The light from the flame didn’t reach far, making the darkness around the edges seem even more impenetrable.
Black obsidian spires reflected back at her, glittering in the light. Nothing else moved out there. Didn’t mean there wasn’t anything, but she judged it a risk worth taking.
The passageway had dropped them right into the chasm under the bridge. Above them, stone supports kept the bridge up, and above it the Keep towered on the thin edge of the cliff.
Shea stepped back and stuck the candle in a holder beside the door for her return journey. She’d have liked to take it with her but knew there was too great a chance of someone above seeing its light.
“Alright, let’s go,” Shea said. She slipped through first.
This far down, the sky was a narrow strip against the hulking forms of the cliff.
Shea walked several feet into the ravine, listening as she let her eyes adjust to the dark. Her feet crunched over thick rock, and she was grateful for the thick soles of her boots, since it sounded like walking over broken glass.
“Watch your step,” she said in a low voice as the others joined her. “This stuff will cut you to pieces if you fall on it.”
She moved carefully around one of the thicker spikes, just beginning to make out the dark shapes around her—some taller than a horse.
She ignored the crunching under her feet, trying to step carefully without too much noise. While they were a fair distance below the keep, she feared the narrow walls would make sound echo.
The spires were an oddity that no one had ever been able to adequately explain. Made from a smooth and glossy black substance, it looked like a mirror but lacked a reflection.
“These are a convenient defensive feature,” Fiona said.
“You could push your enemy right into the ravine and impale them,” Ghost agreed.
It would be more impressive if the fall alone wouldn’t kill most things, making the spikes a superfluous feature.
Shea was halfway across the field when a brief yelp startled her, causing her feet to slide. She caught herself, just barely preventing her body from pitching headfirst into the obsidian spikes.
“Quiet, man,” Eamon hissed.
“There’s something out there. It touched me,” was the snapped response.
Noise from above drew Shea’s attention.
“Shh,” she waved her hands, signaling for them to take cover.
She tucked herself under the tilted form of a spike just in time, as voices from above reached them.
“Did you hear that?” Reece asked. It sounded like he’d leaned over the edge of the bridge.
“Could be the wind?” someone responded.
Shea cursed the man who had made the sound and the fact that her cousin was the one to hear it. He was like her, unlikely to write something odd off until he investigated for himself.
Eamon’s grim face looked back at her from where he hugged the underside of his own spike. He shook his head. She sighed. Nothing to do but wait to see if the mission was blown.
“Get me a light,” she heard Reece say, the sound faint.
Shit. She gestured wildly at the rest. They crowded closer to whatever cover they could, moments before a torch landed in the midst of them.
The yellow light cast the ravine into sharp detail. A rock-sized creature crouched not far from where the torch had landed, the same black obsidian spikes decorating its back. It had a long face and beady black eyes. It let out a high-pitched grumbling noise at the torch before waddling away, the glass spikes on its back reflecting the light.
“Nothing there. Probably one of those creatures mating caused whatever you heard,” the same voice from before said.
“I suppose,” Reece said, sounding unwilling to believe it.
The torch sputtered and went out, plunging the chasm back into darkness. Shea waved everyone forward. They needed to get moving before Reece took it into his head to come down and investigate further.
