rock. The beat emanated from somewhere ahead.
The tunnel wound steadily upwards, presenting occasional rough-hewn steps for them to climb, the beat growing louder the closer they drew to the source. Soon it was ringing off the stone walls and vibrating beneath their feet.
Boom-Boom-Boom
They entered a large hall that smelled of sulphur and coal, with enormous furnaces along opposite walls, still black with soot, the tools of the smiths protruding from the dead cores. Half-completed swords and chain mail rusted on the ground amidst anvils and scattered hammers.
'Looks like we've found the back door into the Halls of the Drakusa,' Hunter said.
'If the others got in, we could meet up with them.' Jack's eyes gleamed with hope. 'I was afraid we might have to go back the way we came.'
Beyond, another chamber was given over to industrial production, but here its purpose was less clear: a faint chemical smell hung over benches covered with glass bottles and jars. Bones had been swept into the corners. Mysterious implements lay abandoned on the floor and on the benches, as if the occupants had been rudely disturbed.
The floor of the following chamber was covered with runes and ritual marks, and contained an overwhelming atmosphere of threat. Hunter and Jack couldn't bear to tarry in it for too long.
Finally the booming was so painful they had to cover their ears. The source was a huge iron door set in the wall of a long corridor, but the moment Hunter grabbed the handle with both hands and dragged the door open, silence fell.
Jack futilely urged his friend not to venture into the room, but Hunter's curiosity had got the better of him.
The chamber was lit by a shaft of natural sunlight falling from an incredible height overhead. Stone steps wound around the walls up the dizzying stretch to whatever lay in the dim upper reaches. The floor of the chamber was occupied by a giant with a brutish, bare, heavily scarred torso, its head covered with a leather hood, its arms outstretched and fastened to the floor by shackles. It was stock-still, head cocked, listening.
'How long has it been here?' Jack whispered.
'The Drakusa disappeared long before the Tuatha De Danaan arrived on the scene… an age ago.'
'All that time? What does it feed on?'
'What does it feed on?' the giant repeated.
Jack started. 'It heard me. It can speak.'
Hunter pushed Jack back towards the door. As they stepped out of the chamber, the giant wrenched at its chains again and again, creating the deafening booming sound they had followed.
Hunter took them back into the chamber and it stopped, waiting.
'It's been trying to break free all this time,' Hunter observed.
'It's been trying to break free,' the giant repeated.
'Why is it mimicking what we say?' Jack asked.
'I don't think it is,' Hunter replied thoughtfully. 'Let's forget how it survived all this time. Why did the Drakusa imprison it here?'
The giant continued to listen intently.
'I don't like it,' Jack decided.
'One hundred and ninety-three cried like a baby,' the giant said.
'What's it talking about?' Jack asked before he saw Hunter staring, mouth open.
'Sixty-seven spilled blood and urine on the tiles,' the giant continued.
'Get out of my head!' Hunter shouted.
'What's it saying?' Jack asked. 'What's one hundred and ninety-three and sixty-seven?'
'Never you mind. Let's get out of here.'
The door slammed shut. A lock fell into place.
'You're here now,' the giant said.
4
The thunder of the barricaded door being torn open echoed through the halls, and was followed by a grinding, metallic sound of something being dragged over the stone flags.
'Dammit,' Church said under his breath. They were only three halls away from where he and Veitch had discovered the sign in the dust.
'Did you really think you'd be given a free run right up to the gates of the Enemy?' Tom mocked. 'They're going to be hunting and harrying you at every turn. The Void won't want to risk you getting anywhere near enough to do any damage. Everything at their disposal will have been put in place long ago to keep you away — spies, traitors, hunting parties, the kind of sentinels that can't be avoided, that never stop.'
'Why didn't you say this before?' Church said sharply.
'What was the point? You never had any chance of getting through. Better to let you keep your hopes up to the last.'
'And now you've decided to get my hopes down?'
Refusing to answer any further questions, Tom moved away, but Church was already wondering if he'd made the wrong decision to suspect Virginia. Was Tom's comment about spies and traitors a cry for help?
The grinding metallic sound drew closer. 'They're outpacing us,' Veitch said, glancing back. 'We could barricade each door we pass through, but I don't reckon it'll do us much good.'
'Better hope we get to the gate back to Summer-side pretty quick, then.'
'You think they're going to stop at the gate? We've lost any advantage we had crossing through this God- forsaken place. They're going to be straight on us the minute we crash back into the Far Lands.'
Ruth had overheard their conversation as she helped Miller and Virginia, who were flagging. 'We have to stop them here. It's the only way.'
Ahead, Tom and Shavi conferred intensely. 'We both feel we are near to the gate,' Shavi said, 'but we cannot find the way.'
'The warrior said we had to find the Heart of the Drakusa if we wanted to get to the Groghaan Gate.' Church peered around the gloomy chamber, but it appeared to be as bare and forlorn as all the others.
The line of sight through the great doors of the chambers revealed flickering lights in the distant dark.
'Now would be a good time for inspiration,' Laura said.
Everyone except Church rushed to search the chamber with urgency, dragging blocks of masonry aside, brushing the thick grime and cobwebs from crumbling murals, sweeping away the dust covering the flags. The echoes of the metallic grinding filled the room.
'The heart of a warrior,' Church mused aloud. 'The heart. Brave. Fearless. Aspiring… no, no, reaching… for greatness…' A connection was made. Quickly, but methodically, Church began to investigate the walls, trying to see into the shadows that clustered overhead.
As Church moved the lantern, it brought a subtle shift in slivers of shadow on the stone near him: revealing protrusions only a few inches wide. Broadly spaced footholds wound up into the dark, invisible to the casual eye. He called the others over as the lights drew into the adjoining chamber.
'I'll go,' Ruth said, handing her spear to Church.
'No, you'll break your neck.' Veitch tried to pull her back. 'No one's gonna get up there.'
Ruth threw him off. 'I'll go,' she said fiercely. 'I'm lighter, more agile-'
'And if anyone's going to break their neck it ought to be her,' Laura said.
Pressed flat against the wall, Ruth put one foot on the lowest step and reached for the next. She had to stretch her fingers to find even the flimsiest handhold, and then, with a shaky, precarious step, she leaped to the next stone. When she almost fell from the fifth step, now well above their heads, Veitch had to look away.
'Get underneath to break her fall,' he said to Laura as he turned to join Church facing the approaching lights. 'We're going to have to fight.'
