Tommy smiled thinly, then coughed, bringing up bubbling sputum.
“Leave me, Ed. You shouldn’t see me like this.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ed said.
He took Tommy’s hand, like grasping a bit of hot meat. Tommy smiled again then, between one breath and the next was gone, his head rolling back and his hand going limp.
“Tommy!” Ed shouted, and grabbed his brother by the shoulders. It was like shaking a doll.
Tommy had gone on a new journey of his own.
The others stood to one side and left him alone with the body. It was several minutes before Ed could get his weeping under control and several more before he turned to address Danny.
“We’re not leaving him for any beast’s breakfast,” he said. “We’re just not.”
“There are enough stones for a cairn,” Stefan said.
“No,” Ed replied vehemently, remembering the strewn bones where they had found the remains of the knight. “No cairn.” He turned to Danny. “Can we burn him? I know it’s not a Christian burial, but it’s clean.”
Danny nodded.
“That might be for the best. I’ll take care of it, if you’d rather?”
“No, it’s my responsibility, my duty.”
Ed bent and kissed Tommy’s forehead. It had already gone cold, the heat had gone with his spark.
Stefan passed him the flint and some tinder than the shepherd and the soldier went outside. Elsa stayed with Ed, as if realising he needed the company, while he attempted to get a small fire going against one wall of the inner canopy. It took several attempts but finally there was a tiny flame, then a larger one as it took hold. Ed had to step back as a sheet of fire washed up the inner wall. He had one last look at Tommy. The last thing he saw before the heat forced him out was the gold ring on Tommy’s finger, turning red where it reflected the fire.
By the time Ed reversed out of the gorse with Elsa following him, the copse was well ablaze.
He stepped back to be beside the other two men and they watched in silence as Tommy’s funeral pyre sent a cloud of smoke across the cavern.
“Ashes to ashes,” Ed said, and those were the only words he spoke while the fire raged and the last of Tommy went up with the smoke and was scattered across the cavern.
They waited until the fire burned itself out. By that time, the smoke had reached up to where the great bats were roosting, causing them to fall from the roof and spiral in a flock down towards the embers.
“Time to go, lad,” Danny said.
When the other two began to walk away, Ed joined them with Elsa at his side.
He didn’t look back.
When Ed finally spoke, it was to relay a decision he’d made some minutes before.
“I’d like to wear his guns, if I may?” he said.
Stefan was only too happy to oblige.
“They were getting too heavy for these old bones to carry in any case.”
They stopped at a meandering curve in the stream while Ed strapped on the belt and holsters. Behind them, a thin plume of smoke still rose from Tommy’s funeral pyre and the bats still circled lazily overhead, but after one last look, Ed turned his back on it. He checked that the pistols were snug against his hips, tightening the belt to take up slack, then turned to Danny.
“If that beast comes back, I want to have the first shot at it,” he said.
The old soldier looked as if he might argue, but he must have seen the determination in Ed’s face, for he merely nodded.
“If we’re given the chance, of course. The kill will be yours.”
Ed didn’t just want to kill the thing that had taken his brother; he wanted to blow its brains out and dance amid the ruin of its skull. A red rage boiled in him that he’d never felt before, but it was something he could use to keep him moving, to keep his grief at bay until he had time to give it room in his head. For now, the fire of anger blotted out all else.
Again, Danny must have seen something in his face. He put a hand on Ed’s shoulder.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, what do you say, lad? I’ve had enough of scrambling around in the gloom with God knows how many tons of rock hanging over my head. I need some sun, a few beers, and a decent meal that isn’t something that looks like a rabbit. Let’s go find it.”
They turned back to their trail, walking into the breeze that was ever-stiffening in their faces.
- 15 -
Danny knew that his attempt to gee up the lad had been more for Ed’s sake than his own; since the death of the older brother, Danny was getting more and more convinced that they were indeed on the wrong path and that descending any farther was madness. But he could see no other recourse; there was no way out the way they had come, and following the breeze had to be their best bet.
It was just that he couldn’t get his gut to believe it.
At least Ed hadn’t collapsed into a shell of grief; the lad had taken the lead and was setting a brisk pace along the side of the stream. Stefan and Elsa followed next; the dog, as if aware of the sombre mood that had fallen on the travelling companions, stayed at the shepherd’s heel and even the occasional rustle in the grass wasn’t enough to make her leave the man’s side.
Danny brought up the rear, chewing on the tattered remains of a cheroot. He didn’t know how long they’d been in this godforsaken hole, but he knew it had been long enough that he was nearly out of smokes and that he was bone tired, his body telling him he should be asleep. He guessed it was nighttime again, somewhere far above, and that if they were lucky enough to get out soon, it would be the moon rather than the sun they’d be seeing. At the moment, he’d welcome either.
After twenty minutes walking, it became clear that they were finally approaching the far end of this current cavern. The roof began to close down above them, the bats no longer circled overhead, having returned one by one to their roosting spots, and the stream was flowing faster now, picking up speed as the downward incline got steeper.
The breeze was a full-on wind now, tugging at Danny’s clothes and sweeping his hair up at his forehead. It smelled fresh with no hint of corruption in it and for the first time in a while, he felt the stirrings of hope. It appeared that the others had similar feelings for young Ed picked up the pace even further at the front, Stefan and Elsa followed suit and all of them were almost running when they realized that the wind was blowing out of a dark entranceway only a hundred yards ahead.
But they were forced to a halt at the cave mouth; the stream tumbled out of the cavern in an almost vertical fall at their feet, thundering away and down into darkness. Inside this new cavern, there was no sign of light, none of the dangling luminescent roots to show a possible path…there was only the roar of water and blackness in front of them.
Danny checked to either side, but the flow of water from the stream filled the whole breadth of the entrance; there would be no descent possible. Even as he came to that decision, he saw young Ed get down on his hands and knees in the water and start to inch himself backwards towards the lip.
“No, lad,” he shouted, and manhandled the youth back out of the water. “Getting yourself killed fast isn’t the way to get out of here.”
Ed shook him away, and Danny saw the need in his gaze.
“What then? You said it yourself, the breeze is our best chance of escape. It comes from there.” He pointed at the fall of water. “So there is where we must go.”
“You’re a climber, lad, so maybe you could do it. But I’m an old soldier, Stefan here is a shepherd… and Elsa certainly can’t get down yon hole.”
“We have the rope…” Ed said.
“Aye, and look where we’ve ended up after the last time we tied you to it. And what if there is a bottom we can reach? With no lights, what do we do then? No, we find another way.”
“There is no other way!” Ed shouted.
“You’re forgetting your wee map again, lad,” Danny answered. “Your knights, at least one of them, got out. There is a
way.”
Elsa seemed to agree with Danny. She began to bark then she walked several yards to the left of the cave mouth, following the cavern wall away from the stream, then turned to look at Stefan as if to say, ‘Are you stupid? Of course we go this way.’
Stefan laughed.
“She has found the scent of home again. Do not despair, young Edward. She will see us out of here, you mark my words.”
The dog led the way as they headed left.
It did not take too long…no more than a minute…for Danny to see that the dog did indeed have a goal in mind. An animal trail, the horse-things judging by the droppings they had to dodge around, led to a second cave mouth. This one had no fall, no stream to block their passage. But it was as dark as the previous cave; if they were to proceed that way, it would be in darkness.
Danny remembered how they’d used clumps of the hanging roots earlier and looked around them, hoping to find a spot where they could reach up and pull some down from the roof. But although the roof was indeed lower here, it was still well out of reach for them, even if he were to stand on Stefan’s shoulders. He led out a snort of disgusted frustration.
“Could we shoot some down?” Ed asked. “All fire at once and concentrate on a small area, try to dislodge a chunk?”
Danny was loath to use up ammo they might need later, but saw some sense in the lad’s idea, enough to at least give it a try. He had Danny pass one of the Colts to Stefan, then pointed out a brighter patch of the ceiling some five yards above them.
“On a count of three,” he said. “Three shots each. If that doesn’t do it, we won’t waste any more ammo and take our chances in the dark.”
He took out his own pistol and took aim, counting down. They all fired on three, not quite in unison, a nine-shot volley that roared like cannon fire in the confines of the cavern. Shards of rock flew and Danny was forced to duck away. When he looked up again, it was to see a large clump of vegetation detach itself from the ceiling and fall, almost on top of them, causing all three to dance aside.
“Well bugger me sidewards,” Danny said. “I would have bet my pension that wouldn’t have worked. Quickly now, gather it up. We need to get moving while it’s still luminescent. Get as much as you can carry.”
They all sheathed their weapons again and gathered the vegetation into their arms; Stefan even managed to weave some through Elsa’s collar. When they entered the cave, they saw the faint light show in the dark where she walked ahead of them.
Danny was almost congratulating himself when a roar echoed from the cavern at their back; their shots had once again alerted the wyrm to their presence…and given away their location.
“Quick as we can, lads,” Danny said. “Yon beast is not giving up. And we don’t know if those bats will keep it at bay a second time.”
They descended a slight slope. Soon, the cave mouth was only a small circle of light at their back and they were going down into near darkness.
The going was easy at first, the ground underfoot having been smoothed by some long-since dried stream, and the vegetation in their arms proving enough dim light for them to see by, but it was already obvious that the glimmer from the roots was fading fast. Danny tried to peer ahead, searching for any glimpse of light ahead, but there was only the bobbing gleam from Elsa’s collar, and that too was getting dim.
In less than another minute, Danny saw that the vegetation was now useless; he could not see the other men in front of him. He called for a halt and heard the scrape of the others’ heels on rock as all three of them came to a stop. He felt something tickle at his knee and realised it was Elsa having come to heel but looking down, he saw nothing but blackness. He turned and looked back the way they had come. The tunnel mouth was only a pinprick, a star flickering in the distance.
“What now?” Ed whispered in the dark.
“Drop the roots,” Danny said. “They’re no use now.”
There were several soft thuds as the vegetation hit the ground. Danny spoke first to head off any more questions.
“Sidle over, I’ll take the lead,” he said. “Stay within touching range behind me, we move in step, as one, and we move slowly. We follow the left-hand wall by touch, and if I stay stop, you stop, no questions. Understood?”
He got murmurs of assent from the others, and Elsa moved against his knee, as if she too was agreeing. Danny moved past the other two men; it was a tight squeeze but when he got to the front, he was pleasantly surprised to feel a slight breeze in his face. That at least would ensure he kept some sense of direction in the dark. He considered using up his matches, but decided against it; they would only provide dim illumination at best, and they might be needed for making a fire if they ever got out of this bally tunnel.
He put his left hand on the tunnel wall and took his first step down into the dark.
- 16 -
Ed was in the middle, sandwiched between Danny in front and the shepherd behind. Elsa walked at Danny’s heel and every so often, Ed would feel his right leg brush against her flank. The only sound was the soft pad of their feet on rock and Stefan’s rather heavy breathing at Ed’s back
Ed had never known such blackness. Even as a boy in bed, on a dark night with no candles in their room, there had always been faint glimpses of moon peeking through clouds, or the lights of the town in the valley. But here, he couldn’t even see the back of Danny’s head even though he knew it was two feet away at the most. Only the feel of rock underfoot and the scrape of the fingers of his left hand on cold stone assured him that he wasn’t in fact floating in the vastness of the spaces between the stars.
They continued to descend for several minutes with no alarms when the howl of the wyrm rose up at their back again, louder than the last time.
“It’s following. It’s in here with us,” Ed whispered, his right hand reaching instinctively for the butt of the Colt at his side.
“I know, lad,” Danny said in front. “And if you have any good ideas, I’m all ears. If not, we go on. There is little else for it.”
They continued down. The slope increased, not enough to cause them a problem, but enough to be noticeable and cause them to move even more carefully. Danny brought them to a halt five minutes later.
“I’ve come to an opening. Stay where you are, I’ll investigate.”
The next few minutes felt like an hour. At every breath, Ed imagined the wyrm barreling down the tunnel after them, imagined it coming upon them in the dark, rending and tearing before they could get a shot off. He almost screamed when a hand brushed his cheek.
“Sorry,” Danny said out of the dark. “I lost my bearings there. I’ve found a cave, and I think it’s defendable. It will give us somewhere we can bed down and get some rest; I know I need it.”
“We should keep moving,” Ed protested, but Stefan interrupted at his back.
“I can’t go much farther, young sir. My old bones need to be still for a time.”
Ed allowed Danny to have the lead again. They moved two paces downward then veered left. It immediately felt stuffy now that there was no breeze, but there was no smell of the place having been a beast’s lair, just the taste of old dirt in Ed’s mouth.
“Stay against the wall,” Danny said. “I have a surprise.”
They heard ripping and tearing noises and the tumble of sticks against stone. A minute later, there was a flare of red and orange as Danny struck a match then a further flare as fire took hold amid a pile of dried roots. The new light showed that Danny had stripped them from the ceiling of the cave a foot or so overhead where they hung, long dead and shriveled, but perfect for firewood.
“We’ll keep a watch, a few hours each,” Danny said. “We should all get some sleep and push on once we’re rested.”
Ed had hardly heard him. The firelight had shown him something else, something reflecting golden at the rear of the cave and Ed’s heart was in his mouth as he stepped over towards it.
“What have you got there, lad?” Danny said.
He waited until Danny came to join him and stepped aside to let the soldier see.
A shield emblazoned with a heraldic dragon had been wedged into a corner. Behind it, they found two stout wooden firebrands, the tops of which were black…cloth dipped in tar that had gone hard over the centuries. Below them lay a red woolen cloak, but when Danny went to lift it, it fell apart in his hands.
The soldier held up the firebrands.
“This is good news,” he said.
“Aye,” Ed replied. “They will light our passage, for sure.”
“Nay, lad, again you don’t understand,” Danny replied. “They left them here, thinking they might need them on their return. But they never came back for them, and yet still they got out. There is a way out, and we’re going in the right direction.”
Danny insisted on taking the first watch.
“You’re still walking wounded, and the shepherd is older even than I. Besides, I’ve done this more times than you’ve had hot dinners. I will be fine for a few more hours. I will wake you when I feel I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.”
By the time Ed lay down, with the fire between him and the entrance Stefan was already snoring, with Elsa spooned up at this side like a pair of lovers. At first, Ed thought sleep would evade him completely; every time he closed his eyes, he saw Tommy’s last minutes and when he opened them, tears almost blinded him such that all he could see was a shimmering red where the fire sat and a smaller patch of red where Danny sat smoking, the tip of his cigarette showing bright in the darkness.
But eventually, tiredness overcame grief. He was called into a blessed blanket of darkness and he went to it willingly.
He woke disoriented. Someone was tugging at his shoulder.
“Tommy?” he said, a whisper of hope. Then memory crashed in around him and he looked up to see the old soldier standing over him.
The Lands Below Page 8
