Free Dead Silence by T.G. Ayer

Lysa, hoping they'd give me a confirmation. One person may be mistaken, three would make it all the more certain.
    Jeff was nodding. "Yes, he greeted us when he entered. He was just inside the doors when it hit."
    "Thanks." I said turning away from them. They could manage on their own from here.
    But Jeff called out making me turn back. "Wait," he said waving his hand at me. "I'll help you. Let me just get Lysa to one of those boulders over there."
    I glanced back in time to see Lysa roll her eyes. Then she said, "Lysa can manage to get to the boulder on her own." She glared at Jeff, daring him to protest but he didn't seem to have much sense. He glanced at me, probably looking for my agreement but I shook my head.
    "What she said," I said, knowing why Lysa had made that stand. She'd probably had enough of being helped and now she needed to do something that didn't include being a burden.
    Lysa gave me a nod, then ignored Jeff and limped over piles of rubble. She reached the boulders, and only when she'd settled down on one did Jeff turn to me expectantly. "Lead the way," he said, his expression inscrutable. As we headed to what remained of the entrance of Valhalla I could have sworn I heard him swear.
    And when he came to a sudden halt I knew why.
    We stared into a deep chasm, a gigantic crack in the earth. I'd seen it from afar but hadn't realized it had ripped through the entrance of the hall. Now, all that remained of the front door were the four metal hinges that had held it to the threshold.
    The ravine ran straight through the twenty foot wide entrance to the hall of Valhalla. And somewhere in this rubble lay Joshua. I didn't want to contemplate the possibility that he could have fallen into the ravine, yet an insistent voice in my head implied it was the most likely assumption.
    "Joshua?" I shouted into the chasm, hoping he'd hear me and yell back that he was okay. But I heard nothing in the wake of my desperate summons.
    Jeff stood at the edge of the ravine, staring down into its depths.
    Something about the way he was standing, so still, made fingers of ice scrape all the way down my spine.
    I joined him, having to force my legs to move the few steps forward. And when I looked down my stomach twisted.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWELVE
     
    The earth had opened up, turning the two edges of the mouth of the ravine into cliff-faces. A mountain climber may love such challengingly deadly terrain but I'd never been a fan. As I stared into the chasm by the light of the sun streaming down on us, I could make out broken bodies caught on jagged ledges, armor glinting back at us as if this was some kind of macabre joke.
    Dozens of warriors had died falling through this crack.
    And what if one of them was Joshua?
    Although I couldn't stand the prospect of going deeper into the earth, couldn't stand the idea of being swallowed up by tons of rock and soil, I still thrust up into the air and hovered over the opening. The width of an average narrow alley, it widened in some places to street width and narrowed in others so much that in many parts a person could stretch out and touch each wall with their fingertips.
    I met Jeff's eyes. Even a seasoned warrior could show horror. "I'm going down to look for survivors."
    He was shaking his head slowly. "I should go with you," he said the words escaping even as he realized that made no sense.
    I didn't wait for a response, just said, "Wait here, in case I find anyone alive."
    What I meant to say was 'stay and watch over me in case the earth decided to close this mouth of a ravine and lock me up inside its depths'. And from the widening of his eye I knew he sensed my meaning.
    I took a deep breath and prayed I'd find Joshua, although these days most of my prayers went to Odin and I wondered for a moment if even that was simply a waste of time. I shrugged off the negative veil that threatened to take me over and descended slowly into the rip in the earth. Thankfully, the afternoon sun