They reached the door which hung open on its hinges. Cam went first. “Keep behind me,” he said, shielding her with his body. He walked through the archway into the courtyard which was as empty as outside.
“Where is everyone?” Rachel asked.
He didn’t answer, moving quickly across to the keep. “The treasury is at the bottom of these stairs,” he said. “I remember it from last time I was here. Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Into the keep, he headed down the stairs, stopping at the bottom. “This isnae good,” he said when he reached a solid wooden door barely visible in the gloom. “It isnae locked.” He pushed it open and looked in. “Empty.”
Rachel waited while he searched. He emerged looking angrier than before. “It’s been turned over. Come, there is nothing for us here.”
“But how am I supposed to get home?”
“We will have to work something out. For now, let’s get gone. There is only death here.”
As if the castle itself were answering, from somewhere in the distance, a moaning call echoed, softly at first, but then louder.
“What was that?” Rachel asked, grabbing Cam’s arm.
“We shall see,” he replied. “Let me listen.” The moaning grew louder still. “That’s coming from the pit prison.”
Chapter Twelve
Cam pushed past her, up the stairs and along the corridor deeper into the keep. By the time she caught up with him he was already descending more stairs, and then more.
At the bottom were other open doors and Rachel had to stop. The smell was overpowering. Holding her nose, she tried not to gag as she followed him down.
In the blackness at the bottom she dared not go any further. A spark flashed and then she saw what was happening. Cam was using a flint to light a candle he’d found.
Once it was lit, the dim yellow glow illuminated a small room with a trapdoor in the floor by Cam’s feet.
“What is that smell?” she asked.
“Dinnae look,” he replied, kneeling as he peered through the trapdoor. “You dinnae need to see this.”
“I’m not a child,” she replied, kneeling beside him and almost throwing up at the sight. Through the trapdoor she could see the pit prison. Bodies had been thrown in, their limbs tangled together, jutting out with fingers pointing accusingly upward, as if to blame the two of them for their fate.
“Look,” Cam said, squinting in the dark. “There.”
Rachel nearly screamed. Part of the mass of corpses was moving. She was about to scramble away when she realized what it was. Someone was alive in there. Fingers were moving.
“Get me a rope,” Cam snapped. “Quickly.”
Glad of the chance to move away from the hideous sight, she searched in the gloom, finding a length of rope beside a broken barrel. It was attached to an iron bar in the wall, presumably for lowering food to those in the pit prison. Cam took it from her, his eyes still fixed on the moving arm he could see.
He put his sword on the ground before tying the rope around his waist, lowering himself through the open trapdoor. “Be careful,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder as he descended through the gap.
“Be ready,” he replied. “You might need tae run.”
She watched in silence as he landed on the pile, reaching down and grabbing the protruding hand.
“Haud on,” he said, pulling with all his strength. Slowly a person emerged from the mass of bodies. It was an elderly man, dried blood coating his face, his eyes tightly shut.
His white hair was matted with filth and as Cam helped lift him through the trapdoor, she saw his eyes were still shut. Why didn’t he open them?
She hauled him up, using all her strength until he was finally onto the floor beside the trapdoor. Cam clambered up the taut rope before untying the knot around his waist, kneeling beside the prone figure. “What happened here?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”
“The barefoot man,” the man said, his voice faint. “His men took my eyes. He came in the darkness. I saw him by the light of the moon, directing his men. They killed them all. They laughed while they did it. Then they threw me in there with the rest.
“I was only here to sell my pig. What did I do to deserve such an awful fate? I felt sure I would starve in there until you saved me. God bless you both.”
