John Gwynne - Malice

Halion did a quick head count, and found only one of their number had fallen. However, others had been wounded. Dath’s face was covered with blood, and Tarben was limping, but nothing seemed fatal. As they regrouped, more shouting could be heard nearby.

‘We must move,’ Halion said quietly, ‘we made quite a noise just now. Others may have heard.’

They set off again, but heard the dead from their recent skirmish being discovered, then they were being tracked in earnest.

Corban had been running for a while, just focusing on the flagstones when something made him look up. He saw Brina and Heb drop back. At first he thought it was because they were struggling to keep pace, but as he reached them he realized that was not the case. They didn’t even seem to be breathing hard, then the two of them stopped and turned to face the darkness behind them.

Corban approached Brina and Heb and opened his mouth to hurry them along, then saw that they were muttering to themselves. No, chanting or singing, in hushed tones. He glanced at Gar and looked back down the street as the sound of pursuing footsteps grew louder. Again he went to hurry them, then stopped in alarm.

Mist was rising from the ground, like steam, but thicker. It broiled outwards, filling the street.

Brina swayed, and Heb reached out a hand to steady her. The two looked at each other, nodded and set off after their quickly vanishing warriors. The sound of flapping wings drifted down from above.

‘I don’t like that,’ Farrell muttered, eyes fixed on the mist that was still expanding at an alarming rate before their eyes, boiling along the street towards them.

‘Me neither,’ Corban said and as one they turned and ran, chasing after Heb and Brina.

‘What happened? Back there?’ Corban whispered to Brina as they all paused to catch their breath. ‘What did you do ?’

‘Surely not more questions now.’ Brina rolled her eyes and turned away from him. ‘Another time.’

‘Corban,’ a voice called out, Halion. ‘Come, show us this tunnel, then.’

Corban led the company past the pool, and down the steps to the cave that led to the well. He paused just inside as he realized he had no flint to light the torches.

After a brief conversation with Halion, Marrock and Camlin lit torches for the party from the iron sconces set in the walls, fumbling hastily at flints from their belt pouches.

Quietly, like a mourning procession, they filed down into the cave, hope and doubt visible on their faces.

Corban quickly knelt, lay flat, and edged out over the well’s rim, his mam crouching to hold his legs. His hand scrabbled around a moment, then he found the hollow with its cold handle within and turned it. There was a hiss and click behind him, then a collective gasp rippled through the company as the door became visible to all.

Corban rolled back to his feet, and couldn’t help but grin at the gawping faces. He marched over to the stone door and pulled it wide, its hinges grating.

‘Hold,’ Halion said. ‘Who else knows of this?’

Corban shrugged, and winced at the sharp pain in his shoulder. ‘None that I know of.’ Except Cywen .

‘My father knows of it. Maybe one or two in his hold,’ a voice said from amongst them, Vonn stepping forward. ‘At least, so far as I know.’

‘How can we believe him ?’ another voice called out: Dath, glaring at Evnis’ son.

Vonn looked at him belligerently. ‘True, my father has turned traitor. But I have not. I swore an oath to Brenin, to Ardan. I will not forsake it as easily as my father has. .’ he paused, his voice almost breaking. ‘And I have lost someone, this night. Someone dear to me.’ He looked about, defiant. ‘From this night on my allegiance does not lie with my father.’

Halion stared at him a long moment, then nodded. ‘Come with us. But know this: you will be watched, and if you prove us false you will die.’

Vonn nodded his agreement, and then they began filing through the stone doorway, Corban watched his mam pass, then she paused.

‘Cywen,’ she whispered. ‘I cannot leave her. I must go back.’

‘I shall return for her, once you and Ban are away from here,’ Gar said. ‘Think, Gwenith. You cannot go back.’ His eyes flickered to Corban, then back to Gwenith. She stood there, shaking as the first tears came.

‘I must,’ she whispered.

‘You will not find her,’ a voice said, the last of those coming through the open doorway. It was Marrock. ‘I saw her. .’

‘Where?’ interrupted Gwenith. ‘When?’

‘I saw her fall ,’ Marrock said, each word slow, deliberate. ‘From the walls above Stonegate.’

‘What?’ said Gwenith. ‘I don’t understand?’

‘She was fighting, with Conall.’ Marrock looked at Halion, who turned at the mention of his brother.

‘Conall, you say?’ he said roughly.

‘Aye. He was part of Evnis’ treachery, at the gates,’ Marrock spat. ‘Cywen was throwing knives at those warriors, the ones like Sumur. Conall tried to stop her. They both fell.’ He shook his head.

Gwenith gave a racking sob, and turned into the tunnel’s darkness, Gar following. Marrock looked at Corban. ‘Many of us will grieve after this night.’

Corban couldn’t speak; suddenly he felt sick and bone-weary.

‘Come, we must be away,’ said Halion, wrestling with his own grief, and Corban pushed the stone door shut.

The journey through the tunnels passed in a daze for Corban, haunted by memories of Cywen, almost as if she were walking beside him.

Eventually they spilt out into the wide circular room that Corban had visited. The carcass of the snake was still there, though far more decomposed than the last time Corban had seen it. Great strips of skin were hanging loose, vertebrae gleaming beneath. And it stank.

The group paused to stare at it.

‘How much longer?’ Halion asked Corban.

‘It is hard to measure time in here,’ Corban said, ‘but we are about halfway to the end, I think.’

‘Huh,’ Halion grunted. ‘And then what? Where does this tunnel lead?’

‘To a cave that opens onto the beach.’

Halion looked about in wonder. ‘How has no one ever found this before?’

‘The entrance was concealed with a glamour. I only found it by accident.’

‘Lead on.’

So Corban did.

For a long while they marched through the high-roofed tunnels, darkness always before and behind them. No one spoke, at first, all lost in the horror of the night’s events, and also in the sheer astonishment that they were walking through tunnels far beneath their homes — tunnels that had been hidden here for untold generations. But slowly the silence lifted, people beginning to murmur amongst themselves.

Corban remained at the front, Storm padding beside him, leading them deeper, ever downwards into the depths of the rocky outcrop. He suddenly realized that someone had been walking next to him for some time. It was his mam. Silently she reached out and held his hand. They walked like that a long while, trudging ever deeper into the depths of the hill.

Eventually their path began to level out and soon they found themselves in the cavern that Corban remembered, wide and high, with sea rolling and swelling sluggishly through the straight-sided channel.

Corban stopped and looked down at the dark waters as Halion came to stand at his shoulder.

‘The path to the cave is over there,’ Corban said, pointing. ‘It looks like a rock wall, but it’s a glamour — left by the giants, I suppose.’

Brina and Heb hurried over to where Corban pointed, Brina thrusting her hand into the rock face. It disappeared, right up to her elbow, and she chuckled.