(apologies for the delay, I’ve been a bit busy of late. see my journal for details…)

Domingo and his brother and I had just started across the bridge when arrows started whizzing past us, clattering on the bridge, and falling over the side, to tumble down down towards the fiery orange river far below. In an instant the Spaniards had taken aim at the source of the arrows: two cracks later and there were two less archers firing upon us.

But a dozen less two is still too many, and the arrows were missing by less and less, so we began to run. The bridge had no railing, and though it was quite wide enough for two lanes of traffic, it offered no real protection unless we wished to hang over the far side and risk falling to a horrible death. In any case, I doubt we would have had time.

The bridge stretched interminably long before us, while the arrows seemed to dance all around us. When at last we came over the hump of the bridge — for as we found it curved upwards at an angle that our legs did not like at all — and so came down the other side somewhat faster, the archers arrows finally caught up with us.

Gary Dirin remained unharmed. He simply batted the arrows away when they came too close and should have pierced his body. Domingo’s younger brother wasn’t so fortunate, and was struck with three arrows and fell over the edge of the bridge before I even noticed the shaft that had lodged in my leg.

I wish to apologize here, for even at the time I didn’t know the poor man’s name, and I never had the chance to ask Domingo what it was later on, for reasons that shall become clear. All I can say for sure is that he was a pleasant enough fellow during the short time I knew him. But that is past.

Domingo had been keeping pace with Gary and thus avoided harm through all this. When he glanced back and saw me limping after them, he slowed his stride for two steps, took my arm over his shoulder, broke into a sprint and dragged me the rest of the way across. Once through the portal, where the arrows could no longer reach us, the two of us collapsed to the ground in a mixture of despair and exhaustion. Gary Dirin, who’s eyes I could have sworn were emitting the same red glow as the river of fire, although in fact were probably simply reflecting it, vented his frustrations by pounding cracks into the rock wall. Such was his constitution.

Domingo pulled a bottle of some green tonic out of his pack, and after removing the arrow from my leg, poured a little into the wound, which hissed and smoked a little, but pained me no more. I wrapped a bandage around it just the same and then Domingo sat on the ground and said a prayer for his brother’s soul. Gary Dirin remarked that perhaps the Romans had had good reason to avoid this part of the ancient world. But his doubts lasted only a moment and one good deep breath before he, presumably, began to rethink his plans.

As he pondered the prospect of a single marksman, I happened to glance back across the bridge and noticed that the younger spaniard’s rifle lay there some distance back but not entirely too far. Whether he had dropped it intentionally for our use, or had simply dropped it we will never know, but it was there and we needed it. Gary quickly surmised that we would never make it out and back alive, when I remembered something. I rummaged in my pack and pulled out the collapsable fishing rod that had been on the List. I hadn’t been entirely sure what use it would be, not knowing what fish we might find or want to eat down here. But it now occurred to me that Gary Dirin was a rather resourceful fellow, and he had some rather queer ideas about what sorts of things might be used for what sorts of purposes, and never once did he care whether such things were proper. If he had, we would have at that moment been in a tavern on the surface, drinking to the Fuhrer’s health.

I was not a particularly good fisherman, but I fared well enough in most cases, and while hardly a marksman, my aim was not altogether terrible. So after several tries and some thought, I simply tied the line around a stone, put a large hook on the end, and hoped for the best. Surprisingly enough, it worked, and although several arrows shot out and knocked the rifle off the edge, the hook caught it just right and I was able to pull it into the mouth of the archway with us with little enough trouble.

And so Domingo swapped some of my rations and other arcane gear for half the ammunition in his pack, gave me a quick instruction of how to use a long-barreled six-gun, and we were twice armed once more. Another quick prayer for his brother’s soul, and a blessing on the rifles to let our aim be good and true, and we were off down the roadway. Since passing through the door, out of the fiery glow from the chasm, the tunnel took on a strange greenish glow, as of a full moon, but the tunnel’s very walls emitted the light. Gary told us that it was caused by a tiny fungus, like a mass of tiny electric light bulbs.

In any case, we no longer needed lanterns and so we stowed them away. This was reassuring as it allowed us to approach whatever lay below unseen, so long as we made little enough noise, and it kept our hands free to use our weapons. We followed the road for some hours without incident. We saw no sign of human habitation, no sign of any life at all besides the cold glare of the fungus. Domingo began to wonder if the archers had even been alive at all, and Gary’s silence did little to assuage our fears.

The tunnel was long and dim and cold and empty. It was not, as we thought at first, that there was no sign of recent occupancy or use. There was in fact no sign that this tunnel had ever been used by man at all. If the walls had not been so smooth and flawless, I might have suspected it to be a lava tube, as I had read about in the National Geographic magazine from America.

But the tunnel was silent. We made as little noise as we could, but there was nothing else so it seemed terribly loud to us. The way was not hard on the body, but after several hours I began to think I had gone made and was hearing noises. Very very faint at first, nearly inaudible. They were frightening to no end: terrible screams, moanings, chanting, and all manner of other disturbing sounds, which echoed faintly up the tunnel from far below. But they were not constant, and even fell silent for long periods, only to start up again with a turn of the road or a shift in the slight wind that blew clean air up the tunnel, or sulfurous odors from behind us.

And so I plodded along in private torment until we turned a long curving corner, and the sounds came peircingly from quite near, and I saw Domingo jump with fright.