“It’s very important to be careful as you chip,” I said, miming the action we would be making with the steel pole. I showed them how to twist their wrists at the last moment and explained how multiple smaller jabs – like using a hammer – would be better down here than powerful lunges.
“Great,” Fankin snarled from his place a few people behind me. He had been more subdued on our long journey into the bones of Masaka, but now it appeared his ‘sunny nature’ was starting to perk up again.
Just what I need. But behind him was Overseer Maribet One-Eye and two of Inyene’s guards. They would be acting as our chaperones for this shift, and I was pretty certain they would spend most of their time observing the Middle Kingdomers rather than the rest of us.
Which was good, I thought. It might give me time to talk with Tamin, and Oleer, and do some thinking.
“Get a move on! It took you long enough to get down here!” Maribet snapped, and I nodded. Nothing much changed.
“Everyone got water? Your bread?” I said as I led the way down into Western Tunnel Two. There was a muttered chorus of affirmatives – and if no one sounded enthusiastic, then I didn’t blame them.
“We split up, three at each hole,” I said, indicating the small apertures in the rock that appeared every five or six meters or so. All of the Daza here had already had some experience – even if it was only last night, where I had shown them how to take turns, each one of three tapping and chiseling at the rocks before the next person took over. It was a technique that we slaves had devised a long time ago, and although it earned some mockery from the overseers, it meant that none of us tired ourselves out completely – which was good for Inyene in the long run, as well as good for us.
Not that it mattered. When Inyene announced a ‘rush’ then we all had to work three times as hard anyway!
Whatever. I carried on walking as the group behind me peeled off into their trios. It would be warmer at the far end of Western Tunnel Two – but there was another reason why I chose to venture down there, too. It was also the most unstable. I didn’t want any of the first-timers working there, and although I wouldn’t have minded asking Fankin and his goons, it seemed as though Maribet One-Eye had already earmarked them for the nearest hole to the tunnel entrance, where they would be easier –and safer – for her to watch.
“At least it’ll be quiet,” I muttered as I carried on walking, with Tamin and Oleer behind me.
The tunnel narrowed a little, dropped a few feet, and turned. We had to edge ourselves around a place where a large boulder had burst from the walls and splintered the support beam. The sounds of tapping from the work team behind us grew fainter and fainter. I slowed my pace and started to breathe again.
“Your plan?” Oleer’s voice swam forward to me. It was clear what he was talking about.
But I hadn’t had time to think about it yet. I sucked the air through my teeth.
“You always did that when you were thinking. Even as a child,” Tamin said. It was strange to have someone here who remembered me from before all of this. I didn’t know if that made me feel more vulnerable, or less.
“Well, the plains are East,” I thought out loud. “But so are Inyene’s watch towers. And her horse guards can cover the ground easily.”
“We can’t walk out of here. That would be impossible,” Oleer said. He seemed more despondent since his encounter with Fankin. I wanted the old Oleer back.
“That was why I was heading West, into the mountains, to loop back around,” I explained my previous attempts. The gulley that led to a waterfall, or the more open slopes on the southern face of Masaka.
“But neither of those routes worked!” Oleer said. “What does that leave us?”
“Well, there’s only one option left, isn’t there?” Tamin was saying. “Due West. Up and over the Masaka. Get to Middle Kingdom land proper, and then take one of the northern passes. I know Traders who might be able to smuggle us back,” he said.
I was surprised at his pragmatism. He thought like a senior clerk, I imagined, cutting away all of the mistakes until only one option was left.
“Over the mountain?” Oleer sounded incredulous behind us. “Do you know how difficult that will be? There’s lynx and wolves, snakes.”
“Stonedogs,” I muttered. I still hadn’t told anyone about my encounter with the stonedogs – or the wounded black dragon. I knew that it had been a personal experience, like my three-day Testing in the wilderness – but something in me told me to keep quiet about my experience, as well. If the newer prisoners like Fankin found out there was a wounded dragon up there, and that Inyene was after scales – then I was sure he would sell it out for any advantage he could get!
“What about dragons?” Tamin asked warily. The World’s Edge were one of the last refuges of the wild dragons, after all.
“Rare.” I thought of the way that the gigantic black had looked at me. It hadn’t challenged me. It had been hurt. “But I don’t think they’ll want anything to do with humans anyway,” I mused. Not in my experience, anyway.
“How many Daza are there down here?” Tamin asked. “I saw members of Souda and Metchoda, Uoda and Jinda tribes.”
“Almost three hundred, I think,” Oleer said. It was hard to argue with the pessimism in his voice. No one asked the obvious question in the dark, and none of us had to.
How, under the stars, were we going to smuggle three hundred people up the mountain? And keep them hidden in the Middle Kingdom, and then find a Trader friendly enough to bring all three hundred back to the Eastern Plains?
Oleer had been right. It was impossible. I was so caught up in my morose spirits that I didn’t notice the tremor until Tamin suddenly gasped, “What’s that?”
A trembling rose through my legs, and in the light of the candle I could see the shake of dust and rock chips on the floor. “Back. Everyone back,” I said, already turning, a spike of fear going straight through me.
Oleer was now in front of our group. Over Tamin’s shoulder I could see him start to jog with that awkward, hunched gait that came from working for years down the mines. The trick wasn’t to sprint. If you sprinted, then you would trip and smack your head on the rocks. I had learned that the hard way, many times.
“Not too fast!” I hissed at Tamin. No time to explain why as now the walls were visibly shaking, and from all around us there came a growling, groaning noise. It was louder than all of the previous times that I had heard it before. It was almost as loud as I imagined what a dragon roar would be.
Maybe we SHOULD sprint.
Before I could even open my mouth to shout, there was an almighty crack as if someone had broken the mountain in half, and a blast of cold air hit me from behind. It was laden with dust and grit, making me cough and choke.
And then I ran smack into the back of Tamin, who had paused, his hands clutching at the walls.
“What? Run!” I coughed.
But he couldn’t. As I raised my eyes, I saw that the shaking tunnel ahead of us was now filled with gray smoke. A shadow moved across my eyes as one of the wooden supports gave way with an almighty roar, releasing a torrent of rocks from the walls and ceilings--