gloom. It was a Fomorii voice, insane and bestial. There were notes in it she had never heard before, so terrifying she clutched at her ears to drive it out, but the tumult continued until it ended in sudden silence. They were coming for her again.
'No more,' she pleaded in a broken voice. 'There's nothing left in me. I can't take anything else.'
She blinked away the tears, felt her head spin with the nauseating noises, waited, waited. There was a sound of metal on stone, some terrible torture instrument being dragged in. Blades, growing slicker, cogs turning, sparking pain that would consume her. The sounds grew closer, right outside the door now.
'Please,' she whimpered.
The lock turning. Click; a note of finality. Then slowly, slowly, swinging open. The light flooding in from outside, burning her eyes. And then the unbearable wait. She battened down her emotions, tried to think and feel nothing.
A figure was silhouetted in the flickering torchlight at the top of the flight of stone steps that led from her cell. It didn't make sense. Her head spun, her heart leapt with the rush of a hope she hardly dared accept.
The figure shifted, the torchlight sweeping over its torso, illuminating its face; a disbelieving grin of triumph. Words coming to her across the void between them.
'And the crowd went wild.'
Tears, no longer despairing, burned her cheeks. It was Veitch.
'Jesus Christ!' The jubilation on Veitch's face turned to horror when his eyes finally adjusted to the gloom enough to see Ruth huddled on the other side of the cell. It took a second for him to take in her filthy, matted hair, the dirt smeared across her skin, the unclean rag tied around her hand across the stump of her finger, but it was her face that affected him the most; it carried the weight of punishment and suffering to a degree that was painful to see. Yet despite that, at its core there was the defiance and strength he had recognised the first time he met her; diminished certainly, restrained, but still there. She had not been broken.
'Thank you.' Her voice sounded delirious.
Veitch threw himself down the stairs and sprinted across the cell, scrubbing at the spots of foul black ichor on his bare skin that burned like nettle sting.
'What's that?' Ruth said weakly, watching his actions; she seemed so detached she was barely conscious.
'Shit that came out of one of the Bastards. Blood, I suppose. Burns like fuck.' He knelt down and gripped her shoulders. 'Look, I know it's been a nightmare for you, but you've got to pull yourself together till we get out of here. I got in, but I don't know if I can get out again, and we're going to have every Bastard in here on our heels soon.'
'You came for me?' She couldn't seem to make sense of what he was saying.
'Couldn't leave you down here, could we?' The way she held her face up to him, slightly puzzled, slightly relieved, filled him with emotions he had never experienced in such an acute form before; there was a sharpness to them that almost made him wince, but a warmth too, and he knew at that moment that this was what he had been searching for all his life. He couldn't bear it if those feelings slipped away from him. 'Come on, girl,' he said softly. 'You and me against the world.'
At first he was afraid she wouldn't be able to walk and he'd have to carry her, but after he helped her to her feet she quickly grew steadier and soon she was moving across the cell without any aid. Outside the door she wrinkled her nose at the gruesome mess that smeared the corridor. Black and green slime was everywhere, along with chunks of matter and what looked like the horned, twisted remains of a Fomor; it appeared to have been hacked to pieces. Three crossbow bolts protruded from one part of it she couldn't recognise. Veitch retrieved them quickly and held them in the flame of one of the wall torches to burn the ichor off them.
'You did that?' she said.
Veitch couldn't tell if it was astonishment or horror he heard in her voice. 'You can't go in halfhearted. They'll tear you apart.' He paused, then added almost apologetically, 'I had to disable it with the bolts before I could move in. Probably wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. You know, wouldn't fancy one of them in a fair fight…' He realised he was starting to ramble and caught himself. 'Come on.'
He attempted to lead them back the way he had come, but the tunnel system was a maze and every turn looked alike. He had the horrible feeling they were going deeper into the heart of the complex. 'There was some big hall where they were all praying or something. If I could find that I'd know we were on the right track.'
'So we're lost?'
'Blimey, it's not Oxford Street down here!'
'It's okay. I wasn't criticising.' Her voice sounded weary; a wave of pain crossed her face.
He instantly felt guilty at bristling. 'I just need to get my bearings.'
They headed down the tunnel a little further and stopped outside a heavily sealed door. From behind it, they heard the unmistakable sound of birds; it was as if a whole flock had been imprisoned within.
'I've heard that before,' Ruth said.
'Want to check it out?'
'Best not.'
They both felt oddly uneasy in proximity to the door, even more than the heightened sense of tension they had experienced in their journey from the cell. But before they could decipher the clues presented to them, the very walls of the tunnel reverberated with the crazed sound of a tolling bell. It wasn't how Ruth had heard it before; it was relentless, jarring, and she wanted to clutch at her ears to drive the sound out.
'Shit, we've been rumbled.' Veitch recalled the first time he had heard the noise in the abandoned mines under Dartmoor, just before the Fomorii swarmed in pursuit. 'Come on!' he said insistently, grabbing her wrist. 'We haven't got any time now!'
They hurried onwards, Ruth desperately attempting to keep up, but they hadn't gone far when they heard a rising tide of Fomorii grunts and shrieks approaching them. Veitch cursed under his breath and pivoted, heading back the way they had come. He took the first side tunnel he came to, sighing with relief when the faint slope appeared to go upwards. Yet as they rounded a bend to the right they came up against a stream of fast- approaching Fomorii at the end of a long stretch of tunnel. The sudden roar that erupted from the mass as it surged like oil along the corridor was terrifying.
Veitch spun round again, putting his arm across Ruth's shoulders to propel her forward. 'It's like a fucking ant hill.' He took another branching tunnel and tried to batten down the cold weight of fear rising in his chest so Ruth wouldn't see it, but he knew they were rapidly running out of options.
This tunnel was sloping up too, but the clamour behind them was increasing in intensity, drawing closer. Even if they made it out of the tunnel, they had to get through the castle before they were safe.
Suddenly Ruth grabbed his arm and hauled him to a halt. 'We can't stop!' he snapped.
She was pointing to a trapdoor in the wall they had just passed. It was about four feet off the floor, the size of a domestic oven. Seemingly oblivious to the approaching noise, she pulled herself away from him and wrenched the door open. A cold blast of air surged out of a dark tunnel. 'We could hide in there,' she said exhaustedly. 'We're not getting anywhere running around.'
He could tell from her face she was aware of all the thoughts he had been trying to hide from her, but she seemed more determined than scared. He nodded. 'Let me go first, though. Just in case…'
He collapsed the arms of the crossbow and boosted himself. Ruth followed immediately behind his boot heels. She pulled the trapdoor shut behind them, plunging them into an all-encompassing darkness. It was freezing cold in the tunnel, and intensely claustrophobic. Veitch had to wriggle to get his shoulders forward; he was uncomfortably aware of the weight of rock pressing down upon his back.
Shivering, they lay as still as they could, until they heard the awful sound of the pursuing Fomorii rushing up the tunnel. Their blood ran cold; it was like the screech of demons surging out of hell, hungry for souls. As the creatures approached the trapdoor, Veitch screwed his eyes tight, listening to the noise, wishing he couldn't hear it, waiting for the flood of light as the trapdoor was pulled open. And then they would be torn from their hiding place, ripped apart in a blood-frenzy of tearing claws and rending jaws. Any second now. He winced, waited.
But the sound carried on, up to the door, past it, and along the tunnel until it dwindled into the distance. 'They'll realise they missed us in a minute or two and they'll be back. We have to get out of here,' he hissed.
'We can't go out there.' Ruth's disembodied voice floated on the air. 'They'll be looking everywhere. We don't stand a chance. You'll have to crawl on to see where this tunnel goes.'
