Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 41ii

Dak pulled herself over the parapet and sat at the top of the broken battlements, her breath rasping in her chest, and her heart hammering at her ribs.

"I was not made for this," she puffed, though she could not help feeling a sense of pride at the achievement of her climb.

"It took you long enough," snapped Grifford.

Dak looked about her as she heaved in her breaths.

"What is this place?" asked Grifford, looking around at the empty battlements, whose cracked stones were thick with weeds.

"It is part of the old fortress fortifications," said Dak. "From a time before the Workshops were here."

"I was not asking you."

Dak did not move. She sat looking up at Grifford's back, a seldom felt emotion pushing at her skull. It was the feeling she would sometimes get when her father returned to their home drunk, after he had promised that he would not.

"So where do we go now?" Grifford asked.

"This way," said Tahlia, and she went to the end of the battlements, where they joined a tall tower that stood against the shield-bastion's wall. It was completely shrouded in the krodillis vine they had climbed. Dak took a deep shuddering breath and got to her feet. She was not looking forward to the recommencement of their journey, but Tahlia was not climbing. Instead, she was tugging at the vine at the tower's base.

When Dak reached her, Tahlia had pulled back a thick section of the krodillis to reveal the tower's doorway, leading through to darkness beyond. Without a word, Tahlia ducked through the narrow gap and disappeared. Grifford pushed through afterwards. Dak contemplated the doorway and its surrounding vine for a few seconds, than crouched on her hands and knees and crawled after them.

She could see nothing in the room beyond, but she could hear the sounds of frantic rummaging from somewhere close by, then there was a click and suddenly a rippling glow revealed the place they were in. It was the size of the tower, and a stone stair climbed one wall before spiralling upwards into the darkness above. The tower was empty, except for a thick slab of metal leaning against the wall beside the doorway.

"Do we climb?" asked Grifford, looking upwards.

"No," said Tahlia.

She shone the hand-light she was holding at the room's far end, where there was another doorway. It had been blocked up with thick cut stones, but as Tahlia played the light up and down it, Dak could see a square of deeper darkness at its base, where the stones had been removed.

Tahlia went and knelt beside it to shine the hand-light down the narrow passage beyond the hole.

Dak frowned, looking first at the hole, then at the door sized slab of metal leaning against the wall.

"Someone has purposefully done this," she said.

"Well I did not think that the stones jumped out of the wall themselves," said Tahlia, then she crouched and crawled through the dark hole, taking the light with her. The room was left in gloom, lit only by the meagre light coming through the krodillis veiled doorway, but it was enough for Dak to see Grifford crouch at the wall and follow after his sister.

"Did it not occur to you to tell someone about this, sister?"

Grifford's words faded as he crawled away. Dak followed quickly after, and as she pulled herself through the blocked up door, she found that the passageway beyond was high enough for her to stand. It led away through the thickness of the bastion wall. She could see Tahlia and Grifford ahead, silhouetted against the hand-light.