He snarled through his teeth and managed to stagger a few steps, before collapsing to the ground once more. The corridor was just ahead … if he could just reach the back entrance, Arcturus would help carry the others out.
But then the howls began again. The demons had found another way through the pyramid. Even as he watched, the first rounded the corner. It was an Oni, its red skin gleaming in the flickering recesses of the torchlight. It grasped Jeffrey’s head as easily as a grapefruit, lifting his body like a carcass hung out to dry.
Another demon skidded in behind it, a leopard-spotted Felid. There was no way Fletcher could fight his way past them. He had one choice open to him.
Gathering the last of his mana, Fletcher cradled a ball of seething kinetic energy, hiding it behind his back. He waited as more demons spilled out into the corridor. They took their time, knowing he was trapped. Still they hesitated, remembering their buried comrades in the other tunnel.
‘Come on!’ Fletcher yelled, beckoning them closer.
A Kamaitachi hissed and clattered towards him – a fanged, weasel-like demon with serrated bone-blades replacing its paws. Two piebald Canids jostled to be first into the antechamber, snapping and snarling at each other. Sweat stung Fletcher’s eyes. Not yet. Not just yet.
Then he saw it. The glow of the Ifrit, pushing its way through the jockeying creatures. In the new light of its fiery flesh, Fletcher could see dozens of demons following, from common Mites to tentacled monstrosities. It was time.
He hurled the spell into the corridor’s ceiling, blasting the stone with every last trace of mana he had. The explosion threw him back, catapulting him head over heels. Stars burst across his vision as he cracked his head against the paving.
He lay there, choking as the dust-laden air filled his lungs. In the dim light, he saw the corridor was gone, replaced by a mass of broken rubble and masonry. The screams of buried demons echoed through the antechamber, and Fletcher smiled grimly. He’d taken most of them with him.
As he listened to the fading cries, he realised the gunfire outside had stopped. He checked his scrying crystal and saw it was blank – Verity had severed the connection.
His grim acceptance of their abandonment turned to despair as the torch spluttered in the dust from the explosion, then died. They were cast in total darkness.
Trapped.
48
Fletcher lay in the blackness, the back of his head sticky with blood. It was over. Already he could hear the goblins in the corridors, digging at the rubble and screeching at each other. They could break through in a few minutes, or a few days.
He wondered absently if dying of thirst was a better alternative to capture. Not that he had any choice in the matter. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.
Hours passed.
Othello was the first to move, forcing a tiny wyrdlight from his frozen fingertips. It moved determinedly around the room, flitting to each of them as the dwarf checked they were all in one piece.
A groan from Cress announced her own tentative recovery. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a numb-tongued garble. Silence resumed, as the team waited patiently for the paralysis to wear off.
Time went by and, slowly but surely, the others gradually regained their faculties. Othello was the first to speak, his words slow and deliberate.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Under the circumstances things could be a lot worse.’
‘A lot worse?’ Cress grumbled, slurring her words, but quickly warming to her theme. ‘We’re buried alive, surrounded by what looks like the entire orc and goblin army, a hundred miles deep in enemy territory and all of Hominum probably thinks we’re dead. We have about as much chance of getting out of this as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.’
Fletcher couldn’t help but snort with laughter. Then he heard a sob from Sylva.
‘Hey … are you OK?’ Fletcher asked, crawling over to her.
He shone wyrdlight from his finger, and saw her half-healed shoulder and upper chest still bore the marks from the Nanaue bite, a jagged half circle of scars. He lay his hand on her arm, but she jerked away.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she hissed.
‘Sylva … I’m sorry about Sariel,’ Fletcher murmured.
‘You killed her,’ Sylva whispered, her blue eyes filled with tears. ‘I saved you and then you killed her. I felt the rocks come down, her spine snap. It took hours for her to die – did you know that, Fletcher? Body broken, barely any air to breath. Alone, in the dark.’
‘She gave her life so you could live,’ Fletcher said, though Sylva’s account sickened him to his stomach. ‘She knew it was the only way.’
‘It wasn’t your choice to make!’ Sylva yelled, shoving him away from her.
‘You’re right, Sylva. It was Sariel’s,’ Fletcher said simply.