the doorjamb. Something strong, like one of Morget’s weapons. He’s got a whole fucking wardrobe of the things under his cloak, surely he can spare one, right? Then we all heave on it until something breaks.”
“Something inside the mechanism that propels the board?”
“Or the weapon. In which case we try again.”
Malden nodded, seeing the wisdom of this plan. “Very well. In that case-”
He stopped because Morget was already standing to one side of the door and pulling on its latch. Malden jumped back as the board of spikes came bursting into the room again, exactly as before. Morget roared and jumped between the board and the jamb. Instead of sacrificing one of his weapons, however, he got his own shoulder into the narrow space.
The clanging, ratcheting noise came again as the trap tried to reset itself. Morget’s face twisted into a grimace of pain as the back of the board tried to crush his body. Yet he was braced well and he pushed back with the arm he had thrust into the mechanism. The ratcheting noise made a pathetic series of clicks as the barbarian heaved and shoved, sweat breaking out across his forehead and running down across the red stain around his mouth.
And then something broke.
Malden couldn’t be sure at first if it was the mechanism or one of Morget’s bones. But a moment later the barbarian screamed in rage and gave one last heave, and the board tore away from its springs. It went flying across the room, inches from impaling Cythera, and then slid over the edge of the crevasse to disappear from sight. A moment later Malden heard it splash into the river below.
“Grab the door,” Morget howled. Croy rushed in to grab it before it could slam shut on Morget’s body. Slag ducked under the knight’s arm and attacked the spring on the door with a wide-bladed screwdriver. In a moment he had that spring disabled as well.
Morget stepped away from the mechanism and rolled his shoulder as if it was slightly sore.
“My way works, too,” he said.
“So much for the element of surprise, though,” Cythera pointed out. “That made enough noise that I’m sure even the demon heard it. We’d be wise to press on now and get away from here as quickly as possible, before it-or anything else-comes to investigate.”
“You mean the ghosts of elves?” Croy asked. “Do you sense them?”
Cythera shook her head, but she didn’t look particularly sure. “No
… but… there’s something here. Something that doesn’t want us to go any further.” She gave them all a weak smile. “Perhaps I’m just jumping at shadows.”
“Some shadows are more dangerous than others,” Morget pointed out. “The woman is right. We need to keep moving.”
Malden approached the open door and held his lantern inside. He could see the clockwork that had operated the trap, much of it now broken and bent out of shape. Beyond, there seemed to be a large open space. He crawled over the gears and into the room there, and then called back for everyone else to follow.
The room beyond the door had a low ceiling, though Morget was able to stand upright once he was inside. It was broader than it was deep, and the walls were of finely dressed stone. A pair of broad doorways led out of the room, farther into the city, but they could not be reached immediately because someone had constructed a barricade before them. It was a clumsy affair of broken furniture and low walls made of sacks filled with sand, studded all over with wooden spikes. The spikes pointed toward the door Malden had just come through. He approached one and gave it a push, and the wood collapsed under his finger, rotten through and as soft as paper. In fact the entire barricade looked like it might collapse into dust if he gave it a good kick. The furniture was falling apart and the sacks of sand had been nibbled at by insects until they leaked in a hundred places. “Ah. Well, this explains one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?” Croy asked.
“I wasn’t expecting that last trap to be triggered from that side because I expected all the traps were meant to keep anyone from getting out of the Vincularium. Clearly, though, the elves wanted just as much to keep anyone from getting in. Tell me, Croy, would this make a good defensive point to ward off invaders?”
“Yes, certainly,” the knight said. “Presumably the trap on the door would stop the first one who tried to come through. The noise it makes would alert you that someone was trying to come in. The invaders would be unlikely to fall for the trap twice, but by the time they disabled the mechanism, you could have a dozen archers here, protected by this defensive works, and they could hold off all but the most determined attackers.”
“The elves thought they were going to be attacked,” Malden said, climbing over the barricade. From the far side he could see how easily a man could duck down behind the gathered junk and be shielded from incoming attacks. “They must have believed that the humans would come in here after them and finish the job. The last thing they expected was that they would be sealed inside and left to rot.”
“Sounds good, lad,” Slag said. “Too bad your theory is horseshit.” The dwarf was busy examining the clockwork that had propelled the spiked board.
“Oh?” Malden asked.
“Two reasons. No elf ever built something this complicated. They lacked the skill. Secondly, the buggers all died off centuries ago.” He ran one finger across the teeth of a heavy gear. “But the oil on this thing is fresh.”
Chapter Thirty-one
“Then-someone else has been here. And recently,” Cythera said.
“Most like they’re still here,” Slag insisted. “And they didn’t want us coming in.”
Croy frowned. “It doesn’t seem like Morget’s demon would be capable of building that trap.”
“It had no hands,” the barbarian agreed. “The woman had a sense something was here. Now we know it’s more than just intuition. There’s someone else in here with us.”
“But who?” Croy demanded. “This place has been sealed tight for centuries. The demon seems able to come and go, but only because it can flatten itself so that it fits through narrow cracks in the earth. We know no human has ever despoiled this place-the chains out front were still intact, and their enchantment had never been discharged. Moreover, if any man of Skrae had ever come here before we would have heard the tale.”
“Grave robbers, perhaps,” Malden said, though that failed to counter most of Croy’s points. It was all he could think of.
For a while they all just stared at each other, fear passing from one to another as their eyes met. This was not something they’d prepared for.
“Whoever they are,” Slag said finally, “even if they didn’t hear all that noise-they’ll probably come check their trap from time to time. And when they do, they’ll see that someone broke their fucking toy. They’ll know we’re here, too.”
Croy drew Ghostcutter from its sheath. “We need to be on our guard from this point forward.” He saw Morget’s axe jump into his hand. “Everyone,” the knight said, “get back behind this barricade, while we scout the way forward.”
Morget moved without instruction to one of the two doors leading deeper into the Vincularium. The barbarian shoved his helmet down over his shaved head and nodded to indicate his readiness. Croy moved to the other door and stood to one side of it. Whoever constructed the door trap might even now be aware that it had been triggered. He had no conception of what might come to check on it, but he was ready. Carefully, in case there were more traps, he pushed down on the latch of his door. It swung open easily, revealing only darkness beyond.
If anyone was out there, they needed no light to see by. Croy considered extinguishing his group’s own lanterns, but he had fought in darkness too many times to think that wise. A man fighting without a light was as likely to strike down a friend as a foe. He looked across at Morget, who opened his own door. No spikes jumped out, nor did the ceiling of the barricade room fall in, nor did the room fill up with boiling oil. All to the good.
Lantern in one hand, sword in the other, Croy stepped through his door. Beyond lay a room so large his light failed to illuminate anything but the wall behind him. The floor was made of cobblestones like a city street, smoothed down by time and commerce until they were nearly as flat as flagstones. He took a few steps forward into the darkness but failed to find another wall. Soon he was standing in a rippling puddle of his own light, with
