Aethosphere Chronicles: The Rat Warrens Read Free

flopped and slapped loosely in the
putrid puddles.
    More insults and threats were hurled his way
from those he sprayed, but when the whistlers came along seconds
later, shoving them aside, that shut them up. Others just scurried
helter-skelter out of the way, disappearing into the concrete nooks
and crannies of the titanic building overhead.
    “Is that you, Sunshine,” a high and broken
voice squeaked out as Fen dashed past a side passage, and when he
turned his head midstride he found a mate of his mischief gang
scampering from the throngs to join him.
    Fen groaned. Ratter was a bugger of a rat pup
who was about the size a four year old and had about the same sense
and demeanor. Fen wanted to deck the little tart for calling him
‘Sunshine’, but then seeing as how he didn’t have a moment to stop,
he let the irksome nickname slide. “Not now, Ratter,” he husked
breathless instead, though the kid still sidled on up next to
him.
    Rattigan fought hard to keep pace with Fen’s
longer strides. “What you got there,” the lithe boy pressed as he
skipped and bound around some scroungers hauling bits of scrap
metal.
    “A big ol’ bag of ‘shut the hell up’,” Fen
snarled out the side of his mouth, just before skidding to a stop
and hooking left into a narrow split in the foundation. He’d poked
down the Crawl in hopes the whistlers wouldn’t dare follow him into
the winding crush of hovels and structural supports. As quick as
up-level constables were to give chase, they were equally quick to
give up once it moved beyond the service causeways and utility
corridors they were comfortable patrolling. Barring that, this
little slice of heaven was a hard route for even a seasoned rat
pup, and when the whistlers kept coming, Fen felt his stomach fall
to his feet.
    “Gypsum! Whatever you filched’s got the
whistlers all a squawking, Sunshine. If you don’t end up in the
cages come find me and the rest of the gang out on the Pipeyards
later. We’ll be palling around the Little Brothers, like usual;
till about three horns past the second Sister’s flush. You can tell
me all about what you’ve got in the pack then.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” dismissed Fen through heaving
breaths, and just like that Ratter ducked off into a narrow
crawlway, leaving Fen to ditch the whistlers on his own. He’d have
been mad about the abandonment under different circumstances, but
with a sack full of money in tow, having that particular gang-mate
slip off was probably for the best.
    The whistlers proved far more persistent than
Fen had ever seen, and he ducked down one narrow corridor after
another, shoving past throngs of woman and children, and when he
came to the crawlspaces he even had to climb over them. Soon enough
he was deep in it, and each twist and turn seemed to grow darker
then the last. The poor, crowded in this slum borough, didn’t even
have the luxury of building their own hovels so they just wiggled
and planted themselves into whatever space they could find, and
about all they had for light as a result were candles purchased
from lightbringers. With candles being a two-token each, seldom did
the Crawl have much in the way of illumination, but then Fen had
never known it this dark either. It was damn-near
abyssal.
    Eventually the shriek of the constables’
whistles fell away, just about the time the world turned to
absolute darkness, leaving nothing but a humming in Fen’s ears and
his own erratic breathing to keep him company. As he shuffled on,
the walls grew tight, so tight he had to twist sideways, and just
like that, Fen entered into tunnels he’d never seen before. These
were tight circular shafts that even the Warren denizens seemed to
steer clear of, and for the first time since leaving his family’s
hovel in the Pillars, Fen found himself alone. The sound of it was
deafening.
    Fen swallowed hard and lumbered forward,
slightly hunched beneath the ceiling’s endless curve, while a
creeping disquiet filled his legs