Down Among the Dead Men (Forest Kingdom Novels) by Simon R. Green

her—by being the best damned witch he’d ever had. She had other dreams about him too, but she rarely allowed herself to think about them. And now here she was, on her first mission with him, and it was all going wrong. Because he wouldn’t give her a chance. Constance’s lower lip jutted rebelliously. She’d show him. She’d show them all.
    It didn’t take long to reach the cellar. It looked just as it had before, a mess. MacNeil sniffed and shook his head. Grief knew how long they’d been dumping rubbish there—every day since the fort was first occupied, by the look of it. Constance hung her lantern from a wall holder while Flint looked disgustedly around the cellar.
    “Everything but gold,” she said unenthusiastically. “You don’t really want us to dig through this stuff, do you, Duncan?”
    “Afraid so,” said MacNeil.
    Flint sniffed. “I just hope I don’t catch anything contagious.”
    “That’s not all we have to worry about,” said Constance suddenly. “Have you noticed how cold it’s got?”
    The others stopped and looked at her. MacNeil frowned as he suddenly realized his breath was steaming in the air before him. All at once he was shivering, his bare face and hands seared by the biting cold. He pulled his cloak around him and tried to remember if it had been this cold when he first entered the cellar. He had a strong feeling it hadn’t. He looked at the others, and their breath was steaming too. He looked around him, and his flesh began to creep as he noticed for the first time that a faint pearly haze of hoarfrost was forming on the cellar walls.
    It can’t be that cold down here. It can ’t… .
    He forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand, and stared determinedly at the junk covering the floor. “If there is a subcellar,” he said roughly, “you probably get to it by a trapdoor in the floor. Start shifting this rubbish out of the way. Pile it up against the walls, and then we can get a clear look at the floor.”
    The others nodded and set to work. MacNeil put his lantern down safely out of the way and joined them. Shifting the assorted debris took some time and not a little effort, but eventually they uncovered a trapdoor. It lay in the exact middle of the cellar floor, a good six square feet of solid oak, held shut by two heavy steel bolts. MacNeil knelt down by the trapdoor and looked closely at the bolts, but felt strangely reluctant to touch them. He rubbed his hands together to drive out the cold and buy him some time to think. They were just ordinary, everyday steel bolts. There was no reason at all why he shouldn’t touch them. Except that all the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up and both his arms were covered in goose flesh, and none of it came from the bitter cold in the cellar.
    He looked at Constance, carefully keeping his voice calm and easy. “Try your Sight. See if you can sense anything about the trapdoor and what lies beneath it.”
    The witch nodded and stared at the trapdoor. Her eyes became vague and faraway.
    Deep in the earth something stirred and strove to wake. The weight of earth and stone lay heavy upon it, and time gnawed at its blood and bones. A darkness came and went, too swiftly to disturb its slumber, but now at last the chains of sleep began to fall away as day by day it drifted closer to waking. It dreamed foul dreams and the world went mad. Soon its long sleep would end, and the world would tremble when the sleeper spoke its name .
    Constance broke the contact, and once again her Sight became vague and clouded. She swayed sickly and almost fell, nauseated by the few faint traces of the thing she’d sensed. MacNeil took her arm, concerned at her sudden paleness, and she smiled weakly at him.
    “I’ll be all right in a moment, Duncan.”
    “What did you See?”
    “The same thing I’ve Seen before, only this time I Saw it a little more clearly. There’s something down there, Duncan—something old and evil and