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The Lychgate itself was unimpressive. A bodged together barrier made of pipes and rope. The Razor going at full tilt could have broken through it without a scratch, but Ixxy figured the gate was as much there to catch anyone inadvertently winding up there as much as being a conduit between one place and another. So far as the River-folk were concerned, the world ended here.
“Where are the guards at the Lychgate then?” asked Ixxy.
“It doesn’t need any.” Pops spat overboard.
“Punt us up alongside, crew, we need to find a way in.” Even Wenna spoke in hushed tones.
Three more long strokes and the boat lurched to a sudden halt against the wall of the cavern. A combination of rowing and fending off brought them alongside the gate. The Razor stretched the full length of it.
“Drop anchor,” said Wenna. Someone ‘ayed’ in response. Even the splosh from the anchor seemed quieter. “Find me a way through this thing.” The crew took to the side of the boat and explored, muttered and fiddled.
“Oww!” Skink shouted from somewhere near the stern of the ship.
“Sup?” yelled Hydn from the other end.
“Razor wire.”
“Nice.”
“Will you two be quiet, you’ll wake the dead,” said Pops, going over with his medicine bag.
“Don’t bleed on the deck, it’s slippy,” said Wenna, so Skink held his paw over the water and for a while the only sound they could hear was the drip of blood into the lake.
Ixxy busied herself at the stern of the boat with the Princess, feeling their way over one end of the gate. It was a great mess of tied together pipes and meshes and wire. Ixxy thought it seemed like a massive metal skeleton, lying across their path. Both of them took much more care after Skink’s slip, but although there was the more traditional form of barbed wire at their end, they found nothing sharper.
“Damn this!” shouted the Princess, “I broke a nail.”
“Shh!” came the loud chorus from the rest of the boat.
Ixxy reached for her hand, “Where’d you manage to catch that then?”
“Im thff stufid thin ther,” the Princess said, hand in her mouth.
The ‘stufid thin’ in question seemed to be a spring, one of those that had variable twists in its length. Ixxy could understand how a rogue nail could easily become snagged. She silently thanked her Mother, making her keep her nails filed short. She followed the course of the spring all the way down the wall and it seemed to dip into the water. “Hey, I think this might be a hinge!”
“Neat,” Hydn squeaked from the bow of the boat, “I’ve found a chain wrapped around a pipe on the wall here.”
“I think that’s our gate mechanism then,” said Wenna. “Will the chain come undone?”
“Yeah, I think so... there’s no lock on it.”
And with half a span of rattling and shifting the position of the boat so the bow faced the gate again, Hydn’s end of the gate came free. “Gentle row astern!” said Wenna. “Keep a tight hold Hydn, we don’t want to do this twice.”
The metal skeleton gate gave out a huge rusty groan of complaint as it traced an arc through the water.
“You keep hold of the gate as we edge in,” said Wenna, “then pull it shut and chain it behind us. Steady as she goes.”
Hydn had to walk all the way down the side of the boat as they edged slowly along. Ixxy ducked, still holding her oar as Hydn stepped over her head, “Careful!” she said.
“Always,” he ruffled her hair with his other hand as he passed. Ixxy flushed. “Kay, I’m at the back!” he shouted up the boat.
“Steady ahead,” said Wenna.
The Razor edged through the Lychgate, silence ahead of them, metal pings and swooshes from behind as the gate was pulled back in place. There was a clang as metal hit wall and rattling as Hydn secured the chain again.
Quiet fell like a blanket. Though it was a pretty huge pipe by River-folk standards, the difference in soundscape was striking. Once their ears were accustomed, Ixxy could hear a drip from farther ahead of them, but it didn’t seem to resound off the walls.
“Halloo!” shouted Skink, into the tunnel. That earned him a cuff across the head from Wenna. There was no echo. “Ooh, there be monsters,” he whispered to Hydn, sniggering. Hydn wasn’t laughing.
“There’s enough breeze following us,” said Wenna. “Hydn, Skink, get up that mast and get that sail set.”
“Aye,” said Hydn. Skink was already halfway up the mast.
Ixxy lifted her head to better Air-sense where they were. The texture of the roof was odd.
Skink screamed. A spray of warm fluid hit Ixxy, and she leapt towards the mast.
“Help!” shouted Hydn. Ixxy was already climbing. More fluid sprayed onto her, and above her, she could Air-sense something awful. The odd roof texture had resolved into a thrashing mass of edges: teeth? Claws? One sharp appendage had speared Skink and was pulling him into a hole that Ixxy realised in horror must be a mouth. Hydn still had hold of Skink’s legs and was trying to wrestle his friend back from the beast, but the creatureʼs claw was through Skinkʼs rib cage.
“Ixxy, help!” said Hydn. Ixxy went to help pull, steadying herself on the yardarm, but then realised that the creature had claws to spare and it was thrashing one at Hydn. Ixxy flicked her leg into a rope on the mast just in case. Hydn shrieked and the creature above them hissed and some kind of saliva rained down on them. The arm of the creature had speared Hydn in the leg with a razor sharp claw; he’d let go of Skink with the shock. The beast had lost no time in reeling Skink into its maw. Horrible crunching sounds came from above them. Ixxy reached down into her boot—good her knife was there. She pulled it out and stabbed down at the claw poking through Hydn. The knife snicked against the claw, but clearly it had no senses there. The rest of the arm was around the back of Hydn and she couldn’t reach it from where she was. In desperation she stabbed along the claw into Hydn’s wound, hoping the creature had some kind of cuticle to poke at. She hit flesh, she hoped it wasn’t more of Hydn’s. The creature let out a keening shriek and sprung its claw back up. Hydn fell, but Ixxy still had the knife jammed into his leg, so his weight took her over too. She reached to grab both his legs for a better grip and let gravity and the ropes take her. The twists she’d wound around her foot bit hard and she swung like a pendulum over the deck, Hydn below her. The momentum pulled Hydn’s legs out of her grasp and he fell. Below her the soundscape swung in crazy arcs. She could hear Wenna and Pops shouting and the Princess screaming before she passed out.