His Cure For Magic (Book 2) (14 page)

She was a dream that could never be.
 

"Dull," he lied. "Are you enjoying your time with General Clau?"

She shrugged. "I've barely seen him. He set me up at an inn near the warehouses to the south and checked in on me a few times a day for a report. Other than that I've been on my own."

The door opened, and Kelkin joined them. "Don't keep the General waiting," he said, making his way past them. They fell in step behind him.

Clau was waiting for them when they arrived in the courtyard. The General had eschewed his full armor for a lighter ircidium chain shirt and heavy leather pants. The Eye of the Empire was branded onto the thigh and stained such that it looked like real blood. He had also left his destrier behind, opting instead for a faster Portnis stallion.

"By my calculation, we'll be too late to stop him from getting into the mine," Clau said. "If we run these horses to the ground, we may catch him on the way out. Are my Mediators ready?"

"Yes, my Lord," they said in unison.

They moved to their horses. Wilem mounted Strider and patted his neck. "It's good to see you again."

"Wilem." The General sidled over to him. "Are you ready?"

He knew what Clau was referring to. He wished he could have said he was with confidence, but the Overlord's reaction had stolen that away. "Yes, my Lord." He was sure his hesitation was noticed, but Clau only nodded sharply and started riding ahead of them.
 

"This may be our best chance. For the Empire!"
 

"For the Empire," Kelkin and Talia said.

Wilem urged Strider forward, saying nothing.
 

He had a bad feeling he was riding to his death.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Silas

Silas ran down the tunnel as fast as he could, sword in hand and scabbard tapping against his leg. It felt good to run, and to work out the cold that would have killed him had he not taken hold of the ircidium blade only moments before Eryn's rescue.
 

They were killing the prisoners.
He
was willing to sacrifice everyone in the mine rather than set them free. The idea of it enraged and confounded him.
 

The tunnel dove downward, the floor worn from thousands of feet carrying heavy loads of the ore up from the depths. He reached a few of these feet as he rounded a bend, bare and attached to prisoners who had already been put to the sword. He didn't pause to see their faces, but in his mind he swore to avenge them.
 

It wasn't long before he had his chance.

A soldier, walking back towards the mines. He turned when he heard Silas coming, but his simple shoes didn't make much sound and a masterful sword stroke dropped the soldier even as he raised his own weapon to fight.
 

Silas moved on without slowing, plunging into the depths.

At last he reached one of the larger shafts, a twisting mess of earth and wooden platforms that ringed dug-out walls of rock. He could see the prisoners shifting away from the soldiers, who approached with swords out, herding them backwards and either stabbing them or throwing any they reached into the darkness below. If he had a bow, he could have taken them down one by one from a distance.

He didn't have a bow, so he leaped from the mouth of the cavern, dropping down to a platform below. His weight shook the entire structure, getting the attention of both guards and prisoners alike.
 

"It's him," he heard one of the prisoners say. "The Hero of Elling."

The soldier rushed him, striking hard from the left. Silas parried, pushing the blade away and punching him in the side. It was enough to slow him, and he brought the sword back in and through his chest. He pushed the body over the edge.

A whistle in the air caught his attention, and an arrow smacked off the wall to his left and bounced away. Silas looked over and found the shooter, a soldier who had emerged from a second tunnel. He was already notching another arrow.
 

"We need to get out of here," Silas said to the prisoners.

In front was an older woman with a head of straggly white hair, half of which had fallen out. "Back that way," she said. "Around to the other side."

Silas saw the opening to a deeper shaft there. He kept his eyes on the archer, dropping down when he saw him release. The arrow clanked off the wall over his head.

"Hurry," he said. He led some of the prisoners around to the tunnel, but there were still others deeper in the cavern. The soldiers down there had noticed their brother fall past and were increasing the killing pace.

Silas looked up at the archer, and then down at a platform on the other side of the gorge. It was twenty feet across and down, a crazy distance to try to jump.
 

"Keep going." He found the dagger in his belt and handed it to the woman.
 

I'm General Talon Rast, Champion of Ares-Nor. I'm not afraid of heights, or dying.

He pushed himself back against the wall, took three short strides forward, and leaped. An incoming arrow buzzed his ear, striking the arm of one of the prisoners.

When he hit the lower platform, he hit hard, his whole body shuddering with the impact. The platform shuddered too, and he lunged forward to get to the next set of planks just in time to avoid being pitched over the edge. He took short breaths to fight through the pain, and moved towards a soldier who had cornered another group. He'd felt the vibrations, and turned at Silas' approach. Unlike his brother, he didn't get a chance to fight.

A woman in stained rags dashed up behind him, finding the dagger in his belt and using it to stab him in the back. Instead of attacking Silas, he fell towards him. Silas grabbed the soldier's sword, and then pushed him from the ledge.

"Fine work," he said, handing her the sword.
 

"The exit is back that way," she replied, pointing past him.
 

Silas looked back the way he had come. A ten foot gap had been created when he'd knocked the platform over. "There has to be another way."

She shook her head.

Silas scanned the cavern. Had he just accidentally trapped them here? He went to the edge of the gap and looked down. There was another set of planks there, twenty feet below. He'd been lucky enough to survive the first jump, and he was fit. The prisoners were strong from mining, but he couldn't picture them making the drop.

He heard shouting coming from above, and then the sound of steel against steel. He looked up in time to watch the archer who had been attacking him go tumbling over the edge. It was followed by the head of a prisoner looking down on them.
 

"Hold there, Hero," he said. "Your army is here."

###

"I'm glad you're safe," Silas said, wrapping Eryn in his arms. He kept it short and simple, lest any of the questionable rumors spread.

"I was worried about you," she replied. She put her hands to a tear in his shirt and the deep cut in his arm, caused by the rough landing on the platform. He hadn't felt the damage at the time, but now it was beginning to throb.

Saretta approached them. Silas had been pleased to learn she was the one who had stabbed the soldier in the back. A strong-jawed woman with the wiry muscle of the undernourished but hard-working miners, with wavy brown hair and sparkling green eyes. "All of the men we sent out are back. These are the rest of the survivors."
 

Silas looked over her shoulder to the forty or so prisoners being led towards them. "How many does that make?" Silas asked.

"Four hundred and seventy-eight," she replied, unable to hide the sadness in her voice. They had lost more than half.

The rest had already been moved to the entrance of the mines, armed with anything they could take from the soldiers. It had taken some time for 'the Hero's Army', as they called themselves, to overcome the remaining guards and lower a rope to rescue Silas and the others. By his calculation, they had three hours remaining to get out and away before any reinforcements could arrive.

"May Amman bless you, Silas," Loshe said. He had half a dozen prisoners trailing behind him, haggard, worn, and scared. "I'll take the rest up to the entrance."

Silas nodded. He hadn't asked them to follow him, but every man and woman who had gotten within reach had bowed before him, kissed his hands, or bent their knee. As the six prisoners passed, each of them thanked him and Eryn both.
 

"Thank you, Loshe," Silas said. "We'll be right behind you."

He bowed his head and kept moving.

"Why did you want me to stay behind?" Saretta asked.

"We didn't just come here to rescue the people in this mine," Silas said. "I wish I could say differently, but we had a greater purpose."

Her eyes crossed over both of them. "I suspected as much. I'm no fool, Silas. You have nothing to gain by stirring up
his
armies over a thousand prisoners, especially when there are much bigger mines you could have targeted."

Silas smiled. "I find it hard to believe you were a librarian," he said.

"I've read many things in my life. While books on war strategy have been banned and burned, the principals of becoming a successful merchant are not so different. The most important rule of which is to pick your battles and win the war, not the skirmish. It's easy for a merchant to discount their wares to make them more popular, but if it leaves them no capital to expand-"

"We came for you," Silas said. "You are the prize."

She stopped talking and looked thoughtful. "Davin sent you, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"You want to go to the Dark?"

"Yes."

"And the journal?"

"Yes, again."

She paused, silent, and then her laughter echoed in the cave.

"What's so funny?" Eryn asked.

"The thought crossed my mind that if I had been killed, you would be in serious trouble."

It was Silas' turn to laugh. "The thought just crossed my mind, my dear, that you are not an easy woman to kill."

"You don't know the half of it," she said. "Lead the way, Silas."

They started walking through the tunnel back to the surface together.
 

"Have you read the journal?" Eryn asked while they walked.

"The one I found? I've only been able to decipher bits and pieces. I worked very hard to spare the books that were found from the fires, and Davin helped me smuggle some of the more important titles away, but Overlord Prezi has always kept a close eye on our work. It is difficult to learn an alphabet without a volume of materials to cross-reference."

Yet somehow, Aren had done it. He was always a bright boy. His mother's son.

"What can you tell us about it?" Silas asked.

"Not much. Even though I have worked out some of the alphabet, many of the words have little meaning to me. As near as I can tell, it belonged to some kind of healer."

They walked in silence. The sounds of the prisoners organizing grew louder as they neared the surface.

"What of the Dark?" Silas said. "How did you find it?"

"A map. An ancient map. It was found after a heavy rainfall washed away some sediment not far from here. Only, it wasn't called the Dark. It was labeled in the ancient alphabet. I translated it to 'Genesia'. Davin told me to stay away from there, but I had to see if it still existed."

"What did you find?"

"I found that the stories parents tell their children about the Dark aren't that far from the truth. It is lost in a layer of fog that makes the skin tingle as soon as it makes contact against it. You begin to hear things and see things that aren't there. It's a strange feeling, a terrifying feeling. I made it a hundred feet down the slope before I could stand it no longer and fled."

"Not before you found the journal," Eryn said.
 

"Not before I found the corpse," Saretta replied. "I don't know how long it had been resting there, but laying next to it was a thick leather sack, and in the sack was the book."

"There was nothing else in the sack?"

"A tooth. At least, I think it was a tooth. Whatever it belonged to, I hope never to cross paths with it. I left it with the sack. I only took the journal. I think the corpse was another fool like me, who made it further down into the Dark than I did."

They reached the mouth of the tunnel, exiting into the entrance of the mine. The prisoners were all there, huddled in groups and talking to one another. They had only taken a few steps when a hush fell over them all.

"Here's to the Heroes of Elling," Loshe cried. Shouts of joy echoed around them.
 

Silas raised his hand, quieting them. "I haven't saved you," he said. "I've merely opened the door for you. Now you must work to save yourselves. Stay clear of
his
soldiers, spread out and vanish into the countryside. Find a small village to settle in."

"What about our families?" a voice asked. "I want to go home."

"You can't go home," Silas said. "If you do, you and everyone you love will be put to death. Your old life ended the moment you set foot in this horrible place. I'm afraid that leaving it doesn't change that."

A silence fell over the prisoners. Some of them were sobbing.
 

"What about the rebellion?" Loshe asked. "I want to fight."

"Aye, I want to fight too," someone else said.
 

"If I can't go home, I want to fight."

The sentiment travelled around the mine, until it shook with their pleas to join the rebellion.

Silas looked at Eryn.
 

"Go to Portnis," she said. "But not all together. You must spread apart, or you will draw attention and
his
armies will find you and ride you down. The rebellion is growing in Portnis. Find a safe place and ask after it."

The din of the prisoners grew as they spoke to one another of their plans. They could accept the loss of their families if they could serve them in another way.
 

"Loshe," Silas said, motioning the man over. "Do you know these lands well?"