Simon Green - The Man with the Golden Torc

We ran on, following the needle from tunnel to tunnel. The hootings and howlings came from all around us now. The tunnels finally ended in a natural stone chamber complete with jagged stalactites and stalagmites. Strange mineral traces in the walls picked up the witchfire and glowed brightly, pushing back the dark. The compass needle swung back and forth, as though confused, and I stumbled to a halt while I waited for it to make up its mind. Molly leaned on me, fighting for breath. I wasn’t much better off. My arm and shoulder were killing me.

"We’re in trouble," said Molly.

"No, really?" I said. "You do surprise me. Show us the way to the Mole, you useless piece of crap!" And I slapped the compass a few times, to show it I meant business.

"No," Molly said. "I mean, I don’t recognise this place at all. I’ve never been here on any of my previous trips to the Mole’s lair. Are you sure that thing is reliable?"

"Of course," I lied. The compass needle finally settled for pointing straight ahead. I looked at Molly. "Ready to run some more?"

She managed a quick grin. "I find the imminent prospect of being eaten alive tends to concentrate the mind wonderfully."

"I love it when you talk literary," I said.

And that was when a whole crowd of trolls burst out of a side tunnel just behind us, fighting and clawing at each other in their eagerness to get at us. Molly and I sprinted off again, following the needle, but neither of us were as fast as we had been. I’d got only one quick glimpse of the trolls behind us, but that was enough. I’d faced trolls before, and they hadn’t changed. Trolls are huge, stooped creatures, bone white in colour, with long, lanky frames. Jagged claws on bony hands, vicious talons on elongated feet. Spurs and thorns of bone protrude from their backs, arms, and legs. Their heads are long, horselike, with muzzles crammed full of thick, blocky teeth. Their eyes are big and black and unblinking. They run on all fours, leaning on their knuckles like the great apes. They weren’t bothering with the hooting and howling anymore, now they’d found their prey. Instead, from behind us came deep bass coughing sounds, urgent and hungry.

I didn’t look back. I knew how fast they could move. And what they would do if they caught us.

They were close, and getting closer. My breath burned in my heaving chest, and my bad arm and shoulder shrieked with pain. I could hear Molly straining for breath beside me. We were slowing down, even though we knew it was death to do so. So I armoured up, grabbed Molly in my strong golden arms, and sprinted through the dark tunnels at supernatural speed. Molly didn’t have the breath to make any protest, beyond one surprised squeak, and then she clung tightly to me as I flashed though the labyrinth of tunnels. She held the witchfire out before us, the light reflecting brightly off my golden armour.

The trolls couldn’t match my augmented speed, but they didn’t give up either. I could still hear them pounding along behind us. Cracked brick walls flashed past as I sped on, concentrating on the needle of the compass set flush into my golden palm. Molly suddenly cried out and pointed, and I skidded to a halt. Molly wriggled impatiently out of my arms as I set her down, and she ran over to a recess in a stone wall that looked just like all the others to me.

"This is it! This is the place! I recognise it…The door’s right here, Eddie! Right here…somewhere…"

She leaned in close, running her hands over the rough stone surface. I couldn’t see any door. I turned and looked back the way we’d come. I couldn’t see any trolls, but I could hear them coming for us, out of the dark. They sounded really angry. Molly cried out again, and I turned back to see her tracing the outline of a door in the dark grimy stone.

"This is definitely it! Leads straight to the Mole!"

"Then you might want to open it," I said. "The trolls will be here any minute."

"I can’t open this! Only the Mole can open it."

"Stand aside," I said. "I’ll smash it in."

"No, you bloody won’t," said Molly, grabbing me by one golden arm and glaring right into my mask. "The Mole values his privacy, and you can bet good money that door is protected by seriously heavy-duty security. You even look at it funny, and it could blow up this whole section. Let me talk to the Mole. There’s a speakerphone here somewhere…" She went back to the stone wall. "Mole! This is Molly Metcalf; remember me? I got you the complete set of Desperate Housewives DVDs…Look, I’ve got the new rogue Drood with me, and we really do need to come in and talk with you! Right now!"

There was a worryingly long pause. The trolls were getting closer. I could feel the vibrations of their pounding feet through the stone floor. I sealed the compass away inside my armour and started to reach for the Colt Repeater. The trolls burst out of the tunnel mouth behind us, long spiked arms reaching for us. Molly yelled for me to close my eyes, and I squeezed them shut just in time as she hit the trolls with the same incandescent flare she’d used up in Paddington station. The trolls slammed to a halt, falling over each other as they clawed in agony at their blinded, light-sensitive eyes. I stepped forward and killed the first half dozen with my golden fists, smashing in their heavy skulls with my armoured hands. I pushed the bodies back into the tunnel mouth, building a barricade to hold the other trolls back. More of the creatures pushed hard from the other side, and it was all I and my armour could do to hold them back.

"Eddie! The door’s open! Come on!"

I turned and ran for the narrow dark opening in the wall. Molly was already inside. She pulled me in, and then slammed the door shut in the trolls’ faces, right behind me. The door didn’t look like much, but it held firm, despite the pounding of heavy fists on the outside. The trolls hooted and howled, slamming against the closed door in frustrated rage.

"Should we brace ourselves for an explosion?" I said to Molly.

"The Mole knows what’s going on now," she said breathlessly. "He’s expecting us. Eddie, be nice to him. He’s not used to visitors."

I followed Molly down the narrow tunnel lit by naked electric lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling at regular intervals. I reluctantly armoured down. As a rogue himself, the last thing the Mole would want to see was a Drood in full armour coming straight at him. It did feel good not to be running anymore, to get my breath back. I massaged my aching left arm, but it didn’t help, so I just pushed the pain as far away as I could. I had more important things to think about. If the Mole was as crazy as Oddly John, he’d need careful handling.

The tunnel walls were strung with overlapping layers of multicoloured electrical cables interspersed with junction boxes and a whole bunch of technology that baffled me completely. Swivelling security cameras kept track of Molly and me as we made our way down the tunnel, and I did my best to smile back at them in a friendly and distinctly unthreatening manner.

"You’ve been here before," I said. "What’s his place like?"

"Ah," said Molly, carefully not looking at me. "I haven’t actually been here before. Not in person, that is. In fact, I don’t know anyone who has. You should be very flattered he let us in. The Mole doesn’t normally allow visitors. In fact, he tends to discourage them by killing anyone who turns up."

"Hold everything," I said. "You mean, there was a real chance he might not have opened that door for us? That he might very well have just left us out there to die?"

"Well, that was a possibility, yes. But I was pretty sure he’d be so curious about you that he’d let us in. Besides, he sort of likes me."

"He likes you."

"No, I mean, he likes me."