, Miarko admittedly felt a chill move down his spine, even down to the tip of his tail.

Eugh.

Luckily for the two captains, they did find a service shaft. Quietly, the pair crawled their way out one by one from a pipe in the exposed old brickworks.

To Sethelis' great disappointment her nose told her that… "I'm going to need a bath after this. Badly."

"Care to let me join you?" Her fiery partner asked, quiet as to not let their voices be heard bouncing around the echoey corridor as they slipped out of the dark tunnel and onto the dry stone floor.

Sethelis found herself thinking about it for just a few seconds, before shaking her head as if to rid her thoughts of such… Mission compromising perversions.

"Another talk for another time, yes?" She hushedly noted to the red Fire dragon.

"Got to focus, think of the stakes Sethelis! The Director is in danger." She thought to herself as she gingerly pushed the door leading out of the maintenance tunnels open.

Ahead of the two there was a staircase, and the two started to ascend. Step by step their surroundings became brighter, well lit by torches resting in holders shaped like draconic skulls.

Macabre…" The dragoness' thoughts echoed through her mind, as the two stopped by the very top of the staircase they had been climbing, rising from the sewer system of the old fort.

She had heard footsteps ahead, a smaller area with what appeared to be a hearth burning judging by the dancing light and the heat radiating into the corridors. Soon enough, the two Captains heard voices. One of them was gruff, slightly raspy; it carried that slight yapping tone often characterized the Skavs.

"I swear, capturing animals and magical monsters or whatnot I can understand. They make for good fighters, can easily be edged on with training or promise of freedom and food. But a dragon? Bloody 'ell the Captain must've lost it. Last some ballsy under-captain captured a dragon and didn't practically rip their wings off the lizard sunk almost an entire fleet and killed a admiral. A fleet fucking admiral!"

As the two dragons listened to the conversation they heard how whoever this Skav was talking to munched on an apple, "Yeah, yeah. But back then we couldn't drain their magic, could we? Now with all of those dark magic doohickeys the boss' got from this landing spot we're safe and sound. You saw with your own eyes how that purplesat defeated behind bars."

To which the first voice, the one belonging to a Skav, replied: "Yeah. The same dragon that, let me remind you, sunk a bloody fleet by himself! I'll be running off before we take to the skies. Rather die in these cursed woods than watching doors to the sewers or gettin' clawed by some DR-DRAGONS!?" The pirate stopped, having rounded a corner and come face to faces with the two DOW soldiers.

The three just stared at each other for just a split second. Then Sethelis sprung into action, Miarko was quick to follow since they did not want their cover blown. The dragoness bolted past the pirate, moving swiftly across the small resting-area, and towards the second pirate they had heard, who stood up from the chair he had been sitting on and drew a sharp-looking dagger in one swift motion. The male Cheetah who now had dropped his apple and opened his maw to call for aid did not get a chance to, as his windpipes were shut by Sethelis' jaws closing around his neck. The dragoness utilized her momentum to send the two tumbling onto the ground, the pirate's desperate struggle to get her off of him being futile, given that her weight pressed him down, and her heavy paws rested on his arms, pinning his weapon to the floor.

Miarko, meanwhile, had made swift work of the one that had met them around the corner. A simple swipe with a paw sent the marauder flying against the wall, knocking him out in one decisive move.

"Scum…" He muttered, stepping over the unconscious Skav, looking over at Sethelis who had finally let go of the now lax corpse of the second pirate, her sides and face now bearing scratch marks from the desperate pirate's claws.

"Nothing a few red gems cannot fix." The Captain started, looking the dragoness over, before he turned back towards the corridors they had stalked along. "Now we need to hurry, it sounds like they will be taking off soon…" He stated, continuing along the corridor with the Shadow dragoness in tow. They rounded two more corners, snuck under a window in a closed door where they could hear laughter from the other side.

Once past this obstacle the soldiers could feel a breeze of fresh air. They were getting close. The pair could see a door frame where the original door had rotted away long ago, giving the two dragons a brief glimpse out onto the rows and rows of cages dotting the courtyard, as well as what appeared to be some kind of lift, raising said cages off into the sky. And indeed, straight across the courtyard from where they were at the warriors swore they could see the familiar glimmer of purple scales behind some heavy looking metal bars...

A/N:

Speaking of taking our sweet time, we did so again over the winter holidays, and the new years celebrations. But now Mike and I are well rested, having taken time to get our bearings together (somewhat!) and just need to get our schedules to align enough for us to make this thrilling rescue go as planned! Whether that be for good or bad you'll just have to be patient for and wait for the next chapter. ;)

And as always, we appreciate any and all feedback! Reviews are always read and responded to when we can get to them.

See you next time!

-Mike & Hawk