The Gods of the Underworld by Stephen Cole

Author:Stephen Cole [Cole, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Book, Prose, Novel
ISBN: 1903654238
Publisher: Big Finish
Published: 2001-01-25T07:09:09+00:00

12 The Black Death and Old Stories

‘It’s a dead end!’ Tinhar whispered fearfully.

Benny slapped a palm against the packed mud and cursed.

‘This looks more like a kind of rockfall than an actual deliberate end to the tunnel,’ she said, running her fingers up and down the mud pile thoughtfully. She produced her trusty trowel and started digging at the earth blocking their way. ‘Worth a try, I suppose.’

The earth fell away quite loosely nearer the bottom of the mud pile, but Benny didn’t allow herself to hope. Even so, she increased her efforts, tearing away at the mud and shovelling it over her shoulder. Tinhar eventually joined in too, scrabbling at the mud with his fingers. Look at us, Benny thought. Like two prisoners locked in a dungeon for years, finally facing a chance for freedom. We’ve only been stuck here half a day.

‘Look out!’ Benny snapped, dragging Tinhar back as a shower of rock dust fell over her. ‘We must’ve weakened –’

With a ragged cracking noise and the sound of heavy rocks falling, the roof abruptly crashed down about them.

Light splashed in to the tunnel like a bucket of clear water, washing away the darkness. Benny turned triumphantly to Tinhar, who was beaming so brightly and so covered in muck he looked like a fat, cheery mole. She was so delighted she found herself kissing him on the forehead.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ she murmured, wiping the dirt from her lips as she clambered over rocks and mud to stand beneath the circle of clear blue above.

Tinhar made less agile haste to join her. ‘Yes, quickly. The way our luck’s going, the sky will fall in on us next.’

Benny felt something underfoot, and stooped down to see.

‘Well, if it does, it’ll probably impale itself on these first.’

She brandished two thick wooden sticks, each one sharpened to a wicked looking point. ‘We must be in the bottom of a hunting pit. Renad said they were littered all over the forest…’

Then she heard angry voices, and the sounds of a fight. She closed her eyes. ‘Now what?’

As the thin black arm tightened round his neck, Arko felt his head was expanding like a balloon. He struggled fiercely but couldn’t break the creature’s stranglehold. He snapped his jaws open and shut, desperate to draw in air as consciousness sought drowsily to leave him. His eyes fixed on a tiny piece of plastic embedded in that bruise-dark wrist, a shiny speck catching the sunlight as blackness began to fringe his vision.

And then, at once, he was free and pitching forwards on to his face, his ears roaring with the pressure as he found he could breathe again.

He rolled over and dazedly took in the scene about him.

Starl, wielding one of Forno’s lovingly collected sticks, was shouting at the spindly black creature, warning it off. From the way it was holding the back of its head, Starl had clearly been able to do some damage. The other monster was wearing Han’s jacket over its

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