Page 64 of The Iron Vow

Nyx, standing quietly beside Puck, drew back an arm and smacked the back of his head. “If you finish that statement, I am going to stab you,” she said calmly.

Ash’s quiet laughter surprised us all. “Never let her go, Goodfellow,” he chuckled. “For all our sakes.”

“If the gate to the underground is clear,” Gilleas said, coming forward, “we should proceed. There is no point standing around waiting for any number of forest guardians to arise.” Looking around the deceptively peaceful grove, he shook his head. “Additionally, I wonder if some of our fights could have been avoided, had we simply been quieter.”

“Do not waste your time wondering about that,” said Grimalkin, appearing on a nearby log. “You will drive yourself to madness, knowing a thingcanbe accomplished but will simply never come to pass.”

Puck blinked. “You can stop looking at me, Furball. We all know who you’re talking about.”

“And yet it never seems to change anything.” Grimalkin sniffed and looked across the grove. “Well, shall we go, then?” He sighed. “The castle is not far now. Let us see how many fights we can avoid before we manage to find the Nightmare King.”

24

THE HALL OF HEROES

The stone doors groaned horribly when we pushed against them, but they gradually swung back to reveal several wide, mossy steps down into the darkness. Stone pillars formed deteriorating archways every few feet, and the narrow recesses in the walls held aging skeletons, rags, and the occasional glint of ancient coins.

“Oh, that’s great,” Puck exclaimed as we came down the steps, pausing at the bottom. “A dusty crypt is totally where I wanted to be today.” Several shiny beetles scuttled across the floor at the sound of his voice, and he winced. “Complete with bugs and spiders, my favorite.”

Gilleas rubbed the top of his head and looked at Grimalkin. “I see what you mean,” he said flatly.

Grimalkin sniffed. “It is wearying, to always be right.”

“Okay, professors Gloom and Doom, you don’t have to rub it in so hard.” Puck crossed his arms, then looked at our Nyx. “What am I missing? What is this place?”

“These are the Catacombs of Heroes and Kings,” Nyx explained, gazing down the stone passageways. “The tunnels run under the whole castle. The dead sleep here, but many are restless. Loud noises have been known to wake them up.”

“Oh,” Puck said in a much quieter voice, and frowned at Grimalkin. “You know, some of these facts could have been related a little earlier, if someone didn’t feel the need to be an ass just to prove a point.”

Grimalkin yawned. “It would have been proven regardless.”

“Well.” Gilleas gazed around the passageway and sighed. “I remember this passage,” he murmured. “The memories are coming back now. I believe this is the route I took the first time I tried to find the king.”

“Do you remember enough to get us to the throne room?” Ash wondered.

“Yes.” Gilleas scanned the tunnel once more and nodded. “Yes, I remember the way. Follow me, but do know...” He raised a slender finger. “Not only are the dead restless, but the crypt keepers also prowl these halls. They do not take kindly to the living roaming the spaces of the dead.”

“Of course they don’t,” Puck said. “Because nobody is ever okay with anything anymore. Think you’re getting through that ancient temple unscathed? Nope—meet its lovely, fully armored temple guardian. Want to enjoy that peaceful grove? Nope—forest guardian wants to eat your face off. Gotta pass through some scary catacombs? Not if those crypt keepers make you dead like them.” He snorted and crossed his arms. “You know, just once, I’d like to come across some keeper or guardian or ancient sentry that says, ‘Welcome to my...whatever, it is so nice to see you. Please, look around and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’ I would pay a favor to have a crypt keeper tell me that this time.”

I saw our Nyx and Keirran exchange a glance, and Nyx briefly rolled her eyes, making Keirran smile.

“Are you done, Goodfellow?” Ash said in a voice devoid of emotion.

“Yeah, I’m good. Let’s go.”

The crypt turned out to be much larger than I expected, with miles of tunnels, stone passageways, and sluiceways running beneath the earth. We passed countless skeletons resting in the stone recesses, and it was eerie how many of the skulls seemed to stare at us as we went by. As if we really had woken them up, and they had turned to give us irritated looks for disturbing them.

But even though the dead didn’t seem to be rising from their graves, I didn’t once think we were going to make it through without running into something.

We were walking atop a long sluiceway, passing beneath huge stone pipes that spilled water into the canal below, when I heard a noise. It sounded like...clicking. I looked around and saw what appeared to be a forty-foot centipede crawling along the opposite wall of the canal. After the initial heart attack, I looked closer and saw the upper half of the huge insect was that of a yellowed skeleton with four clawed arms, holding a scythe in one hand. It turned its skull to peer at me, a pair of enormous black mandibles curving from its bottom jaw, before it scuttled into one of the huge drainage pipes jutting from the wall and vanished into the dark.

“Gilleas,” I whispered. “What was that?”

“That was a crypt keeper,” Gilleas replied in a resigned voice. “They’ve seen us.”

The clicking noise sounded again, directly below us. We all backed away from the ledge, drawing our weapons, as the creature rose into the air...and continued to rise, its segmented body swaying upward like a snake. Up close, its carapace was a shiny bloodred, the hundreds of jointed legs bright orange. Its yellow skull peered down at us, the scythe held casually in four bony hands, and it cocked its head, appearing more curious than aggressive. The curved pincers opened, and a sibilant voice emerged from the bony jaws.

“Meat and blood in the halls of the dead. Why are you here? What do you seek among bones and dust?”

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