“A creation of a Red Wizard, maybe. Perhaps some poor animal Maligor corrupted.” Galvin kept his voice low, not wanting to alert others in the mine to their presence. However, he realized such caution was probably useless. He heard the steady clip-clop of Wynter’s hooves behind him, and the clinking of the undeads’ bones echoed through the shaft. The druid scowled as he thought of the skeletons and zombies; the army had been halved by the rockslide, and he wondered if the remaining force was strong enough to take whatever lay ahead.
“I just hope she—or it—is dead,” Brenna added, still feeling sore from her ordeal with the naga. “I saw her go down the mountainside. I just hope there’s no more of them in here.”
The procession wound its way into the mountain, navigating the twisting main shaft. Wynter had difficulty moving through the tunnel. The top of his head brushed against the ceiling in places, and the rocky floor felt uncomfortable beneath his hooves. His human chest and his equine body ached from being pelted by the rocks in the slide, but he plodded forward, focusing on Galvin several feet ahead.
The shaft was nearly twenty feet wide, allowing the undead to spread out behind the centaur. Torches spaced at irregular intervals provided only scant light and made the complex seem like a mass of shifting gray shadows.
The druid, however, was becoming accustomed to the meager light, and he concentrated on his surroundings. From somewhere ahead, he heard the sounds of metal striking against rock—miners with picks, perhaps. Because the noise echoed through the shaft, it was impossible for Galvin to guess how far away the miners might be.
Wynter glanced about nervously, wondering why they hadn’t met with any resistance since entering the mines. “There should be guards in this shaft,” he whispered. “This is too easy, Galvin.”
“Perhaps,” the druid replied. He slowed and studied the tunnel. Galvin guessed they were about two hundred yards into the mountain. The shaft ahead straightened out and was angling downward. The tunnel was supported by massive oak beams, some reinforced where the wood had splintered. The druid eyed the construction, noting that the mine was of considerable age and this main shaft had been mined out decades ago. After traveling another hundred yards over rock worn smooth by human traffic, he raised his hand signaling the undead to stop. He wanted to listen to the sounds of the miners ahead and try to determine if anything else was in the tunnel. The druid was certain that Wynter was right—the mine had more defenses than what they had encountered on the plateau.
Scanning ahead, he spotted unnatural, thumb-sized crystals embedded in the shaft’s walls at roughly waist height. They started at about the point the torches stopped. Farther down the shaft, the torches started again. Perhaps its some sort of magic, he thought, staring at the closest crystal. He started to stoop beneath the crystal when Brenna’s arm shot out, grabbing him.
“It’s a ward of some kind,” she said.
“So we go under it. The miners go through here somehow.”
“No,” she stated simply. “Passing beyond a ward, a magical guard, triggers it. If you speak the right words, the ward lets you by.”
“And if you don’t have the right words?”
Brenna frowned. “The ward could kill you.”
Galvin studied her features amid the shadows. “Is there any way we can learn the words?”
“Of course not,” the enchantress replied, pursing her lips. “At least, not in the time we have. But …” She stared at the crystals for several long moments, then reached toward the druid and pulled his longsword from its sheath.
“What is it?” the druid started. But a motion from Brenna kept him quiet.
She extended the tip of the sword toward the crystal, then past the crystal. Nothing happened. Handing the sword back to the druid, she stretched out her hand. As it neared the ward the crystal began to glow and she heard a soft hum. Snatching her hand back, she turned to Galvin and smiled.
“It senses heat. I can get around this, but it will be uncomfortable.”
The druid nodded and gestured with his hand, waiting to see what Brenna would do. The enchantress began mumbling something, the words coming so quickly the druid couldn’t make them out. As her voice rose, the air grew chill. And when she extended her hands, pointing away from her and down the shaft, frost leapt from her fingertips and headed down the tunnel with a whoosh, coating the walls, floor, and ceiling.
“Let’s hurry,” she urged, sliding forward toward the torches beyond the crystals.
Shivering, the druid quickly followed, but Wynter had a difficult time navigating the ice-coated floor. By the time the centaur managed to make it to the end of the frost, it had started to melt.
“The undead!” Brenna cried. “The crystals will—”
Galvin interrupted, gently grasping her shoulders. “The undead don’t give off heat, Brenna. The dead are cold.”
She slumped her shoulders, feeling foolish yet relieved, and continued at Galvin’s side down the shaft. They trodded downward for a hundred yards. As the torches became farther and farther apart, the shadows grew thicker, and the druid grabbed a torch from the wall so they could see better.
Ahead were a series of crosscuts, tunnels that had been dug off the main shaft. Some of those tunnels, or adits as the druid had heard miners call them, led to ventilation holes; Galvin felt a slight breeze coming from them. The moisture became more noticeable the deeper the army marched, and the clinking bones of the skeletons echoed hauntingly off the walls.
The druid noticed that the sounds of mining had stopped. Whatever or whoever was ahead had likely been alerted to their presence, probably hearing the centaur’s hooves and the skeletons’ bony feet. Galvin continued to inspect the mine as they moved along. The pressure of the mountain was strong, he noted. The support beams were closer together here, and some were bowed from the weight of the rock above. The mine was massive, the druid was certain, probably winding throughout the mountain like tunnels in an anthill.
He wondered if he should investigate the crosscuts, but he heard no sounds there, either. And he knew better than to speak with the stone here; it was so old and probably had so many stories to tell that he’d be totally exhausted after listening. Along the way, he spotted deposits of sand within layers of rock, a sign that precious metals were present.
Although the druid knew little about mining, he knew the earth, and his eyes told him where veins of gold had been stripped, the layers of stone robbed of their wealth. He was uncertain where all the rock and dirt that had been mined was taken. There was little evidence of discarded gravel and silt outside the shaft’s main mouth. Perhaps they had a way to dissolve it magically, he thought.
“Galvin,” Brenna whispered. “Listen.”
The druid cursed himself for becoming so lost in his thoughts that he had dropped his guard.
He heard a whisper, or something that sounded like one. It was a soft noise, a shushing sound that slowly increased in volume.
Bats? he thought. The noise could be the flutter of wings, but the way sound was distorted in the shaft, it was difficult to be certain. If it was bats, there must be many of them, and something had disturbed them to get them aloft.
Concerned, he urged the army forward, scanning the walls to make sure no more crystals were present and indicating Brenna should do the same. Then he reached out with his mind, trying to contact the bats deeper in the shaft. Brenna cursed softly and tried to keep pace, at the same time watching the tunnel’s walls for more of the dangerous crystals.
The centaur also struggled to stay ahead of the undead. As he picked up the pace, his head bumped against a support beam.