'If we can hold them off, at least the others can get through.'
'We're doing this all the way to the Enemy?'
'Probably.'
From the shadows emerged a figure, eight feet tall with rusty iron plates on chains at the front and back of his body, muscular arms smeared with blood. He wore a helmet of smaller iron plates bolted together haphazardly. The now-deafening grating came from an enormous sword that he dragged behind him. Church and Veitch recognised the Iron Slaughterman from the description Mallory had given them of his encounter with the being in Ogma's library.
In the flickering torchlight, twenty figures swarmed around him, keeping low. They had the heads of wolves and rats but the bodies of men, snapping at the air in a hunting frenzy. Behind them, Church could just make out further movement, like clouds of smoke unfolding towards him.
'How are you doing?' Church called out.
'Still clinging on, if that's what you mean,' Ruth shouted back.
Without slowing his step, the Iron Slaughterman began to swing the sword, which was as big as he was. Veins bulged on his straining sinews and the rusty, bloodstained sword began to gather speed in an arc.
'He's never going to hit us with that big bleedin' thing,' Veitch mocked.
The sword swung round and round over the Iron Slaughterman's head as he ran. At the last he lowered the angle so it drove towards Church and Veitch, who leaped out of the way. The sword hit the flags with such explosive force that chunks of stone hurtled through the air. Church and Veitch were thrown from their feet, and a massive fissure opened in the floor.
Snapping and snarling, the wolves and rats attacked. Church rolled back to his feet, bringing Caledfwlch up sharply to bisect one from groin to shoulder, and then taking the head off another. Veitch had already despatched three, but the others were darting and retreating, trying to get past Church and Veitch to their more vulnerable companions.
Heaving his sword off the ground and whirling it in another slow, powerful arc, the Iron Slaughterman attacked again. Church ducked beneath the whistling blade at the last second and it crashed through a marble pillar, bringing down part of the ceiling in a cloud of billowing dust.
'Bastard's going to bring this place down around us.' Veitch coughed as he and Church took the opportunity to retreat a few paces, unseen. When the dust cleared, Church saw a figure floating a foot in the air behind the attackers. Bone-white skin framed by black hair, becoming black skin and white hair, and back. Janus, the god of doorways and new beginnings, raised his golden key and ironwood stick, one to open the path, the other to drive away those who had no right to cross the threshold.
'Brothers of Dragons,' he said in a scraping voice. 'Your doors shall be closed for ever.'
Above them, they heard a cry of exultation from Ruth, and then a door ground open in the wall behind them.
'You see, that's irony,' Church said to Janus.
'This place is winding down, and all places joined to it,' Janus continued. 'The lamps are going out. The doors are closing one by one by one. You cannot hold back the dark.'
'We're the ones who carry the light,' Veitch said defiantly. 'A little blue spark, and that'll never go out.'
As the rats and wolves circled, Church said to Janus, 'You're a god. You're not controlled by the Anubis Box — you've still got free will. Why did you choose to side with the Void and the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders?'
'I am not just a god. I am Divom Deus, the gods' God. The first. I am one of the Oldest Things in the Land.'
Before Church had a moment to reflect on what Janus had said, one of the rat creatures darted under his guard and flung itself into the newly opened doorway to block their retreat. It had only backed a few paces into the space beyond the door when the tubular corridor began to revolve and axes swung like pendulums at intermittent spaces along the way. One blade planted itself firmly in the rat creature's chest. With a strangled, bestial cry, it fell to the floor in a gout of blood and began to revolve and fall, revolve and fall.
'That was a spot of luck,' Veitch said.
'The warrior told us the path to the gate had been booby-trapped.' Church retreated with Veitch to the door. 'This might only be a part of it.'
Ruth joined them in the entrance to the revolving corridor as the Iron Slaughterman launched another attack. The sword ripped through wall and floor, bringing another deluge of masonry from the precarious ceiling.
'Let me go first! Follow my steps!' Ruth shouted above the roar of falling stonework. Darting into the revolving corridor, she performed intricate steps to dodge and duck the pendulum axes while fighting to keep her balance. Church held his breath as more than one came within a hair's breadth of her, but then she was through to the other side, urging Shavi, then Laura to follow.
The rat and wolf creatures leaped, snarling, only to be cut down by Church and Veitch. Another assault by the Iron Slaughterman tore through the walls on either side of the door, forcing Miller and Virginia to fall to their knees screaming as Tom dived into the revolving corridor.
Resonant creaks and groans warned them that the entire stone ceiling was about to come down. Once Tom, Miller and Virginia had made it through the axes, Church and Veitch followed, dancing amongst the blades with such balletic skill that they made it appear effortless.
Ruth waited at the foot of a winding stone staircase. She held up a hand to halt Church and Veitch, then jabbed her spear up the stairs. Blades shot out from both walls and snapped back into place; they would have sliced off the legs of anyone climbing them.
With the sounds of pursuit drawing closer along the revolving corridor, Ruth yelled, 'See the gaps in the walls from which the blades extend? If you're careful, you can go over and under.'
'We haven't got time to be careful,' Veitch barked. 'Move!'
Almost rigid with fear, Virginia was helped by Ruth and Miller. The others followed as quickly as they could. The ka-ching of the blades became a steady, terrifying beat as they worked their way up the steps. A cry rang out as one clipped Tom's boot and he sprawled, narrowly missing another blade. His stream of abuse told everyone he was all right.
A quaking at the foot of the steps warned Church that the Iron Slaughterman was close behind, the sound of shattering blades revealing how he was putting his sword to good use.
Freezing air, brilliant white light and the dying blizzard greeted them as they stumbled from the top of the steps onto a stone terrace on the side of the mountain. Across a dizzying gulf, on another rocky slope of the range, they could just make out what had to be the Groghaan Gate, a soaring arch of gleaming gold. A bridge had once spanned the gulf between the two peaks, but it had been shattered at intervals so that sections were suspended on either side of columns that dropped down into the white wastes below.
'We're never going to get across there,' Veitch said, peering over the lip of the first section of bridge. Vertigo made him wobble and he took a step back from the edge.
'Then we make our stand here,' Church said.
5
In the chamber in the depths of the Halls of the Drakusa, Jack frantically wrenched at the door handle, but it remained resolutely closed.
Standing his ground before the chained giant, Hunter's face revealed the strain of keeping the creature out of his thoughts.
'Who are you?' Hunter asked.
'Who are you?' the giant said.
'Okay, we could keep doing this all day, but it's already getting old.'
'Getting old.'
Wiping away a dribble of blood from his left nostril, Hunter continued, 'Clearly the Drakusa saw you as too much of a threat to leave you wandering around. Are you responsible for all the bones in the basement?'
'Bones.'
