NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 1: The Job)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: KESLA

Gods, I hate this place, it's got me all kinds of worked up. I've felt increasingly uptight the whole time we've been down here, making our intolerably slow way to the bridge and now starting to make our progress across it. Sure ain't done nothing for my mood. I've got pretty sharp with my orders, definitely can't call 'em requests any more way I been feeling.

The bridge certainly is another wonder of dwarven engineering, ramshackle as it might appear to a less experienced eye. The only thing that really matters to me right now, though, is that it looks sturdy enough to take us across, and definitely wide enough, in fact it's so broad across once you're on top of it that three carts significantly bigger than ours could cross side-by-side with ease. That strange crisscrossed structure of metal beams enveloping it is a little intimidating once you have it rising around you, but at least it's built high enough that there'd be no worries about clearance if we were piled six times as tall as we are.

After I send Art and Gael into the guardhouse or whatever it is, I tell Krakka to stay behind beyond the end of the bridge, to keep an eye on things while Driver 8 and I spread out to allow Wenrich time to guide the cart onto the bridge. He doesn't rein the team in until they're well onto it, then all but collapses on the bench, breathing heavy, and it's instantly clear how tense he's become during that decidedly precarious passage. I let him be, wanting to give Art and Gael time to check things out.

Driver 8's being his usual silent, stoic self, but the way he keeps looking round sets me back on edge. Eventually I can't take the tension anymore and just round Ulrich on him to stare him down without having to crane my neck. "What is it?"

He doesn't answer me for a long time, still scanning, and after a while I begin to suspect he won't answer me. Then he turns to face me just as I'm about to repeat the question, a little more forceful this time, and something about the way he does it, despite the lack of expression, somehow stops me cold. "I cannot sense anything."

"Well that's ... ain't that a good thing?"

"No. I cannot sense anything. My sensors cannot pick up anything within our vicinity, including that which I should be able to sense. I cannot sense you, nor can I sense the cart and its horses, nor Master Clearwood, nor Krakka. Being out of my sight, Art and Gael are gone entirely from my awareness now."

Is it just my imagination, or is there the tiniest, most perfectly subtle edge of concern in Big Man's voice? Maybe I'm projecting too much into it, but I suspect not. He's far more capable of emotion than he seems, I've seen the proof for myself. The fact that it's there at all genuinely breaks me out in goosebumps, a proper chill passing through me. My right hand leaves the reins and goes to Hefdred, I can't help it. Maybe Ulrich senses my discomfort, starting to paw the bridge's slightly damp, hard-packed dirt as he starts to wheel, and I let him, taking the opportunity to scan our surroundings again with a more critical eye.

Ain't many places to hide, mind. The walls of the mountainous cliffs tower above us on both sides, and they're pretty sheer, no ledges or cracks or whatever a person might use to look down from. The slick stone looks so weathered smooth it'd be tough enough just finding solid handholds to climb either of these bastards. I turn Ulrich again, a little forceful now, and return my attention to the bridge, or rather the road beyond. It rolls off into the shadowy gloom of a deep, tight crack in the wall beyond, eventually turning a sharp right into the narrow passage what looks like a hundred metres further down. With the day drawing on it's hard to really see what's going on in there, but I can see enough to tell there's no-one in there. Or at least it doesn't look like there's anyone in there. Now I think about it, there'd be no way to really be sure, would there?

Driver 8's concerned statement is what gnaws at me. His senses are so uncanny they're beyond simply supernatural, and while I couldn't begin to understand how golems work I know it must have something to do with the process used to build him in the first place. He's dampened against magic, but there are certain aspects ... shit.