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Duke closed his eyes. She was right. "Go. I'm right behind you."
With a nod, he urged her forward until the dark enveloped her. If not for her hand tight in his, he would have thought she'd disappeared. He charged after her, relieved when he made it inside, and hooked an arm around her waist. She was safe. In one piece.
God, if he was this nervous now, how would he cope navigating multiple levels and traps to reach the tomb?
Shoving aside the question, Duke looked around. Or tried to. He'd never seen blackness so impenetrable. It was like staring out into nothingness forever. The sensation was unnerving.
There was a shuffling behind him, a dusting of rocks. The sensation of something brushing just past him, disturbing the air.
"Marrok?"
"Morganna oft made me regret knowing her," he muttered.
Duke turned. The big human warrior hovered near the doorway.
Marrok groused, "The consequences for going to her tomb had best be different than those for going to her bed."
Bram laughed until the big warrior punched him in the arm. As Marrok shut the door behind him, darkness enfolded them. Bram stumbled back with an oof if the scrabble of trainers on gravel was any indication.
"Take a joke, mate."
"Piss off," Marrok insisted.
"Are we all inside?" Duke asked.
"I think so."
"Where are the torches?" Felicia asked, clinging close to Duke's side.
Bram flipped his on, and it projected a thin stream of light that the dark swallowed almost instantly. The tiny glow illuminated his hand and wrist, faded into charcoal ... then nothing. Ice followed suit with the same results.
Bloody hell. How would they ever get ahead?
"Does anyone know what's next?"
"Unfortunately, not a clue." Bram cursed.
Together, they groped for walls to try to feel their way around the opening of the cavern. But it was enormous, and they were soon shouting to be heard. Using their echoes, they found their way back to the opening and shut the worthless torches off. They would have to plunge ahead in the dark and hope that no one fell. Risky ... but they were running out of options.
"Perhaps we stay here for the night?" Felicia suggested. "It's possible that, if we open the door again, morning may illuminate this space enough to see."
"We can't leave the door open for Mathias. With you here, it's an invitation to enter the tomb and perhaps kill us all."
She sighed. "Brilliant."
Duke wrapped an arm around her. She was afraid, and why not? The cavern leading to the tomb was daunting and creepy. They were dealing with incredibly powerful magic. Duke had become accustomed to its existence over the past thirteen years. Felicia had known of it for less than a week.
"Press ahead?" he asked of Bram.
"I think so. Perhaps this leads to somewhere with more light and we'll rest more safely."
He sincerely hoped so. Felicia trembled beside him, and he hated like hell that being here scared her.
"Are you certain you don't want to turn back?" Duke whispered.
She batted his arm away. "I'm not a coward."
They'd been through so much in the past few days. She'd been a bit frightened but never had he questioned her bravery. She'd always come through. "I didn't mean to imply that."
When he pulled her close again, she relaxed against him.
"Find the person nearest you and grab on to their pack," Bram instructed.
Duke latched on to Felicia's, and he felt someone behind him, likely Marrok. At the head of the group, Bram called, "Going forward. Whatever you do, don't let go."
And they walked. Minutes turned into an hour, then two. The pack dug into his shoulders. Despite the chill, he began to sweat, and he wondered how Felicia was holding up.
"Sunshine, you all right?"
"A little tired. Otherwise good."
He didn't like that note of exhaustion in her voice, but could hardly expect anything else.
"Bram," he called. "Perhaps we should stop soon."
The other man didn't answer, but stopped dead in his tracks. They all halted, crashing into one another. Then they heard it. A deep voice. A growl. A high-pitched scream. They sounded far away, but with the echoes in the endless caverns, who could tell?
"What is that?" Felicia's voice trembled.
"Perhaps more of Merlin's magic meant to discourage anyone who made it this far."
Duke sincerely hoped the other wizard was right.
"Let's investigate," Bram added. "Be certain that we are, in fact, alone. God forbid Mathias slipped in or Morganna found some way back from the dead herself."
Felicia gasped, and Duke winced. Terrible possibilities.
The group trekked forward until suddenly Duke heard a shuffle mere feet away from him. Bram cursed.
"Did anyone hear that?" he asked.
"The scream and whatnot? Bloody hard to miss." Bram sounded annoyed.
"No, that other noise. The shuffling."
"You mean me tripping over my own two feet in this blasted darkness?" Ice growled.
Duke frowned. Maybe that's what the sound had been. He hoped.
Suddenly Felicia lurched forward and began falling. He could barely maintain his grasp on her pack. Then the ground fell out from under him.
"Stairs!" Bram yelled. "Lots of them."
Indeed, they recovered their feet and descended into the earth. Down, down, down, gingerly feeling their way, the twisting path tricky. Duke wondered if these stairs would end abruptly, subjecting them to a freefall that ended in a pit of stakes protruding from the floor or something equally awful.
Instead, they emerged into a chamber. A giant fire illuminated the space, and Duke recognized it as an eternal one. It couldn't feed itself more wood while Felicia was near, but for the past fifteen hundred years, it had been self-fulfilling, thanks to Merlin's magic. Amazing ...
Beyond the fire were hundreds of doors of all shapes, sizes, colors. So many that Duke stared, blinked.
"Now what?"
"This is the task that requires us to be brisk," Felicia warned. "I think that means we must choose quickly."
"How the bloody hell do we do that?" Ice asked. "The right one isn't exactly marked."
Marrok grunted. "And we know not what terrible happen-stance will befall us should we choose unwisely."
There was that. Duke was thrilled finally to have some light by which to see, and he noted quickly that Felicia looked none the worse for wear. Then he noticed the fire slowly dissipating.
"The right door won't be a small one," Bram surmised. "Merlin was tall. Hated small openings of any kind."
"Wait!" Felicia called out. "The passage in the book said something about the task 177
being 'natural.' Is there an opening created by the earth, perhaps?"
"Likely, yes. So none of these doors before us. They're all manmade," Bram pointed out. "My grandfather would use something provided by Mother Earth herself whenever possible."
Collectively, they scanned the walls in the slowly dimming light, moving around and in between the seemingly endless row of doors. Duke stuck close to Felicia.
"Here!" she called a moment later.
Duke peered over her shoulder. There was a craggy arch and a huge, age-worn slab of stone covering it. Someone--Merlin?--had leaned the oversized slab up against the arch eons ago. It looked a bit off kilter, and Duke frowned. But he suspected his mate was right.
The others came running. Bram took one look and nodded. "This would be like him ... though uncharacteristic to have even that small bit of the door uncovered."
"It's possible the earth has shifted a bit in the last fifteen centuries."
"True," Bram conceded. "Marrok, can you move that stone out of the way?"
"Wait!" Ice said. "Do you think we'll be subject to one of Merlin's traps if we do?"
Bram shrugged. "Felicia is with us. She's the best insurance we have."
Reluctantly, Ice nodded.
Without a word, Marrok lifted the heavy stone with Ice's help. Slowly, surely, they pulled it away from the arch.
The fire behind them flickered, sputtered. Darkness crept in.
Bram rushed through the arch, into another pit of black. He reached back for Felicia, who followed, Duke right behind her. He waited for something terrible to happen other than the dwindling fire. But as the blackness grew, the air remained undisturbed.
"Ice," Marrok grunted with the weight of the stone. "Go."
The warrior nodded and charged through unscathed.
"Now Marrok," Bram coached. "Turn and put the arch behind you. Back up until you ... shit!"
The ground trembled and Duke lost his balance, tumbling to the rough ground with Felicia in his arms. Suddenly, a barrage of boulders fell from above. Marrok heaved the stone over his head to protect himself, and the rocks pounded onto it in a deafening rain.
"Bram!" Marrok shouted, his voice sounding increasingly distant.
"Bloody hell! Drop it and run through the arch!"
He tried, but the archway quickly began to close over, obstructed by the boulders, taking away the light and the sight of Marrok's face--until both were completely gone.
Chapter 17
"MARROK, CAN YOU HEAR me?" Bram shouted, panic in his voice.
"Aye. 'Tis fine I be."
Felicia breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God."
After losing one of their own today, she knew the Doomsday Brethren would be devastated to lose another warrior.
"How can we get him through with us?" she asked.
The blackness of the underground cavern was so thick, no one could see a thing.
Cautiously, Duke felt his way to the pile of rubble, and Felicia sidled toward it, pausing beside him. At the foot of the stones, she bumped shoulders with someone.
"Sorry," Ice muttered.
"Let's pull these stones away," Duke suggested.
Together, the men worked in pairs to heave the boulders elsewhere. Based on the sounds, Marrok did the same at the other end. Cautiously, Felicia scaled the rubble, trying to find any hole at the top through which she might be able to see Marrok. Nothing.
"Bollocks!" Marrok shouted. "Felicia, you've come closer to the doorway?"
At the top of the pile of rocks, she froze. "Yes."
"Back away. Blackness has near swallowed the firelight."
"The eternal fire," Bram explained. "It cannot feed itself as long as you're close."
"Sorry!" she called to Marrok, then scampered down the pile into Duke's waiting arms.
Together they backed away from the others. She felt so safe beside him. There was no denying this cavern was creepy, and she suspected murderous tricks lay at every turn. Felicia had to restrain herself from holding on to him tighter.
After a steady rhythm of grunts and boulder tosses, as the scent of male sweat filled the air, a small shaft of light from the other side beamed into their dark cavern.
Progress!
Suddenly, another tumble of boulders crashed down between them, smothering the pinprick of light. And, based on the sounds, adding even more stone to the pile than before.
"Bloody hell!" Bram shouted, panting.
Ice seconded that with a nasty curse that made Felicia wince. "Marrok?"
"Aye!"
She could barely hear his voice.
"'Tis useless. The wall has grown."
"And I wouldn't put it past my grandfather to have built in this human booby trap as an added security measure. Which means the wall will only grow every time we whittle away at it."
"If I back away more and you're able to use your magic?"
Bram scoffed. "What we've encountered is designed to dissuade an overly curious and able human. No doubt good old Merlin built in some even more terrible magical impediment to keep a nefarious witch or wizard out. It would be designed to kill."
"Bloody hell," Simon muttered.
"So you're saying there's nothing we can do? We can't leave him there!" Felicia protested.
"I am a warrior grown. I can find my way out."
Silence. No one wanted to leave Marrok in this cavern of horrors. What if more dark magic awaited any who tried to leave? What if he died?
"Perhaps it's for the best if we stop trying to get Marrok through. Without our mates or surrogates, Ice and I can only expend so much energy and we've still a long way to go to reach the tomb." To Marrok, he shouted, "Return to the pub. Ring the others and tell them we've made it through the first level. Help prepare Tynan for burial."
"Aye. Be careful."
"As I told Sabelle and the others," Bram began, "if we have not returned within a week, assume we are dead. Don't come after us."
Felicia didn't imagine for a moment that Sabelle would do nothing to rescue her mate and brother, but kept the thought to herself.
"Exactly," Ice added. "My mate is to step nowhere near this tomb or she will feel my hand on her backside."
Marrok chuckled. "'Tis certain I'll be to share that."
After a quick good-bye, the faint sound of Marrok's heavy footsteps retreated on the far side of the wall. Then nothing.
