THE WORLD BENEATH

The tunnel. The rent between this world and the Demonata’s. The passageway for demons. The source of the nightmares.

We’re here.

It’s an hour or so before sunset. We’ve set the horses free and are on our knees, hiding behind bushes, studying the scene. A hole in the ground ahead is the focal point. The branches of the trees around it are thick with strips of cloth, bits of wood, bodies of the dead. A solid ceiling, like the one around the ring of magical stones where we sheltered earlier, in what feels now like a separate age.

Beneath the cover of the trees—hordes of demons. Most sleeping. Some fighting, playing with dead bodies, eating. Every disgusting shape and shade imaginable. Some undead too, but not many.

“We’ll never get through them all,” Goll whispers.

“I could create a diversion,” Lorcan suggests. “Attack at one side and draw them away. The rest of you could sneak in while they were dealing with me.”

“No,” Goll says. “That wouldn’t work. Maybe Bran could dance and lead them astray.”

“Run fast,” Bran says, nodding vigorously.

“Too many,” Drust mutters. “Not all would be lured away.”

“Magic?” I ask. “A masking spell?”

Drust nods. “That’s our best hope but we can’t count on it. These are superior to most of the demons we’ve faced. They’re some of the more powerful demons who have crossed, placed here by their masters to guard the opening.”

“Then they might see through the spell,” I note.

“Aye. But we’ll have to risk it. We’ll cast a strong spell over you, me and Bran, then advance. Goll, Lorcan and Connla can attack at the same time, at different spots, to create distractions.”

“Sounds good to me,” Goll says. “How about you, my fine young…?” He stops, brow furrowing as he stares at Connla. The vain warrior has cut the flesh of both his palms and is daubing his cheeks and forehead with blood, quietly muttering words which could be either a spell or a prayer. “What are you doing?” Goll asks suspiciously.

Connla finishes the spell or prayer, then smiles. “A bit of added protection.”

“That won’t help,” Drust says.

“We’ll see,” Connla chuckles, casually glancing over the top of the bush at the demons. “Well, I’m ready. Make up your minds, tell me what you want to do and on we’ll go.”

Drust regards Connla with uneasy surprise. Some warriors are never afraid going into battle, but Connla isn’t one of them. Yet here he squats, more at peace than anyone, looking like a man with nothing to lose or no notion of losing.

“You understand what we’re discussing?” Drust asks. “If you fight, you’ll die. It will take time to cast the spells of closure. The demons will kill you while we’re at work.”

“Just worry about your magic, druid,” Connla laughs. “Leave us to handle the fighting.”

“A man at last,” Goll remarks wryly, then faces Drust. “So the three of us will attack the demons while you, Bran and Bec forge ahead on your own?”

Drust hesitates, then abruptly changes his mind. “No. Some demons may have orders to stay by the entrance in case of an attack. It might be better if we don’t give them advance warning. We’ll stick together and push on as a group. If they see through the spell, Bec and I will make a dash for the hole and the rest of you can fight then.”

“We won’t let you down,” Connla says grandly.

Drust and I concentrate and draw upon our magic. The night’s rest has done me a world of good, even though I didn’t sleep. I feel power bubbling up inside, stronger than ever. When I cast the masking spell, I add a few twists to it, improvising, improving on the spell which Drust taught me. The druid feels the strength of the new spell. He’s surprised, but follows my lead, and we carefully wrap our small group safely within it.

“The spell will trail us,” I tell Drust when we’re finished. “We won’t need to maintain it as we walk. We can focus on the task ahead.”

“How did you manage that?” he asks, slightly jealous.

I shrug. “It just came to me.”

Drust sighs. “Such promise. There’s so much you could do, maybe more than any magician has ever done. I wish…” He stops and steels himself. Checks that everybody has a weapon to hand (except simple Bran). Then we push through the bush and enter the camp of the Demonata.

The spell holds. We edge through the demonic ranks, carefully stepping over tentacles and twisted limbs, ignoring the stench of rotting human bodies and the even fouler smells of the demons. Most are larger than any who attacked our rath. They look fiercer and stronger. I don’t think we would have survived an assault by this lot. Yet these aren’t the strongest Demonata, only the more worthy servants of the demon masters.

Until this moment I didn’t truly believe the demons would overrun the land. I was inwardly sure that my people would fight hard and win in some places, repel the demons, hold their own. Now I know I was wrong. If we fail and the demon masters cross, all will fall in quick succession. Depending on how fast the demons move, this entire land could be a steaming pile of ruins, broken bones and decaying flesh within a week.

Bran studies the demons with interest, smiling at some of the more hideously deformed monsters. Connla casts a cool eye over them, acting unimpressed, as if they were a flock of scraggly sheep. Everybody else looks at them with disgust and fear.

A four-headed, red-skinned demon stirs and looks right at me. I freeze, certain it’s seen through the spell. But then it belches, spits out a chewed-up hand and lowers its head again. I step over the half-dissolved, bile-speckled hand and fight to keep my stomach quiet as we pass the dozing monster.

Close to the hole. It looks like a natural rip in the earth, though the area around it has been torn at and dug up, to enlarge the mouth. No demons rest close by—they keep at least six or seven paces away from the hole.

We slip through a space between two misshapen demons and enter the clearing. Drust walks to the rim of the hole and looks down. I step up beside him and see a long shaft angling down, deep into the earth. Unnatural heat billows from it. I want Drust to start the spells here, close the tunnel from this point, not lead us down that shaft to whatever horrors lie beneath.

But Drust points down, as I knew he would. He makes sure we all understand, then lowers himself into the hole, searching for handholds, descending into the darkness of the pit. I go next, then Bran, Lorcan, Goll. Connla brings up the rear.

The rock is hot to the touch but bearable. Lots of holds. Easy to climb. The shaft turns to the left after a while. Pure darkness around the bend. I pause, look up at the overcast but beautiful, human evening sky one last time, then slide across into eternal, demonic night.

We climb for five minutes, ten, slowly feeling our way down. I could cast a lighting spell but Drust hasn’t, so I don’t think I should either. I’m expecting the descent to last for ages. But a few minutes later we hit level ground and are soon standing in a huddle, not sure what to do next, afraid to continue in case we’re on a platform overhanging a deadly drop.

“I’m going to feel ahead with magic,” Drust whispers. “You try too. Explore with your mind. Try and determine where we are and what lies ahead.”

I close my eyes—not that it makes any difference in this place—and send out mental feelers. But I’m not very good at this type of magic. I get the sense of a large space around us—a cave, I think— but I can’t be sure of its exact size. And I’ve no idea what the ground is like underfoot, whether it’s solid, breaks off into nothingness after a few feet, or is littered with traps.

Fortunately Drust is more accomplished at this than me and a minute later he sighs the contented sigh of a man who has finally found what he’s been looking long and hard for. “It’s all right,” he says, excitement in his voice. “We’re here.”