Once In a Blue Moon (18 page)

“What could be worse than demons?” said Clarence.

“The whole village make their living out of this mine,” said Richard. “Either we solve their problem or they put all their worldly possessions on their backs and walk out. On the road, with children, with winter coming. I said I’d help. I won’t let these people down. So I have to go in. But I’ve no right to ask you to come in with me. Not after what happened in the Darkwood.”

“Oh hell,” said Peter. “Whatever’s in there can’t be as bad as the Darkwood.”

“Right,” said Clarence. “Nothing could be that bad.”

“Piece of cake,” said Peter.

“Walk in the gardens,” said Clarence.

“I’d run if I had any sense,” said Peter.

“Me too,” said Clarence.

“You think you’re so funny,” said Richard. He transferred the torch to his left hand so he could draw his sword. Peter took the shield off his back and put it on his left arm and drew his sword. Clarence produced the flask of cider brandy and put it to his lips, finishing it off with a few quick swallows. He breathed heavily and drew his sword. Peter chuckled briefly.

“I wondered where that flask had got to.”

“Not a bloody jester,” said Clarence. “Let’s do this.”

They all looked at one another, and once again it was Richard who led the way in. He strode forward into the mine entrance, his back straight and his head held high. Peter and Clarence hurried after him, to walk at his sides. And if any of them were in any way bothered by the darkness, none of them showed it.

•   •   •

T
he entrance quickly became a corridor, hacked out of the mountain rock, heading down. Just a rough passageway, propped up here and there with wooden beams and timber overheads of varying age and quality. The floor was bare stone, dark and dusty, worn smooth with long use. It was completely dark once they were inside the mine, and every sound seemed to echo forever. Richard held his torch high, but its light didn’t travel far, so they always seemed to be moving through the dark in their own pool of unsteady sulphur yellow light.

Clarence’s face was set and grim, and almost immediately slick with a sheen of cold sweat. Peter’s gaze darted from one moving shadow to another, never still, and his hand gripped the hilt of his sword so tightly that his fingers ached. Richard stared straight ahead, and the hands that held his torch and his sword were entirely steady. Because he was the Prince, their leader and their friend, and because he’d got them into this, he had a duty to be confident enough for all of them.

The only sounds in the down-bound corridor were the scuffing of their boots on the bare floor and their own harsh breathing. So Richard could tell when Clarence’s breathing became quicker and unsteady. Richard made a point of looking round at Clarence, and smiling at him reassuringly. Clarence immediately straightened up and took control of himself, because he would rather die than let his friends down, or seem less of a man in front of them. Richard looked at Peter, who looked steadily back at him. Richard grinned suddenly.

“It’s dark, it’s cold, and it’s spooky—and none of it one-tenth as bad as the Darkwood. I don’t think there’s anything left that can scare us properly anymore. Not after that shithole . . .”

“Speak for yourself,” said Peter, smiling in spite of himself. “Being scared in dangerous situations is good. Keeps you sharp, gives you an edge.”

“Then I am sharper and edgier than you will ever be,” said Clarence. “How far down are we? Feels like we’ve been descending for ages.”

“We’ve barely started,” said Peter. “Some of these old mines go down for miles.”

“I just knew you were going to say that,” said Clarence.

The passageways became increasingly squat and narrow as they continued, the stone ceilings lowering in fits and starts until they all had to walk stooped to avoid banging their heads. The air smelled bad, and discoloured water ran down the walls in sudden rushes. There were more tunnels leading off, extensions that were little more than large holes, exposing new seams. But no matter how much the main corridor branched and deviated, there were always more chalk arrows to point them in the right direction. On, and down. Always down.

Richard made sure he was always a few steps ahead of the others, leading the way. Whatever was down here, he was determined to find and face it first. Because this had all been his idea, so he had to be the one who first endured whatever was coming. His thinking on that wasn’t entirely clear, but he clung to it anyway. The slope of the floor grew steadily more inclined as they went deeper and deeper into the earth, into the dark. Still more chalk arrows on the walls, pointing ahead, and down. The three of them kept going, descending through tunnels and galleries, past crumbling rock faces, under low ceilings where sudden drops of dust and rubble made them jump. Richard found he was having trouble deciding just how deep they’d come, or even how long they’d been travelling. Some of the chalk arrows were starting to look very fresh. Even . . . unfinished.

“I think we’re almost there,” said Peter, and the other two looked round sharply. It had been a while since any of them had spoken. The dark and the silence and the claustrophobic surroundings didn’t encourage chatter. Richard stopped abruptly, and the others stopped with him. The torch was still burning and its light was still steady, but Richard suddenly wasn’t at all sure how much longer it would last. It would be really bad to be caught in the dark without a light. He looked around him, and made out several small oil lamps, set into niches in the stone walls. He pointed them out to Peter and Clarence, and they moved quickly to grab several and light them from the torch. Set back into their niches, the lamps shed fresh new light . . . that served only to show just how narrow a tunnel they were in.

“How do the miners stand it, working in conditions like this every day?” said Clarence.

“Because they’re harder men than we are,” said Peter.

“Let them be Prince for a day, and see how they like it,” said Richard.

“Oh, I think they could manage,” said Peter.

“I think . . . this is where we’re supposed to be,” said Clarence. “No more chalk arrows, those lamps still had fresh oil in them . . . and look at the floor. Signs of a struggle, fighting. Some dried blood, but no bodies.”

“Make a tracker out of you yet,” said Peter. “Something bad happened here, Richard, and not long ago either.”

They all held themselves very still and very quiet, looking and listening. The tunnel dropped sharply away before them, heading down to the new coal face. No more side tunnels, or branchings. Nowhere else to go. And then . . . there were noises, up ahead, past the dropped floor. In the dark beyond the light. Richard found a wall holder and put his torch into it so he would have both hands free. For whatever was coming. The three men stood together, swords at the ready. The noises were getting closer. Knockings, from behind or perhaps even inside the tunnel walls. Just like the Mayor had said. As though something, or a lot of somethings, was trying to break through from the other side. What had the miners found, down here, in the dark and in the deep? What had they disturbed? More sounds now, skittering and pattering, moving lightly across the hard floor, coming up the tunnel to meet them.

Richard and Peter and Clarence strained their eyes against the gloom outside the light. At first they thought they were seeing dancing lamps or lanterns, bobbing along in the dark. It wasn’t until the things were almost close enough to enter the pool of light that Richard was able to make out what they were. What they had to be. Things he’d heard described only in old songs and stories. Clarence was the one to remember their name, of course. And to whisper it aloud.

“Kobolds . . .”

It had been a long, long time since anyone had dug deep enough to disturb these creatures of the deeps, of the deep dark places. Shimmering chalk white things, with their own phosphorescence; roughly human in shape but in no way human. Shuffling and scuffling along like oversized insects, they hopped and leapt, jumping back and forth with horrid speed, moving over and around one another with brutal indifference. With hunched backs and overlong limbs, with bony faces that had sharp, jutting horns and jaws full of heavy teeth, but no eyes at all. Because they had no need for them.

Dozens, hundreds, of the things, rising up out of the deep dark, and some of them scurried along the floor, and some ran along the walls, and some clung to the low ceiling.

Richard took a single step forward and raised his sword. Even then, face-to-face with things that didn’t even have faces and didn’t move in any human way, he still tried to talk to them. Because he was a Prince. Because it was their territory. But even as he spoke, the kobolds threw themselves at him, clawed hands reaching for his throat and his heart. Richard’s sword swung through a short, vicious arc and sheared clean through a kobold’s throat and out again. Dark blood spurted on the air and the kobold fell, to kick and scrabble helplessly on the floor as the life ran out of it. The other kobolds ignored it, surging forward inhumanly quickly, and Richard and Peter and Clarence stood their ground and cut them down with their swords. Steel flashed in the unsteady light, hacking through shimmering flesh and brittle bone. And not one kobold could reach them. For a while.

The three young men stood close together, blocking the narrow passageway, so the kobolds couldn’t get past them to reach the surface and the village. Their swords rose and fell, carving flesh and juddering on bone, and dark blood flew in all directions. The kobolds didn’t cry out when they were hit, or when they fell, or even when they died. Richard fought with style, Peter with practiced skill, and Clarence with an almost despairing bravado. They struck down every kobold that came within reach, whether the creatures rose up before them, or launched themselves from the walls, or reached down from the ceiling. The three young men would not be moved, and nothing got past them. The kobold dead began to pile up in front of them, forming a horrid barricade so that the kobolds had to scramble over their own dead to get to the humans. It didn’t seem to bother them.

Given the narrowness of the corridor, the kobolds could come at the humans only a few at time, and for a while that gave the three men the advantage; but there were just so many kobolds. No matter how many died, there were always more. Silent and stubborn, an endless army of shimmering, bony forms, spilling up out of the dark, pressing forward with vicious claws, spurred elbows, and solid, tearing teeth. And no matter how many the young men killed, it didn’t seem to deter the others at all. And eventually, Richard and Clarence and even Peter began to grow tired, and slow down. Their backs ached and their arm muscles blazed with pain, the more so because they couldn’t stop even for a moment to rest. They started to take wounds. A cut here and a gouge there, harsh language ringing on the air as red blood fell to the floor. Their swords seemed to grow heavier, and Peter couldn’t always haul his shield into position as fast as he would have liked. But the young men fought on, hurting and bleeding, and still the kobolds pressed forward, with no end to the leaping, shimmering forms. And the young men realized that no matter how brave, or well-meaning, or just plain stubborn they were . . . there was no way they could hold off the kobolds forever.

In the end, Richard’s friends broke and ran. Not from cowardice but from the sheer endless numbers of the enemy. Clarence grabbed a burning oil lamp from its niche and sprinted back the way they’d come, yelling for the others to follow him. He didn’t look back. It honestly never even occurred to him that they weren’t already doing the only sensible thing and running right behind him.

Peter grabbed another lamp, shouting something foul at the approaching horde of shimmering forms, and just couldn’t see the point anymore. If you couldn’t win, what was the point of fighting? So he ran straight after Clarence, yelling for Richard to come with them. He didn’t look back either, because he too couldn’t understand why anyone would stay, when all hope was gone.

But Richard wouldn’t run. He stood his ground, swinging his sword with renewed energy now that he had to hold the tunnel on his own. He wouldn’t run. Not because he was a Prince, or even a hero, but because he had sworn to help the Mayor and the villagers, and he’d be damned before he’d let them down. He thought of the men and women and children gathered on the surface, and what the kobolds would do to them . . . and it never even occurred to him to run. The great glowing tide of kobolds pressed forward, and he would not be moved.

Richard remembered Coppertown, where the Worm had killed everyone. The town where no one lived anymore. Prince Rupert and the Champion killed the Worm, with lamp oil. That thought filled Richard’s head even as he struck viciously and desperately at the kobolds leaping and jumping all around. Richard grabbed a burning lamp from its niche in the wall beside him, and smashed it into the face of the nearest kobold. The old glass lamp shattered at once, and blazing oil spilled all over the hunched white figure, and it burst into flames. It dropped to the floor, kicking and scrabbling round and round in circles, biting and tearing at itself in its agony. Richard grabbed more oil lamps and threw them here and there, and in a moment the tunnel before him was full of burning kobolds. A terrible light jumped and fell, and the shadows seemed to go mad. The stench of burning flesh filled the air, and when one burning kobold bumped into another, the flames spread in a moment. Until finally the barricade of dead kobolds went up, and Richard flinched back from the sudden savage heat.

And that was when he realised there was no one left for him to fight. The kobolds had stopped, to watch their own kind burn and die. Richard stood firm, black blood still dripping from his sword, though it was so heavy now he could hardly hang on to it. And then the kobolds turned and left, all at once, quite silently, disappearing back into the dark, until even the last few bobbing lights were gone. They didn’t take their dead with them, the butchered and the burnt.

For a long moment Prince Richard just stood there, still holding his sword out before him, not quite able to believe it was actually over. And then he laughed, briefly, and sheathed his sword. He was desperately tired, aching in every limb and every muscle, from all that he’d put himself through. He could feel his wounds now, though he’d barely noticed taking them while he was busy fighting. He checked himself over to make sure he hadn’t missed anything immediately threatening. Not that he could have done much about it if he had. He smiled, shakily, and decided he was damaged but still good. He was shaking all over now, as the adrenaline ran out and the fight caught up with him. But he was still grinning broadly. Because he was alive. And not because he’d won, but because he hadn’t run.