Forest Kingdom Trilogy 3 - Down Among the Dead Men

he couldn’t ignore her warnings. She had the Sight.
    You’d have believed Salamander
… .
    Yes, he would have. But Constance didn’t have Salamander’s experience, and unless she came up with something more concrete than a few upset feelings, he couldn’t justify staying away from the cellar. Even if the place did give him the creeps.
    Constance was trying hard not to sulk, or at least not visibly. She worked so hard, tried her best, and still he didn’t trust her. When she’d first found out which Ranger team she was joining she’d been so thrilled she all but danced on the spot. She knew all about Sergeant Duncan MacNeil. She’d been following his career at a distance for years. Ever since he’d protected her from the demons when she was just a child, living in the small town of King’s Deep.
    She’d pulled as many strings as she dared to get herself assigned to his team, all so that she could repay him for what he’d done for her—by being the best damned witch he’d ever had. She had other dreams about him too, but she rarely allowed herself to think about them. And now here she was, on her first mission with him, and it was all going wrong. Because he wouldn’t give her a chance. Constance’s lower lip jutted rebelliously. She’d show him. She’d show them all.
    It didn’t take long to reach the cellar. It looked just as it had before, a mess. MacNeil sniffed and shook his head. Grief knew how long they’d been dumping rubbish there—every day since the fort was first occupied, by the look of it. Constance hung her lantern from a wall holder while Flint looked disgustedly around the cellar.
    “Everything but gold,” she said unenthusiastically. “You don’t really want us to dig through this stuff, do you, Duncan?”
    “Afraid so,” said MacNeil.
    Flint sniffed. “I just hope I don’t catch anything contagious.”
    “That’s not all we have to worry about,” said Constance suddenly. “Have you noticed how cold it’s got?”
    The others stopped and looked at her. MacNeil frowned as he suddenly realized his breath was steaming in the air before him. All at once he was shivering, his bare face and hands seared by the biting cold. He pulled his cloak around him and tried to remember if it had been this cold when he first entered the cellar. He had a strong feeling it hadn’t. He looked at the others, and their breath was steaming too. He looked around him, and his flesh began to creep as he noticed for the first time that a faint pearly haze of hoarfrost was forming on the cellar walls.
    It can’t be that cold down here. It can
’t… .
    He forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand, and stared determinedly at the junk covering the floor. “If there is a subcellar,” he said roughly, “you probably get to it by a trapdoor in the floor. Start shifting this rubbish out of the way. Pile it up against the walls, and then we can get a clear look at the floor.”
    The others nodded and set to work. MacNeil put his lantern down safely out of the way and joined them. Shifting the assorted debris took some time and not a little effort, but eventually they uncovered a trapdoor. It lay in the exact middle of the cellar floor, a good six square feet of solid oak, held shut by two heavy steel bolts. MacNeil knelt down by the trapdoor and looked closely at the bolts, but felt strangely reluctant to touch them. He rubbed his hands together to drive out the cold and buy him some time to think. They were just ordinary, everyday steel bolts. There was no reason at all why he shouldn’t touch them. Except that all the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up and both his arms were covered in goose flesh, and none of it came from the bitter cold in the cellar.
    He looked at Constance, carefully keeping his voice calm and easy. “Try your Sight. See if you can sense anything about the trapdoor and what lies beneath it.”
    The witch nodded and stared at the trapdoor. Her eyes became vague and faraway.
    Deep in the earth something stirred and strove to wake. The weight of earth and stone lay heavy upon it, and time gnawed at its blood and bones. A darkness came and went, too swiftly to disturb its slumber, but now at last the chains of sleep began to fall away as day by day it drifted closer to waking. It dreamed foul dreams and the world went mad. Soon its long sleep would end, and the world would tremble when the sleeper spoke its name
.
    Constance broke the contact, and once