by Mike Maddox
Krillan stood stiffly, his fingernails biting into his hands behind his back. His whole adult life he head dreamed of going into action, and now when it looked as if there was finally to be some chance of adventure, he was to stay here, guarding farmers and shopkeepers in the shadow of the Castle. His face burned with shame. The General stood up slowly, Krillan snapping to attention as he did so.
"That will be all Captain. Carry on."
Krillan watched Vale leave, the transport pulling away into the dark. He stood there, silently seething, too wound up to sleep now.
"Sergeant!" he barked into the mess tent. "Have the men mustered for patrol. Armed and ready in five minutes."
"Yes Sir."
If Krillan were forced to sit out a war stuck here, then he would do so to the very best of his abilities.
The ground had become increasingly wet underfoot the further they travelled from the well, so much so that it was now splashing around their ankles as they walked. Leah remembered the Head Gardener and his scheme to find a new water supply.
"How far have we come?" said Gim.
"About a mile. I would have thought we'd have seen something by now. A nest or something. Droppings, that kind of thing."
"Great. The inn is open, there's a chair with my name on it and a flagon of cold beer on the table in front of it, and I'm down here with you looking for monster poo. In my spare time."
"Oh, but you love it."
"I do not."
"You do too."
"I still seriously do not."
"You still seriously do."
They stood there, looking at the walls of the tunnel. "Who do you think built these?" said Leah, running her hand along them. "You would have thought that someone would have made a big thing of it, really."
Gim stopped to look with her. "Why?" He asked, feeling the smoothness of the cold rock.
"Well. You know, big job like this, man in charge - and trust me, it's always a man - he'd expect recognition. He'd want a bottle of wine and a round of applause. He'd probably want a school named after him at the very least. Seems strange that none of us have ever heard of him."
"Or her."
"No, really, it's a man."
"How can you tell?"
Leah smiled at Gim, who was suddenly not smiling back at her. His face was white, his eyes huge as he stared at her... No, not at her, he was looking over her shoulder.
"It's behind me, isn't it?"
"Uh... yes."
"Big?"
"I... think I might've wet myself."
Leah slowly turned around. Behind her, something huge was moving. Something that was slowly sliding towards them in the darkness.
Leah slid the spray gun from her backpack and primed it.
The worm was thirty feet long from tip to tail. It pulled itself along the ground on four powerful looking limbs, armed with claws. The creature hissed softly at them, its tongue flicking in the air, as if smelling prey. Which, as Leah quickly realised, was something it shouldn't be doing if it were indeed vegetarian.
Leah backed away towards Gim, slipping the other spray from her shoulder, and handing it to him.
"When I say so, let him have it in the face. He can't hurt us, but it's big, so we need to keep back in case he falls on us. You ready?"
"No."
"Good. One, two, THREE!"
The sprays shot out an acrid purple mist into the beast's face.
The creature reared its head. Leah raised the spray gun and let it have another dose. She saw it clearly hit the worm full in the nostrils. She watched as it did not pass out, did not fall asleep, and most certainly did not fall over and start snoring. A hideous tongue flitted out and licked the liquid from its face. If anything, it liked it, and wanted more.
"I thought you said that would stop it?"
"I did. It should have. Maybe I mixed it wrong. Maybe it's too weak or something."
The creature slid across the tunnel, weaving from side to side, as it tasted the air with its tongue. Gim pulled an emergency flare from his belt, and pulled the pin from the top. At once it created a fierce orange flame. He waved it in the air, hoping the light might frighten it away. Indeed, the creature slunk back away from it, but as it did so it hissed, loudly, like the sound of a steam engine letting off pressure. It opened its mouth to reveal rows of obscene razor sharp teeth.
"Gim! Teeth! It's got teeth!"
"I know. Lots of them!"
"The Soft Worm doesn't have teeth. That's one of its primary characteristics. No teeth."
"Well, this thing's got bloody hundreds. I'm telling you, that book of your Dad's is useless."
Leah backed away from the creature, pulling Gim with her. "Unless that's not a Soft Worm. Unless it's something else altogether."
"Oh wonderful." The creature darted forward, then recoiled from Gim's burning flare. "Then what is it?"
"I don't think now is the best time to discuss research. I think now is an ideal time for us to get back to the surface. Whatever happens, just don't drop the bloody flare. It doesn't seem to like it. How many of those things have you got?"
"Two. Including this one. So what do we do?"
"We get out and then we pump this tunnel full of the most un-ecofriendly toxic pesticide-weedkiller I can get my hands on. Then we come back down, find the corpse and take samples."
The creature blinked at them and spun round, slithering down a fissure in the rock.
Silence.
"Where's it gone?" said Leah.
"Don't know."
"No, really, where has it really, actually gone?"
"Leah, it's gone. Gone is good, isn't it?"
"We need to know where this thing is."
"No! We need to get the hell away from this thing." Gim's flare sputtered.
"Timing. The secret to all good comedy." Leah pulled an electric cell torch from her bag, just in case. She turned back the way they had come, but stopped short in sudden panic.
There were three tunnels. They had come down in the dark, and so had not noticed that there were three tunnel entrances to the large cavern. They had no way of knowing which was theirs. All lead upward at the same angle and all seemed to be as straight as each other.
"Which one? Leah, which one did we come down?"
"The one on the left. No, hang on it must have been the one on the right. No, it must have been..."
They looked at each other.
"We don't know, do we?"
"Split up?" Gim said, weakly.
"Good way to get eaten. On the plus side it doubles the chance of one of us getting back safely." Leah paused, straining her ears for the sounds of the beast. "Any ideas? Any at all?"
Gim strode forwards, confidently. "Middle one." he said.
"Why?" said Leah, running to catch him up.
"Toilet rule. Never fails."
"What toilet rule? What are you on about?"
"Three men's toilets at work, right?"
"If you say so."
"Right." They were walking fast now, panting at the exertion of striding uphill. "Three toilets. One nearest the door? Who goes in that one? I'll tell you; it's either the man who couldn't care what state the toilet is in and so picks the nearest one, or else it's the man who's got the shits and is running towards it undoing his trousers as he goes, hoping he makes it in time. Either way, you do not want to go there after them! Toilet three, furthest from the door: Who goes there? The man with something to hide, and that means he's either got something wrong with his guts and he's getting as far away from everyone else as he can out of human kindness, or else he's gone for a fiddle and is busy involved in some deviant sexual act. Either way, you don't want to go in there after him." They stopped dead, looking around them, half expecting the creature to reappear at any moment. "Where does that leave us? Toilet two, in the middle. The cleanest, most fragrant, most morally advisable toilet in the block."
The tunnel opened out into the large circular chamber they had first discovered just
beyond the main shaft of the well. Gim turned to smile at her. "Never fails."
The ladder was still there.
"After you." said Gim, going first.
Leah smiled and gave a last look down the tunnel before starting up after him. Her foot missed a rung and she hung by her fingers, looking up.
The blood froze in her veins.
Above them. It was above them.
"Gim!" she hissed. "Stop! Look up!"
Gim looked up and saw that the wall of the tunnel was moving. There was something dark against the sky, something uncoiling itself and sliding down towards them. Leah dropped to the floor and backed away from the ladder, while Gim slowly climbed back down.
"Has it seen us?"
"Do you mean 'it' or 'they'? Who says there's only one of them?"
"I didn't think of that."
"Me neither."
They slowly backed away from the ladder towards the tunnel, trying to make as little noise as possible.
"Thing is," whispered Leah, close to Gim's ear, "it might be going out for the night again. It could be making its way up the tunnel, in which case we could still be all right. Let's wait a bit, see what happens."
Reaching into her bag, Leah found a small mirror. She held it up for Gim to see. "I'll have a peek round the corner. See if it's gone."
"Right. Why did you bring a mirror?"
"Because I'm a girl."
Leah slid forward and poked the mirror out from the tunnel, angled upwards so she could see the passage leading to the surface. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but she was fairly sure that the beast was still there. She could see it raising its head above the entrance to the well, looking this way and that, smelling the air with its tongue.
"I think it's going out. We'll give it a minute and then follow up." She patted Gim on the arm. "How are you doing? Apart from weeing in your pants, I mean."
"I think I've shat myself."
"Apart from that."
"Not very good. I just want to get out of here now."
The two them cautiously edged back towards the ladder; their eyes fixed on the open sky above them. There was no sign of the worm.
"Come on, let's do it before it comes back. Try and be as quiet as possible though, eh?" No sooner had Leah said the words, then there came the sound of shouting from above them. They recognised it at once. It was Krillan, barking orders to his militia.
"What the hell's he doing? It's the middle of the night!" hissed Leah.
"What the hell are we doing, it's the middle of the night."
There was more shouting from above and the sound of a transport.
The two of them stayed where they were, frozen on the ladder.
"Do you think they've seen the worm?" said Gim, hopefully. "Perhaps they'll shoot it for us."
"Which would be good."
"But then they'll get the reward for finding it."
"Right now, that doesn't seem too much of a problem, I'd say."
They strained their ears again. It was hard to tell exactly what was going on, but they both clearly heard the words 'curfew' and 'looter'. Whatever Krillan and his men were up to, they weren't hunting the worm.
Frozen to the ladder, they heard the sounds of voices coming nearer. They both peered upwards, expecting to see the face of Krillan or one of his guards at any moment.
Two eyes appeared at the top of the well. Two bright green eyes. Gim shrieked and dropped to the floor.
It was the worm. The worm was slithering down towards them, no doubt moving away from Krillan and his men.
Leah jumped down to him.
"They've spooked it. Come on, move it!"
The two of them ran blindly now, trying not to hit their heads on the roof of the tunnel.
Behind them, in the dark, the worm cast a rueful eye upward at the sky above it, thwarted by the soldiers. But smelling their scent, it licked the walls and floor, and with a crafty, purposeful slither, it followed Leah and Gim down the tunnel.
CHAPTER SIX
The cavern at the top of the slope was dry, obviously above the level of the watercourse that usually fed the well.
"This is seriously bad," said Leah, feeding data from her wrist. "We're lost."
Gim rubbed his own wrist, puzzled. "How can that be?"
"We've travelled three miles straight since the last intersection. I think we've climbed the hill at the back of the village, only we've done it from the inside."
"That's weird."
"That's really weird."
"So we're probably near the Castle, then? So now what?"
"We think. Now then, weapons, we need weapons." Leah looked up at the ceiling of the chamber, thick with roots growing down, tendrils hanging in the empty air. "Think, think, think. What's on the hill? What grows on the hill leading up to the Castle, Gim? Can any of these roots be fashioned into something we can use?"
"Nothing."
"No. Never nothing, always something. There has to be something we can use as a weapon. What's up there?"
There came a noise from the far end of the tunnel.
"What makes you think we could use the plants as weapons? For all we know the worm might actually like them!" Gim said, eyeing the tunnel warily.
"I know! I knock you unconscious, shovel this stuff down your trousers and leave you for it." The noise grew louder. "Or we could just run away!"
They ran through the tunnels, conscious that any moment a low ceiling could spell danger, and so they moved with one arm raised in front of them, expecting at any moment to hit the roof with their heads.
Turning a corner they noticed a faint greenish light, a phosphorescence.
"That's weird," said Gim, looking back anxiously. "Glowing roots."
Gim touched the roof. The roots hanging down had a faint green glow, which rubbed off on his fingers and sparkled. "What is this stuff? It smells like... like Meadowsweet. What smells like Meadowsweet, Leah?"
"It is Meadowsweet! Useful dried as bedding. Medicinal purposes include stemming bleeding, noted to be useful in warding off magical influences. Generally considered lucky. Do you actually know anything about plants, Gim?" Leah grabbed a handful of the roots and began rubbing them against her clothes. "Here, rub this stuff over you. It might help."
After they had covered themselves in Meadowsweet, the two friends ran on. Every now and then they caught the faint sound of slithering, of scales on rock, and knew that the beast was behind them. Leah began to get a nasty feeling that the creature was guiding them somehow, shepherding them on. After what seemed like ages, they found the walls of the tunnel becoming smoother, the rock more carefully hewn. In time it became brick until, finally, it opened up into a vast cavern. It reached up above them towards what looked like sky.
"Leah, it's daylight," said Gim. "Daylight. How long have we been down here?"
Leah looked up, astonished at the brightness, squinting after the dark of the tunnels.
"It's not daylight. Not unless there's something wrong with the sky. Look. The sky's generally blue, and that's... well. Turquoise."
"Some sort of trick of the light? Does light do funny things if you look at it from the bottom of a cave?"
"Not unless you've been drinking."
"Wish I had been drinking," said Gim, sadly.
"Me too. What is it? What are we looking at here? It's the same colour as the Castle."
"Maybe it is the Castle."
Leah spun to face him. "Of course. We're beneath the Castle! We're looking up at it from deep underground. There must be a shaft from the Castle that leads straight down here. But why? Water supply?"
Gim suddenly grabbed his head, in pain. "Ow! Bloody eyes."
"You alright?"
"The Pixie. It's sending signals again. Must be nearby." Gim slammed his eyes shut against the pain, and the opened them again. "No. Gone, whatever it was." Gim looked at the walls of the cavern as they reached up towards the bright turquoise glow. "You think we could scale the walls?"
"Need a long one."
"... like a really long ladder. No. Funny, but I thought they'd have sensors down here. Charms, protective spells, that kind of thing. At the very least I thought they'd have some kind of fierce beast guarding the entrance." There came a sliding sound from behind them "Oh dear. You don't suppose that's what the worm is for do you?" The sound grew ever louder. "Run!" shouted Leah, pulling Gim behind her.
They ran across the large open area, as the sound of the beast grew louder still. They stopped in the middle of the cavern, lit by the glow from above. Frantically they looked about for a way out other than the one they had come in by. The noise from the entrance grew louder, but the beast did not enter the cavern. They could just make out its form in the darkness.
"What's it doing?" hissed Gim, holding onto Leah's arm.
"I don't know," whispered Leah. "It doesn't want to come into the cavern. Maybe it doesn't like the light, or something." Leah looked around her. "Or else it's scared of something else. What is down here right now?"
"Cave. Monster. Two people shitting themselves."
"There's nothing growing. No mould, no fungus, no lichen. There's nothing here at all. We're the only living things in this chamber."
"Great. Thanks. Really helps, that."
"So what I'm thinking is, why? Water, light, warmth, this place should be full of tiny little plants clinging to life, and yet there's nothing. Says to me that something stops life taking hold. Something keeps sterilising the area." She looked up. "Something like that!"
Above them a swirling shape was taking form. A complex series of patterns and spirals held together by magic as it wove the molecules in the air together into a swirling vortex of energy. "We need to get out here, Gim. Now!"
"But the Worm's still there. It's waiting."
Leah turned and looked at the shape in the tunnel.
"Clever little bugger. It knows. It knows what's going to happen and so it's pushed us this way." She paused, suddenly lost in thought. How clever was it exactly? The pressure of Gim's grip on her arm snapped her from her thoughts.