'Who are you?' Mallory repeated fiercely.
'I am the bard of the hedgerows, the king of the open road, alley sloper, gourmand and wit.' He held his arms wide. 'My name is Callow.'
Chapter Four
1
The Halls of the Drakusa were endless, and silent. The tip of the Spear of Lugh burning with Blue Fire to light her path, Ruth led the way through chamber after chamber where the shadows pressed hard against them and the oppressive sense of threat grew by the moment. More energy burned at the rear of the column where Church and Veitch had their swords drawn to defend the group from any attack.
'This place is a bleedin' maze,' Veitch hissed. 'We could be going round and round in circles.'
'Shavi seems to have his bearings, or at least his eye does.' Church paused to listen intently as he had done so many times since Virginia had warned them that they were being pursued.
'Anything?' Veitch asked.
Church shook his head.
'Maybe she was just spooked by the dark. She's only a kid.'
'The noise-'
'Echoes. Stones.' He wasn't even convincing himself. 'Let's close the door on this room. Barricade it. If there is anything behind us, it might slow them down.'
Church agreed, and they called on Ruth to stop the column while they ran the length of the huge chamber. The doors closed easily and quietly, and there was a heavy oaken bar to lock them in place. Then they dragged numerous chunks of shattered masonry against the doors to add to the barricade.
Veitch wasn't impressed. 'Wish we could booby trap it as well. Blow the bastards up.'
Church laughed. 'I don't know how I survived without you, Ryan.'
'Neither do I.' He grinned to himself before growing serious once more. 'We're doing all right, aren't we?'
'We've not killed each other yet.'
'Yeah. After recent times, that's a definite success story.'
Halfway across the chamber, Church's eye was caught by a disturbance in the dust off to one side of the path they had taken. They'd been careful to obscure their tracks as much as possible, but here an arrow had been drawn with a symbol he didn't understand, and a serpentine squiggle that he guessed was meant to signify a dragon.
'Ryan,' he called quietly.
Veitch skidded to a halt and ran back. When he saw the mark in the dust, he snarled, 'We've got a snake in the group. Or a spider.'
Church nodded. 'They're marking the way for whatever's coming up behind. I didn't see anybody do this, but then we were always looking back.' He glanced towards the group, who were all looking his way. 'And now they know we're on to them.'
Veitch scrubbed out the sign. 'Bollocks. I'm going to carve it out of them.'
'We can't torture everyone until we find out who it is.'
Veitch still appeared to consider this a viable option.
'We might be able to use it in our favour,' Church said.
'Play it cool, screw with their heads a bit?'
'Something like that.'
Veitch nodded. 'Works for me.'
Church looked back at his friends' faces. 'I know we were warned there was a traitor in the group. I just can't believe it.'
'It's the girl — Virginia,' Veitch whispered. 'Got to be. Look at it logically. How the hell did someone that young get away from the Enemy Fortress? Come on — millions of the worst things there are all around and she manages to wriggle out, travel God knows how many miles and then just hooks up with Decebalus?'
Church eyed the fragile girl. 'They let her out?'
'Sent her back, primed to explode right in the middle of us.'
'I've spoken to her, Ryan. I believe what she's saying.'
'She believes it — that's the point. You know how clever all these bastards are at manipulating us poor humans. She doesn't know she's set up to do us all in.' He paused. 'Same as I didn't know back in the Battle of London.'
A moment of tension passed quickly, dismissed by Veitch with a quick smile. 'Don't blame you, though. Not any more. Nobody could have known.' A pause. 'You couldn't have saved me.'
When they returned to the group, Ruth asked what they had been inspecting, but they brushed her off with a comment about feeling for vibrations of pursuit in the floor. She didn't believe them, but said nothing. Church carefully watched the others' faces, but no one showed any suspicious sign.
Two chambers on and Shavi brought them to a halt. He was rubbing his eye as if it was causing him some discomfort. 'There is something around here,' he said hesitantly, before pointing tentatively to a room off to their left that they had all missed.
'What's in there?' Laura asked.
'I see… connections,' Shavi began. 'Places where the Invisible World interacts with our own. Something in that room calls to me.'
They all hesitated until Ruth pushed her way through them to the chamber's door. 'We can't ignore anything that might help us,' she said.
'And we can't ignore anything that might, like, kill us,' Laura added tartly.
The chamber was more intimate than the others, with a series of runic symbols painted on the walls in an oily black that had not become obscured by dust like the many murals they had passed. As Shavi ventured into the chamber, one of the symbols began to glow faintly. Virginia buried her face in Miller's chest. Shavi looked back and forth with urgency, seeing things that no one else could.
'Shadows,' he whispered. 'Rising from the stones. Locked here for an age.'
Suddenly he grew stock still, his eyes fixed on a place far beyond the four walls. A droplet of blood trickled from his nose. His mouth opened and his lips moved, but no sound issued for a full five seconds, and then it came with a boom that made their ears ring: a word of power.
Gradually, the shadows became visible, faint smudges in the air coalescing on one form standing in a proscribed circle etched into the stone flags. In the shimmering air, a bearded, long-haired man appeared, more than six feet tall, wearing furs and chain mail, a shield strapped to his back, swords and axes hanging from him, and a spear with a silver tip clutched in his right hand. He wore a horned helmet of black and silver that protected his cheekbones and nose, so that his eyes lay deep in shadow. He appeared grainy, not wholly there, like a bad hologram.
'The Age of Warriors has passed,' he said in a deep, rasping voice that did not sound human. Behind him, in the air itself, images of what he described played out in vivid colour. 'Since time before time, the Drakusa have been the greatest race. Our forges produced weapons that could bring the stars down from the heavens. Our armies scourged the Far Lands and the fields and hills ran red with blood. No one could stand before us, and our battles became legends, sung over fires in the long nights, reducing the women to tears at the wonder of our courage. And yet the Drakusa are no more.
'From our victories we forged a peace based on blood and iron — a warrior's peace, in which no man or woman lived in fear, a golden age of prosperity for all. And yet the Drakusa are no more.
'How could we fall so far, so hard? Here, then, is a cautionary tale, people-yet-to-come. Here is our gift to you, the race of warriors that lies beyond the sun. Know your enemies. Do not look for the iron raised against you, the sword or the axe or the spear. Do not seek out eyes that promise hatred and death. The true enemies are cleverer. They pose as friends. They pretend to be part of your dreams, and to offer you your heart's desire. They stand at your side, and then move to your back when the time comes.'
In the air around him, the shifting scenes of carnage and warfare became mellower. Autumnal hues painted deep forests and a low sun behind mountaintops.
'Seasons turn. Nothing abides for ever. Even the greatest can be laid low in the blink of an eye.'