What use I would be, I hadn’t the slightest idea. But circumstances had put me in charge of things, as absurd a notion as it was, and therefore, I had to share in the consequences of my decisions. Gunfire might set off the coal dust or gas in a premature explosion, so we all carried picks, knives, bats, or boards studded with nails as our weapons.
Knowing Griffin’s phobia of underground places, I gave him the task of guarding our backs. The yayhos could not venture out into the sunlight, but their abominations could. If they came around from behind and trapped us in the mine, we’d die in the explosion along with the yayhos.
Griffin hadn’t liked my decision, but he’d accepted it. I’d left Elliot as part of his force, because I disliked the idea of having the man in an enclosed space at my back. And because, if I had misjudged his apparent remorse, Griffin wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him down like a mad dog.
We gathered at the mouth of the mine. The sloping shaft looked like a gate to Hades, and I was glad the sunlight at least kept the yayhos back from the opening, giving us a chance to get inside. Or at least, I hoped it would, given the heavy cloud cover.
I clutched a makeshift club, feeling like a fool. Christine stood by my side; she’d selected a pick as her weapon, no doubt because its iron head would give momentum to her swing, to make up for any lack of strength in her arms.
Well, any lack compared to someone like the burly miners, not me.
“Everything’s ready, boss,” Fredericks said.
Swiney, who had emerged as the unofficial leader of the miners, nodded agreement. “Any time you’re ready, Dr. Whyborne.”
I was fairly certain I’d never be ready. But anything was better than cowering in the community center, hoping we’d survive another night.
“Yes. Er, well. Let’s go then,” I said weakly.
Christine cleared her throat. “Not the most inspiring call to battle,” she murmured.
Oh. My mind went blank, so I settled for thrusting my club into the air. “For, er, Threshold!”
A ragged cheer erupted around me, and a score of throats echoed my cry. “For Threshold!”
The crowd surged forward, and I went with it, caught in the press of bodies.
~ * ~
We raced into the mine, and I barely kept my feet from tangling with the small-gauge rail of the mine cart tracks and sending me sprawling. We all wore carbide headlamps, and the dozens of bobbing beams lent a surreal sense to the scene. I soon found myself running bent over. Christine was just short enough to stand straight, without knocking her hat off her head. “You didn’t say it was so damnably cramped!” she exclaimed.
I didn’t have the breath to waste on an apology. We emerged from the tunnel, and into the pillar-and-room maze of the mine. If only we knew where the yayhos had broken through.
Shouts sounded before me, mingled with cries of terror and fury. The ammonia stink of the yayhos washed over us, and I desperately hoped their entire force hadn’t taken up residence in the human part of the diggings. There came chittering, and shrieking, and the moans of abominations.
I caught a glimpse of a yayho going down beneath a flurry of picks and bats, as the men thinned out in front of me, spreading throughout the maze of the mine. “Push forward!” Christine bellowed, in a voice honed to giving orders to masses of workers on her dig sites. The cry was taken up, even as we plunged deeper into the mine.
It was a nightmare. The tracks for the carts tripped my feet, and the ceiling bent my neck. The yayhos were similarly bent, and couldn’t use their wings—but their crustacean legs allowed them to scuttle sideways along walls and pillars, like enormous cockroaches. I didn’t see many of them, perhaps two or three, the rest retreating before the dazzle of light our scores of headlamps brought with us. But the front rank was vicious and determined, and the abominations did not fear light.
The man to my left screamed as a yayho jerked him off his feet, its many legs gaining purchase to tear his head free of his body. I swung my club clumsily and landed a blow on its head, at the base of the feelers. It jerked back with a horrible cry, as if I’d struck it in some sensitive place.
Then five of the miners laid into it with pick and board and bat. Green blood coated the floor in moments, and my eyes burned from the fumes.
I turned away, meaning to press forward…and stopped.
Miss Dyhart stood before me.
Coal dust stained her nightdress and her skin, and her hair hung tangled about her shoulders. But her face was oddly placid, and she gave me a tight smile.
“Dr. Whyborne,” she said, in a horrible, flat voice, which matched the coldness in her black eyes.
No. My mouth opened, but no sound came out as she shuffled toward me. I remembered her in the bar, bright-eyed and boisterous. How she had kissed my cheek, more like a carefree girl than a hardened prostitute.
I had failed to save her, and now she was gone. This thing wore her skin, and I couldn’t move. Not even when she drew close enough for me to see she carried something like a syringe in her hand, filled with poison or sedative, I couldn’t guess.
Christine’s pick buried itself in her skull, pinning her to the pillar beside me.
I jerked back, club falling from my hands, my heart pounding.
“Damn it, Whyborne!” Christine shouted. She jerked hard on the pick, trying to wrench it free.
A crustacean claw swung out of the dark and dashed against her head.
Christine collapsed into a limp heap. The yayho emerged from its hiding place, legs plucking at her body, and no, God, no, I’d failed Miss Dyhart—I couldn’t fail Christine as well.
With an animal cry, I snatched up the fallen pick and swung it with all my strength. The end buried itself in the yayho’s segmented head, and I yanked on it as hard as I could, ripping through as much of the organ as possible. The yayho flailed, green blood bursting forth, before it collapsed twitching to the floor.
I dropped the pick and hauled up Christine, who let out a muffled moan. “Fall back!” someone cried. “Retreat to the mine entrance!”
It was the prearranged signal, meaning the blasting men had set their charge. I draped one of Christine’s arms around my shoulders, holding firmly to her wrist with one hand while I wrapped the other around her waist. I hoped she’d forgive me the liberty, given the circumstances.
“Blast it, Christine,” I muttered, all but dragging her with me. “Use your legs! I need your help here!”
She stumbled along beside me, but I couldn’t tell how much was deliberate and how much reflex. Swiney saw us and caught her other arm over his shoulder, and together the two of us carried her between us. Behind us, some of the miners fell into a protective formation, guarding the wounded as we retreated.
My arms and shoulders ached by the time we reached the free air. Rain pounded our faces, and the sky had gone dark enough to mistake for twilight. Lightning crashed, dangerously near. Gasping, I staggered forward, and found Griffin in front of me.
“Christine! Is she badly hurt?” he cried.
“I don’t know.”
“We have to get back,” Swiney warned.
We hurried, as best we were able, almost the last ones out of the mine. We scrambled sharply to one side, over and around piles of discarded rock and broken equipment, until we were well out of the projected path of the blast which would issue from the mine’s entrance.
Swiney and I carefully laid Christine down, attempting to shelter her from the rain and the blast alike, then crouched beside her behind the screen of rocks. He counted down under his breath, and I followed his example of stuffing my fingers in my ears. My pounding pulse seemed to tick off the seconds along with him.
A troubled look spread over his bearded face. The count grew higher and higher, and it seemed an inordinate amount of time had passed. At last, someone began to shout, and we both dropped our fingers from our ears.
Rising to my feet, I walked back toward the mine, where a group of men milled nervously. “It didn�
��t go off!” one of them cried upon seeing me. “Dr. Whyborne, I swear, we set the charge just perfect! The fuse must have gone out.”
“Can we relight it?” I asked, fearing the answer.
The man bit his lip. “It…it depends. The whole fuse wasn’t defective, or else it wouldn’t have lit off in the first place. If it burned just an inch or two, we might make it. If it burned almost to the bore hole…it’s a death sentence for whoever goes inside.”
A heavy weight seemed to press upon my chest. “I see.”
Silence fell over us all, broken only by the cries of the wounded. I walked slowly to the entrance of the mine and stared down into the blackness. Rain dripped off my hat and ran in rivulets down my neck and under my shirt, sapping heat from my body. We’d risked everything on this single gamble. We either acted this very moment and destroyed the mine and the yayhos gathered in it before they could remove the blasting powder, or we resigned ourselves to the slim hope of surviving the night in the community center, while they attacked from all sides.
And if we made it through tonight, what of tomorrow? There wouldn’t be enough moonlight yet to protect us. We’d have to abandon the wounded, run cross-country to save our own skins, and pray we made civilization before the yayhos found us.
Unacceptable. The fuse had to be relit. But what if the yayhos had found it and pulled it out altogether? What was truly needed was someone who could set the entire mine on fire if he had a mind to.
Well. At least the choice was clear.
“Someone has to relight the fuse,” I said. The words felt oddly distant, as if another spoke them. “And if I’m in charge, I suppose it had best be me.”
~ * ~
I didn’t wait for any dissenting voices before plunging back into the mine. I’d never been terribly good in an argument, anyway.
My greatest fear was an army of yayhos waiting for me, in which case nothing would save the town above but a poorly timed fire spell and blind hope. But as I scurried down the slope into darkness, nothing appeared to stop my progress.
As soon as I reached the coal seam itself, I flattened my back against a mining cart. I didn’t know if it would hide the glow of my carbide lamp, but I could hardly turn the thing off. Muffled sounds came to me, echoing among the pillars of coal which held up the weight of the mountain. The scraping of claws, the shuffle of a foot, an inhuman moan of pain…
But they were all distant. Had the yayhos retreated? If so, my plan might actually work. And if the fuse was long enough, I might even make it out of the mine alive.
God. I couldn’t think about it now. I couldn’t worry about Christine, or Griffin, or any of it. I just had to act.
I slid out from behind the abandoned cart and headed for the pillar with the charge. But things which had looked clear on a map were disorienting underground, everything confused by the darkness and my feeble light. Was this the tenth pillar from the wall, or the twelfth? What room was I in?
How had I ever imagined I could accomplish this? Fredericks and Swiney had been fools to put their hopes in me. My father might be a leader of men, but I was my mother’s son.
There—something which looked like a thick rope, hanging from the midsection of one of the pillars. The fuse?
Barely daring to breathe, I crept forward. The ammonia stench of the yayhos burned my eyes, and I blinked rapidly to clear my vision. Yes, thank heavens, it was the fuse! I hadn’t been nearly as lost as I thought. Holding my breath against the urge to gag, I ran to the fuse and picked up the end.
It hadn’t burned out on it’s own. Instead, it had been neatly cut, as if by a scalpel.
Something sharp closed around my ankle and yanked me off my feet.
~ * ~
My chin clipped the ground, hard enough for me to see stars and taste blood. I found myself dragged rapidly back, over the rough bed of the seam, by some enormous force. I scrabbled madly at the rails, kicking frantically at the same time, but only managed to twist onto my side.
A yayho hauled me deeper into the mine, its feelers working, a score of tiny eyes blinking painfully in the watery light of my headlamp. One of its largest pincers sank deep into the leather of my boot, and smaller pairs of legs gripped my calf.
“No!” I cried, and kicked at it with my free foot. But I couldn’t get any force behind the kicks. It whisked me over the rough floor, my coat rucked up around my armpits, my trousers ripping.
Then I saw the perfectly round hole in the wall behind it, and heard the chitinous chitter of a dozen, a score, of its kind. It meant to drag me into the diggings they had made, to open up my skull and scoop out my brain, so I might go mad inside some featureless cylinder—
I clawed at the floor, the skin tearing from my fingers, but I didn’t care. It couldn’t end like this!
The beam of another carbide lamp cut through the darkness. Griffin stood there, revolver in hand.
Griffin? My breath caught. He had come for me, into the horrible depths, he had—
Had shot his partner Glenn as monsters from beyond were killing him.
“The yayho!” I shouted. “Shoot it! It!”
The revolver spoke, and only then did I remember the danger of discharging a firearm in the mine. The yayho let out a howl, and its grip loosened. Emboldened, I kicked it again and, this time, managed to land a blow on what passed for its face.
There came a second beam of light, and another gun spoke, along with the first. Green blood burst forth, accompanied by a nauseating stench, and the yayho let go.
I scrambled to my feet. Already I could hear the restless movement behind, the yayhos and their abominations massing. Griffin ran to me, eyes wide with terror—but he’d come, God, he’d come to save me.
And behind him was the owner of the second lamp. Elliot.
Griffin grabbed my hand, even as he kept his gaze and gun trained on the opening behind me. “We have to run!”
“No.” I swallowed against the terror closing my throat. “The fuse—they deliberately cut it once already. It has to be guarded until it…until it reaches the powder.”
Someone had to hold off the yayhos. I staggered past Griffin, half dragging him with me, my eyes already fixed on the fuse. “Get out of here,” I said. “I’ll light it, but there isn’t much left. You’ll have to run to be clear.”
His grip tightened on my arm. “Don’t be a fool, man. Light it and flee. You can’t fire a gun, which means I have to stay.”
No. God, no. I would lose him; I couldn’t. “I’m not leaving you,” I snarled, grabbing his lapels.
“You have to! Elliot, take him and run!”
“No.” Elliot’s voice was oddly calm, despite our situation. He raised his revolver and fired at one of the abominations, which had ventured out. They came in force now, boiling up from the worm-eaten heart of the mountain, and our time was almost at an end.
“Damn you!” Griffin shouted.
Elliot shook his head. “You mistake me. Take Whyborne and run. I’ll stay behind.”
I felt as if all the air had left my lungs. Griffin seemed to feel the same; he staggered slightly. “Elliot—”
“This is my fault.” Elliot’s beautiful mouth was a tight line now, his blue eyes hard as chips of sapphire. “Let me make amends, Griffin. To the town and to you. Run, and I’ll hold them off as long as I’m able.”
Conflicting emotions flashed across Griffin’s face, anger and grief and other things I couldn’t guess. Then his expression firmed, and he nodded. “Do it. And Elliot…I forgive you.”
Griffin hauled me after him. We passed the fuse, and I lit it with a few words. What Elliot thought of the spell, I had no idea, nor any time to discover. Griffin and I sprinted back through the maze of pillars and rooms, gunfire ringing behind us as Elliot emptied his revolver into the creatures.
I glanced behind, just as we gained the sloping passage. No light came from above, utterly blotted out by the storm, and the yayhos erupted from their underground lair, like a nest of cockr
oaches. Twenty, thirty, forty, of them raced through the maze behind us, their wings and crustacean legs buzzing horribly.
They disappeared as we hit the upward slope, running and tripping over the rails. Griffin shouted we were coming, and to be ready, because hell was on our heels, but the boom of thunder blotted out his words.
We burst out into the pouring rain. Griffin wrapped his arms about me, and hurled us both forward, sending us tumbling away from the open maw of the mine.
The very earth convulsed beneath us, an instant before a titanic roar ripped the air. Fire gushed out of the mine entrance, and the blast hurled mine carts and heavy machinery to crash heavily to the earth on the other side of the gorge.
It went on and on, and, for a horrible moment, I thought we might have gone too far and the explosion would kill us along with the yayhos. But the deafening roar receded, becoming nothing more than an echo in the ravine. Black smoke poured from the mine, as if it were the very mouth of hell itself, but nothing living emerged.
Silence fell, almost as deafening as the stupendous explosion which had preceded it, broken only by the sound of rain. Then someone called out, a tentative whoop, and a moment later the air filled with wild cries of joy.
I rolled onto my side. Griffin stared at the smoking entrance, a streak of soot on his forehead starting to run in the rain. I put my hand tentatively to his arm.
He started and looked at me…and a slow smile of disbelief bloomed on his face.
“We’re alive,” he said, and pulled me into a rough embrace, until the approaching sound of footsteps forced us apart.
Chapter 24
A week later, Griffin, Christine, and I disembarked at the Widdershins depot.
The hike out of Threshold had been difficult, but we’d made it, along with a small force of Pinkertons, while the rest of the town remained behind to see to the wounded until help arrived. The denizens of the nearest town had been bewildered when we’d limped in dressed in sooty clothes, for the most part, and all of us sporting at least minor cuts and bruises.
No rational story could cover every aspect of what had happened, from the destroyed train trestle, to the downed telegraph wires, to the mine explosion. And of course we had no concrete proof the yayhos even existed. So we’d spun a web of wild tales, blaming everything from the outlaw gang, to weather, to mishaps, until the authorities merely flung up their hands and declared the whole thing an unfortunate disaster.
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 47