There was no time to argue, so Fletcher squeezed himself into the cage, the sharp ends of the broken bamboo scraping harshly across his abdomen as he wriggled through the hole. Inside, it appeared even smaller.
It was half the size of his old cell – he would only be able to lie down diagonally with his head touching one corner and his feet touching the other.
The woman remained unmoved, even when he crawled towards her. There were old signs of her former comprehension. Notches made on the post above her, more than a dozen. A rough comb made from a tortoiseshell, clutched in her hands. Even her threadbare clothing had been neatly stitched and patched – a whittled bone, sinews and dried animal skin acting as needle, thread and cloth, piled in the opposite corner.
The encrusted blood staining her mouth and the boards beneath him confirmed what the piles of bones and offal suggested. They had never bothered to cook her food, or even clean out her surroundings. He covered his nose with his sleeve at the smell, stronger somehow within the confines of the cage. The stench was like that of a rotten goblin egg, and his stomach lurched with both pity and revulsion.
The lady wore a uniform Fletcher could not recognise, though little remained of the original fabric. It might have been white once, but now it was a sullied yellow. Her hair and face were filthy beyond recognition. Only the eyes stood out from the dirt, the whites clear, the irises a pale blue. They suddenly flicked to his face.
Fletcher started and stifled a gasp. She stared at him, then held out a hand, palm up like a beggar asking for alms. He took it gently, for the wrist was so skinny he felt like he might break it with the slightest pressure. She struggled to her feet, forced to stoop beneath the roof of the cage. Fletcher saw her knees give way just in time, and he caught her as she fell. It was like holding a bundle of bones, her body insubstantial and weightless.
‘Give her to me,’ Rufus said. His voice was too loud, but it was clear he was beyond the point of caring. Fletcher passed the woman through the hole, her head lolling against his shoulder. She was so emaciated that he could lift her like a rag doll.
Rufus snatched her from his arms and left without a word. He rushed through the slumbering bodies without looking down, taking great strides and leaps in his haste, his mother clasped to his chest like a long-limbed baby. It was a miracle no goblins were woken in his mad rush to the tunnel.
Ahead of him, the slaves had gone, sent on earlier to the main cavern. Only Mason remained, scanning the room for signs of movement. Rufus barely gave the boy a glance as he stumbled past with his burden.
As soon as the two were clear, Fletcher followed in Rufus’s footsteps, carefully darting between the goblins, his heart hammering in his chest with every pace. Still the goblins slept on, dead to the world in their drunken stupor.
It was when he was halfway across that he saw it. Mason. Taking careful aim with his crossbow, the point firmly centred at Fletcher’s head.
Fletcher stopped, dead in his tracks. He whipped up his hand to make a shield, but nothing came out. His blood chilled as realisation dawned on him – there was no mana left. Ignatius had taken it all.
Mason squinted down the stock of the crossbow, his tongue poking out between his lips. Fletcher could do nothing but stand there, waiting for the end. He would not jeopardise the mission by leaping aside, even if it meant his own death. How stupid he had been, to trust the boy. Once a Forsyth Fury, always a Forsyth Fury.
The dull thrum of the release hit his ears as the bolt whipped by him. Behind him, a thud and a squeal.
Fletcher turned in time to see a goblin collapse to the ground, the quarrel skewered through its neck. It spasmed and flapped at its throat, but the only sounds it made were quiet gurgles.
‘Get on with it,’ Mason hissed, waving him on. ‘Before another one wakes up!’
46
They reached the main cavern to the sounds of arguing. To Fletcher’s shock, Didric was standing over the tangle-haired slave, the tip of his blade drawing blood as it pressed against the boy’s heaving chest, the injured gremlin still clutched in his arms. The other teams stopped their destruction of the eggs to watch. Only half the room had been cleared.
‘There’s no room for you,’ Didric snarled.
His spider-like Arach scuttled between his legs, its cluster of eyes turning to Fletcher as he ran to the scene.
The Arach had bound the boy’s ankles with glowing gossamer, the white threads unspooling from a hole beneath its fearsome stinger. Fletcher wasted no time in slicing through them with his khopesh.
‘What are you doing?’ Fletcher demanded of Didric, pulling the slave upright. ‘They’re on our side!’
The gremlin in the slave’s arms chittered nervously, and the boy jiggled it as if he were silencing a baby.