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“Any luck?” Lugh asked softly.
I nodded and raised my gaze to the tunnel directly ahead. It was whole, untouched by the explosion that had seemed so real in the vision.
I vaguely waved a hand. “It’s that one.”
Lugh immediately spun and walked across. Cynwrig squatted down in front of me, his gloved fingers so warm on my knees compared to the chill running through me.
“You saw something else, didn’t you?”
“I think we’ll be attacked down there, but I never saw by what. It’s possibly the green fingers I saw in my original vision, but it could also be something entirely different.”
“Annwfyn?”
I hesitated. “I don’t think so, but please don’t hold me to that.”
He laughed softly. “I believe I trust your visions more than you do at times.”
“Probably because I’m still battling to understand even the basics.”
“You need to trust your instincts and stop second-guessing things,” he said softly.
I half smiled. “Easier said than done, I’m afraid.”
“Always is.”
He rose and offered me a hand. I clasped his fingers and let him pull me up. He didn’t release me, instead keeping hold as we walked across to the barrier Lugh was in the process of dismantling.
“The wood is so damn rotten, it’s a wonder it kept anyone out.”
As if to demonstrate, he kicked the middle slab of wood and it all but exploded, sending splinters spearing into the darkness beyond.
“I’m thinking there are very few who’d be tempted to destroy what was basically a very solid-looking bit of wood.”
My voice was dry, and Lugh snorted. “When it comes to cavers, it’s all about the buzz of being the first to step onto uncharted paths. If they’d wanted in, these barriers wouldn’t have stopped them.”
He got out his flashlight and pointed it into the darkness. The shaft’s walls dripped with moisture and were as rough cut as I’d seen. This section wasn’t particularly steep, but I knew from the visions that would change at the midpoint.
“We should rope together,” I said. “Things get pretty hairy further in this thing.”
Lugh nodded and walked across to his pack to grab the rope. Once we were tied to each other, we headed in. We’d barely gone thirty feet when the tunnel did a sharp right turn and closed in considerably. Lugh was constantly ducking, but I was eight inches shorter and fared far better. At least when it came to headroom. The boobs did present more of a problem when we had to squeeze sideways through narrower sections.
We seemed to be descending forever, and yet my watch kept insisting little more than an hour had passed. Obviously, time had no meaning in this place.
The slope steepened abruptly, and from directly ahead came the sound of fast-flowing water—the river I’d seen in my vision.
We came out of the tunnel into a natural-looking cavern. There were stalactites above us and a deep trench below. Lugh pointed his light left and right, but there were no paths leading away in either direction. Therewasa bridge directly ahead. A bridge that had no decking boards left, and whose long beams were supported by rusting chains secured to the cavern’s ceiling high above us but not attached at either end. At least, it wasn’t now. Metal stringers held the two sides together, and rusted chains acted as hand grips.
I hadn’t seen it in the vision, but maybe it had simply careened past too fast for me to notice. “That thing does not look safe.”
“The runoff on the walls isn’t as bad here, so there’s a good chance the beams are solid enough. It’s the anchor points that worry me more.” Lugh glanced across to Cynwrig. “Are you able to check they’re secure?”
Cynwrig nodded and pressed a hand against the cavern wall behind us. The air tingled as his power rose and I shone my light up toward the ceiling. The stone around the anchor point about a meter in flowed like water around the circular peg, then solidified. I moved the light along the two lines; another peg at the halfway point was also locked back down, but there was no further rock movement.
“Good to go,” Cynwrig said as he turned to face us again.
“I’m not sure I am,” I muttered, eyeing the unstable-looking bridge uneasily.
“It’ll be fine,” Lugh said. “Besides, if you slip and fall, you won’t go far because you’re tied to both me and Cynwrig.”
