"We're going to stand up now," I tell him. "And you are going to look me in the eyes and tell me you didn't know the outsider was murdering people to sell you their bodies."

"Yes, sir."

I pull him up and force him to walk a few paces to the wall on our left. Then I spin him around and push him back against the wall, pressing him against the wall with my body, one hand on his neck and the other holding my sword, ready to thrust into his ribs. I look into his pale and pretty violet eyes. He's scared. Smaller than me, slender, wearing a light robe. Probably nothing more than an apprentice, having just enough necromantic ability to keep the dead at the menial task of scraping the mortar. It would have been better for me if Raichon had been here. But that's not how it worked out.

"Did you - and Raichon - know that the outsider was killing elves so you could use the bodies?"

The apprentice shakes his head. "No. We had no idea."

"Would it have made a difference?"

"Of course! We're not killers. We're heroes. We're working to save the elves. To rescue everyone." His voice turns bitter. "The humans have killed enough of us. I'm sick of the killing. I'm sick of the slavery. And we're going to put an end to it!"

Well, I'm damned. Apparently there is some sort of secret elven liberation organization operating here in Elftown. Only instead of fomenting another violent, doomed uprising, they are digging an escape tunnel.

Emotions rise within me like oil-fed flames, hot and powerful. Escape is every young elf's dream here, until it is ground out of us by bitter reality. I had given up on such dreams long ago. But here, in this chamber inside the wall, freedom is only a few cubits of mortar away. Mortar that is being chipped out. Getting out of Elftown is not a dream. It's just a few more days or weeks of work away. There is a real chance of escape. Soon. Hope comes rushing back. For a moment, I am overwhelmed. The idea of actual freedom threatens to burn me from the inside out.

"Yes," whispers the elf in front of me, eyes holding mine with the intensity of his conviction. "You understand. We are almost done."

It's too much. Too much to think about. I grab onto my vow and pull myself back. I swore an oath to the goddess and I am bound by those words. I must fulfill that oath. I will have vengeance. Even before escape.

"You've never met this outsider?" I ask, getting back to Alvar's murder, that matter that brought me here.

"No."

"Why is he called the outsider?"

"He came from outside."

"Outside Elftown?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"Raichon said so."

"Has Raichon met him?"

"I don't know." I squeeze his neck a little harder. "I think so."

"How does this outsider let you and Raichon know there are bodies to collect?"

"We get a message; I'm not sure how."

"Why does the outsider do this?"

"We pay him."

"How much?"

"I don't know."

"How does he get his payment?"

"I don't know."

This apprentice is stinkin' worthless. Looks like I may have to hunt Raichon down after all. Or Rien. The kid said Rien. Jet's rival. He must own the olive oil warehouse. Like he owns the blasted tavern next door. Even here in the wall, I can feel the faintest of vibrations from the goblinish stomping.

Hold on. I may not be the smartest elf in the room, but even I can see the connection here.

"That goddess-damned noise at the Footstomp - that's to cover up the sound of the digging, isn't it?"

The apprentice nods.

"We only dig at night, when the tavern-dancing is loud and there are fewer guards on patrol and on the wall."

I think of the rubble stored in the harbor wall. And the corpses. 

"You've been at this awhile, haven't you?"

"Raichon started the excavation before I was born. It's taken many years."

"Why do you use corpses?"

"The dead don't talk. The fewer the elves who know about this, the less chance there is of betrayal and the loss of all our work."

I shake my head.

"It doesn't seem right. Using the dead like that."

The apprentice looks guilty, defensive.

"Their spirits are gone. And their bodies are working to achieve a goodness, the end of our captivity. In death, they help us all."

His eyes seem distant, unfocused, as though he isn't seeing me at all. A touch of indigo light flickers in them. I realize that the indigo light is not from within his eyes. It is a reflection. 

There is a scuttler-controlled corpse right behind me.