In Which I Break My Nose On A Stalactite

We rode (and jogged) for two days through the cherry blossom forest, and the journey was largely uneventful except for one point where Edgar got dragged away in the night by a swarm of goblins and we had to go and get him before they could dissolve him in their subterranean gunge tanks. Aside from that the forest was lovely, and I wrote down in my diary that I simply must take Astra this way on the route home.

It was morning when we came at last upon the entrance to the Mines of Mupplecock, the great excavation that spans hundreds of miles below the earth. The tree-lined slate avenue we had been drifting down ended suddenly in a large clearing, and a hundred metres ahead of us, hacked out of the side of a grey flint hill, was a screaming black cave mouth. Our company shuddered at the sight.

“Looks cold,” said Edgar, as we drew closer. “I might wait here, if it’s all the same to you Sire.”

I silenced the cock by bouncing an apple off his gleaming head, and hopped down from Margaret. Aesthetically fearless, I approached the cave mouth with my thumbs tucked into my belt loops, walking like the heroes do in old books.

“I see nothing to fear over yonder,” I called back to the group. “T’is but a damp old hole. There is naught within but a few little spiders.”

“I hate spiders.”

“Shut up Edgar we’re going in,” I replied, and marched into the gaping rock jaws.

Just after I stepped over the threshold, however, from somewhere deep in the cavern there came a chorus of bestial roars so savage that they rattled me in my armor like the last biscuit in a tin. I was already ten metres in, and couldn’t see far beyond my own nose. I froze on the spot, as if every link in my chainmail was rusted into place (I’ve been wearing chainmail this whole time but forgot to say).

The others were far behind and Selladore was loudly telling them one of his swashbuckling adventures; they hadn’t heard the gruesome monster call. They arrived by my side and found me statuesque, mumbling incoherently.

“Ye alright?” asked Selladore, elbowing me lightly in my ribs.

I nodded stiffly. I closed my eyes and pushed all the horrible possibilities of what may lie ahead of us out of my mind. I considered telling the others, but there was no point. There was no other way forward; the mines ran beneath the deadly carbon monoxide swamps of Noople, which are impossible to traverse unless you can get your mitts on one of the enchanted Oxi-Necklaces of Sunspear, and they are incredibly overpriced. No; the Mines of Mupplecock were the only route to Astra. We had to press on, monsters be damned. With my hand on the hilt of my sword, we advanced into the waiting black.

*****

I had already broken my nose before Edgar remembered he had a torch in his backpack. We’d been middlingly successful in inching our way into the cave at first, but within a hundred metres all light dropped away and left us in a darkness so thick you could spread it on toast. I attempted to take the lead as we wound further down into the earth, but only made it a few feet before I thwacked my bonce on a dangling stalactite and burst my beautiful nose like an overripe strawberry.

My anguished groans apparently jogged Edgar’s memory, and he chose that moment to inform us that he had a torch tucked away in Alfonso’s saddlebags somewhere. I lashed out at him in the pitch dark, but my first swing caught Glob in the stomach and my second cracked into the same stalactite I crushed my nose against, so I gave up my hysterical windmilling and apologised to the wheezing stable girl. Edgar lit the torch, and I saw that Selladore was doubled over laughing.

Our brawl was interrupted by a series of awful, rumbling howls, echoing from down in the deep like Satan’s own glee club. The others heard it this time, and without thinking we found ourselves huddled together, quivering. I breathed deeply, wiped the blood from my nose, and peeled myself away from the terrified group. Selladore quickly followed suit, adjusting his feather boa with a meticulous air of piratical indifference.

“So there be beasties down in these caves,” he said, trying to keep the quake from his voice.

“Seems that way,” I replied, failing to keep the quake out of my own. “Best keep our eyes peeled.”

Glob and Edgar were eye-bulged and silent, yet it steeled my quivering heart to see how, despite their fear, the pair of them still lumbered after as Selladore and I led the way. Despite Glob’s pungent nose-afrontery and Edgar’s slug-style brainthoughts, they made good companions, and I was glad I was not undertaking my quest alone. To distract myself from the lurking horrors of the endless deep, I thought about how I would reward them when we had rescued Astra and were back at the castle. I decided I would reward Edgar by not firing him out of a cannon, and I would buy a new pair of boots for Glob.

None of us spoke as we followed the cragged halls of the mine lower and lower and bloody lower. Walking down hill for hours on end is hard work; my knees were knackered, banging against my clanking armour. Lining the uneven passage were signs of the mine’s old inhabitants; rusted pickaxes and crack-wheeled buckets, lone ragged boots and half-finished sandwiches that turned to dust when prodded.

“The Mines of Mupplecock have been deserted for hundreds of years, so long that nobody alive today knows who built them. It is only known that something terrible happened far beneath the earth, and that a day came when whatever strange, gluttonous beings first delved down all those centuries ago one day left for the mines as usual, yet never resurfaced again. Perhaps a natural disaster struck, down in the Earth’s core. Or perhaps, down in the tunnels, the mining folk stumbled upon something far, far worse.

However… there are those who believe that the strange mining folk did not disappear at all, but instead they became so used to the dark that they made a home in the draughty catacombs and bottomless mineshafts, drank the still water of underground lakes, and made food of… something. If this is true, however, one can only imagine what hellish form the mining folk will have taken on, after centuries without the fair grace of sunlight. If the legends are to be believed, once one descends past the ninth level of the mines, untold nightmares await: ungodly unlife, crawling, scraping, thrashing, screaming for all eternity, abandoned by the gods, claimed forever by the endless dark.”

Edgar closed the book and wrapped it back up in a cloth.

“Edgar, couldst thou fucking not?” I cried. “Give that here.”

“Why?”

“Give it here.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I just want to look at it.”

“It was a present from my gran.”

“Fine, pass me it.”

“No.”

“Edgar!”

Edgar glumly handed me the tome. I tore it in half and hurled it down a passing mineshaft. I felt much better, until we realised we never heard it hit the bottom. We trudged on in oppressive silence.

“Reckon it’s dwarves?” asked Edgar.

“What?”

“Dwarves. Down below. It’s always dwarves. In mines.”

“I don’t know. Shut up.”

We walked in single file as the passage narrowed. Glob pulled a damp old bread roll from her backpack and chomped into it as she walked. Selladore was a few feet ahead, brandishing the torch and looking generally impressive. My nose had stopped bleeding, but felt crooked on my face. I sighed, wondering if Astra would still find me sexy despite my skew-whiff conk and my glum halfpair of hands.

“Hope it’s not goblins.”

“Edgar, utter another word and I’ll have thee strapped down and hot candle wax poured all over thine buttocks.”

I was quietly regretting my unintentionally erotic threat when Selladore called back to us.

“Ladies, take a look at this!”

We hurried alongside the fabulous sand captain. The four of us stood abreast and gazed up at a towering subterranean gate, stretching high above us into the gloom. The sides of the gate were two mighty pillars etched with strange runes that glowed and pulsated gently. The colossal door of stone looked immensely heavy; its surface was smooth, but here and there were pock marks and scratches, though what could have made them, I dreaded to think.

Above the door, a large white keystone was inscribed with a message in looping symbols. It read:

Utúvie qwinwal, lyet! Cwymlyl, fasimyliq eravly. POK!

Or at least… something like that. Look, I can’t actually remember what it said, but that was the gist: very pretty words that none of us could understand. Thankfully, the previous occupants had clearly considered tourists when building the mines, as they’d provided a helpful translation immediately below, which read:

You Are Now Enter The Level Nine: WAIT! All who enter this place, BE CAREFUL.

One can only assume they’d meant to write ‘BEWARE’ but had botched the translation.

At that moment another roar exploded from the darkness beyond, the rasping bass rattling our bones. The monstrous call was much closer now; the sounds were coming from the other side of the door. The horror was immediately before us, blocking our path. I had hoped it would not come to this: we were going to have to get into another massive fight.

I stepped onto an upturned crate to rally my company.

“It seems the time has come for us to venture forth into the screaming dark. Friends, art thou prepared for whatever lieth beyond this gate?” I asked my companions, drawing my sword with a dramatic flourish.

I received three sighs in response, and three more swords were heaved from scabbards.

“Be brave, my comrades,” I boomed in my long-practised pre-battle troop-whipping-up tones, “we have faced grave perils in our quest so far, and have suffered no harm. The Gods are watching over us.”

“Eh? Dedmìht got killed,” said Glob.

I had forgotten this. “Ah yes, Dedmìht did get killed. But apart from Dedmìht, nobody has died. So there’s no need for fear. Simply, we must wade into the yawning chasm beyond this gate and battle whatever swarm of– pack of– er, whatever bunch of monsters– er, things are within. Come!”

I spoke the words, but the ravenous howling coming from beyond the great stone doors was very loud and quite horrible, and I found myself rooted to the spot, sword arm outstretched, pointing onwards but not actually moving.

“God’s sake,” grumbled Glob, rolling up her sleeves and striding forward.

Seeing the small stable girl heaving open the demon-gate breathed fresh oxygen on the dying embers of my courage, and I jogged to catch up with her. I paused a second on the threshold, let out a gargling war cry, and charged through the opening doors.

“HAVOC!” I screamed as I sprinted into the chamber.