Redlock said, “Let’s go.”
They moved, slipping through the grass like rats through garbage.
“...From Roviarath.” Behind Ecko, Tarvi spoke softly. “When we found the blasted township... my tan...”
“I hear you.” Redlock’s tone was gentle. “I promise you this: the nightmares will pass. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but you’ll be all right.”
“We all die – and we all lose people we love,” Triq said. “And the Count of Time heals all things. Live now, look forwards – life’s short.”
“I’m going to find whatever burned that town.” Glancing back, Ecko saw Tarvi’s profile, limned in the Monument’s light as she turned to look at the axeman. The look, the memory, sent a shock through his adrenals – a shock that was unexpected and completely unfamiliar. What the fuck...? “And I’m going to –”
“Boo!” He wasn’t even sure why he’d interrupted them.
“Shit!” Redlock’s axe missed his nose by a nanometre. “You damned...! Don’t do that again!”
Tarvi smothered a chuckle. Triq poked the axeman wickedly in the ribs.
Above them, a rift in the cloud bathed the grass in brilliant gold.
“You’re funny,” Redlock said. “But I’ve no idea who you are, have no reason to trust you – and advise against pulling shit like that again. Tarvi rides from Jade; she bears a pennon.” Tarvi smiled at him. “You – better have damned good reason for being out here.”
“I felt like a vacation.” His grin was merciless. “Trust me or don’t – that’s your fucking problem.” He blinked. “Let’s get the hell on with this.”
“We’re in this together now, Ecko, all of us.” Tarvi laid a hand on Redlock’s arm. Again, the unfamiliar adrenaline spiked. “I’ve heard of you, Faral ton Gattana – who hasn’t? We have to do this thing.”
Redlock said, “I work alone. Triq’s an old friend.”
“Then stick ten paces behind me and, if anyone asks, we’re goin’ the same way.” Ecko’s black eyes were expressionless. “I’ll save some bad guys for ya.”
“Will you two pack it in?” Triqueta was watching the way the beasties had gone. “My family are out there,” she said. “They’re under threat – and I’m here with you idiots. Syke’ll be in a lot deeper horseshit if we don’t sort this now.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “Let’s find this sonofamare.”
“Well, whaddaya know,” Ecko said, his black grin broadening. “The adventure that started in the tavern ends with the fuckin’ underground maze. The big bad guy? He’ll be right in the basement – along with the flatscreens and the white goods.”
Triq said, “What the rhez are you talking about?”
“He does that,” Tarvi told her. “You’ll get used to it. Sometimes I think he’s seen all of this before.”
“No fucking shit.” Keeping his cackle to himself, Ecko slipped back to the scarp.
* * *
“Abandon Hope, All Ye...”
The short climb was an easy one; the moons had fought through all but the thinnest cloud and handholds and outcrops were plentiful. With his cloak tucked back, Ecko reached the base in moments and peered into the rift. The air was blood warm, it tasted like all kinds of wrong.
His heatseeker picked out the breadcrumbs – touches of fading warmth still clung to the rock, char marks like handprints. They showed the passage of the departing beasties – and the route into the maze.
Easier to follow than a ball of fucking string.
Nothing else moved.
Faintly disappointed at the lack of door-guard grunts, Ecko loosed his cloak and went into the cave mouth.
Here, goblins. Heeeeeere, goblins, goblins.
The floor was uneven, the narrow walls had protrusions that caught his elbows. There was a tall space over his head, as if the triangular crack in the cliff face simply stretched backwards into the stone, but the passageway itself was tight.
Comfortingly so.
At last, the arch of sky was gone from over his head, the endless wind in his ears had ceased. In the sudden quiet, they were cold and they sang with imagined sounds. Ecko found himself breathing relief, his shoulders falling. He hadn’t even been aware of the tension until he’d let it go.
Walls. Ceiling. Stone. It wasn’t quite the old underground south of the river, but fuck was that better.
“What do you see?” Redlock was right behind him.
“Dark. Little patches of heat that say ‘bad guys went this-a-way’. How come there’s no beasties, no traps, no door?”
“No one comes out here,” Tarvi said softly. “Why would they leave the trade-roads – they’ve got everything they want. They don’t care about a load of broken rocks; they care about the grass harvest and the terhnwood flow, whether they can trade for a luxury this halfcycle. There’s only the taer, and few remember that.”
“Some things,” Ecko commented, “just don’t fucking change.”
He flicked out his heatseeker.
And saw there was light.
It was so faint, he could almost have imagined it. It danced broken, refracted and reflected from something he couldn’t see – something below the level of the steadily descending floor. If he looked up, minute echoes played in the crack over his head, stalactites – or were they the other ones? – had an edge of glitter, like amethyst chandeliers in some trippy-hippie bedroom. There were lichens on the wall, opening like a myriad mouths, as though they hungered for the taste.
They were kinda creepy.
Whatever this was, it was no fucking dungeon – no set of mines. This was more like fantastical potholing – never mind sixty feet of rope and a grapple pistol, he needed a hard hat and a flashlight.
The illumination was just enough for his starlites. As the harsh rock walls around him became a soft wash of grey-green, he crouched low to the coarse, pebbled floor and crept downwards.
The creatures’ heat had left a trail of soot a blind cleaning ’bot could follow.
The others came after him, weapons in hand.
* * *
Slowly, the passageway began to open out.
Here, there were fragments of regular stonework in the natural stone walls, nonsensical oddments of order amid the rising rock ripples of an expanding cave. Ecko could hear the steady drip of water.
There was more space here. Above them, a crack in the ceiling had lifted and opened out into a wide and jagged layer of fangs, uneven and shining as the cracked light touched them.
The trail came from there – on the cave’s far side, a wide, dark mouth full of dancing glimmer. The burns led that way like an unwound ball of string. If the goblins were guarding anything, he’d guess that’d be the door.
The girls were whispering, their voices carrying up into tiers of teeth.
And the small cave answered them.
A shattered crystalline sound, atonal and dissonant. It oscillated in uneven waves, an irregular rebroadcast from stalactites and walls.
Ecko shuddered. Redlock turned, but they’d quietened instantly.
The four of them paused in silence.
Water dripped, faintly, maddeningly regular.
Gesturing for the others to stay put, Ecko was off. He made no sound; he left no trace. Following the beasties’ trail, he ducked under the arced maw of spikes and raced, swift as a darting insect, across the openness to slam his back against the far wall.
He looked into the entranceway.
A target-length before him, the ceiling lowered to twin fangs, joined floor to ceiling as if the jaws were lodged half shut. Between them were the recently shattered remains of a forced stone door – behind it a throat that swallowed the light.