I followed the murals and saw the monsters emerging from the darkness, their eyes flashing like candles.
“There are many types of monsters,” Eldon explained. “Some as wild as animals, most as evil and insidious as the worst of humans. I do not know which side was more to blame: we hunted them, and they hunted us. But we had no idea of the horrors we were unleashing. There were so many of them. They spread through the Under Earth, and many of our people were wiped out. Five of the ten realms were overrun by monster armies. Hundreds of thousands of our people were lost. The Brotherhood—an ancient order of wizards that oversees all people of the Under Earth—knew it was only a matter of time before they spread to the surface and claimed the entire earth as their own. The monsters’ realms were so deep they didn’t even know of the surface back then, but of course, our tunnels would lead them right to it. We had doomed the surface humans as well.”
He turned to me, and his blue eyes flashed with pride as he spoke.
“That was when the Brotherhood, led by Warlin the Wise, created a desperate defence against the monsters. He knew the people of the Under Earth could not do it alone; they needed reinforcements from the surface. They needed Monster Crushers.”
We slowly walked along the mural, and I saw hooded men forging weapons while others built elevators and winding stone staircases to the surface. I saw one grim bearded man creating a secret door in a walk-in closet, and I wondered vaguely if it was mine.
“There are fifty locations on the surface that we have tunnels to,” Eldon explained, “created throughout the centuries. In those places, fifty houses were built to shelter future warriors, each endowed with a powerful spell to select only worthy Monster Crushers. These warriors would find the entryways when the time was right and come to Arnwell Castle for training. The Brotherhood wanted surface humans for two reasons: they would defend the entryways to their homes with everything they had, and they also didn’t know enough about the monsters to truly fear them. Our children had lived entire lives in terror of the creatures, hearing stories from their wet nurses. But the surface humans could not possibly know what they would face until it was too late.”
He stopped in front of a golden statue of a particularly tall boy with tousled hair and a massive hammer slung over his back, his biceps bulging where they emerged from a tunic. He looked like a male model or something.
“And so those fifty young men became the first Monster Crushers. Each Monster Crusher received a group of Swords: five warriors chosen from both worlds to help them guard their tunnels and fight the wars of the Under Earth. They all trained here, and they fought and died bravely for hundreds of years after, and still do. Each is responsible for his own location, and no other. Monster Crushers cannot help another, nor can their Swords, for fear that they would leave their own tunnels unguarded. The Monster Crusher and his Swords must defend their tunnels, or doom the surface world.”
Eldon turned to me.
“Throughout all that history, only one location on the surface has ever had monsters leave the tunnels and kill civilians. That same town has been the centre of countless wars underground and has been the site of more battles than any in our long history. It is the focal point of the war, and today, it is the only place on earth where we know monsters are on the surface. Do you know what town that is?”
“I have a guess,” I murmured.
“Riverfield: home of the very first Monster Crusher, Daniel the Dragon Killer, and the home of some of the most famous Monster Crushers in history. Three of the statues in this room hail from your town. And that is where Laura Ledwick has found the elevator and thrust herself into the middle of the longest war in the history of mankind.”
I just stood there for a moment. I didn’t know whether to laugh at the ridiculousness of the story, cry that I was here, or just run away like I should have done twenty-five times by now. But instead I just looked at the statue, and then back at Eldon.
“Can’t we just pretend I didn’t find it?”
For the first time, Eldon laughed. It wasn’t really an amused laugh, but it was something. It echoed around the massive room, and then he shook his head sadly.
“No, Laura. We can’t pretend. When someone comes through, they must be trained, and then they must be tested by the Brotherhood. It’s the law. The Brotherhood are almost all gone, their magic faded, but the Monster Crushers were built on that law, and I won’t change it now. You will train to fight, and if you pass the tests, you will wield an Iron Hammer, and the identities of your five Swords will be revealed to you. What happens then, I do not know. But I have an educated guess.”
His smile was gone again.
“I am sorry, Laura. But you are the newest Monster Crusher, and you must do your job. If you don’t, the monsters will kill you regardless. When you opened that panel, you sealed your fate. And ours.”
I stared at him. That didn’t seem very fair. I had so many questions I couldn’t even pick one. There was no way I was ever coming back down here. I was going to go home, push everything I had in front of that secret panel, and pretend I had never seen any of this. Which, of course, led me to the one question I really needed to ask.
“Is my family in danger?”
“Yes,” he said. “But so is everyone else’s if you don’t protect Riverfield. I have Swords from the
