by M. E. Thorne
“Just one person?” I asked.
She nodded. “I think so, it’s a bit hard to tell.”
“Follow me,” Nichessa began to creep forward. “We’re not far from the guard station and the shaft’s entrance, so we have to be careful.”
Moving nearly silently, we went further underground, our breaths chilling in the clammy air. Huge stone vaults rose around us. They would have been magnificent in any other circumstance, but all I could think of were the poor souls that had likely died by where we passed.
After several minutes we stopped again, our ears straining to hear anything. Slowly, I was able to make out a noise above the constant drip of water and the soft groans of the earth; the sound of someone crying.
Nichessa went first, peeking into the next chamber, before waving for us to follow. Drawing up behind her, she pointed out a huddled figure, curled up next to a massive stalagmite.
In the colorless gloom, it was hard to pick out any details about him, but he hardly seemed older than eighteen, with long, scrawny arms and legs. At his feet rested the waxy, burnt remnants of a candle, the wick having finally given out.
We backed away, coming up with a plan, before I approached the young man.
Whispering, I called, “Are you alright?”
He snapped his head up and pressed his back against the stone as he gazed about, his eyes opened wide in horror. “Who’s there?”
“I’m a friend of Jeanie, the girl who escaped,” I told him, hoping he’d recognize the name.
“Jeanie?” His fear only ratcheted up, “Jeanie’s dead! Sanderson said they caught her and burned her alive!”
“They lied,” I told him gently, hoping to use my magic to calm him, “she escaped, and she brought help. We’re here to rescue you.” I rapt gently on the ground, drawing his attention. “I know you can’t see me, so I’m going to light a torch. You might want to close your eyes for a second, I don’t want to blind you.”
Carefully, I lit the torch Nichessa had provided; the flame’s light was almost painfully bright to my sensitive eyes.
Blinking away some tears, I held it over my head, illuminating the chamber.
“You’re not from Luminark,” the young man said, his voice full of shock.
“No, I’m from Duskhaven, a place called Gloomglow,” I told him.
Behind me, I heard something scuff against the stone, likely Vexile’s tail as she moved closer.
The young man flinched, then looked to his left and right, as if trying to find an escape route. “You’re not alone!”
“No,” I admitted steadily, “I’m not. I am the Dark Lord of Duskhaven. My queens are with me, we came to try and find the Luminark mine and to see if we could locate any prisoners.”
Doubt and hope warred across his face. “The Dark Lords are all dead, so is Duskhaven.’
“They were,” Vexile hissed quietly, before slithering into the light, only her head and shoulders visible. “But Revina has blessed us with strength and power so that the kingdom might be reborn.”
When I had elected to approach the youth, I was afraid that he’d see Vexile and Nichessa and scream Monsters! Instead, he surprised me by throwing himself down onto his knees as Vexile came closer into the light, revealing her ascendant form.
“Lady ascendant!” he cried, bowing in deepest supplication. “The Goddess is real! I knew She hadn’t forsaken us.”
“Hush,” I said, hurrying over, trying to quiet him.
“Forgive me, Dark Lord,” he said, sheepishly. He almost went into shock again when Nichessa came forward.
“Two ascendants!” he hissed, his eyes practically bugging out of his skull.
“These are my First and Second Queens, High Priestess Vexile and Lady Nichessa,” I told him. “Please, get up. We need to move quickly. Are there any other prisoners down here? What about the guards?”
“It’s just me, Dark Lord,” the young man said, still bowing low. “I’m the last one on duty. Everyone else is either above or --” His words were suddenly cut off in a strangled sob.
“What’s your name?” Vexile gently asked him.
“Matteo,” he said, getting back to his feet. “Dark Lord, you said you know Jeanie, is she really safe?”
“Yes,” I nodded, “she’s back in Gloomglow.”
“Thank the Goddess,” he wept. “After she escaped, Sanderson dragged everyone out into the yard in front of his mansion, claiming that she had been captured and burned alive for trying to escape. Then he ordered everyone on Deadman’s Duty to be made a further example out of.”
I thought of the grisly scene on the hill.
“Monster,” Nichessa growled, fists clenched.
“Since then, everyone has been terrified, sure that Sanderson will make them the next example,” Matteo said.
“How did you get sent down here?” I asked him.
He bowed his head. “One of the guards heard me talking about the dragon and how it’s responsible for all the guards disappearing. I was afraid that I’d be killed, put up on the hill like the others, but instead I was sent down here on Deadman’s Duty.”
“Matteo,” I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Maybe the goddess smiled on you by sending you down here because you now have the opportunity to rescue the other prisoners. Will you help us?”
A wide, hopeful grin spread across his dirty face. “Of course!”
Chapter 20
Four guards were standing around the entrance up into the mines. They stood with a dozen torches and lights spread out between them. Each drip of water or groan of the earth sent them into a skittering panic, their weapons pointing at imaginary threats.
The entrance itself wasn’t much, just a shaft formed by a series of wooden posts driven through the opening in the ceiling, with cross struts that formed a rough box. An old, wooden ladder was attached to one of the walls, and there was a pulley-driven lift to help move heavier objects up and into the mine, which spanned in the tunnels above.
“The dragon attacks have only gotten worse since Jeanie escaped,” Matteo whispered, as we watched the guards from a safe distance. “Just in the past week, four guards have disappeared. At first, Sanderson blamed the prisoners for it, saying they were sneaking off to murder guards, but they kept vanishing, even when all of us were locked up in our cells.”
I glanced down at him, “Have you or anyone else ever seen the dragon?”
“No,” he shook his head, “but I’ve never seen an ascendant either, till this day, and we still believed.”
“Your faith has been rewarded then,” Vexile told him. She glanced at me, “What are your thoughts, Dark Lord?”
I knew we could easily take the four guards if we chose to attack, but that wouldn’t get us any closer to our goal.
I turned to Matteo, “How many guards does Sanderson have?”
“At least a hundred,” the young man replied, “most are stationed inside the camp, but since Jeanie’s escape he’s had a cavalry patrol out at all hours, watching for anyone else trying to escape.”
“And did he, or any of the guards, mention missing keys?”
“Keys?” Matteo was confused.
I smiled, gripping the keyring, hidden in my pocket. Either Sanderson doesn’t know about it, or he hasn’t made their loss public. Regardless, these keys will be instrumental in our plan.
“And how many prisoners are there?” I questioned him, drawing us all a short distance away.
“Over two hundred,” he replied, “but not nearly as many as there were before. A couple of weeks ago, Sanderson received orders and a bunch of us were marched away, supposedly to work on some big project at the Luminark naval base. Sanderson has been working the rest of us to the bone since, trying to fill both his normal quota and the contraband orders.”
“He’s still producing contraband?” Nichessa huffed. “Scum never changes.”
I knew I had to ask Matteo to update our maps, once we were back in our camp. I needed to know the complet
e layout of the mines as well as the warehouses and storage sites for both of Sanderson’s product lines.
Looking over my shoulder, back at the guards, I began thinking.
Sanderson was a cruel, hard master, who ruled through terror. The guards followed him because they feared his wrath or the withdrawal of his gifts. Machiavelli might have been impressed with his results, but I doubted that he would have seen him as a true ruler; he was just someone of low character doing what he could to keep his little fiefdom alive.
If we were going to defeat him and liberate the camp, we needed to attack his realm’s weak point. We need to exploit their fears, to give the guards something even worse than their foreman to be afraid of.
“Nichessa?” An interesting idea struck me, “How hard would it be to trigger a small cave in? I don’t want to bring down the cavern, I just want to block access to and from the mines for now.”
She closed her eyes, fingers splayed against the stone floor, before speaking. “I think I can do it, but I’d recommend we all get back a safe distance.”
I nodded, “Matteo, I need you to come with us, for now. We need to take some steps to prepare for the camp’s liberation. But once we’re ready, I swear that your fellow prisoners will be freed, and by your hands.”
“Vexile,” I called, “how well do you think we can impersonate a dragon?”
We drew Matteo further back, leaving him by the passage that led to the underground riverbed. Nichessa positioned herself near the mine entrance, while Vexile and I stood a few meters back, in the middle of a large, empty chamber.
A few minutes before, Vexile had released a small cloud of noxious, confusion venom into the shaft chamber. Hopefully not enough to cause the guards to actively start hallucinating and screaming, but enough to leave them suggestable. We wanted to inspire true fear, the kind that spread like a plague.
“Ready?” I whispered to the blacksmith.
“I’m going to give those guards a hell of a show,” she said. “Just wait, till we come back to finish the job, you assholes.”
She spread her fingers against the stone, and I felt a low tremble run through the cavern. The shaking intensified, and I had to shove down my natural panic at the thought of being trapped in a cave during an earthquake.
Trust in her, I repeated to myself
Cracks formed along the ceiling, and I could hear stalactites falling in the distance.
“Earthquake!” The scream echoed off the walls. “Hurry, back up the ladder!”
“Vexile, get ready.” I took a deep breath, then held up three fingers.
At the end of my silent countdown, we both channeled as much of Revina’s power as we could. Our combined scream and roar came out as a staggeringly loud cacophony of noise, the stones rattling even harder at its impact.
For someone, already under the effects of Vexile’s venom, it must have sounded like a cry straight out of the pits of hell.
“Dragon!” The guards’ cries grew louder, more panicked. “The dragon is coming! Hurry, get the fuck out of my way!”
More rocks rained down, and Nichessa ran past, grabbing us roughly in her arms as she dashed out of danger.
Vexile and I were laughing as she carried us. We’d given the guards a horrifying scare, but it was only the beginning. With the plan I had come up with, we were going to truly bring them terror.
“Sanderson rules through fear,” I told Garnet and the soldiers a few hours later. We were gathered in front of our tents.
“His troops follow his orders because they fear if they don’t, they’ll die or he’ll cut off the bribes and vices that they depend upon.” I rolled out the map of the foothills. “What we need to do is to give them something they fear more than their foreman, something that will break their morale and give us the opening we need to liberate the camp.”
Matteo huddled in a blanket, sitting by the outside of our group. He had been overjoyed to finally escape the tunnels, bowing down and thanking Revina for his salvation. We fed him and did our best to make him comfortable.
We’ll need him ready since he probably has the most dangerous role in our plan.
“We’re going to play into the Luminark’s fear of the dragon,” I explained, “Then, when they are weakest, we will stage a jailbreak, freeing all the prisoners at once.”
Garnet had a shrewd, practical look on her face. I could tell she already had questions. Dougherty has trained her well, she’s growing to be an excellent soldier.
“What are your plans, Dark Lord?” she asked.
“Our ultimate goal is to liberate the camp and get the Luminark to abandon the mines,” I told her. “We’ll stage a number of small attacks and raids, intended to inflict terror on the Luminark troops, to make them think the dragons have finally had enough of their occupation. We want things to get so bad that the Luminark guards will abandon their posts. It is vital during these operations that they do not detect us, otherwise, the plan is doomed. Once we’ve sufficiently demoralized them, we’ll launch our final attack.”
I gestured towards Matteo, “Though he has just escaped from the labor camp, this brave young man has volunteered to go back in. We’ll distract the guards, and he’ll use the keys provided by Jeanie to release everyone from their cells.”
“Once that is done, we’ll strike the camp, our goal is to kill Sanderson and anyone that remains,” I stated.
The plan sounded rather pathetic when I said it out loud; it depended far too much on the enemy reacting the way we hoped they would, along with Sanderson being unable to keep discipline amongst his guards in the face of our efforts.
But Garnet just nodded, “It sounds reasonable, just let us know what support you need, Dark Lord.”
“I have a request then, for the Second Queen.” I smiled, despite myself. “Lady Nichessa, can you make us some megaphones?”
Vexile went with Garnet and a squad of soldiers back into the caves, to work on the first requirement for our plan, while Nichessa and I headed back to her home.
“Megaphones? Are they some kind of musical horn?” she asked plaintively. “I’ve never made a musical instrument before.”
“They’re not musical instruments. Back on Earth, we had tools that could be used to amplify the volume of someone’s voice,” I told her, outlining the shape and size we’d need for the megaphones. “Our imitation dragon roar worked in the cave due to it being an enclosed space. If we do the same thing outside, we’ll need some assistance to get the effect we want.” I stopped, thinking for a second, “Also, can you make some thin sheets of flexible metal, about the size of a large towel?”
“I’ve married a madman,” she griped.
I laughed, pausing her so I could lean up and kiss her. “No, not a madman, just someone who participated in a few high school musicals.”
Returning to her home, she quickly got the forge running, while I spread out the scrap we had retrieved, separating it based upon composition.
“We can use iron for the sheet,” she said, selecting a few pieces and throwing them in a crucible. “For the horns, let’s try black iron.”
She spent the next few hours melting down our scrap, then taking the resulting molten lumps to her forge and workbench. The iron sheet was easy enough, she was able to use a large, rolling tool attached to her bench to quickly flatten a sheet out. She cut it down to size using my specifications.
After that, she began working on the megaphones. I couldn’t help much during this process, but I was fascinated by her work. She moved with unnatural grace, all four of her arms working in unison as she pounded the black iron flat, then used the same rolling tool to make a large sheet.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” she admitted, as she inspected her work thus far. “I’m mostly relying on your description and my magic. I’m telling the metal what it should become, and in turn, it’s guiding my hands.”
“They don’t need to be works of art,” I assured her.
She folded, hammer
ed, and rolled the sheet into a conical shape, then hammered it again on the horn of her anvil. What came out was roughly in the right shape, but she crumpled it up and threw it back into the crucible in disgust. “I made the metal too thin.”
She tried again, the next two attempts meeting the same fate as the first. It wasn’t till she was on her fourth attempt that the magic struck firm. She found the right shape, and then let the divine guide her hands. Soon, she had a conical-shaped object, with a wide mouthpiece and an even larger cone.
A copy followed the first success, and she took both of them to her workbench, her hands moving at a fevered pace. Chisels, hammers, and tools were all discarded, as she carved and formed the megaphones by hand, the metal twisting and whirling under her fingertips.
She hadn’t broken a sweat the entire time she had been working over the forge, but by the time she was done with the megaphones, her apron and clothes were soaked with perspiration.
“Done,” she said, sagging to the floor.
“They’re magnificent,” I uttered, staring at the megaphones she had created.
I had told her not to worry about creating works of art, but apparently, Nichessa had gone with a different plan. The two megaphones were just short of a meter long, hollow, and conical in shape. Nichessa had embossed their outer surfaces with scales and claws, the outer rim of each adorned with a series of serrated fangs, making them look truly fearsome and draconic.
I carefully picked one up, a thrill of power running through my palms as I held one of them.
“So, anything else you want me to do?” the blacksmith asked sarcastically.
“Just one more thing,” I placed the horn back down, next to its twin. “Can you test something for me by sticking your hand into the forge?”
It was close to dusk by the time we returned to camp. Vexile and the soldiers were busy working on a large, flat rock, with a series of buckets and tarps next to them. My serpentine queen had wrapped a thick cloth around her mouth and nose, and her eyes were red and irritated when we came back.
“Dark Lord,” she called, before slithering over.