AUGUSTA DISMOUNTED. Roberts and Webster uncoupled the horses from the wagon. They would have to leave them here. There were torches by the entrance for those who visited and wished to venture inside. The two men fashioned a makeshift stretcher to carry the boy between them while Augusta lit a torch to guide them deeper.
The roaring diminished. The Jinn wouldn’t be able to reach in here, but the phantom wind moaned around them and bent the torch flame. Augusta wouldn’t feel entirely safe until they’d gained the innermost cavern. The roof disappeared into darkness. Stumps and pinnacles dotted the floor like melted candles. The torch illuminated walls ruffled and fluted like petrified curtains, slender columns of pearly deposits that had been laid down since the world was young. Local folk called this the Gallery, for the shapes that the rocks made and because, here and there, the walls were scratched and etched with the shapes of animals swept away in Noah’s flood, put there by a people older even than the Fairish.
“We’ll stop here. Put the boy down.” Augusta knelt next to the stretcher. “How is he?”
“Still sleeping.” Roberts scratched his head. “He lost a deal of blood but his pulse is strong. I’d have thought he’d have woke by now, what with all the bouncing about.”
“’Appen he’ll come round in his own fair time,” Webster said as he looked down.
“’Appen he will.” Augusta frowned. His condition was strange. She’d never known a swoon last much of a day. It was as if he’d taken laudanum, or some drug that had rendered him insensible. “Make sure he’s comfortable and build a fire.” She clutched her cloak to her. “It’s cold in here.”
The fireplace was marked by a heap of grey-white cold ash surrounded by baked and blackened stones. A supply of wood and torches had been left by outlaws and others, who used the cave as a hiding place or refuge. Augusta wondered how her own folk were faring. She should have been out there defending them, not skulking here, as much a fugitive as they.
“You did what you could, lady,” Webster said, as though he could read her thought. “We saw ’em off, a right bigger force. Who’d know that they’d summon the Jinn, or that Rogue lot would go skirmishing behind the lines?”
His words were kind but he’d left the greater truth unsaid: hers would always be the smaller force; they would always be at a disadvantage. Beneath that, a small voice whispered, You should have known that is precisely what he would do. Letting her think that she’d won would make her consequent defeat more bitter and sweeten his triumph.
They set up camp, not knowing how long they would be here. There was precious little to eat but what they had they put together. Webster collected water from the pools on the floor of the cave and put a pot over the fire. In it went dried beef and beans, barley, a few withered roots, a handful of salt and a good pinch of red pepper—one of Parry’s gifts. The result was palatable enough. They sat together to eat from rough bowls with wooden spoons.
The boy stirred. Perhaps the smell of food had woken him.
He looked round, bewildered, and struggled to rise. “What’s wrong with my arm?”
“You were shot.” Roberts went over to him. “A ball in the shoulder. A right big ’un. I’ve taken it out, lad, and treated the wound wi’ a poultice of comfrey, but you’d best not move around too much or you’ll set t’ wound a-bleeding again. Here, have a bowl o’ this. Put some strength in you.”
“Thank you.” Tom sat up with Roberts’s help, the bowl balanced on his knee. He was surprised at how good the soup tasted, at how hungry he was. “What’s happening? Where are we?”
“We took refuge here,” Augusta said. “Fleeing from enemies.”
She didn’t say what sort. Best not mention the Jinn. He was a stranger and unlikely to comprehend the danger they posed.
“Fleeing?” He frowned. “I don’t understand. I thought we won.”
“We did, too! You fought bravely, but there were other enemies, other threats, that took us unawares. We are safe here.”
“For the time being.”
“As you say, Webster.” The Jinn must have passed by now. “Go to see what’s happening outside. Take Roberts with you.”
As the men set off towards the entrance to the cave, Augusta took out a small black bottle. Another gift from her man Parry.
“Have some of this. It will help with the pain. Not too much! That’s enough.”
“That’s good stuff.” Tom passed the bottle back. The pain in his shoulder was easing, the stiffness going.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. Stronger. It’s cold in here.”
He tried to pull his coat around him. She reached to help him. There was something about her touch, her closeness as she leant across him, like a current passing between them. Her sudden shiver showed that she felt it, too.
“I hope I didn’t hurt you.” She stepped back, for once uncertain. Her smile almost shy.
“No, ah…” He smiled back. “Thank you, Augusta. Or should I call you my lady?”
She coloured slightly. “Augusta will do.”
“Can you help me?”
She offered her hand to pull him up and their eyes met. Hers changed all the time, like clouds on a windy day.
“You’re right.” She turned away, wrapping her arms around her. “It’s cold in here.”
The dog at her side gave a gruff, growling bark.
“Quiet, Keeper!”
“I’m a friend.” Tom reached to scratch the dog’s broad head. “No need to be jealous.”
“I don’t think he’s growling at you…” The dog’s short ears flicked up and he gave a yelping whine, stationing himself at the entrance to the cave. “He must have heard something.”
“Webster and Roberts coming back?”
“Perhaps…”
The dog let out a sharp, deep-throated bark.
“Hush, Keeper. I’m trying to hear…”
She stepped away as Webster and Roberts ran back into the cave.
“Jinn’s gone,” Roberts panted, hands on his knees. “Webbo climbed up t’ bank. Tell ’m what you saw.”
“McMahon and his dogs.” Webster shook the rain from his hair, his eyes. “They must’ve picked up our scent by the river. They’re coming this way.”
The belling of hounds reached them, faint but distinct, carried by the cave’s peculiar acoustics.
“They’ve gained the entrance. They’ll be here any minute!”
“McMahon will be tracking for Rogue,” Augusta said.
“Aye,” Roberts agreed. “His forces won’t be far away.”
“We’ll have to go further,” Augusta directed. “Into the Deeps.”
It was the way to Fairishland.
Webster frowned, his big face full of worry. “But we could get lost down there!” he protested. “The only folks knows them tunnels is the Fairish. Men going down there are never seen again. Lost their way or led astray deliberate.”
“I used to visit here wi’ me nan,” Roberts said. “And I’m here, ain’t I?”
“We have no choice, do we? We have to take our chances.” Augusta picked up a torch. “It will be as dangerous for them as us—perhaps more so. The Fairish have no liking for McMahon and his dogs. Roberts, you show the way.”
They lit more torches and took extra, as many as they could carry.
One by one, they followed Roberts through a smaller entrance in the opposite wall. The tunnel was lower, narrower, the walls rougher, leading sharply down and deeper. The caves ran for miles under the hillside, branching and branching, with no indication as to which might taper to a dead end and which lead out into the world again—or which world that might be. There were other dangers, too. In some places, the torches burned blue and started to gutter, showing that the air was foul, or scarce there at all. Heavy rain could turn the little freshets that ran everywhere into raging torrents, filling up the whole system of tunnels, drowning anyone caught there, leaving them to float lifeless in the water-filled space.
It was raining outside. Webster had come back wet with it but it was best not to think about that as they moved from one tunnel to another, with Roberts as their guide. He seemed fairly certain that he was leading them in the right direction, but where that direction might be was less than clear and he had no control over the weather.
The rain must have been getting heavier. The water was rising, flowing faster, up to their ankles with more pouring down the walls. They would be wading soon.
They could hear splashing behind them. Keeper’s coat bristled; the growl in his throat erupted in a deep bark at red points sparking in the darkness. Augusta could hardly hold him. Whoever—whatever—was following was gaining steadily.
Roberts was examining the right-hand wall of the cave, his torch shaking as he held it close to the rock.
“The way to the Fairish is here, I could have sworn. Me nan showed me. Here, Webbo. Hold the torch.”
Panic glittered in Roberts’s blue eyes as his hands fluttered like an old man’s over the rough surface. They were all drawn to what he was doing, staring at the rock face looking for clues, despite the splashing and the little red lights coming closer and the rising water and the prospect of them all becoming floating corpses.
The dull ache in Tom’s arm was a reminder that this was no Tomb Raider. This world was for real; you could get hurt here. His shoulder was throbbing now. Despite the cold down here, he was burning up, the sweat trickling down his back and stinging into his eyes. He remembered reading somewhere about gunshot wounds, fragments of cloth and God knows what driven deep into the flesh, setting up infection. He felt faint and a little sick at the thought of it, but maybe he was feeling sick anyway. A handful of leaves wasn’t the same as a dose of antibiotics. If you hurt here, can you also die here? How far do the rules of this game extend? Are there no limits, or is the limit death?
To stop from passing out, he focused on Roberts exploring the rock wall like a blind climber searching for holds. It had got to be one of those puzzle things, like you get in some games, but they didn’t exactly have time to collect clues and figure it out. Either that, or…
“Open for me.”
There was a grinding of stone on stone and a whole section of wall began to move and pull apart, slowly at first, then like a lift door opening. As soon as the last of them was through, the wall snapped back, smooth and grey and blank with no sign of a crack. Wherever they were now, there was no going back.