The Black River Chronicles: Level One (Black River Academy Book 1)

by David Tallerman

  Only then did he realise—Tia had been in front of them. And now there was nothing where she'd been but that inky chasm.

  Except that there was still light to see by. Surely light meant that Tia's lantern was intact? And even as the thought entered his mind, a voice called from beyond the abyss: “I'm alive. Are you three all right?”

  Alive she might be, but Tia sounded shaken. Durren couldn't help but wonder how close a call she'd just had. Though, now that he considered, he couldn't have cut his own escape much more finely—and only then did he notice how his heart was thundering.

  “We're fine,” Arein called. “Can you get back to us?”

  In the lamplight, Tia was only a shape cut from the blackness. Her silhouette took a moment to inspect the edges of the gap, then the walls to either side. “I don't think so. Even with my climbing spikes, the stone's crumbling in places; it's too risky.”

  Somehow, nothing could have made the situation more horrifying than Tia admitting defeat. Wasn't she always the one with an answer? Durren wracked his brains. What could they possibly do? There was Arein's magic, of course, but he suspected that transportation was a good few levels beyond her. Think, Durren told himself, there must be something.

  There was. And it was obvious. “I have my rope,” he said.

  He'd fully expected the others to ignore him or to contradict him—but instead, Arein and Hule were looking at him expectantly.

  Durren deliberated quickly. “There was a broken pillar back there. We could tie one end to that and throw the other over. Tia, can you look and see if there's anything that would make a good anchor point on your side?”

  Tia didn't answer, but after a moment the lantern began to bob further down the passage—until it was all Durren could do to make out his own hand in front of his face. Seconds passed, and then the lamplight brightened once more, until he could again make out Tia's shape beyond the collapsed floor.

  “It's no good,” she called. “There's nothing on this side at all.” She was trying hard to make a show of her usual confidence, but there was no disguising the disappointment in her voice.

  “If we can't go backwards,” Hule declared, “then we should go forwards. Probably there are other ways out. And we're supposed to be a party, aren't we? Where one of us is in danger, we all should be.”

  “That doesn't change the problem,” Durren pointed out. “Tia's the lightest of us, so even once we throw the rope over, it still doesn't help. With nothing to brace against, she won't be able to hold it taut for the rest of us.”

  “Then we need someone else on her side.”

  “I know,” Durren said, trying not to sound exasperated. “But we don't have any way to—”

  “I can jump that,” Hule declared. He was gazing meditatively at the gulf before them.

  Arein looked at him in horror. “No! Have you seen how far it is? There must be a better way.”

  Hule shook his head. “If there's one thing I'm good at,” he said, “it's jumping. I reckon I can clear that with enough of a run-up. Then, once I'm over, Tia and I can hold the rope for you two to climb over.”

  “Are you mad?” Durren wondered. “We don't even know how wide the gap is. You've no way to tell if you can make it.”

  “I can see,” Arein cut in. “I mean, Pootle can see in the dark. It's—oh, about twice your height, I'd say, Hule.”

  “How much about?” Hule asked. He seemed a little less sure of himself now. “Would you say more or less than?”

  Arein considered—or perhaps was only encouraging Pootle to move around for a better view. “A little more than,” she concluded.

  “I think I can make that.” The fighter didn't sound anything like as certain as he had only moments before.

  “We could bring more equipment from Black River,” Arein suggested. “But oh, then Tia…”

  There was no need for her to finish the sentence. By the time they returned to the academy and then came back here, Tia's little lamp would certainly have exhausted its fuel. And Durren doubted that any of them were willing to leave Tia here in total darkness with that gaping chasm close by. No, whatever they were going to do, it had to be done now.

  “Wait,” Arein said, “I think I have an idea. There's a spell—well, it can be used to lift heavy objects, even ones that are a long way away. I'm fairly sure I can cast it.”

  “You're fairly sure,” Hule asked, “or you're sure?”

  Arein drew a deep breath. “I'm sure.”

  “All right,” Hule said, “I'm going to try.”

  Durren could tell that he'd made his mind up, and that there was no point in trying to talk him out of his recklessness. In any case, risky though it was, this was the best idea they had.

  In silence, the three of them made their hurried preparations. Durren himself took the task of tying the rope, looping one end half a dozen times around the cracked pillar and then tying it with three of the sturdiest knots he knew. With that done, Hule retreated into the darkness to prepare for his run-up, while Durren and Arein pressed back against the wall, so that there was no risk of them getting in his way. Durren could hear Arein mumbling, though he couldn't make out the words.

  “Ready?” Hule asked.

  Rather than interrupt her monologue, Arein held out an upraised thumb.

  “All right.”

  Then Hule was hurtling past them. Durren had never seen anyone run quite so fast; when Hule kicked off from the floor's broken edge, he was propelled like the stone from a catapult. He'd been telling the truth, he was an exceptional jumper, and he fairly flew towards the far side. His outstretched foot struck the distant brink.

  But that was all. The rest of him hadn't made it—and now he was falling, dragged down by his own weight. Tia was reaching for him, but the distance between them was too great, the slabs too damaged for her to get close. And already the fractured block under Hule's foot was threatening to slip free.

  The block stopped moving. So did Hule.

  He was lying almost level now, supported by nothing, his arms and legs paddling at thin air. Then, by slow degrees, he began to drift, still at the same angle. Had the situation been only a little less dire, the sight of him travelling like that would have been the single funniest thing Durren had seen in his life.

  Moments later and Hule's entire body was over solid ground. As Arein gave a small gasp of exertion, the fighter fell the brief distance to the floor. Tia reached down and helped him to his feet, and Hule set about swiping the dust from his trousers and jerkin with the flat of a hand. That done, he turned around to consider the crevasse that had so nearly claimed his life.

  “See?” he called back. “I told you I could make it.”

  Getting the other end of the rope over proved considerably easier. Durren threw a coiled length, which Tia caught on the first attempt. Together, she and Hule drew the cord tight and leaned against it with all their weight.

  As a means of transport, the rope still looked a long way from safe. “I'll go first,” Durren decided. If he or Arein were to plunge into the depths, he didn't much like the thought of it being Arein.

  However, before he could move, Arein said, “Please…can I?”

  The look on her face told Durren all he needed to know: she wanted to get this over with, while her courage still held.

  “If you're sure,” he agreed.

  Arein nodded, slid her staff into the sheath on her pack and grasped the rope. With an effort, she swung her legs up and hooked them over. Durren could see Tia and Hule straining on the other side, but it seemed that they had her. Tentatively, Arein began to shuffle along. Within moments she was above the gulf of nothingness where once the floor had been.

  Then, abruptly, she came to a dead halt—and Durren's heart once more began to hammer. Had she already exhausted her strength? How would they possibly rescue her?

  But Arein had only paused to rest, for already she was moving again. Twice more she stopped, and though each time Durren felt afraid on her b
ehalf, she began again as soon as she'd recovered her strength. And eventually she was over, lowering herself onto unbroken paving slabs.

  “That wasn't so bad,” she said, though the quaver in her voice suggested otherwise.

  Now there was just Durren. Even having watched Arein cross, he hadn't quite realised until then how daunting the prospect was. Yet Arein had made it, and moreover she'd now joined Hule and Tia in holding the rope, meaning he even had an advantage she'd lacked.

  Durren gripped the rope, looped one leg over and then the other. It felt less taut than he'd expected. As he began to shuffle along, shifting hands and feet in turn, he was all too conscious of the fact that by now there would nothing beneath him except fathomless drop. Still, he was making good progress. Another minute and—

  Durren stopped. There was a sound coming from beside his ear, a sort of slithering. He could feel, too, the barest tremble of movement against his back. For an instant his mind went to all the worst possibilities—snakes, centipedes, maybe bats—until he heard a faint clatter from far below and realised what was happening.

  He'd forgotten about his quiver. And with the angle he was now hanging at, the arrows it contained were sliding free.

  On the one hand, that was better than snakes or bats. On the other, he might well need those arrows, for who knew what lay ahead? On impulse, Durren gripped the rope tight with his left hand, tried with his right to cram the slipping shafts back into place. However, that only made matters worse. A rattle from beneath announced that surely he'd just lost at least half of his remaining ammunition. Durren clutched frantically behind his head, caught a few—but by then he'd set himself swinging.

  It was all he could do to tell up from down. The price he'd paid for saving a handful of arrows was that he'd altogether lost his equilibrium. Cold panic squeezed his heart. Rationally, he knew that all he had to do was let the shafts fall and clasp the rope once more. But his fingers felt greasy and his muscles burned.

  Durren clenched his knees together. The way the ceiling was rocking was making him nauseous, so he closed his eyes. He couldn't persuade his hand to move. It was as though his entire right arm had gone numb—and the numbness was spreading. He couldn't shake the absurd conviction that if he only stayed perfectly still, somehow everything would be all right.

  “Durren!” Arein cried.

  “I'm fine,” he managed. His voice sounded tiny.

  “Durren, listen to me,” Tia called, “Just let them go.”

  There was such authority in her voice that he could hardly imagine disobeying. Durren jabbed the shafts as firmly as he could back into their quiver and released them. A couple immediately tumbled away.

  Very slowly, desperate to keep his body from swaying, Durren returned his free hand to the rope. He should have felt better for having it there, but he didn't. Regardless, he tried to edge his knees forward. When nothing terrible happened, he moved his hands. Still he didn't fall. He tried again: legs and then arms. More arrows fell, bouncing or shattering below. He did his best to ignore them. Legs, arms, legs, arms, that was all he dared focus on.

  “It's all right, Durren,” Arein said, from close by. “You've made it. You can let go.”

  Durren opened his eyes, to find that the three of them were just ahead of him, still gripping the rope. Embarrassed, he swung to the ground. His legs felt jelly-like and at first he wasn't sure they'd hold him, but they did. Slipping off his pack, he counted his remaining arrows: three had survived. He cursed beneath his breath.

  “At least you're alive, idiot,” Tia pointed out.

  “I just thought I might need them,” he mumbled.

  “Not if you're dead.”

  Before Durren had a chance to reply, she'd already set off down the remainder of the passage. He noticed, though, that she was taking considerably more care now, treading softly and sweeping the lantern ahead of her with each step.

  Hurrying to follow, Durren diverted himself by wondering whether Cullglass had known about the damaged stretch of floor. Had they simply been unlucky, having it collapse like that? Perhaps Cullglass's weight alone had never been sufficient, and it had taken the four of them together to wreak such catastrophic damage. Then again, there was an equal possibility that someone had worked to undermine that section from a lower level, in the knowledge that more than one person would be required to bring it tumbling down.

  Just who or what were they dealing with here? Durren could just about accept that the storesmaster might be involved in something suspicious, but he couldn't imagine Cullglass as the type to casually murder strangers.

  The next corridor they turned into was nearly as long as the last, and ran at a right angle. Halfway along, another passage cut across, and the footprints they were following turned left. Durren had altogether lost his bearings in relation to the stairs they'd descended by, let alone what he'd seen of the layout of the building above. For all he knew, they were somewhere deep beneath the forest by now.

  They were halfway down the passage when Tia came to a halt, so sharply that Durren nearly collided with her. “Everyone, stop,” she said—and her voice sounded strangled.

  “What is it?” Arein whispered.

  With immense slowness, not moving her legs at all, Tia bent to bring the lantern closer to the floor. At first, Durren couldn't make out what she was drawing their attention to. Then, as if his eyes had refocused, he saw the hair-fine thread that ran between the two walls—and how it had been stretched to breaking point by Tia's left ankle.

  A tripwire. There was a tripwire across the passage. And Tia had tripped it.

  “Where does it lead?” Durren asked softly.

  Tia unstooped, moving with the same impossible patience, and held the lantern out at arm's length. First she played its light across the nearest wall—Durren could see where the thread ran through a loop of metal hammered into the stone—and then she raised the lamp over her head.

  Above her, high up, Durren could just discern where the wire ended. It was connected to a wooden peg, and the peg held in place a small and fragile-looking orb of glass. Within, he could distinguish a tangle of dark vegetable matter splotched with ugly red pustules.

  “Rotwart bulbs,” Durren breathed. He was certain: they'd been shown an illustration in a lecture just the week before. The tutor who'd given that talk had looked nervous just to be holding up the picture.

  Despite their unpleasant name and odour, rotwart plants were basically harmless. Their bulbs, however, were another matter. They had a unique defence mechanism that ensured most animals had learned from experience to leave them alone—one that had backfired once humans discovered how extraordinarily dangerous they could be. Since then they'd become a favoured tool of assassins, and had even been used in open warfare once or twice, to devastating effect and much controversy.

  Durren turned his attention back to the simple mechanism the glass orb was suspended by. If Tia moved her foot even a fraction further, the peg would pull all the way free. But if she tried to withdraw, it was entirely possible that the wire's retightening would have the same effect. Probably the peg was already growing looser by minute degrees, and even to do nothing wouldn't save her.

  At any rate, sooner or later the orb would fall and shatter. Roused by the impact, the bulbs would unleash the toxin they held, and Tia would be left standing amid a cloud of the most singularly poisonous substance known to humankind.

  In that moment, Durren made his decision. Before he'd even had time to consider, he had his bow unslung and an arrow nocked.

  “Hule and Arein,” he said, “get well back. Tia, in a few seconds I'm going to shout 'move', and then you come towards us, all right? As fast as you can—and hold your breath. Whatever you do, you have to hold your breath.”

  He knew Tia would expect him to explain, but there was no time. Instead, Durren dashed back up the passageway, into the shadows. The orb was so close to the ceiling; that made the angle he needed almost impossible.

  Almost,
he told himself, wasn't the same thing as entirely. Anyway, if he hesitated long enough to think this through then he'd never be able to do what had to be done—for he knew without doubt that the slightest miscalculation would cost Tia her life.

  He drew a deep breath. Nothing mattered but the shot, and it had to be now. He made one last, minute adjustment. “Move!” Durren yelled, and loosed.

  The arrow's flight was too fast to see. He knew it had struck home only by the tinkling of broken glass. Tia was moving towards him, half running and half flinging herself. But if he'd misjudged even slightly then all he'd have accomplished was to pin the bulbs to the ceiling—and she would still be well within the foul cloud they spat out. Durren could see the air darkening above her, as though it were water and ink had been poured in.

  Yet Tia was already clear of that sinister miasma and, even as Durren watched, the fog began to dissipate.

  “You're safe,” he cried.

  He hurried back to her. Tia looked badly shaken, though she was trying her best to hide it. He realised then that if he'd recognised the rotwart bulbs, she certainly would have. And if she'd recognised them, she would have known, too, what lay in store for her if she inhaled even the tiniest particle of their vapour.

  “Come on,” Durren said, striving to sound light-hearted, “I want to see where they ended up.”

  Tia hesitated, and then moved to follow.

  “Are you sure that's a good idea?” Arein called nervously.

  “Don't worry,” Durren told her, “the gas disperses almost immediately. If it was going to kill us, we'd be dead by now.”

  They found the bulbs at the end of the passage, fixed to the wall by Durren's arrow. With their poison expended, they didn't look at all impressive; the red blotches had faded to a nondescript grey. Durren yanked out his arrow, pleased to note that the head was blunted but intact, and the bulbs slopped to the ground.

  “Maybe the floor was just bad luck,” he said, “but those didn't get up there by themselves. Someone must have set that trap, someone with no qualms about killing. And if Cullglass didn't trip the wire, that means he at least knew it was there.”