Sir Gorrann grabbed her arm and practically tossed her inside. “We have no choice, Princess. Move!”
She opened her mouth to object, but there were no other options. Head bowed, she followed Sir Gorrann’s mare through the narrow opening. Morte gave a great huff and stomped the ground furiously, his hooves sending booming echoes through the quarry. The ground seemed to shudder. Finally, once Dinah took her hands off his reins, he ducked his head and entered the tunnel willingly. The sides of his flanks brushed against the wall. He was unfamiliar and uncomfortable in this rocky terrain. His ears were flattened against his head, and Dinah could see his muscles tensed and ready to run. She felt a sudden rush of panic.
Sir Gorrann, his mare, Dinah, and Morte were stacked end to end, moving as quickly as they dared. If Morte should panic and bolt, they would all be trampled under his crushing weight. Sir Gorrann glanced back at Morte, his face pale and drawn. He had obviously come to the same conclusion. They paused, their hearts humming loudly in their closely drawn quarters.
“This is a wicked place,” breathed Sir Gorrann. “Let’s hurry. Keep yer devil calm.” The tunnel was maybe a half mile long, and from the moment they entered, an all-encompassing darkness draped them like a heavy blanket. Overhead, Dinah could hear the slight slithering of roots, a whispered hiss, and the sound of a thousand tiny legs. Something dripped onto her cheek, something warm and smelling of blood. Her hand brushed up against something wet and rubbery and she leapt toward the mare with a shriek. Morte was becoming more and more agitated, and Dinah forced herself to remain calm as a wet tendril caressed her cheek in the darkness. Something was crawling in her hair, something that made tiny clicking sounds with a sharp mouth. It scuttled across her forehead and leapt onto the wall. The walls around them were alive, raising their voices in a hissed chorus. Evil, evil, evil. Sir Gorrann pressed himself against the wall to let Cyndy pass, and Dinah felt his hand close around her wrist, grateful for the warmth of his calloused fingers. Something wet and long encircled their wrists and then slunk away into the tunnel.
“Do not run. Do not run.” He repeated the mantra again and again, convincing himself rather than Dinah. Dinah did not need the reminder. As terrible as the tunnel was—and it was the foulest place she could ever dream, a place of nightmares—there would be nothing worse than being trampled alive and left to die in this place, to have your body consumed slowly by whatever demons thrived in this dark corridor. She would not run. If she ran, Morte would run, and they would all die. Her pace stayed steady, and her hand tightened around Sir Gorrann’s in a show of strength. She would keep him calm. They stayed silent, afraid their voices would collapse the rock inward, or even worse, stir up the invisible creatures to aggression. A wild fear of the unknown pressed against Dinah’s brain and she found herself remembering every dark thing that had ever happened to her. She saw death, bodies, the King. Charles, with worms crawling out of his eyes. Vittiore, wearing her silver crown. The dead farmer, the arrow in his back leaking blood.
She stumbled once, twice… again. Sir Gorrann was having a hard time as well, murmuring violent things to himself as he bumped off the wall, falling over his own feet. Some slithery heavy thing had settled on his shoulder, and he struggled to wrench it away. Dinah kept walking. She couldn’t help him. Her hope was gone. The steam from Morte’s nostrils was burning her elbow now, his muzzle pressed against her back. He was pushing, pushing, faster now. We’re going to die in here, she thought. Another thought occurred to her—perhaps they were already dead. Perhaps this tunnel was death, in all its hideous finality.