They waited but heard nothing in reply. Besides the gusting wind, the mountain seemed silent.
Tomas rubbed his hands against his upper arms, trying to warm himself as the last sliver of sunlight disappeared. Then, through the fog, he saw it- what appeared to be a shadowy hollow in the side wall of the structure some ways down.
Tomas took a few steps towards it to get a better look. It was what he suspected- a hole in the wall itself, where the stone had been shattered and pushed inwards.
“Captain,” Tomas called out, pointing. “Look at that.”
Gharland picked his torch back up and made his way over to where Tomas had moved. The others followed, unsure.
With his torch out before him lighting the way, Gharland carefully approached the hole. It was larger than a man, as if a charging horse and carriage had ploughed through the very wall without stopping.
“What the fuck is that?” Styna shouted. Tomas could smell his rotten breath from several steps away.
Gharland drew his sword and shut the visor on his helmet. “Akurai,” he said. “Draw your weapons and follow me.”
The soldiers took out their swords and knives, nervously gathering around Gharland. Landry placed an arrow against the string of his bow. Tomas gulped upon realising he was unarmed.
“Ser,” Tomas said, presenting his shackles. “I’ll be worse than useless with these on.”
Gharland brooded for a moment before pulling the key from his side and handing it to Landry to unchain Tomas.
“Any funny business and I’ll kill you myself, got it?”
The shackles and chain dropped into the snow like a deadweight. Tomas rubbed his wrists, grateful to be finally free of his painful restraints. He was, however, still unarmed, but did not want to push his luck any further by asking for a weapon.
Tomas stuck to the back of the group as they entered the hole in the outer wall of the Repository. Gharland went first, sword in one hand and a flaming torch in the other, lighting up the way with a fiery orange glow.
They went into a dark corridor to the side of the main entrance foyer, lit only by their torches. There was no natural light penetrating through, and no candles from within.
The echoes of the howling wind boomed down the hallway like a ghostly call. Snow blew in through the hole in the wall and broken stones lay strewn across the tiled floor.
The wall was thick. Whatever broke through it was powerful.
“Stick with me,” Landry whispered to Tomas. “Don’t go out of my sight.”
Tomas nodded, patting Landry on the shoulder and standing close to his side.
The squad slowly paced down the long corridor towards the foyer. The main doors were indeed barricaded with an assortment of wooden benches, crates, planters, and marble plinths.
Whatever the Magisters could find, by the looks of it, was used to create an impromptu reinforcement.
“Should there be someone here to greet us?” Landry asked his captain.
Gharland remained silent, looking around for any sort of clue. “Let’s move in. Stick together but keep two paces between each of you. If we need to fight, we don’t want to be bunched up like cows for a slaughter.”
The phrase triggered a memory for Tomas. A dark memory.
A dozen lambs, all huddled together in panic.
His father and a huge cleaver.
The fear in their innocent eyes.
It made him shudder.
Gharland and the rest of the group pushed deeper into the Repository. Tomas could feel the tension around them like a thick, suffocating presence. The hairs on his arms and neck stood tall, and his skin prickled with bumps.
The torches cast long, unnatural shadows down the undecorated stone corridor like ghostly spectres. The interior was devoid of all colour.
Each step the men took further only heightened their fear. Every alcove and corner along the corridor could hold a Akurai soldier, or Creator-forbid, one of those beasts that slaughtered half their squad.
Doorways on their left and right led to dormitory rooms, storage spaces and meeting areas. Most of the doors had been left ajar, and each room was deserted and shrouded in darkness.
Some rooms looked as though they had been partially barricaded. The reinforcements, however, were smashed through and destroyed. Splintered wood, broken porcelain and shattered stone surrounded the piles of damaged debris.
Who had done this? What had done this?
Finally, they reached another set of large doors at the end of the corridor. Gharland pushed them open, sword pointing outwards, ready for anything. The men were hit in the face with a blast of cold air and a white light from above. It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust.
Tomas shielded his eyes with his hand, only to lower it and marvel at the enormous domed ceiling of glass rising hundreds of feet above them. Moonlight shone from high above, raining down heavenly white light.
The red star with its long, flaming tail appeared red-hot and larger in the sky than the last time Tomas had seen it.
The door from the hallway had led to the inner part of the Repository, a grand, circular sanctum filled with long rows of bookshelves and desks which spanned so far that they disappeared into the darkness.
Tomas heard some of the men’s breaths taken away upon seeing the inner structure of the Repository. Never had he seen as many books in one place. It must have been thousands of them. Tens-of-thousands.
It was truly marvellous, yet Tomas could not find it within him to even admire it. All he could focus on was whether they were alone in the ghostly, maze-like space.
Tomas noted that a section of the glass dome above was broken. The glass had been smashed and the metal frames twisted, leaving a gaping hole of jagged edges from which snow was slowly raining down like an elegant white shower
