Free The Chernagor Pirates by Harry Turtledove

were talking about. If they didn’t … Grus shook his head. He’d made up his mind that they did. He would—he had to—believe that until and unless it turned out not to be so.
    Two soldiers with spades uncovered the doorway Vsevolod had buried. When it was mostly clear of dirt, one of them stooped and seized the heavy bronze ring mounted on the tarred timbers. Iron might have rusted to uselessness; not so, bronze. Grunting, the soldier—he was a Chernagor, and immensely broad through the shoulders—pulled up the trap door. A deeper darkness appeared, a hole in the night. Calcarius vanished into it first—vanished as though he had never been. Malk followed. Starlight glittered for an instant on the honed edge of his sword. Then the black swallowed him, too.
    One by one—now an Avornan, now a Chernagor, now a clump of one folk, now of the other—the warriors in the storming party disappeared into the tunnel. After what seemed a very short time, the last man was gone.
    Grus found Hirundo and asked, “We are ready to move when the signal comes and the gate opens?”
    â€œOh, yes, Your Majesty,” the general answered. “And once we get inside Nishevatz, it’s ours. I don’t care what Vasilko has in there. If his men can’t use the walls to save themselves, we’ll whip them.”
    â€œGood. That’s what I wanted you to tell me.” Grus cocked his head toward the gate the attackers aimed to seize. “We ought to hear the fight start pretty soon, eh?”
    Hirundo nodded in the darkness. “I’d certainly think so, unless all the Chernagors in there are sleeping and there is no fight. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”
    â€œI wouldn’t mind,” Grus said. “I wouldn’t mind a bit.”
    Whether he minded or not, he didn’t believe that would happen. Prince Vasilko wasn’t—Grus hoped Vasilko wasn’t—expecting attack through the secret passage. But the new master of Nishevatz did know the Avornan army was out there. The men who followed him needed to stay alert.
    â€œHow long do you think our men will need to get through the tunnel?” Grus asked Hirundo.
    â€œWell, I don’t exactly know, Your Majesty, but I don’t suppose it will take very long,” Hirundo replied. “It can’t stretch for more than a quarter of a mile.”
    â€œNo, I wouldn’t think so,” Grus agreed. He called to a servant. The man hurried off and returned with a cup of wine for him. He sipped and waited. His fingers drummed on his thigh. A quarter of a mile—even a quarter of a mile in darkness absolute, through a tunnel shored up with planks with dirt sifting down between the planks and falling on the back of a soldier’s neck when he least expected it … that was surely a matter of minutes, and only a few of them.
    He waited. He would know—the whole army would know—when the fighting inside the city started. Things might go wrong. If they did, the marauders might not carry the gate. But no one would be in any doubt about when things began.
    Hirundo said, “Won’t be long now.” Grus nodded. The general had thought along with him. That Hirundo often thought along with him was one reason they worked well together.
    More time passed. Now Grus was the one who said, “Can’t be long now,” and Hirundo the one who nodded. Grus got up and started to pace. It should have started already. He knew as much. He tried to convince himself he didn’t.
    â€œSomething’s not right.” Hirundo spoke in a low voice, as though he wanted to be able to pretend he’d never said any such thing in case he happened to be mistaken.
    King Grus nodded. He stopped pacing, stopped pretending. “Pterocles!” he called, pitching his voice to carry.
    â€œYes, Your Majesty?” The wizard hurried up to him. “What do you