Protector by J.A. Culican

Author:J.A. Culican [Armitage, Culican &]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.A. Culican

Chapter Fourteen

Gripping the hilt of my sword, I readied myself for a fight. I could hear Morganna’s steady breathing in front of me and beyond that, the noise of footsteps. They came closer. I listened as whoever it was ran up the tunnel toward us. The sound was faint but unmistakable. My breathing increased along with my heart rate as the footsteps were almost upon us.

Closer, closer, closer...

Morganna clicked her fingers and the tunnel lit up. There was no one there. I whipped my head around, looking up and down the tunnel, but apart from the two of us, it was empty.

“What happened? Where did they go?”

The footsteps had gone past us and were now getting fainter again. Morganna’s light went out.

“Follow me,” she said brusquely. “I think I know what’s going on and I think I know how to stop it.”

“Stop it?” Stop what?

I held onto her arm as she guided me slowly down the pitch-black tunnel. I heard another sound. Water. The tunnel finally ended and for the first time in over ten minutes, I could finally see. Small shafts of light illuminated another cavern. This one was almost as big as the first, but much colder and damper. The water I’d heard was a huge underground river roaring through the cavern. This had to be the beginning of the river we had floated down to get to the deserted village. I remembered the water as being warm, but here, further down the mountain, the cavern was cold. Stalactites dripped water into the already ferocious river and a seam of a silver-colored metal ran diagonally through the rock, sparkling in the pale light. A small bridge crossed the river from where we were to what looked like a mine at the other side. A small track ran the length of it with an abandoned mine cart flipped on its side. Pickaxes littered the floor, dropped, no doubt, when the Goblins left. There was no one there and yet I could hear the very faint tap, tap, tap of tools on rock over the sound of the river.

“There’s no one here,” Morganna announced loudly, “Let’s steal the tools.”

Why would she want to steal the pickaxes? We had no need for them. She began to cross the bridge, but some unseen force knocked her back. She fell on her butt just in front of me. A smile played on her lips.

“What’s happening?” I asked, taking her hand to help her up.

“None of this is real. The Goblins are playing a trick on us.”

“A trick?”

“Yes. This place isn’t abandoned. I knew they’d try something like this. They are all here, we just can’t see them. Isn’t that right, Krikor?”

The sound of the tapping got louder. Images began to appear, at first indistinct before coming fully into focus. I opened my mouth as I took in the scene now. Whereas it had been desolate just moments before, now it was a busy working mine. Hundreds of Goblins were working, the abandoned pickaxes

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