Fletcher and the others were forced to lower their weapons as the Wendigo made his way down, his black eyes fixing on them intently.
Tarquin and Didric were not far behind. When they reached the bottom, they followed Grindle in leaping over the moat as Othello and Sylva had done, while the Wendigo waded into the trench and lifted Isadora over the water. Fletcher rolled his eyes. A true gentleman …
‘What happened to Atlas?’ Fletcher said, eyeing the near-unconscious boy.
‘He ate some berry or other that didn’t agree with him yesterday, after we crossed the river,’ Isadora said, examining her fingernails. ‘The fat lump scoffed everything in sight. I doubt he’s going to make it. Pointless bringing him with us – he’s slowed us down the entire way. But Tarquin seemed to think it would look bad if we left him behind.’
Fletcher knelt beside the stricken boy. He had a bloodless pallor, and his breathing was shallow and erratic.
‘How long have you been here?’ Fletcher asked, tugging another health vial from the slot on his shoulder strap. ‘We waited for you by the back entrance.’
‘We just arrived,’ Didric croaked in his burned-out voice, prodding an egg absently with his rapier. ‘It took us forever, we had to carry this idiot most of the way. We were lucky most of the orcs are on the other side of the pyramid.’
‘We waited for you, you know,’ Othello growled. ‘A thank you would be nice.’
‘Nobody asked you to,’ Tarquin said, shrugging.
Fletcher ignored them and considered the vial. He only had two left and the last one had saved his life. Could he really sacrifice it to save this treacherous boy’s life? It was only a remonstrative look from Lysander that swung his decision. The world was watching.
He popped the cork and trickled some of the liquid into Atlas’s mouth. The boy licked his dry lips and swallowed it down.
‘You’re wasting your time with him – we tried the healing spell. He’s a goner for sure,’ Grindle said. He turned to Sylva and winked. ‘Nice to see the she-elf made it. Would be a shame to let an orc deny me the pleasure of killing her myself.’
Sylva’s knuckles tightened on her falx, so firmly that it wavered in the air by her side. Despite this, she replied with a cool, level stare.
‘Please, try. The pleasure would be all mine.’
As the last of the elixir drained from the vial, Atlas’s colour began to return. He coughed and sat up, looking blearily around him.
‘The healing spell did nothing,’ Isadora said, incredulous. ‘We wasted a huge amount of mana trying it.’
‘Looks like the elixir’s an anti-venom too,’ Fletcher said, checking his shoulder strap. He had only one red health vial left, but there were still three of the blue mana ones. They should come in useful when it came to destroying the eggs.
Atlas eyed Fletcher, a look of confusion on his face. He began to speak, then hesitated as Tarquin cleared his throat. Atlas turned at the noise, and after a brief pause, hoisted himself up and walked resignedly over to the others.
‘You’re welcome,’ Fletcher said sarcastically.
Another squawk from Lysander echoed down, announcing the arrival of the others. Fletcher’s eyes landed on Cress and he briefly considered whether Sylva’s suspicions could be right. But one look at her smiling face convinced him that she was innocent. Fletcher shook the suspicion from his mind and looked down the dark passageway. Hot, fetid air seemed to waft in and out, like the breath of a slumbering giant. This was it. All that they had risked, everything that they had gone through, had led to this moment. They had reached the goblin caves with half an hour to spare, and the raid was about to begin.
43
The teams kneeled at the entry of the passageway, examining the crude map that Mason had mocked up of the cavern. Their demons crowded the tunnel ahead, watching for movement.
‘I have no idea ’ow this tunnel links to the caves, but I’ll know it pretty well when we get inside,’ Mason said, using his sword to point at a large central chamber in the middle. ‘This is the main cavern. I’ve only been in there once, but I know it’s where they store the goblin eggs. It’s a magma chamber, so it keeps ’em warm. From what I’ve seen, the oldest batch ’atches right around the time a new one is brought in, so we need to be careful.’
He looked warily over his shoulder down the tunnel, then down at the swollen eggs in the moat.
‘Some goblins could be comin’ to collect ’em at some point, so we’d better move soon.’
‘What about the prisoners?’ Cress asked, hunkering down beside him. ‘Where are they kept?’
As she spoke, Sylva watched her face intently, her hand on the handle of her falx.
Mason pointed to a chamber connected to the main cavern by a long, thin tunnel, with another branching off it to the surface above.
‘That’s where they kept the prisoners sometimes. I dunno if my mates’ll be in there at this time of day.’