Runemarks Read Free

have been forced to obey her, and she could have questioned him at leisure. But Maddy didn’t pause to think. She saw the goblin’s feet vanishing into the ground and shouted something—not even a cantrip—while at the same time casting
Thuris
, Thor’s rune, as hard as she could at the mouth of the burrow.
    It felt like throwing a firework. It snapped against the brick-lined floor, throwing up a shower of sparks and a small but pungent cloud of smoke.
    For a second or two nothing happened. Then there came a low rumble from under Maddy’s feet, and from the burrow came a swearing and a kicking and a scuffle of earth, as if something inside had come up against a sudden obstacle.
    Maddy knelt down and reached inside the hole. She could hear the goblin cursing, too far away for her to reach, and now there was another sound, a kind of sliding, squealing,
pattering
noise that Maddy almost recognized…
    The goblin’s voice was muffled but urgent. “
Now
look what you’ve gone and done. Gog and Magog, let me
out
!” There came another desperate scuffling of earth, and the creature reversed out of the hole at speed, falling over its feet and coming to a halt against a stack of empty barrels, which fell over with a clatter loud enough (Maddy thought) to wake the Seven Sleepers from their beds.
    “What happened?” she said.
    But before the goblin could make his reply, something shot out of the hole in the wall. Several somethings, in fact; no, dozens—no, hundreds—of fat, brown, fast-moving somethings, swarming from the burrow like—
    “Rats!” exclaimed Maddy, gathering her skirt around her ankles.
    The goblin looked at her with scorn. “Well, what did you
think
would happen?” he said. “Cast that kind of glam at World Below, and before you know it, you’re knee-deep in bilge and vermin.”
    Maddy stared at the hole in dismay. She had intended to summon only the goblin, but the cry—and that fast-flung rune—had apparently summoned
everything
within her range. Now not only rats, but beetles, spiders, wood lice, centipedes, whirligigs, earwigs, and maggots squirted horribly out of the hole, along with a generous outpouring of foul water (possibly from a broken drain), to form a kind of verminous brew that poured and wriggled at alarming speed out of the burrow and across the floor.
    And then, just when she was sure that nothing worse could possibly happen, there came the sound of a door opening above-stairs, and a high and slightly nasal voice came to Maddy from the kitchen.
    “Hey, madam! You going to stay down there all morning, or what?”
    “Oh, gods.” It was Mrs. Scattergood.
    The goblin shot Maddy a cheery wink.
    “Did you hear me?” said Mrs. Scattergood. “There’s pots to wash up here—or am I supposed to do
them
an’ all?”
    “In a minute!” called Maddy in haste, taking refuge on the cellar steps. “Just…sorting out a few things down here!”
    “Well, now you can come and finish things off up
here,
” said Mrs. Scattergood. “Come up right now and see to them pots. And if that one-eyed scally good-for-nowt comes round again, you can tell him from me to shove off!”
    Maddy’s heart leaped into her mouth.
That one-eyed scally good-for-nowt
—that must mean her old friend was back, after more than twelve months of wandering, and no amount of rats and cockroaches—or even goblins—was going to keep her from seeing him. “He was here?” she said, taking the cellar steps at a run. “One-Eye was here?” She emerged breathless into the kitchen.
    “Aye.” Mrs. Scattergood handed her a tea towel. “Though I dunno what there is in
that
to look so pleased about. I’d have thought that
you,
of all people—” She stopped and cocked her head to listen. “What’s that noise?” she said sharply.
    Maddy closed the cellar door. “It’s nothing, Mrs. Scattergood.”
    The landlady gave her a suspicious look. “What about them rats?” she said. “Did you fix it right this