A shrill scream burst through the haze of Mark’s recollections and he jumped suddenly, dropping his oar and disrupting the rowers’ rhythm. Scrambling to retrieve it before it disappeared over the side, he cried, ‘What the hell was that?’
The scream came again, a piercing wail that retained its intensity without fading or tailing off. Mark wondered if whatever was emitting the horrible shriek had just found the remains of their camp on the pebbly beach. He froze, waiting for something to happen, or someone to tell him what to do.
Everyone had stopped rowing and two of the tallest men stood on their benches, craning their necks in an attempt to spot the shrieking creature. No one spoke, or even moved, as a feeling of foreboding blanketed the longboats.
Far in the distance, Mark heard a heavy splash. He looked up: he couldn’t see the stone ceiling above them, but the image of the bone ornamentation was etched in his memory. He tried not to think about the possibility that whatever had entered the water had dropped from the ceiling.
The sound of the splash broke the spell and people around him began simultaneously shouting questions and orders. The coxswain took up his charge again; his, ‘Stroke, stroke, stroke’ was a little shaky, but the rhythm helped. Mark realised this was why soldiers marched into battle, all together in step. He fell back into pace with the others and they made their way quickly towards the far shore.
Mark had no idea how long he’d been lost in his reverie. He nudged the man beside him and asked, ‘How far is it to the opposite shore?’
‘Half-aven, last time across,’ he said helpfully, but Mark was still lost. What had Steven said? An aven was about two and a half hours. So seventy-five minutes to cross – but he had no idea how long they’d been rowing. He wondered how fast the shrieking thing could swim, and whether it was chasing them. Maybe there was more than one…
The soldier interrupted Mark’s panicked calculations, adding, ‘But we were coming very slowly, trying not to make a sound, and without torches. It shouldn’t take much more than a third-aven or so to make it back at this rate.’
Great, Mark thought, what’s one-third of two-and-a-half? Steven would laugh if he were here – the maths genius had probably already figured it out. Mark set to the task and, grimacing fiercely, came up with five-sixths of an hour.
‘Well, shit! That’s no damned help,’ he barked in English, making his companion jump. ‘Bugger – no, wait-’ He grinned at the man beside him. ‘Fifty minutes. That’s just fifty minutes. We’ve been out here nearly that long already, I’m sure.’ He had started to feel better when he saw Garec spring to his feet in the stern. ‘Oh no,’ he groaned. ‘That looks like trouble.’
Garec steadied himself and nocked an arrow while peering up at the ceiling. Then Mark heard them too.
It began as a distant clatter, sounding as if someone had dropped a handful of marbles down a wooden staircase, then the flurry was replaced by a steady tapping: something solid against stone. Three or four taps marked time for a few moments before the rattling clatter began again. It sent chills through Mark’s already cold body. When the noise reached their longboats the second time, he realised it was coming closer. It was running across the ceiling. Mark imagined clawed toes clicking off stone. ‘It must have multiple legs,’ he said aloud, ‘or hundreds of toes, to be making that racket.’
He leaned forward and pulled with all his might. Where was the opposite shore? Fifty minutes: that wasn’t very long. One class period. Not long at all. Mark realised he lived most of his life in fifty-minute increments: open with a warm-up question, five minutes, move into a reading or a few minutes of lecture or discussion, give them some guided practice, or extend the discussion, circulate while they work independently, answer questions or clear up problems and close with a reminder of the day’s objectives. Fifty minutes. There was nothing to it. He did it five times a day. Fifty-minute increments were in his blood. Where in all the circles of Hell was the opposite shore?
The unholy scream came again, much closer this time, and Mark was not the only one to cry out in response. He felt his skin crawl, as if the yelp had pierced his flesh and buried itself in his bones like a tiny burrowing parasite. They were being hunted. The clattering came from somewhere up above, like clamorous rain, and Mark hunched down, an involuntary response. ‘Please don’t let it drop down on us,’ he whispered, but somehow he knew that was inevitable. It was dark, so dark… his throat tried to close and he struggled to swallow. ‘Surely it’s too dark for anything to live down here,’ he muttered, knowing he was kidding himself.
By now they were all rowing madly, pulling with all their might. As the strangely terrifying tapping drew ever closer, the coxswain’s rhythm began to speed up. ‘Stroke, stroke, stroke.’ Mark could see Steven standing in the stern of Gita’s longboat; his friend raised one hand and sent a glowing fireball up towards the ceiling. All eyes were on the hazy light of the magic orb as it wafted ever closer to the distant stone ceiling and the boats slowed to a drift. There was a short cry, and a quick bustle of inhuman footsteps as the creature retreated from the light. Mark thought he had seen something, a shadow, maybe the irregular outline of a misshapen form. He coughed, and tried to mute the sound. Above, Steven’s fireball moved slowly back and forth, and each time it came near the creature, there was a brief shriek and a commotion as the monster hustled off.
The light. That was it! Mark craned his neck over the side and called to Steven, a hoarse whisper that emerged much louder than he had intended, ‘The light, Steven, intensify the light.’ Steven shot him an understanding look and almost immediately the light grew brighter, changing from a warm yellow to an intense white. As it did, a hulking dark mass dropped from the ceiling a hundred yards away and crashed into the water with a resounding splash. So he was right: despite the weirdness of any living creature calling such a place home – this monster obviously did – living in constant darkness meant it couldn’t stand light. And if it was the bone-collector, then judging by the size of its charnel-house, it had been down here for some time. Mark imagined it with great round eyes, with pupils as large as his fist; even the smallest pinprick of light would be blinding.
He took advantage of the additional light to turn around and search for the opposite shore. It was there, some two hundred paces out: a gently sloping beach that led up to a series of caves. There was a big opening off to the left, with footprints and tracks leading in and out: that would take them back to the surface and safety – well, of a sort, as long as the Malakasians hadn’t found the entrance yet.
Their coxswain sounded comforted by the bright light; his chant was stronger now: ‘ Stroke, stroke, stroke. ’
Mark turned back to his oar and was about to take up the rhythm again when he saw the longboat beside them start to turn slowly about. The two vessels had been moving alongside each other, but now their stern bumped gently into his oar.
‘What’s happening over there?’ he asked his companion. ‘There’s no current here, is there? It can’t be that creature; I can still hear it splashing around back there.’
His companion stopped rowing and looked at him for a moment, but just as he opened his mouth, Marked interjected, ‘Oh, shit! There are two of them!’ He started to shout a warning, but it was an instant too late. The longboat beside them exploded in foam and water. A profusion of long, muscular legs gripped the vessel from below, crushing it to splinters and trapping its inhabitants between the broken planks.