Forest Kingdom Trilogy 3 - Down Among the Dead Men

into the earth. MacNeil held his lantern out before him, but its light didn’t travel far. Jack’s torch made hardly any impression at all on the gloom, but the constant crackling of the flame was a familiar, comforting sound. MacNeil moved carefully from step to step, refusing to be hurried by Hammer’s crowding presence at his back. The blood that stained the wooden steps had frozen into scarlet ice, and the going was treacherously slippery.
    MacNeil counted the steps off silently as he went, looking forward to the moment when he could leave them behind for the relative safety of the earth tunnel. Thirteen steps. Unlucky for some. But on reaching the thirteenth step he discovered there was another step beneath it. MacNeil’s pulse quickened, and he made himself breath slowly and evenly. There was nothing to worry about; he must have miscounted the first time, that was all. Thirteen, fourteen; it was an easy mistake to make. But there was another step beyond the fourteenth, and another after that. MacNeil counted twenty steps and then stopped. He leaned forward and held his lantern out as far as he could. The steps stretched away before him, disappearing down into darkness, and there was no sign of the tunnel.
    “What’s the matter?” said Hammer quietly. “Why have we stopped?”
    “The stairway’s … different,” said MacNeil. “There are too many steps. The Beast must be dreaming again.”
    “So what do we do?” said Jack. “Just keep going, and hope the stairs will lead us somewhere eventually?”
    “There’s nothing else we can do,” said MacNeil. “There’s no other way down. Let’s go. It’s cold here.”
    “Cold as the grave,” said Jack.
    MacNeil pretended he hadn’t heard that, and started down the stairs again. After a while he stopped counting; he found the rising number too disturbing. They were already far below the cellar, and still the steps led on down into the dark. It was bitterly cold and growing colder all the time. MacNeil’s breath steamed thickly in the air before him, and frost had begun to form on his hair and clothes. His bare face and hands were growing numb, and he had to clutch his lantern and his sword tightly to be sure he wouldn’t drop them. The continuing stench of decay and corruption seemed to be changing subtly. The sickly sweet smell was just as strong, but it had slowly acquired a new, alien taint that MacNeil found strangely unsettling. It was unlike anything he’d ever smelled before, and he hoped fervently that he’d never have to smell it again. It grated on his nerves like an itch he couldn’t scratch, until he felt like hacking at the air with his sword.
    It had slept here, deep in the earth, for centuries beyond count
… .
    MacNeil clutched his sword hilt tightly until his fingers ached. The smell and the darkness and the constant unease reminded him of his time in the Darkwood, and for a moment an old fear moved within him. He pushed it firmly away and continued down the steps. And then his foot jarred on an uneven surface, and the lantern’s golden light showed him the mouth of an earth tunnel. He moved cautiously forward into the opening and waited for the others to join him. It wasn’t the tunnel he remembered. This larger passage was easily seven to eight feet in diameter. The rough earth ceiling was cracked and broken, and the crumbling walls looked as though they might collapse at any moment.
    “Not much room to fight,” said Hammer suddenly, and MacNeil gave a start. Hammer grinned as the Ranger turned to glare at him. “Jumpy, aren’t you?”
    “I’ve good reason to be,” growled MacNeil. “The last time I came down here, I found something nasty waiting for me.” He looked about him, frowning. “But that was in a different tunnel. It was smaller than this, and the walls were slick with blood… . Maybe this time we’ll find some sign of the missing bodies.”
    “Or the gold,” said Hammer. “Let’s not forget about the gold.” He reached out and prodded one of the walls, and the loose earth broke apart under his fingers. “Shoddy workmanship. They could at least have shored it up.”
    MacNeil looked at him. “Men didn’t build this tunnel, Hammer, any more than they built that stairway. The Beast is stirring in its sleep, and we’re walking in one of its dreams.”
    Hammer snorted and stamped hard on the packed earth of the tunnel floor. “Pretty realistic dream.”
    “Yes,” said Jack quietly. “Let’s