Dawn was coming, slowly but surely the sky was lightening. Like ghosts the team slipped into position overlooking the fortress, concealed in the edge of the treeline.
"That's his fortress?" said Mordred, his voice disapproving.
Janus glanced over to see Romulus and Atlas exchanging faintly amused looks.
"Twenty points from Slytherin for clichéd castle design?" Atlas mocked quietly.
"Well look at it," huffed Mordred.
Janus couldn't help but agree "I know. It looks like he kidnapped a magical architect and told them to build him the most evil looking castle they could." More smirks. Janus felt a sudden brush against his occlumency walls, he didn't react, he knew that mind. He glanced over at Athena finding his smirk deepening. "Apparently this castle bears a striking resemblance to the wicked witch's castle in a muggle film, of a fairy-tale called Sleeping Beauty."
The team were on the verge of open laughter.
"You mean Riddle has built a castle that looks like one from a muggle children's story, called Sleeping Beauty?" Atlas was actually grinning now.
Athena nodded, a faint smile on her face for the first time in weeks. Janus looked left to see Pythia looking at the castle with a slightly concerned expression.
"The castle would look much better in a nice fuchsia wouldn't it? All that black stone is quite depressing," she mused.
There was a moment of stunned silence as the team contemplated the Dark Lord painting his castle fuchsia. Janus felt another brief jolt against his occlumency barriers, an image of the Dark Lord standing hands on his hips surrounded by colour charts and paint pots slipped into his mind. Biting back a laugh he raised an eyebrow at Athena who was looking smug. It was ironic thought Janus. Standing here waiting for the signal to launch their most desperate mission they were mocking an immortal Dark Lord's design skills and smiling more than they had in months.
Atlas suddenly stiffened, his smile vanishing. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold coin. Janus felt his own smile slide off his face Atlas looked at the coin. "Last team is in position" he closed his hand around the coin and briefly shut his eyes "Diversion attacks are a go". The smiles had vanished from all their faces now. Atlas locked eyes with Janus. Janus nodded and fixed his gaze on the castle, scanning it with his other eye. Soon the tell-tale magic flares appeared. "Disapparitions are beginning. They've taken the bait".
Pythia shifted her grip on her staff, the rest clenched their wands a little tighter, and Athena placed one hand on the knife sheathed at her side. Janus watched more flares then risked a glance at Atlas. He was staring at the castle but Janus knew he wasn't really seeing it. He was seeing another castle and another battle. "Forward," the dark haired man whispered. As one they began to sprint down the slope and into the valley.
Janus took the lead, both eyes frantically scanning for traps and tripwires. The rest of the team followed close behind, trusting him to lead them through the magical minefield. Vaulting a Caterwauling Jinx linked to a rather unpleasant dormant curse Janus came to a halt beneath the outer wall. Athena and Mordred raced past him to the hidden gate and began breaking down the wards. Seamlessly the rest of the team slid into position. Romulus covering the right, Janus covering the left while Atlas kept his wand trained on the battlements above them and Pythia held the rear-guard. As the seconds dragged on the tension built. Janus knew that Athena and Mordred were frankly some of the best wardbreakers in the world but when you're crouched by a wall desperately hoping some enthusiastic sentry doesn't choose this exact moment to look over the battlements even a few seconds feels like hours.
Less than thirty seconds later Mordred held up his left hand. The team moved quickly to breaching positions. Athena and Mordred were crouched facing the sally-port, wands out they held together the last threads of the wards. Pythia crouched with them, staff outstretched to touch the gate. Behind them Atlas, Romulus and Janus stood in a line.
"Breach," Atlas ordered.
Simultaneously Athena and Mordred dropped their wands, the wards falling with them. Pythia drove her staff forwards and the iron door simply dissolved into nothingness. Even as she cast they were moving. Atlas vaulted through the archway, wand and sword in hand, with Romulus and Janus flanking him wands raised.
Nothing. No spells flew, no shouts of alarm. The courtyard was deserted.
Without pause they ran on crossing the first courtyard to crouch in the shadows of the looming inner wall. Once again they slide into position, though this time it was Romulus who was crouched by the wall, Mordred taking his place on the right while Athena joined Pythia on the rear-guard. Janus was even more nervous this time. While he would never be a wardbreaker like Athena or Mordred he knew enough about wards to understand what they were doing and why it took them the time it did. He had absolutely no idea how the strange contraption Romulus was pulling out of his pack worked and how much longer they would be crouched there in plain sight. It wasn't that Janus didn't trust Romulus, he trusted him as much as the rest of the team. He just had a strange character flaw of not liking trusting his life to the experimental device made of home invented magic and bastardised muggle technology that Romulus was currently attaching the team to with ropes.
"Activating on my mark" Romulus muttered. As one the team tensed, apart from Pythia and Mordred; Mordred because he had complete faith in Romulus, Pythia because frankly Janus didn't think she'd tense up if the whole castle blew up in front of them.
"Activate."
Janus felt a hideous lurching at his navel. It was somewhat like the feeling of a portkey, but infinitely worse. Rather than vanishing and reappearing at the top of the wall they were being launched up it like cannonballs, Janus could see the stone racing past inches from his nose. A couple of seconds later they cleared the battlements. At once the spell cut out and they all landed, still in formation.
A strangled sound to his left had Janus spinning round. A sentry was standing there looking right at them. Even as Janus raised his wands to cast he was assessing his enemy. His opponent looked young, his unmarked arm suggesting a conscript or new recruit, his unsteady hold on his wand suggested he had been caught by surprise, uneven stance suggested lack of combat experience, blood dripping down his neck suggested…. Janus paused. The sentry fell forwards blood now gushing from the wound on his neck. Atlas was there, catching the body, lowering it to the ground quietly. Janus glanced over at the others, Athena was calmly looking back at him, wand still outstretched. Janus was glad to see her knife was still sheathed, no rookie sentry deserved to die like that.
"Nice one."
Athena nodded in reply. Mordred was scowling. "Did you have to kill him?"
Athena looked at Mordred, and nodded. The scowl deepened as Athena stalked past him to the door.
Though they were a seamless unit in battle Janus knew there was something of a divide within the team. Mordred and Pythia may have been terrifyingly ruthless fighters but they preferred not to kill people. They would kill in an open fight and had done countless times, but killing a raw conscript who they could have easily stunned still offended their morals. Romulus and Atlas were like them in that they still had some morals but took the view that in a war people were going to die, and it was better the enemy died than they did. Athena on the other hand would slaughter anyone in her path without even a shred of remorse. For Janus it was simple, leave an enemy alive he might kill you another day, kill him and all you had to worry about was him turning up as an inferius.
Atlas was waving his wand transfiguring the body into a stone, with any luck it wouldn't be discovered until it was too late. Athena was already at the nearest door unpicking the wards. Still scowling Mordred joined her, the others taking up guard positions. Less than five seconds later the door swung smoothly open. They were in.
...
The team was moving quickly through shadowy corridors, the torches hung every so often on the walls doing little to pierce the gloom. Apart from the sentry on the roof they had yet to meet a single enemy, but that was likely to change sooner rather than later. But it didn't. Corridor after corridor, passage after passage, crossroads after crossroads. Cold black stone, intermittent torches and not a single creature, living, dead or undead.
"This place is like a bloody labyrinth," Romulus cursed quietly. Athena suddenly froze, the rest of the team coming rapidly to a stop behind her. Atlas was by her side in an instance scanning the gloom ahead. Janus could feel the tension rise, spinning around he stared frantically back along the corridor, nothing. Risking a glance over his shoulder he saw the passage ahead, what little of it he could see, was also clear. "Athena?" Janus heard Atlas whisper.
A harsh, hoarse, voice replied "Not like a labyrinth Atlas. It is a labyrinth." Janus could feel the team's shock that Athena was speaking and confusion at her words. Athena shook her head in an almost angry way.
Janus felt the sudden push against his mind. Less amused than before, it was accompanied by an overwhelming sense of fond exasperation. A stream of words and images slipped in accompanied by the smell of old parchment, of candles and feet shuffling on stone. Distracting though the images were the message was clear. Janus swore. With the exception of Athena the team turned to look at him.
"What did she say?" asked Mordred
"It's literally a labyrinth" Janus replied shortly, "The bastard has used standard interior expansion and exterior compression spells to create a bloody huge maze. It'll take us days to get through it."
Romulus swore explosively, Mordred and Atlas looked grim; unsurprisingly Pythia looked completely unperturbed. Romulus turned to Janus, "You didn't spot it?"
Janus felt a stab of annoyance, "The entire place is flooded in ambient wards and residual magic, spotting one specific enchantment would be like looking into a forest fire and trying to see one burning branch. Besides I was keeping a look out for more lethal surprises."
Atlas looked to Athena and Mordred, "Can you break it?" Athena nodded but made a slight gesture with her wand.
"We can break it," Mordred confirmed, "But we can't break it without anyone noticing."
Athena tilted her head slightly, even in the dark Janus could see Mordred shift uncomfortably, for some reason Mordred was never comfortable with legilimency messages. Mordred looked even grimmer now.
"It gets worse. When we break the enchantment the compression spell and the expansion spells will simultaneously reverse. Placing magical feedback to one side it's likely there will be to all intents and purposes random displacement of the interiors when we exit the constructed space. As we don't know the basis of the construct there's no way we can mitigate this."
Janus slowly translated Mordred speak into concise English, but Romulus, who had much more practice beat him to it, "So once you and Athena bust the labyrinth we could end up anywhere and you can't do anything to stop it."
"Well not anywhere" Mordred retorted, "Limits of exterior compression spells mean we'll certainly be within a few miles radius."
Janus looked to Atlas, "Atlas, if we don't do it we'll be walking around this maze until we died of old age or we trip over the exit."
Atlas nodded slowly then looked to Pythia who smiled back "The minotaur is easy to beat, but you have to cheat to beat the labyrinth". Janus raised an eyebrow, that was actually surprisingly coherent for Pythia, though he wasn't sure the minotaur in this labyrinth would be easy to kill.
Atlas turned to Athena and Mordred, "Do it. Everyone else stand by for the mark."
The two wardbreakers immediately dropped to the centre of the group and crouched down. Atlas and Romulus slid to the front while Pythia and Janus took the rear guard. After a minute or two Janus felt Pythia's stare. Janus may have been the one with the other eye but Pythia was the one who could see and right now it felt like she was looking straight through him.
"What?" he muttered.
A moment's pause, then the response in a dreamy voice, "When the time comes, remember what he said when you wouldn't drink your pumpkin juice."
Janus spun round, before he could respond there was a sudden flare of magic, brilliant and bright. Then in a howling of winds and screeching of shattering stone the labyrinth collapsed around them. Janus felt the ground give way beneath his feet, then nothing.