“But how are we going to get out of the Rock Maze?” Markov asked. “I thought the only entrance was the one by Stonewater.”
“The only one anyone else knows about,” Kryski replied with a grin as he led them through the fast approaching twilight.
20
“I understand your concerns, lieutenant, I really do,” Captain Beaurigar said. “But I can’t afford to send any men to check on the force at Stonewater, and I won’t radio them and potentially give away their position.”
Alex sighed. They had been arguing the same points for what felt like hours in the small tent that Beaurigar had set up as his command and control point. Alex had become convinced that the Dominion forward assault was merely a diversion and that the Crest’s western flank was the most likely invasion point, but Beaurigar simply dismissed his concerns.
Beaurigar must have sensed that Alex wanted to argue further because he said, “The Dominion’s attacks have been feeble because we have them chasing ghosts, lieutenant. Bridges blowing up underneath them, boat bombs. They’re afraid to advance because they don’t know what crazy thing we’re going to do next. And that’s final. You are dismissed.”
Alex stalked out of the tent, feeling annoyed, but knowing there was little he could do about it. Maybe the captain was right, he thought to himself as he walked forward through the small maze of tents and the militiamen who were off-duty, sleeping or huddled around a campfire. The moon was low in the sky still, but was three-quarters full and bathed the ramparts and fortifications in soft light. In the distance, Alex heard an explosion and another cry of delight from the line. Another of the Commodore’s exploding bateau must have just detonated, he realized, but he did not feel any jubilation at another bloodying of the Dominion’s nose.
Turning to the north, he could see past the tents and fires to the road that snaked through the Crest headed toward Harren Falls. If an enemy got through the Rock Maze, they could march straight down the road and smash into the Miravallian militia easily, pinning their force between two armies. How could Captain Beaurigar not see that? Or did he just not want to, Alex wondered. An army coming through Rock Maze would almost certainly mean that Aria was dead- maybe the captain could not deal with that thought.
Still, there was nothing he could do about it, he thought to himself. Or was there? The captain had not specifically ordered him not to take any action to protect the army’s northern front. While he could not reposition a large portion of the army, he could certainly set sentries to the north and send a runner to Craven Bluffs. Captain Beaurigar probably would not like it when he found out, and if Alex was wrong, the captain could court-martial him. If he was right, the captain just might be thanking him. With a new plan in mind, he strode off to find Filo Milliner, the school teacher who had been put in charge of scouts and sentries in Dag’s absence.
21
They had been jogging through the canyons until well after nightfall and how Kryski knew where he was in the Rock Maze, Dag had no idea. His entire body ached from the bruising left by the gunshots his armor had stopped, the fall off the parapets, and his slide down the canyon wall to the rocky floor of the gulch. The two bullets that had ripped chunks out of his left arm were burning with their own brand of agonizing pain as well as his wounded calf, but he kept pushing himself to keep up until they at last arrived at their destination: a gaping maw of inky black shadow in the wall of one of the caverns.
“What is this?” Markov demanded.
“A mine,” Kryski replied. “There was once a vein of aurastone found here, and a mine was opened, but it turned out to be a rather small deposit.”
“You’ve been in here before?” Dag asked.
“As a child,” he replied as he removed an electric torch from his belt and flicked it on. “Let’s hope the batteries don’t run out,” he added as he stepped into the maw.
The light illuminated rail tracks leading into a descending tunnel. The entrance was littered with rubble, spare pieces of rotted planking, and even an old mine cart whose wheels had long ago broken off. Everything about the mine sent shivers running down Dag’s spine, but he followed Kryski into the narrow egress with Markov following a few moments later.
“I still don’t understand how a mine is a way out of the Rock Maze,” Markov observed as they made their way through the increasingly narrow tunnel.
“From what I’ve found in here, there was at least one cave-in when the mine was in use,” Kryski replied as they were now stooping through the tunnel. “The workers had to dig a new exit from the tunnels. It emerges in the woods to the north.”
“How long until we get to this exit?” Dag asked.
“Several hours,” he replied. “The mine was almost tapped out before the cave-in happened. It was deep in the mines.”
“And this road where you think the Dommies were forced to leave their vehicles,” Dag continued. “Can we get there before them?”
“I think so,” he replied.
They continued onward in silence, passing by numerous branches off the tunnels and occasionally taking one. Reassured by stories that Kryski told of spending a lot of his youth wandering the Rock Maze, Dag refused to let himself ponder on what would happen if they became lost. Not generally one to be claustrophobic, Dag still found the idea of being lost in a cave in pitch blackness for the rest of his life a terrifying one. Aria probably would have loved it in here, he thought to himself. She had always tried to get him to go caving with her. It seemed strange that his first attempt at spelunking was done in an attempt to rescue her.
Occasionally, they would pass by tunnels that had caved in and Dag would wonder if their future included finding the way they were supposed to go blocked. He did not share this feeling with the others, but he sensed they were thinking it as well. For the most part, when Kryski was not sharing a story, they maintained their silence through the mine, almost as if they were all holding their breath, just waiting for something bad to happen. Once, Kryski’s torch flickered for a few moments before resuming its steady beam. No one said anything, but they all picked up their pace as soon as that had happened.
After what felt like days of being trapped under the world, they emerged in a large circular room that had a rickety set of wooden stairs leading up to the cave ceiling. Through some cracked boards set high in the wall, Dag at last saw a stream of light that was not coming from Kryski’s flashlight.
“Sun’s come up,” Kryski observed as he led them up the stairs.
After kicking out the boards blocking the exit, they emerged into a heavily wooden area bathed in early morning light. They could hear the trickle of a stream nearby, and Dag led them to it. With unspoken agreement, the three men took a moment to fill their canteens, drink them dry and fill them again. Dag splashed some of the cold water into his face, washing away the sweat and blood from the previous day’s battle.
“Do you know where we are in the forest?” Dag asked Kryski.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I had to make my way back from here once. Now, where we’re going… not so much.”
Kryski pulled a map out of one of his pockets and unfolded it before spreading it out across the moss covered ground. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to the southern end of the forest. “The road ends here, but there are some old trails that run through the area, wide enough for an army to make their way down. My guess is the Dommies came down this one,” he pointed to a trail that led away from the end of the road.
Dag studied the map for a moment. “Even leaving when they did, they won’t get to the road before dark tonight,” he said. “We need to catch up to them before then.”
“All due respect, sir,” Markov said. “But it will still be ten well-armed Dommies against the three of us. And they probably left men to guard their vehicles.”
“That’s why we’re going to cut them off here,” Dag said as he pointed at the map.
Kryski smiled as he realized what Dag intended. “That just might work, sir,” he said
.
22
It was mid-afternoon before the Dommies guarding them finally gave the Miravallians a break, allowing them to collapse to the ground in the middle of the trail and handing over one canteen for the nine survivors to split between them. Aria took a sip and passed the canteen to Logan who sent it down the line to Kayleigh and the six surviving militia members from Craven Bluffs.
None of them had spoken since their defeat the day before as the Dominion soldiers guarding them decked them whenever they tried to say anything. The Dommies were being led by a young, most likely newly commissioned lieutenant, and Aria was rather grateful for that. With the light scarring on her face, the Dommie grunts mostly just taunted and insulted her as they marched, but they eyed Kayleigh as a predator stalking prey. The lieutenant at least seemed to imagine himself a gentleman, and she was fairly certain it was his presence that was keeping the women prisoners from being assaulted.
“Back on your feet, bitch,” one of the soldiers spat, kicking her in the thigh to spur her on.
The insults they hurled at her did not bother her, but when the Dommies started talking about the mountain rats they had killed, it took Aria everything she had not to lash out at them, even knowing that a beating would certainly follow any attack on her part. She had regained consciousness after being blasted off the wall just in time to see Pendelton’s tower blown apart and Dag’s valiant last ditch defense of Stonewater. She had also seen him shot dead and had felt her heart torn asunder as he fell from the walls.
They set off marching again, the trail they were on becoming increasingly hillier until the path turned to the northwest to parallel a fast flowing river. The ground in front of them sloped upward sharply to a rocky precipice on their right, while the river and ground bottomed out sharply on their left. The trail cut across the cliff as a narrow cleft in the rock, following the curving contours of the rock formation, no more than five men wide at any point. The fall-off to the left was not deep, but it was steep and most likely fatal to any who fell.
Aria did not feel nervous having a drop to her left, but the Dommies did not seem comfortable as they fanned out in a single file line, half of them in front of the chained together Miravallians, half of them behind. If any of them had been stupid enough to walk beside her, she would have been tempted to knock them off the cliff. A slight movement from the top of the cliff drew her attention for her moment, but she did not see anything. It might have been a bird, she thought to herself, just as a gunshot roared from the front of the column.
23
None of the three of them knew the woods particularly well, but Kryski had found a trail that he thought would get them ahead of the Dominion soldiers leading the Miravallian prisoners. They had been running nearly non-stop through the woods, and Dag felt like he was going to pass out when they finally arrived at the top of the precipice where he was hoping to set up his ambush.
“This would be better if we had more weapons,” Markov muttered as they started getting into position.
He was not wrong, Dag knew. Markov had lost all of his weapons except for his sidearm during the battle and was now carrying Dag’s hunting rifle. Kryski still had his standard issue machine gun, but was down to half a magazine of ammunition, and Dag had an ammunition-less .45 and his Sidewinder with six shots remaining.
“Don’t worry, Markov,” he said. “The Dommies will have plenty of guns. I’ll go get one for you.”
Kryski and Markov both chuckled.
“Get into position, but remember- no one fires until I make the first move, understood?” Dag ordered.
There was a chorus of “yes, sir” before Dag left the two on the top of the cliff and made his way around the precipice to the northern end of the trail. He took up position behind a piece of rock out-jutting from the cliff face that forced the trail to loop slightly around it. No one coming up the path would be able to see him until they were around the rock, and it should buy him a little cover. Behind him, the rock formation sloped downward and the trail cut back away from the edge of the cliff and into the forest, and Dag simply stared off into the woods as he allowed his body to slump back against the rock.
Everything in his body seemed to hurt simultaneously and exhaustion gripped him fiercely. He was not certain if he nodded off or not as he heard voices suddenly from the trail behind him and he snapped into a heightened state of alertness. Drawing himself to his feet with his back still against the rock, he readied the Sidewinder and listened intently. There were at least two Dommies leading the procession as he could hear them talking about the cute Miravallian redhead in a less than gentlemanly fashion.
“What about the brunette?” one asked.
“The one with the scars?” his companion repeated. “Pass.”
“She’s cute,” the first said.
“She’s taken,” Dag said as he stepped out from behind the outcropping, leveling the pistol in the Dommie’s face as he did so.
A look of abject terror passed across the soldier’s face as Dag pulled the trigger, dropping him immediately. The second Dommie tried to raise his weapon, but Dag fired twice into his chest and he fell back off the path and down into the river. Machine gun fire ripped toward Dag, but he ducked back behind the rock, using it as cover as he heard the signature report of his own hunting rifle raining down on the Dommies from above. Taking advantage of the distraction of Miravallian machine gun fire that was now tracking the Dominion soldiers from above, Dag swung back around the rock, firing twice more and hitting one of the Dommies in the chest.
Racing forward, he scooped up a Dominion A-7 assault rifle as Markov’s firing brought down the remaining two guards in the front of their formation. Dag ran past the Miravallian prisoners, who had all ducked down at the onset of the shooting, firing the assault rifle and bringing down another Dommie to join the two that Kryski had just dropped.
The assault rifle clicked dry as Dag continued to race forward toward the last two Dominion soldiers. A look of panic crossed the face of one of his enemies as his weapon appeared to jam and Dag smashed the butt of the rifle into his face. The Dommie staggered backward and then was ripped apart by machine gun fire from the top of the precipice.
“That’s enough!” a nervous sounding voice demanded.
Dag turned to face a Dominion lieutenant, no older than Dag, who had dragged Aria to her feet and placed a pistol to her head.
“Drop your weapon,” the lieutenant ordered, his voice cracking.
Dag looked to Aria, whose eyes seemed to be alight with both joy and fear.
“I said-” the lieutenant began, but was interrupted by Dag dropping the machine gun off the rock face. “That’s better,” he continued. “Look, we can-”
In a flash, Dag drew the Sidewinder and fired, blasting a hole right between the lieutenant’s eyes. The Dommie officer fell backwards into the cliff wall and Dag darted forward to wrap his arms around Aria. He could feel her tears running off her cheek and dripping down to his neck before she broke away from the embrace so that she could kiss him fiercely.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
”It’s going to take more than five hundred Dommies to kill me,” he replied with a fake tone of bravado. “Besides, there’s way too much to do still.”
Aria kissed him again and then said, “The lieutenant had the keys.”
As Dag looted the corpse for the keys, Kryski and Markov joined them and started grabbing weapons off the dead Dommies and handing them out to the Miravallians. “Get their uniforms too,” Dag ordered. “I have a feeling we’re going to need to be incognito for the next phase of the operation.”
“Right,” Kryski said, his voice clearly rife with disgust at the idea of stealing the clothes of a dead man.
Dag finally got two sets of keys out of the pocket of the lieutenant, freed Aria from her manacles, and then gave her the second set of keys. She began freeing the Craven Bluffs prisoners as Dag unlocked Logan and Kayleigh’s shackles.
&nbs
p; “Thanks for coming for us,” Kayleigh said.
“Sorry about Pen,” Logan added.
Dag shook his head. “I couldn’t get to him in time,” he said.
“There’s nothing you could have done,” Logan said. “Hell, there was nothing any of us could have done against that many Dommies. They got to Stonewater far faster than we could have thought and with more soldiers than we were prepared for. Defeat was inevitable.”
“Yeah, well, the nice thing about defeat is that it’s not permanent,” Dag replied. “Alex and the captain need to know that the Dommies are coming from the west and in numbers, and we’ve got the workings of a plan on how to do that.”
“That’s where the dead men’s uniforms come into play?” Aria said.
Dag nodded. “Time’s of the essence so we’ll discuss the plan en route,” he said. “Take anything of value from the bodies that we can carry and let’s move out.”
24
Dag led the Miravallian forces to the woods where he had a few of the militia remain in their uniforms, pretending to be manacled, while everyone else was outfitted in Dominion black and gray. Machine guns were given to the impersonators, while pistols were hidden on the prisoners. Dag’s forces had been awake for over twenty-four hours and had been marched near non-stop, so he was not surprised to hear Kryski suggest that they stop and rest for the night once darkness fell over the woods.
Dag had been forced to shake his head. “It’s a two day march through the Rock Maze to the Crest,” he said. “The Dommies have already had one day. We stop now and Craven Bluffs is destroyed before they have any warning.”
Guerrilla (The Invasion of Miraval Book 2) Page 12