Wallace reached up to push the barefoot man off him. As he did so, two fingers pressed into his eye sockets. He roared with pain, shifting his head to one side, his vision blurring. As it came back he saw the barefoot man was holding a sword above his chest, about to plunge it down into his heart.
“Stop,” Natalie shouted. “Or I break this.”
The barefoot man looked across at her. Wallace blinked away the blurring of his vision, rubbing his eyes in time to see her holding up the silver key. She must have snatched it as the two of them were fighting.
“You cannot break that key,” the barefoot man said, laughing as he took a step toward her. “It is unbreakable.”
Natalie didn’t flinch as he approached. “Take another step and I do it. I destroy the key.”
“Do that and you’ll never get home.”
“A small price to pay.”
The barefoot man threw back his head and laughed. “Enough of your bluff. Go ahead, try and break it. See what happens.”
He watched as she placed the key on the nearest rock, lifting her dagger and bringing it down through the air.
The tip of the dagger struck the center of the key. At once the silver shattered like glass. The key crumbled away, the shards falling from the rock to the floor below.
The barefoot man screamed, the sound making Natalie wince. He ran toward the key, picking up the pieces, trying desperately to put them together. The earth shook uncontrollably and a howl from behind the door grew so loud Wallace could hear nothing else.
He ran for Natalie, grabbing her hand and pulling her away from the chamber. “Come on,” he yelled over the roaring noise behind them. Together they ran to the nearest wall and began to climb.
The barefoot man didn’t even notice, he was too busy trying to put the key back together. “He’ll havea hard time,” Natalie shouted, showing Wallace a shard of silver in her palm. She tucked it into her pocket before reaching up, ascending the cliff edge as the two sides of the hole in the earth began to slide together.
“Quickly,” Wallace shouted, the noise fading below them, replaced by the rumbles and shakes of the earth. He looked up. The open air was too far away. They would never make it. They tried anyway, frantically scrambling up the cliff edge.
“It’s too far,” Natalie called down to him. “I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can,” he lied. “Keep going.” He could only hope death when it came would be painless. “I need you to know something.”
“What?”
He almost slipped, losing grip of the cliffside for a moment, hanging by one hand before he was able to grab on again and resume climbing. The other side was getting closer. He would soon be able to reach out and touch it. “Scarlett was right. You were the thing I needed.”
“Is now the time for this? We’re about to get crushed to death.”
“I needed you to know. That’s all.”
The other wall was close enough to touch andstill it got closer. Another few seconds and they’d be entombed. “Goodbye, Natalie,” he said, reaching up and squeezing her ankle.
“Goodbye, Wallace,” she replied. “I’m glad I met you.”
She looked down at him, closing her eyes. The wall got closer. It was over. They were about to die.
“Here!” a voice shouted from up above. He looked up in time to see a rope flying down toward them. “Grab on!”
He yelled at Natalie but she was ahead of him, already taking hold of the rope as it began to move upward. He held on for dear life as they scraped between the two sides of the hole which continued to narrow.
Five seconds later they were out in the open. Five more and the sides of the hole slammed together as if nothing had happened.
Wallace lay panting on his back, hardly able to believe they were alive. He looked up. There was the captain holding the other end of the rope. “Glad to see you,” he said. “Have fun down there?”
“We had a great time,” Natalie said. “Turns out I’m not a fan of caving.”
Once they’d recovered and were on their feet,Wallace looked up at MacCallister Castle. “Where is everyone?”
“Funny you should mention that,” the captain replied. “About two minutes ago they all just started running. Any idea why?”
