I couldn’t see Blade well from my position in the rear, but in a moment trees began bursting into flame all around us. Soon the whole forest was bathed in a thick red glow. The screeches and chittering of the goblins took on a note of panic, and they began to fall behind us.
“It’s working!” shouted Calvin. “Keep going!” Cara turned in her saddle to look, her horse slowing slightly. Melaine and I edged forward, passing her to fall in behind Blade and Samuel.
Tree after tree erupted in fire as Blade went overboard. Part of me felt a little guilty—after all, aren’t we all raised with the idea that only WE can prevent forest fires? But this was a special case. And apparently Blade didn’t share my qualms—I heard him laughing maniacally as he waved his arm over his head.
Then he vanished.
I felt a sudden lurch, and then I was falling through empty space. I barely had time to glance to my right and see Melaine tumbling through the air with me. Then we were swallowed up in the darkness of the earth, surrounded by inky black. I couldn’t see anything. All I could hear was the terrified whinnying of the horses and the screams of the others. Then those sounds, too, vanished.
“AAAH!” My own voice filled the sudden silence as I came down hard on a slope of rocky stone. For a fraction of a second, I thought I’d landed and that my fall was over. But that hope died as I realized the slope was at a sharp angle, and I began to slide.
My body crashed into someone else’s, but I couldn’t see who it was. We bounced away from each other. I grasped into empty space, trying to reestablish contact. We crashed together again. This time I wrapped my arm around whoever it was and held on hard. I felt a hand clutch my sleeve just as desperately.
“Blade?” I shouted, still plummeting down the rocky incline.
“No, my Lord.” Melaine.
Then the ground disappeared from beneath us, and we were tumbling through the air again. I held on to Melaine tight. She seized my shoulders and twisted her body around.
“What are you—” I started to say, but then we hit rock again. Melaine had maneuvered herself to take the brunt of the blow, and my own fall was cushioned by her body. Then we were sliding down through the darkness again, completely blind.
“What is this?” I shouted.
“I don’t know, my Lord,” she replied. She grunted as her body impacted a rock that jutted out from the slope. “But I hope it ends soon.”
Suddenly I realized that the air around us was heating up. The stone we slid on grew hotter and hotter. But just as that knowledge made its way into my mind, the slope began to even out. Before I knew it we had slid to a gentle stop.
“Holy…crud,” I muttered.
“Yeah, right?” came a familiar voice from the darkness. There was a spark, and then a flare of light, and suddenly Blade’s face was illuminated in an orange glow. Samuel stood right behind him, blade drawn, staring into the darkness around us.
“Blade!” I said. I clambered to my feet, then reached down a hand to pull Melaine up. She took it gratefully. “Where’s Calvin and Cara?”
“I just got here, hoss,” said Blade with a smirk. “Afraid I haven’t found the directory yet.”
I looked back up the tunnel we’d slid down. “They should have come down the same way as us,” I said, concerned. “What happened to them?”
“Perhaps they didn’t fall into the earth as we did,” said Melaine.
“They probably did, but they could have gone a different way,” said Blade. “I managed to get a spark up a couple of times while we were sliding down. Those tunnels were a labyrinth. They went off every which way. One twist, and Calvin could have ended up in a completely different part of the mountain. The horses are probably scattered all over the place. Frankly, it’s amazing that we ended up together.”
I barely heard him. I was staring around at the walls, the floor and the ceiling. Everything was black stone. The floor was polished and smooth, like glass. The ceiling had black spikes jutting down, like stalactites. Meanwhile, the walls had ridges running along them in even rows.
“I think these are lava tubes,” I said thoughtfully.
“Lava tubes?” said Blade. “As in, volcano lava tubes?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But if so I sure hope it isn’t active, because that would be very unpleasant. The ridges on the walls show the flow of lava, but it looks like it’s been a while since this was formed.”
Blade shrugged. “Guess someone was paying attention in physics. I’ll take your word for it.”
I blinked. “What…no. It’s geology. The study of rocks and earth and stuff. Physics is…like, not even the same family. Not even a third cousin.”
Blade shrugged again. “Whatever. All I know is, we’re trapped.”
“As is Lord Calvin, almost certainly,” said Samuel, “along with Captain Gaskill. If I may make a suggestion, I think that finding them should be our first priority.”
“Your suggestions are always welcome, Sammy boy,” said Blade happily, wrapping an arm around Samuel’s shoulders. “And I think you’re right.”
Samuel’s face remained stony, but his eyes looked weary. He really hated that nickname.
“Hold on, guys,” I said. I hesitated for a moment, but if no one else was going to bring this up, I had to. “Blade, we were supposed to be asleep an hour ago.”
Blade’s smirk didn’t go away, but his eyebrows raised. “Yeah, so what? We should just hit the sack and totally ignore the fact that Calvin is stuck in a volcano and could be in trouble?”
I took a deep breath, feeling my nostrils flare at his attitude. “Obviously I’m not saying we should ignore him. But if he’s safe, he’s probably going to go to Earth, too. If we go to sleep now, we can check on him.”
“And if he’s not awake on Earth, what do we do then?” Blade said. “Just head on back to bed? Is that your big plan? Just ask your parents if you can sleep in today after you’ve already woken up?”
I could feel Melaine and Samuel looking at me. I could sense their disapproval, and it stung. I’d been the most reluctant Realm Keeper when we’d first arrived, until my hesitance had almost cost the others their lives. I could still feel resentment from the others sometimes because of it.
“Listen, man, I gave everything during the siege, okay?” I said, trying to remain calm. “I even camped out with you in the woods. So don’t act like I’m trying to bail out on anyone here. I’m just saying that after that, my folks are majorly on edge. If I end up spending the night here, I could wake up at Medicorp.”
“Forgive me for intruding,” said Melaine, her tone less apologetic than her words, “but after so many weeks and days of such conduct during the siege, do you truly believe that your parents will be troubled by a single night of sleep?”
I hesitated.
“Come on,” said Blade. “Let’s at least find Calvin before we go to bed. He’s probably a hop, skip and a jump away. An hour, tops, and then we can head back to Earth. You can just say you overslept a little bit.”
I sighed. “Fine. But if we haven’t found him in an hour…”
Blade raised his right hand. “We can find a quiet spot and go to sleep. Scout’s honor.”
“You were a boy scout?” I asked, surprised.
“Not even for a day,” Blade said with a smile. “I superglued the scout master’s pants to his chair.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you did. Come on.”
We set off down the tunnel, which sloped down only slightly as it twisted and turned through the mountain’s bowels. No part of the massive lava tube was straight for more than a few dozen feet, making me feel paranoid every time we approached a new corner. Blade’s fire barely gave us any visibility, and at the same time it was a glaring beacon of light for anything—human or otherwise—we might approach at each bend.
Then we rounded a new corner, and came to an abrupt stop. The tube became another slide, sloping steeply down into the darkness.
“Crud,” said Blade, looking d
own into its depths.
“Okay, I think this would be a good place to end off for the night,” I said firmly.
“Come on!” said Blade. “It hasn’t even been ten minutes.”
“Blade, we have no idea what’s down there,” I said. “But we know that whatever it is, it isn’t going to come up at us. We’re not going to find a safer spot to camp.”
“And what about Calvin?” said Blade, his smile disappearing. “What if he’s not in a safe spot? He might need us.” I was surprised. Blade was actually getting angry.
Unfortunately, he was also right. “Okay, fine,” I sighed.
“Wait, my Lord,” said Melaine, stepping forward. “Let us go first.”
I nodded, and Melaine and Samuel stepped to the edge of the slope. She looked at me a final time, and they took the last step forward. The slope carried them away and out of sight. Within seconds, the sound of their scraping, sliding bodies vanished into the blackness. I stepped to the edge of the slope and bent over, peering into the tunnel.
“Melaine!” I called out. “Can you hear me?”
The echo of my own voice was the only answer.
“All right, I guess we follow,” I said uneasily.
“Nothing to it,” said Blade with a grin. “Why don’t you go first?”
Before I could answer, he gave me a push. I was already bent over the tunnel, and his nudge sent me pitching over the edge and into the darkness with a yelp. As I slid I righted myself, rolling onto my back and dragging my hands and feet along the stone surface, slowing myself ever so slightly. I couldn’t have stopped, but it made me feel more in control. My heart began pounding as soon as I sank into the pitch darkness of the tunnel. But seconds later, I heard noise behind me, and soon Blade was sliding down just a few feet above me. He was managing to keep a ball of fire going in the air as he descended, allowing us both to see the tunnel around us.
“You’re a jerk, you know that?” I called back.
“Oh, like you weren’t going to go down anyway,” he said, laughing.
His laughter ended as we abruptly pitched out into empty space, flying through the air. I tumbled head over heels in the emptiness, crying out with the sudden shock of weightlessness. Then I came crashing to the ground on top of something soft and sticky.
A hand slammed down over my mouth and I flinched, holding up my hands and reaching for my magic. But then I recognized Melaine’s face and realized that it was her hand that silenced me, and I let my arms drop to my sides.
I was lying on my back in a heap of mud and straw. The mud was no surprise, but hay was the last thing I expected to see this deep in the earth.
“What the heck?” I tried to say, forgetting my mouth was covered. A muffled wrfrgr was all that came out.
“Quiet, my Lord,” hiss Melaine insistently.
She removed her hand and helped me to my feet. That’s when I noticed something odd—Blade’s flame had gone out as we tumbled, and he hadn’t put it back up even now. But we were surrounded by a soft red glow.
Looking around, I realized why.
We were in some kind of underground village consisting of mud and straw huts. We’d landed on one of them—that was the tacky mess that we now found ourselves in. Thankfully the mud was almost completely dry and rubbed off my clothes easily, but we were still filthy.
When I saw what lived in the huts, my heart nearly stopped beating.
We were on a sort of street in a village. The street was really just a narrow rock ledge high on the wall of an underground cavern where we now found ourselves. At the very bottom of the cavern flowed an endless stream of magma, liquid hot rock that sloshed and lapped at the edges of the rock. Above the lava, running in all directions, there were more streets. Some of them were set into the wall, others were rock projections that stretched from one side of the cavern to the other.
And swarming all over those streets, in and out of the buildings that lined them, were goblins.
I’d thought we’d seen a lot of goblins chasing us in the woods. But that was like seeing a swarm of bees harvesting the pollen from a field of flowers. It looked like a lot, until you followed them back home and saw…
“The hive,” I whispered. “We’re in their hive.”
“I believe colony is the proper term,” said Samuel quietly, “but yes, you have the idea.”
“Crud.”
“Hey, there’s one good side to this,” Blade pointed out. “I’m sure that if they had Calvin down here, the place would be in an uproar. But they’re quiet.”
“A wise observance, my Lord,” said Samuel, “and one that brings up an excellent point—we should make ourselves scarce before we ourselves are discovered.”
“Agreed,” I said. “But where to?”
“There are exits all throughout the cavern,” said Melaine, pointing. I followed her finger and saw them—tunnels much like the ones we’d slid through, only these ones connected to the ledges and streets of the cavern rather than emerging from the ceiling. Goblins tramped in and out of the tunnels, docile. Those coming into the cavern carried things I couldn’t identify from this distance. Probably food, or maybe materials for building huts. Those who were leaving the cavern were empty-handed.
“It would be difficult to leave through one of those tunnels without engaging the goblins,” Samuel pointed out.
“Which we shouldn’t,” I said. “This is their city. We’re the intruders here. We need to try and leave quietly, without making any more trouble.”
“You call this a city?” Blade said with a laugh. “They’re goblins. They just tried to kill us.”
“Because we attacked them first,” I said, irritated. “They’re not just animals. They build things. They have tools. They live together. They might not be advanced, but they are a civilization.”
Blade rolled his eyes and waved his hands in the air. “Fine, you’re the goblin ambassador. Whatever. How are we getting out?”
“There,” said Melaine. She indicated a tunnel exit that wasn’t too far away. No goblins were near it, and the entrance was boarded up with massive timbers that looked to be nailed right into the rock. “If we can make it to that tunnel and pry away the boards that block it, we should be able to make a quiet exit.”
“Good spot,” I said. “All right. Let’s move.”
We padded along the street toward the tunnel. I kept a wary distance from the path’s edge—over it was a forty-foot drop straight into the waiting lava river below. The air around us was dry and roasting hot. It made me feel strangely weak. I didn’t understand, until I realized that the heat of the lava had sucked all of the moisture out of the air, and was doing the same to my body. I doubted I’d find much to work with if I needed to use my magic. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to.
“Why aren’t there any goblins around here?” Blade asked in a loud whisper.
“This is where they live,” I said. “They must be nocturnal, or semi-nocturnal. At night, everyone in the colony leaves to go forage for supplies, feed the young and gather building materials. When the sun comes back up, they retreat back into the colony and sleep until the next nightfall.”
Blade stared at me, a priceless look of surprise on his face. “How do you know this stuff?”
“I don’t for sure,” I said. I shrugged, but I couldn’t entirely hide a self-satisfied smile. “But that’s how it works on True Earth with certain species like ants and bees.”
Blade snapped his fingers as his eyes lit up. “Right, I forgot you’re an animal nut.”
I scowled. “I’m not a nut, I just like biology.”
“Right, like I said. Animal nut.”
“If it’s all the same to you, my Lords,” said Melaine, not bothering to turn and give us what I was sure was a disapproving look, “could we spare the idle chatter until we are out of life-threatening danger?”
Before I could answer, I saw movement from the corner of my eye. A scrap of cloth at the front of one of the huts moved slightly. It swung o
pen, and a goblin stepped out of the hut and into the dim glow of the cavern. One of its long, pointed ears was torn, the lobe hanging in tatters. Its mottled, warty head turned in our direction. Its wide mouth, filled with needle-sharp teeth, began to open.
Samuel and Melaine pounced, leaping forward and bringing the goblin to the ground, wrapping their arms around its mouth to prevent any sound from leaking out. But the goblin twisted from their grasp, squeezing out between them like a cork slipping from a bottle. It flew right at me, and I grabbed it on instinct. I wrapped one arm tight around its neck and used my other hand to cover its mouth.
“Quiet!” I hissed as the goblin fought and twisted in my grasp. “Quiet! We aren’t going to hurt you!”
Melaine got to her feet, her sword held at the ready. “We must kill it, my Lord,” she said. “It will alert the colony.”
I ignored her. “Hey! Hey!” I said quietly, still holding the goblin tight around the throat. “Listen to me. If you promise not to scream, we’ll let you go. Do you understand?”
“It’s not a person, dude,” said Blade. He had a hand out, a ball of flame floating in the air above his palm, ready to cut loose. “Look at these things. They’re barely builders.”
But the goblin had stopped its struggling. Its beady black eyes were staring up at me, filled with fear. Its hands still clutched at my arm, but it wasn’t fighting me.
“It’s calmed down,” I said, looking at the others. “Look. It can understand me. Can you understand my words?”
Krrr-krrr. The goblin chittered against my hand over its mouth. But my Realm Keeper magic turned the sound into a word: “Yes.”
“Holy crud,” said Blade, staring at the goblin.
“What?” said Samuel.
“It talked.”
“We don’t want to hurt you,” I said, ignoring the two of them. “We just want to get out of here. If I let you go, do you promise not to scream for help? We’ll slip away and disappear. You’ll never see us again. I swear.”
The goblin’s eyes narrowed. It was probably confused that it could understand my words. Either that, or I was using words that were too high-concept. The goblins probably didn’t have a super advanced vocabulary. But it nodded.
Wyrmspire (Realm Keepers Book 2) Page 28