Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

"Shit!" she said. "I did wonder when they spoke before of the seals being intact on the door whether they had placed a warding on the door to warn them if anyone opened it. They must know we have the hammer."

"If Ben can finish the knife then maybe they'll just leave?" I suggested. I tried to keep the note of hopeless optimism out of my voice.

"They're not going to let him leave these tunnels, Niall. They came to stop us."

"He has the hammer and the knife. Maybe he can use them to protect himself?"

"While he stays on the island, he's probably as safe as he can be, but they won't leave him there. They don't have to do anything. He's so exposed and he can't stay there forever. There are two of them and they're very good at waiting."

"Can we hold them off?"

"We'll have to. It's too late to leave now anyway." The light was starting to flicker on the walls behind me as they approached.

"Blackbird…" Suddenly there were things I needed to say, things that stuck in my throat, not because they were lies but because they were true.

"You can tell me later." She lifted her chin, the determination showing in her eyes.

I nodded once and turned to the growing light in the tunnel.

Blackbird and I stood together, waiting for the Untainted to reach us.

We were at the only crossing place, the gantry between one side of the dark flowing water and the other, our backs to the thundering waterfall. To get to where the smith was re-forging the knife they had to face us. If I'd had more confidence in our ability to hold them off, I might have felt better about it.

Ben had crossed the river to the island below the falls, drawing the ladder across behind him. He had immediately started his preparations to work on the knife, spurred on by the arrival of the intruders. If he could finish the work then we might stand a chance of getting away.

As we turned our attention to the flickering light approaching down the long tunnel upstream there was a terrible sound. The clang of the hammer on the anvil was a sweet dissonance. It built in a steady tonk… tonk… tonk… tonk… until I thought it would jangle my nerves apart, but what came after was unspeakable. When the hammer hit the knife it was a jolt of agony.

THANG!

Vibrations jarred into the core of me. Everything sang in an fraction of a second of pure torment. It was like having something jab into the nerves of your teeth.

I shook myself, trying to shed the dying echoes and concentrate on the approaching threat.

Two figures were picking their way carefully along the walkway on the left-hand side of the tunnel. They were approaching rapidly without seeming to hurry. I recognised the first from the long Edwardian coat he had worn as he had thrown his arms wide while Blackbird and I pressed ourselves into the shadows behind him when we had been hiding in the shadows of the vaulting below. His features were a mere outline, silhouetted against the dappled light spilling up onto the archway of the tunnel. His gawky stature and the finicky way he picked his way past the more noisome debris on the walkway identified him without needing to hear the rolling baritone of his voice. It was Raffmir.

I also recognised the figure following him.

Unlike Raffmir who was moving quickly but carefully along the walkway, she moved easily. The long flowing pleats of her skirt rippled over the uneven surface without catching on the broken edges. She was tall, dressed in a long grey dress that only served to bring back the memory of a circular glade under a crystal sky. I realised now what I should have known all along. The slurring shambling figure that entered my flat and lay hidden in my garden, the one who we had encountered here in the tunnels and who had sensed our presence despite the dank smell and the thunder of the waterfall was the same woman who had drawn me to the frozen glade. It was Raffmir's sister who had called me lost brother and cornered me at the hospital. It was her darkspore I had burned away with gallowfyre. Except that this was neither a dream nor a walking corpse. This time she'd come in person.

Tonk… tonk… tonk… THANG!

The sound rang again down the tunnel, reverberating in the confined space. I cringed as pain jabbed into the back of my brain, echoing the hammer blow. The tunnel around Raffmir dimmed and faltered as the sound reached him, and he halted, uncertain of his footing in the onslaught of sound. Then he recovered and continued towards us.

They had come to prevent the re-forging of the knife and we were the only thing in their way. I glanced at Blackbird who was standing proud and ready. I squared my shoulder and reached within to the molten core of emptiness there. I opened myself to its call and let the darkness spill through me and out over the water, my own rippling light echoing that of Raffmir.

Tonk… tonk… tonk… THANG!

Again the hammer strike rang through me. The link with my inner core faltered momentarily as the sound of the hammer rang out. The glow from Raffmir faltered and for a second we were in darkness, surrounded only by the dying echoes and the thundering of the water over the falls behind us.

As Raffmir approached the gantry, his glow returned, as did my own. Fingers of shadow spilled out from each of us, worming out across the light between us as he reached. Gallowfyre tentacles swelled out and seemed to grapple, playing out the conflict in shadowed shifting moonlight between us.

Each of us tested the defences of the other. Where it touched there was a pressure, a sense of other, defining the boundary between us. At the boundary, a shimmering light flared into being, a purple so dark it was almost invisible. It hung like an ultraviolet curtain across the water ahead of us, defining the border between two powers, the wall of light flexing and bending like a dark aurora where we tested each other's strength.

It was Raffmir who called to us. "Greetings from the Seventh Court. We wish to parley."

Blackbird answered for us. "What is there to speak of?"

As she called out, Ben started hammering again.

Tonk… tonk… tonk… THANG!

The light faltered and the pressure between us dissolved. I struggled to regain my connection with the void. Raffmir was a split second faster and he took a bold step forward as his light spilled out over the water. I found my link and my own light flowed out again, the darkness I called from within buffeting against his.

"You know we have come to prevent the knife being reforged," he called out. "You stand between us and our goal."

"And?" said Blackbird.

"First of all I would request you to ask your smith to pause in his labours so we may have a rational discussion. Otherwise this could quickly come to a ruinous conclusion. Let us try and resolve this in a civilised fashion, if that is possible." His tone reminded me of an English gentleman, forced into an unpleasant situation but prepared to discharge his duty nonetheless. Despite having to call over the muted thunder of the water, his tone was relaxed and warm, though there was an underlying menace to his smooth words.

"He's finishing the knife," Blackbird assured him.

"Then a moment or two of rest while we speak will allow him to approach his task with renewed vigour, will it not?"

"If I ask him to pause, you and your companion will do us no harm in the meantime? You will not move any further forward or take any advantage?"

"You stand between us and him. What can we do?" he asked, stretching his arms wide.

As he finished his sentence, the sound of the hammer began again.

Tonk… tonk… tonk… THANG!

Again, my link with the void faltered and once more he was faster than I was. He took another step forward, his sister edging up behind him.