‘Two!’
‘Run on three.’
‘Three!’
They ran beneath the arch of the scissor-field’s swinging scythes in unison. Therin kept the pace in the centre, Annev and Titus to either side. As a group, they dashed in front of a stone maul, sidestepped a leather-bound axe-head, and sprinted through a gap between three spinning scissor blades – then narrowly avoided being crushed by a block of granite carved in the shape of an anvil.
‘Almost there!’ Therin shouted, ducking beneath a wide beam – and then they were. The stone warthog swooped past directly in front of them and they stepped into its return path. Titus nervously eyed the warthog as it climbed towards the top of its arc.
‘Now what?’ Annev asked, pulse racing.
‘You’re going to run like Keos is kissing your breeches.’
‘No stopping? No pausing?’
Therin shook his head. ‘If you stop, you’ll get smashed.’
‘What if we run too fast?’
‘Therin …’ Titus said, watching the warthog descend.
‘You can’t run too fast,’ Therin answered without a hint of humour.
‘Therin?’ Titus repeated, the stone head swinging closer towards them.
‘Get ready …’
‘Therin!’ Titus screamed as the warthog came streaking at them.
‘NOW!’ Therin shouted.
The three boys bolted down the corridor just as the stone warthog zipped behind them. Then an axe blade. Then a boulder. A stone fist thudded past. Annev picked up speed when he was clipped by a speeding dragon’s head.
‘Blood and bones, Therin!’ Annev shouted, still sprinting. ‘Are you trying to kill us?’
‘Fasssttteeerrr!’ Therin yelled at the top of his lungs, and then suddenly ‘Slide, slide, slide!’ as a sweeping beam dropped down ahead of them. He and Annev dropped and slid beneath it on their knees; a fraction later Titus rolled under it. They had just climbed back to their feet when Therin was screaming in their ears again.
‘Dodge!’
With barely a thought, Annev and Titus went left while Therin moved right. They shimmied as close to the walls as they could without falling into the gutters as a pendulum swung straight for them, at right angles to the rest; it was huge, carved to look like an anchor, and as it swung towards them, Annev realised they still weren’t clear.
‘Get down!’ he shouted.
They scrambled into the trenches lining the passageway, careful not to fall through the gutters and into the morass below as the massive anchor flew past them, barely an inch above the ground. The anchor reached the end of its arc, almost touching the side-swinging beam they had passed moments before, then fell towards them again.
‘RUN!’
The three acolytes rolled out of the gutters and sprinted in a final mad dash for the end of the scissor-field. They shot out of the far end in a tangle and tumbled over one another, scrambling to get clear of the anchor’s backswing.
‘That … was …’ Titus panted, trying to catch his breath.
‘Awesome?’ Therin said.
‘New?’ Annev suggested.
‘Terrifying.’
Annev glanced back the way they had come. When the anchor reached the height of its pitch once more, he caught the briefest glance of Fyn staring at them in horror from the opposite end of the scissor-field. Beside him, a brooding Kenton rubbed the scarred side of his face.
Chapter Thirty
While Therin and Titus caught their breath, Annev turned his attention to the chamber they were in: it was small, dimly lit by light from the main arena, and had been roughly hewn from the bedrock beneath the Academy. The walls were slick with moisture and the air was damper. He felt disorientated. The room had never been like this before.
‘They’ve taken down the walls,’ Titus said, finding the answer moments before Annev. ‘They’ve always had rooms built inside here, but now it’s just bare rock.’
Annev nodded. ‘Lots of surprises this time.’ He went deeper into the cave-like room, expecting to see a tunnel or a door at the opposite end of the chamber. He was not disappointed, spying three iron-banded oak doors.
Therin approached the middle door and tried its handle. ‘Locked,’ he announced.
Annev nodded, unsurprised. ‘Lock-picking test.’
Therin cursed. ‘I hope you’re wrong. Kenton and Fyn could come through the scissor-field at any second.’ He jogged down to the third door, tried the handle, then ran back to the first. He swore again. ‘All locked.’
‘Maybe this will help.’
Annev slipped the iron key from around his neck and tossed it to Therin, who caught it and began to laugh. ‘Edra’s key!’ He started testing it on the three locked doors.
‘Be careful of traps!’ Annev warned, though it didn’t take long for Therin to reach the last door and realise the key was useless.
‘It doesn’t fit any of the locks,’ he complained. ‘What good is it?’
Annev shrugged. ‘Edra said it was some kind of puzzle, so I guess it makes sense that it won’t unlock the doors. That’d be too easy.’ He took the key back and they all pulled out their lock-picking tools.
‘Take a door each and be careful of traps.’
The other boys nodded, and Therin plopped down in front of his door. Titus jogged over to the first and Annev went to the one in the middle. It took only seconds for him to click the last tumbler into place, and the others had been as quick. He eased his door open, sensed resistance on the other side, and stopped. He probed the edge of the door, sliding his fingers up and down until he located a taut string connected to an unseen trap just above the door frame. He took a tiny pair of shears from his pocket, snipped the cord, and stepped back.
As the door swung open, Annev saw the severed string, its opposite end tied to a trough filled with bubbling purple liquid.
‘Denithal and Murlach must be working together,’ Annev said as Therin and Titus approached. ‘There’s a trap above the door that would drop a bucket of … something on my head.’
‘No traps behind my door,’ Titus said.
‘Mine either.’ Therin was about to say more when they heard shouts from the scissor-field. Time was running out.
‘Only your door was trapped,’ Therin said. ‘What kind of locks did you pick? Mine was a wafer lock.’
‘Pin tumbler,’ Titus said, glancing over his shoulder.
‘Double-action lever tumbler,’ Annev said. ‘You both had simple locks with no traps. I had the hardest lock and a trap. We take the middle door.’
Therin pumped the air with his fist. ‘Yes! Let’s go!’
‘Too late,’ Titus said.
Annev turned just as Kenton fell into the chamber. The dark-haired boy rose to his knees and clutched his hip, trying to catch his breath.
‘You hurt, Kenton?’ Annev asked.
The boy huffed. ‘What do you care?’