The Lands Below

by William Meikle

  “It’s not there. There’s no treasure. It’s just stones.”

  “Aye. A marker to show anyone who followed they were heading in the right general direction, I expect. Better than carving marks on the walls at any rate.”

  Elsa had kept moving when Ed stopped. She now stood in front of the cave beyond the cross, her hackles raised, growling softly at the back of her throat. Stefan went to try to calm her.

  “She’s shaking like a leaf,” the shepherd said as he stroked her flank. “I think there’s something in there.”

  Danny handed Ed the extinguished firebrand, had him hold it while he lit it from a match, then drew both his pistol and his sword.

  “I think there’s something in there too,” he said. “But unless we fancy a long swim, it’s the way we have to go. Ed, stay close behind me with that flame. And watch my moves. I don’t want anything to get in my way if I have to shoot.”

  The firebrand lit the passage ahead of him in flickering shadow but it quickly became clear it wasn’t going to be required. Little more than ten yards into the side of the cliff, it opened up into a new chamber. Ed gasped at Danny’s back.

  “Danny?”

  “I see it, lad. No sudden moves. Not if you want to live.”

  They were looking into a vast, cathedral-like cavern festooned with more of the dangling, luminescent roots. The walls were smooth and showed signs of axe and hammer markings; if it had been a natural chamber at one time, it had also been enhanced. That wasn’t the main thing that caught the eye though.

  They had found Ed’s long-sought treasure, a mound of gold, silver, and jewels piled in the center of the room, as large as the mound outside on which the cross had been mounted.

  But again, that wasn’t what had caused their consternation. The chamber was dominated by a huge pale wyrm that lay coiled atop the treasure mound. Its barrel-like body looked to be six feet or more in diameter, its vast head almost as broad and wide as the entrance in which they stood and its body, by Danny’s rough estimate, at least forty feet from nose to tip of tail.

  It appeared to be asleep.

  Ed nudged Danny and pointed, past the sleeping beast to the far wall of the chamber. Looking incongruous and far out of its natural place, a roughly hewn wooden door was fitted flush to the stone.

  Danny motioned that the others should fall back and several seconds later, they had returned to stand below the tall cross outside.

  “A bloody dragon on a mound of treasure,” Danny said. “Have we fallen into a fairy tale?”

  “Or perhaps we have found the original source of the legend?” Ed replied. “But either way, the question remains the same—what do we do now?”

  “We let sleeping beasties lie, that’s what we do now. But I’m going to have to find out what’s on the other side of that door. It may be our hope of escape to the surface.”

  “And it may be a lavatory,” Ed said. “The risk is great.”

  “But the reward, if it means our freedom, will be worth it.”

  Danny double-checked that his pistol was fully loaded then addressed the others.

  “You should stay in the entranceway. Ed, give Stefan one of the pistols; we may need all the firepower we can muster if yon beastie wakes before I reach the door. Either way, if it comes to it, don’t try any heroics; save yourselves if I get into trouble.”

  He didn’t wait; he knew they’d only try to talk him out of his course of action, just as he knew it wouldn’t take too much talking to get him to retreat all the way down to the sea and see how that went. His legs felt weak at the knees as he walked along the passageway and emerged again to face the sleeping beast.

  It smelled, a musty, slightly vinegary odor that stung at the back of his throat. The massive torso swelled and contracted with each inhale and exhale of breath. The merest glimmer of a red eye showed under the left eyelid, and the tail—too small a word for a lump of muscle and bone that would crush a man in an instant—swung lazily against the gold and jewels causing them to clink and rattle with a rhythm that was almost musical.

  Danny stood in the entrance for at least a minute attempting to convince himself that the beast was indeed asleep and not just pretending in an attempt to lure him into the chamber. Elsa brushed against his right knee; it appeared she had decided he needed protection. He welcomed the company and it stiffened his resolve to take the first step, moving to his left to hug the wall at the side of the entrance.

  The wyrm swung its tail again but there was no other sign of movement. Feeling buoyed up with that, Danny shuffled around the perimeter of the cavern, keeping his back to the wall and his pistol aimed at the wyrm’s left eye. Elsa kept a close companion at his side, her own gaze never leaving the beast.

  The worst point was halfway round towards the door when they were nearest to the beast’s head. Danny felt the heat of its breath against his cheeks, like standing in front of an open oven door, with the smell of meat wafting at the same time. The left eye twitched, so much so that Danny’s finger moved to the pistol’s trigger, but after a single slip and slide of the tail that sent some gold coins tinkling across the floor, the beast was still again. Danny took a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding off. He kept moving, concentrating on placing his feet down softly and making sure nothing, his scabbard in particular, was going to hit the wall and raise a sound.

  When he finally reached the old wooden door several minutes later, he allowed himself several seconds of relative relaxation. He hadn’t given any thought what he might do if the door was firmly locked against them, but that worry was misplaced.

  When he put a hand on a handle and pulled the old door swung open, an alarming creak echoed around the chamber.

  Danny’s heart leapt to his mouth and again his finger moved to cover the pistol’s trigger, but apart from another swing of the tail, the beast still showed no signs of waking. Danny turned his attention to what was on the other side of the door.

  A roughly hewn set of stone steps led upwards at a steep angle. It was dark in there, but when he stepped inside and looked upward he saw a faint pinpoint of light, far up in the distance, but shining and golden in a way he hadn’t seen since entering the cave system; he knew, without doubting, that he was looking up at the outside world and the means of their escape.

  He went back to the doorway and motioned that the others should come across to join him.

  Stefan came first. Like Danny before him, he kept his pistol aimed at the beast. Elsa watched his every move and Danny sensed the tension in the dog that was only released when the shepherd joined him in the doorway. Danny made a mummer’s play of showing Stefan that he should go up the stairs a way, light the firebrand, and wait for him and Ed. He did it all without speaking, but the older man seemed to get the gist well enough and headed off into the stairwell until all Danny saw of him were his ankles. Elsa stayed at Danny’s side as Ed started his circumnavigation of the chamber.

  Ed was moving slower than either of the previous two men and his pistol wavered between pointing at the floor and aiming vaguely at the beast, but at least he was moving, and Danny thought they had a good chance of getting away with it.

  Then Ed broke from the plan. He moved away from the wall and stepped forward. At first, Danny thought he meant to make a go at killing the beast in misplaced revenge for his brother. Then he saw the youth’s real intent.

  Ed was going for some of the treasure, right beneath the beast’s nose.

  - 20 -

  There had been little conscious thought in Ed’s action. He’d been concentrating on getting round to join Danny at the door without mishap but the wyrm’s tail had swished again, dislodging some rubies that scattered on the floor, the red reflecting the dim light from the ceiling and making them appear like small glistening chips of dried blood.

  Just one, one for a keepsake. One for Tommy.

  And even as he had the thought, he had stepped forward.

  He took his eye off the beast, bent, and plu
cked a ruby the size of his thumb off the floor. When he looked up again, he was looking directly into the open eye of the wyrm.

  Like his first action, there was little thought in his next. He brought up the Colt, aimed, and fired all in one movement. It was too big a target even for him to miss. A small red hole showed above the beast’s right eye, and the head jerked with the impact, but the respite was only momentary. Shaking itself like a dog waking from a nap, the beast reared up, looming yards above Ed’s head.

  “Run, you bloody fool,” Danny shouted from the doorway, and suddenly Ed found impetus where there had been none before. He threw himself under the jaw of the beast as it was reaching for him and with legs pumping like pistons made it to the doorway just ahead of it. Danny had already retreated inside and was trying to hold Elsa off from attacking while at the same time trying to get a shot past Ed towards the beast.

  “Don’t wait for me,” Ed shouted. “Get going, I’m right behind you.”

  He pushed Danny up the first few stairs, turned, and fired two shots without aiming, without needing to for the bulk of the beast filled the doorway, then was off and scrambling up a dark, almost pitch black stairwell.

  The wyrm’s howls roared as loud as any pistol shot, almost deafening. The stairwell narrowed, and narrowed again until Ed’s shoulder’s touched the walls. Twice he was kicked in the head as Danny scrambled above him. A new sound from below made him look down; it was dim, but he was just able to make out the wyrm, trying to force its head into the passageway. There came a grinding and tearing, talons on stone, as it began to dig, determinedly. The walls of the stairwell rocked and shook and pebbles, then larger-sized pieces of rock tumbled around the climbing men.

  “Climb. Climb like your lives depend on it,” Danny shouted, and Ed didn’t need a second telling. He was about to take another step up when something grabbed, hard, at his left ankle and tugged, taking him down to elbows and knees. He turned and saw that the beast’s long, flexible tongue had him around the ankle and the beast’s head was only three feet away. Its breath was foul and hot, its red eyes gleamed in triumph as it tugged again and Ed was drawn backward towards waiting teeth.

  He turned fully onto his back, aimed the pistol between his legs, pointing directly down the beast’s throat.

  “This is for Tommy, you bastard,” he said, and fired three quick shots directly into the maw. The pressure on his ankle lifted away immediately as the beast recoiled and drew back. Ed didn’t wait to see what happened to it. He turned back to the steps and climbed for all he was worth.

  Beneath him, the beast howled, and attacked the entrance with even more vigor than before. More stones fell around them. Ed heard Stefan let out a yelp of pain and guess one had got him on the head, but all three kept climbing, although the whole stairwell rocked and rolled as if in the grip of an earthquake. The bellows of the beast followed them upward.

  Ed’s chest wounds opened again. He felt the blood’s heat beneath his shirt. And as if the smell of it had permeated down the shaft, the beast below increased its frenzied attack. It sounded closer and Ed’s imagination ran wild, imagining it slithering like a great snake, pushing itself along up the narrow passageway, its teeth even now reaching for his feet. He tried to increase his tempo, but his pace was determined by Danny above him, and Stefan above that, and the man at the top appeared to have slowed to little more than a crawl.

  And still they climbed. More debris came from above, threatening to block the passage completely. And still the beast raved and howled somewhere below them. Ed’s existence narrowed to forcing his way upward, in pitch blackness now, the steps uneven in height making it difficult to gauge where his feet should be placed. The dust tasted like ash in his throat. He closed his eyes against it; they were useless in the darkness anyway, and forced himself upward.

  Finally, Ed could go no further. His legs were like jelly beneath him, the tumbling rock and dirt from above threatened to grab him around the waist and block him there like a cork in a bottle. He opened his mouth to call out and it immediately filled with dirt. There was one last bellow of rage from below, the whole shaft shook, and Ed felt himself begin to slide backward.

  He was almost ready to give himself to the dark when he felt a strong hand grip his arm and tug. Bright light pierced his eyelids and as he was pulled roughly up and out of the hole, he felt sunlight on his face, although opening his eyes to it proved almost blinding after the gloom in the stairwell.

  He stood, in the valley floor to the south of the village, looking up at the mountain they had been below.

  Even then, the ground continued to heave and shake like sea in a storm. There was a rumble like distant thunder, a final, far-off howl of rage from the wyrm, then the ground all around them fell, a yard all at once, knocking them off their feet.

  Then everything went still. Ed struggled to his feet to see Elsa running around in open grassland like a happy puppy and Danny and Stefan hugging each other, both with grins beaming from ear to ear.

  Ed looked for signs of the stairwell, but the ground had been changed so utterly, had fallen in on itself to such a degree, that there was no trace left of their exit.

  “Well, lad,” Danny said. “We made it. And as I am still under your contract, my suggestion now is that we head for some ale and some decent meat before starting the long road home. What do you say?”

  What Ed wanted to say was that he’d be back; the treasure was there, he’d seen it, had been close enough to touch it. And rock fall or no rock fall, he knew that there was a way to reach it by going back over the same route again. He would raise another expedition and the ruby that nestled in his shirt pocket would pay for it; that, and a decent burial for his brother when they retrieved what was left of his bones.

  But that wasn’t what Danny needed to hear. Ed clasped the old soldier by the arm and pointed him toward the village.

  “Lay on, MacDuff. I believe it’s your round.”

  The End

  Read on for a free sample of Subterranea

  Prologue

  The facility’s klaxons continued to blare even after the horror was over, and Special Agent Larson was forced to run into the project’s main control room, her gun still drawn, and demand answers.

  “I thought you idiots said the thing was shut down!”

  “We did!” one of the main scientists said from his control panel, which seemed to be smoking and sparking. “It is! But the readings seem to indicate that it’s going to open again within the hour.”

  “Then the general will just have to get more soldiers and be prepared for another breach.”

  “But Agent Larson, that’s the problem,” the scientist said. “The readings don’t say anything about the portal opening again here. The monitors seem to indicate a spike of energy outside the facility.”

  Larson’s jaw dropped. “That’s not supposed to be possible at this stage.”

  “And yet that’s exactly what seems to be happening,” the scientist said. His tone seemed to suggest that somehow he seemed to think this was all her fault. Just let him think that, then. Everyone blamed her for everything that went wrong around here anyway, even when it was very blatantly the fault of that idiot general.

  “Where then?” Larson asked. “Please at least tell me it’s going to happen in some corn field somewhere that no one is using at this time of year.”

  The scientist gave a series of coordinates as they appeared on the glowing green screen of his computer. Special Agent Larson thought about them for a moment, comparing them to what she knew about this region, then swore loud and long.

  “What’s so bad about that?” another scientist asked. “Isn’t that the middle of nowhere?”

  “It is, but it just so happens to be one of the few spots in that area with people in it.” She started to run out of the room, then called out to the scientists over her shoulder as she left. “Someone tell the general. There’s a very small town out there that is about to experience a very big heap o
f trouble.”

  Chapter One

  With a total population of six hundred and twenty-four people, Kettle Hollow, Wisconsin barely registered on most maps. Its biggest claim to fame was that it was the home town of a player who had briefly been a part of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers line-up, but an injury had ended his career pretty quickly and now, three years later, none of the townsfolk even knew where he lived anymore. There was parochial school as part of the Catholic church, but otherwise all the schoolchildren had to be bused over to Sheboygan. There was a diner and a gas station near the center of town, and near the edge of town (which, quite frankly, was only a block or so from the center) there was a Piggly Wiggly grocery store and a mom and pop pharmacy. That was it. That was pretty much every major landmark in the town that wasn’t somebody’s house.

  It did have a single stoplight although as the darkness of the early autumn night fell over the town, that stoplight’s time left on Earth was to be measured in hours rather than days.

  At the outskirts of the town and in the farm fields that surrounded it, whispers could be heard by anyone listening, along with the occasional soft squawk of a walkie-talkie. But the forces gathering out there were still unsure that their greatest fear was about to happen, so they resisted descending on the town just yet, hoping that the early warning they’d been given was a false alarm.

  Beyond that perimeter of hiding figures, in a rock quarry off a mostly deserted county road, four much younger people were making a lot more noise, or at least three of them were. Maureen “Murky” Lensky proved to be the quietest of the four, mostly because at eleven she was the youngest and felt like she didn’t belong with the others. She was the only one riding an old 70’s Schwinn while the other three had BMXs of various brands. None of them encouraged her to join in as they practiced dangerous stunts (or at least dangerous in the minds of twelve and thirteen-year-olds). She wouldn’t even be here if her mother had forced her thirteen-year old sister Laura to bring her along. Their mom had said it was because Murky didn’t get out of the house enough, but Murky had understood the silent look her mother had given her just as she was leaving the house. Murky’s real reason for being out here was because their mother didn’t trust Laura alone with Henderson.