Page 24

Chapter Fourteen

“ N o!” Gawain spun around just as the door vanished behind them.

He’d been prepared for weapons, guards, hellhounds, or even just an empty house, but not this.

They’d stepped through a portal and now there was no telling where they actually were.

“Magic,” he growled, taking a tighter grip of his sword.

A pale, ambient light seeped from the scum growing along the walls. It was just enough to make out the fact that they were underground. Tiny caves and corridors rambled in all directions, making him think of a rabbit warren. The prevailing smell, however, was of something dead.

“How did we get here?” Tamsin said in a barely audible voice.

“The doorway was a portal,” Beaumains explained. “This is fae work. I’ve seen this kind of tunneling before.”

“A portal? I didn’t feel anything like that when I checked the door for spells.” Tamsin shook her head. “But then I’ve never seen a portal. Witches don’t know how to make them anymore.”

Gawain used his sword to poke the wall where the door had been, but all he got was a shower of dirt. They were in deep trouble.

“What now?” Beaumains asked.

“We look for a way back,” Gawain replied, trying to sound as though he did this sort of thing every day. Well, he had, up until Merlin had put them all into the stone sleep. He started down a corridor, signaling the others to follow.

Roots poked through the walls and ceilings as if a forest grew above them, but he noticed the pale, twining fingers twitch whenever someone drew near.

“Stay back,” Gawain warned, but even as he said it a tendril wound around Beaumains’s arm, whipping twice around for a tight hold and dragging the young knight closer to the wall.

Gawain severed the root with a two-handed swipe of his blade.

Beaumains sprang free, and every root in the passage recoiled, as if sucked back into the dirt.

“Binding trees!” Beaumains said it like a curse. “We’re in a fae dungeon.”

“Stay away from the walls,” Gawain ordered. “As long as they can’t reach you, it’s safe enough.”

Tamsin had watched and listened with wide, watchful eyes. “If Mordred has linked the house with a dungeon, then this must be where he’s holding your friend.”

Gawain had already reached the same conclusion. “Probably, so we might as well start looking for Angmar.”

Staying well away from the grasping roots, they continued down the tunnel, Gawain in the lead and Beaumains covering the rear.

Gawain was almost painfully conscious of Tamsin moving behind him.

She was strong, but the quick pace of her breathing said she was afraid.

That was good—that meant she’d be careful.

Everything went well for a few minutes. The foul stench in the air grew thicker and Gawain noticed the cell-like caves on either side of the corridor began to contain remains of former occupants.

Mostly these were bones, but in a few he noticed the roots thrust into desiccated husks, fine shoots sucking up every last drop of nourishment.

And then he heard a sound he had hoped to forget forever. It was a sticky sound, almost a squish, but on an enormous scale, as if a thousand sucking mouths were being torn away from their prey. Despite himself, Gawain stopped short, causing Tamsin to bump into his back.

“What is it?” she asked.

“There is a beast guarding this place.” He turned to glimpse his brother’s pale face. Beaumains recognized the sound, too. It was plain from the horror in his eyes. “Merlin cast a spell to banish demons from the human realms, but this is fae territory. Some of the demons’ pets survived.”

“Pets?” Tamsin repeated. From her expression, this was something she did not want to believe. “Demons have pets?”

Beaumains grimaced. “More like scavengers looking for scraps the demons leave behind. The prisoners in this place must be protected by magic, or they would all have been supper by now.”

The sound grew louder, and so did a stench that combined rot and the odor of a latrine. “Stay behind me,” Gawain ordered, taking a firmer grip on his sword and stepping into a wider place where the tunnel turned.

There was no name for the beast he saw. The gray worm-like body was covered with mucous that glistened in the faint phosphorescence of the underground.

The head was an eyeless nub, identifiable only by a bony fanlike crest that rose along its neck.

It would have been no more than an overgrown slug except for the round, questing mouth filled with needle-fine teeth.

Gawain knew once it had latched onto living flesh, it would suck the blood out of a victim through skin, bone and clothing.

Nothing short of death would stop its destruction.

The worm stopped, the head lifting to taste the air. Gawain could see the mouth working, the round hole gulping air. He caught a flash of those deadly teeth and went cold. Somewhere down the corridor, closer to the beast, a voice wailed in terrified despair. They had found the prisoners.

Beaumains was at his side, sword in hand. “What I wouldn’t give for a nice big spear about now.”

“Spears just pass through the stinking things,” Gawain replied. “It’s like trying to kill a pudding. The only vital organs are beneath the crest. Strike there.”

“I suppose you’ve battled one before?”

Gawain grunted. “Back in the Orkneys. The things seem to like northern climates.”

“You’ve fought everything,” Beaumains said resentfully, and bolted toward the worm, sword raised.

Gawain bellowed in protest. A frontal attack was pure folly.

The worm reared back as far as the tunnel roof would permit and struck like a snake.

Skidding to a halt beneath its head, Beaumains thrust upward, driving toward the underside of the bony crest protecting the tiny brain. The brave gamble should have worked.

It didn’t. The worm struck, needle-fine teeth piercing between the links of chain mail covering his brother’s chest. Fingers convulsing around the hilt of his sword, Beaumains was lifted into the air as lightly as a leaf.

Tamsin gasped in horror at the same moment Gawain charged, cursing his youngest sibling for a fool.

Beaumains roared with pain, trying to hack with his sword but unable to do more than flail.

The worm was the size of a tree trunk, far too large to neatly slice it in two.

With grim purpose, Gawain settled for chopping like a woodcutter.

It was a risky move, but the thing only had one mouth, and at the moment it was full of his brother.

Fury drove the blade deep. The skin split, releasing gelatinous goo that stank like a plague pit.

The worm shuddered, flinging its head from side to side—and Beaumains along with it.

Gawain hacked again, using the blade like a lever to hitch himself atop the worm.

The thing bucked, arching the spiny crest in a gesture of self-defense, but Gawain clung on.

He raised the sword and drove it deep into the head, leaning with all his weight until it was buried to the hilt.

The worm collapsed into a stinking heap. The sucking mouth let go, and Beaumains fell, landing with a bounce. Gawain braced his knees on either side of the sword hilt and pulled it free with a slurping noise that made his flesh creep.

By the time Gawain had freed himself from the worm, Tamsin was evaluating his brother’s injuries. “I think the chain mail stopped it from killing him, but there are dozens of puncture wounds. I dusted them with heal-all to stop the bleeding, but they have to be cleaned.”

“We need to get him home,” Gawain said with forced calm. Beaumains was conscious, though clearly in pain. Gawain swore a dark curse beneath his breath. He had little idea where they were, much less how to get his brother to safety.

Tamsin looked up at him, her dark eyes wide but her mouth set in a determined line. “Tell me what to do.”

“Can he walk?”

“Yes.” Beaumains struggled, his boots scraping the floor. Gawain heaved him to his feet and helped him sheathe his sword. The younger knight slumped, one hand on Gawain’s shoulder, panting against the pain. “I’m fine. No bones broken. It’s just a flesh wound.”

Gawain schooled his face, hating what he was asking Beaumains to endure—but the only alternative was to move on.

He hitched a shoulder under his brother’s arm and chose a corridor that was absent of the reeking carcass of a giant worm.

They forged ahead, Beaumains biting back cries of discomfort until they were no more than a soft hiss.

The next cells they found still had live prisoners—or close to living. All were fae, their beautiful features barely recognizable beneath matted hair and festering wounds. Gawain’s gut grew colder with each step. He was no stranger to prisons, but this was beyond anything he had ever seen.

He almost missed the slight stir of movement in the last cell, but something caught his eye.

Or maybe, buried deep in a part of himself he denied, he heard a silent cry for help.

He stopped and peered into the darkness.

All he could see was a pile of rags and a white smudge that might have been a faery’s pale hair, but he still knew who it was. “Angmar.”

“What’s left of him.” The voice was a dry whisper. “You said you would come, knight. I should have had more faith.”

Tamsin shuddered, her healer’s senses pushed to the limit. Everywhere in this place, sickness and pain howled at her to fix them, pounding at her magic at a bone-deep level. Most were too damaged to help, but Angmar of Corin still lived.

She pushed forward, straining to see in the poor light.

Angmar lay in a crumpled heap, one arm twisted in a way that said it was broken.

His face was a bloody mass of slashes and swollen bruises.

Nausea stirred in the back of her throat, but she kept her voice brisk.

“He’s bound with those tree roots. Help me get them off. ”

But Gawain was still supporting his brother. “Let me sit down,” said Beaumains, his face slick with sweat. “I need to rest.”

Reluctantly, Gawain lowered him to the ground. Beaumains gripped his chest, eyes closed and face drained of color. Gawain met Tamsin’s eyes. She didn’t blame him for the worry in his eyes. Unless they got out of there, the prognosis wasn’t great.

Gawain moved to join her, mouth fixed in a grim line as he took a closer look at Angmar. “This is Mordred’s handiwork. I recognize his flair.”

He reached for his sword, but then stopped. “The roots are bound too tight to cut them without cutting flesh as well.”

Tamsin crouched, studying the problem. She was aware of Angmar’s eyes following her every move, but he didn’t speak again.

He probably had no strength left. The thick white tendrils were taut around Angmar’s body, the tips burrowing into the skin.

She thought of the dead she had seen, sucked dry by the binding trees.

She pointed to the roots. “I can give these bad boys a good smack.” Keeping her voice light for Angmar’s sake, she looked up at Gawain. “I know how much you like magic. You might want to back away for this.”

“Just do it,” Gawain said.

Tamsin nodded and opened her belt pouch.

She’d stored the heal-all powder in a gray silk drawstring bag.

She sprinkled it lightly over the roots, careful not to let any fall on Angmar.

Then she closed her eyes and chanted a scrap of forbidden magic she’d learned from her father’s book.

It was one of the few dark spells she knew, and one she kept to herself.

It reversed the properties of other spells, turning heal-all into a deadly, corrosive acid.

The tattoo around her wrist burned like a brand.

Dark energy convulsed through her like sudden sickness, making her cry out in disgust—but the effect was instant.

A hiss of foul smoke flared up from the roots, their ropy surface bubbling.

Tamsin coughed, her eyes stinging from the fumes, then she signaled to Gawain to stand ready.

After writhing and squirming, the roots whipped free of Angmar like snakes in retreat, coiling back to the walls with an eerie keening noise.

Tamsin and Gawain grabbed Angmar and pulled him to safety, putting him down next to Beaumains.

A giddy rush of relief made Tamsin’s head swim, but the next instant she was on her knees, checking the fae’s injuries.

His right arm was broken in two places, but thankfully the bones had not penetrated the skin.

She pulled off her sweater, tying it around him to immobilize the arm.

Angmar moaned in pain, bringing a rush of tears to her own eyes, but she kept working.

She had no choice. This was her battleground, as surely as Gawain’s was the field of war.

Gawain paced behind her, tension swirling around him like a second cloak. “This isn’t getting you any closer to finding your books,” he said wryly.

She checked the pulse in Angmar’s broken arm. It wasn’t strong, but at least circulation wasn’t completely impaired. “I’m where I need to be.”

“Trapped in a dungeon?” His tone was sarcastic, but the pain in his eyes said the anger was turned on himself. “There has to be a doorway here. This is where the occupied cells are, so surely Mordred has an easy way of getting in and out of this end of the prison. I am too blind to see it.”

Tamsin could hear Gawain’s self-reproach in every word. “Don’t beat yourself up. You’ve kept us alive. We can’t fight back if we’re dead.”

He gave her a half smile. “You have the spirit of a warrior, Tamsin Greene.”

A warm twinge of pleasure surged through her, but she simply shrugged and went to check on Beaumains.

He sat silently, slumped forward with his eyes hazed with pain.

She touched his cheek, feeling the burn of a fever.

The heal-all was working, but it could only do so much.

It was plain he needed more help than she could provide without her full array of healer’s potions.

“I wish I knew how to find that portal,” she said under her breath.

Angmar stirred, his eyes flickering open to bloodshot slits. He reached up and caught her wrist, his one good hand still surprisingly strong. His cracked lips moved, but no sound emerged. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’ve seen it.”