They shuffled into a long, low tunnel. Wooden benches lined its walls, and the smell of some rancid meal that would soon be brought out to them filled the air. It was just better than the smell of decay that permeated the rest of the mines, but only just. Emily’s stomach turned over.
“What is he going to do?” she asked, sinking down onto one of the benches beside Corbbmacc. She was afraid she already knew the answer. Of course she knew. She just didn’t want to believe it.
“What he told you he would,” Maddy said sharply. “Now stop asking questions and be ready, or it’ll all be for nothing. You can’t stop him now. You just worry about you, and I’ll worry about these misfits.” She waved a hand to indicate the other prisoners.
Emily bowed her head, staring down at her hands. How could she have been so stupid? They hadn’t mined any more crystal today than they had any other, had they? It’d only looked like more because Daniel had hidden himself at the bottom of the cart. Just how the hell could she have been so goddamned stupid?
She felt Corbbmacc’s hand on her arm, and she looked up at him, feeling tears sting her eyes. Anger came with them, but it wasn’t directed at Corbbmacc for once. She was angry with herself and so tired of crying.
“I don’t like it either,” he told her, “but if this is our chance, you need to be ready. Are you well enough to run? Well enough to fight if we need to?”
For a long moment, she simply stared at him, blinking away the tears that stung her eyes.
“Don’t lie about it, Emily. If you’re not, tell me, and I’ll…compensate.”
His words triggered a memory of Coach Anders before a game a couple of years ago. He’d wanted to make sure she was well enough to be in the lineup. At the time, she’d been recovering from a bout of food poisoning, and she’d felt a little like she did now. In the end, she’d played, and while it hadn’t been her best game, she’d powered through and done all right.
Taking a deep breath, she took inventory of her aches and pains. She was ill, but she thought she could do what needed to be done, just as she had on that winter night with Casey at her side and the other girls cheering her on. There was a lot more at stake than a tick in the win column. She’d better be able to do it.
She forced herself to meet Corbbmacc’s gaze and nodded.
“I’ll be okay,” she told him. His expression relaxed, and he squeezed her arm gently.
“You’re all right, Em,” he said, his tone grudging but sincere.
Despite how she felt and her fears for Daniel, the words brought a faint smile to her lips.
A guard stomped into the room, carrying a large iron caldron full of their dinner. The smell of spoiled meat and vegetables intensified, and despite their putrid stench, Emily felt her stomach cramp with hunger. It was amazing what you’d eat if you got hungry enough.
He set it on the floor, and as he did, there was a tremendous crash from elsewhere in the mines, and the ground trembled.
Emily and Corbbmacc exchanged a glance and got to their feet.
The two guards posted by the exit drew their swords and looked at one another uneasily. One of them leaned outside, looking up and down the tunnel.
Most of the prisoners seemed not to have even noticed. Driven by hunger, they were pushing and shoving one another, trying to be first to the caldron.
A deep vibration began coming up through the stone, worming its way into her bones. The guard who had brought in the caldron had a hand on his own sword now. He turned toward his companions.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
The vibration became a rumble that finally penetrated the consciousness of the other prisoners. Some of them looked around, alarmed.
The rumble crested into a roar, and a second, louder crash echoed down the tunnels, rising until it nearly blotted out all other sounds.
Corbbmacc took a step forward, and Emily matched it.
As the echoes died away, they heard the clanging of a bell from elsewhere in the mines. Clearly, an alarm.
“Stay with the prisoners,” one of the guards at the exit shouted at the one who’d brought in the caldron, and he and his companion bolted from the room and sprinted down the tunnel beyond.
The guard turned, drawing his sword and scowling at them all.
“Better get your dinner,” he told Corbbmacc. “Your girlfriend looks dead on her feet. Don’t want her going to bed without supper now, do we?”
Corbbmacc clenched his fists, but the taunt had given Emily an idea. She touched his arm, turning toward the caldron and the others, as if deciding she’d better hurry and get some food.
A fresh wave of vibration began building in the stone. She sent up a silent prayer that Daniel hadn’t started the mines collapsing with whatever he’d done, and then she focused on her goal.
She staggered, swayed, and then fell back into Corbbmacc. He caught her instinctively. She let him hold her, his arms wedged beneath hers.
“Sick,” she moaned, hanging limply in his embrace. “Need to go…lie down…”
She let her eyelids droop, watching through her lashes as the guard came toward them, and hoping Corbbmacc would understand, at least a little, what she was doing.
“She’s sick,” Corbbmacc said, putting a note of despair in his voice that was entirely out of his character. She forced her face to stay lax and not betray the surprise she felt at hearing it. Corbbmacc could act. Who knew?
“No fucking shit,” the guard jeered.
“Let me take her back to our cell. She needs to rest.”
“Do I look like a fucking idiot to you, kid? Put her on one of the benches. If she’s still alive after dinner, you can carry her back to the cell if you want. Might be kinder to just leave her to die, though.” He smirked.
The rumble swelled to a roar once again, and as the guard looked nervously away in the direction the others had gone, Emily braced herself and took her chance. She’d only have one shot at this.
In her mind, she imagined herself speeding through the neutral zone. She felt the ice as it slid effortlessly beneath her skates; she saw the net before her and wound up for the shot.
She kicked out with all the strength she could muster, and felt a satisfying thud as her heel connected solidly with the guard’s groin.
With a howl that was nearly buried beneath the noise, the man doubled over, clutching himself and dropping his sword. The ground gave an almighty lurch to one side, and he fell to his knees.
As Emily scrambled to her feet, she saw Maddy dive forward and scoop up the sword. She raised it over her head and brought the flat of the blade down on the crown of the writhing guard’s skull. He collapsed to the floor and stopped moving with shocking suddenness.
“Go!” Maddy shouted at them as the ground continued to shake. She turned to the other prisoners, beckoning them forward.
“You can’t get everyone out…don’t even try…”
“You worry about you…”
Maddy said she’d take care of them, Emily reminded herself. She would just have to trust that she would.
She looked over at Corbbmacc. He nodded, and together, they ran from the room beneath a hail of falling stone.
Chapter Thirty-One
They stumbled and staggered drunkenly as the ground rocked beneath them, and clumps of dirt and jagged bits of stone stung their skin like sleet. Cracks and fissures appeared in the ceiling and walls on every side, a net that seemed to close inexorably around them. Over the rumble of shifting rock, Emily could just hear Maddy’s voice as she shouted orders at the other prisoners.
Whatever Daniel had done, she hoped it wouldn’t bring the whole network of tunnels down on their heads—not to mention his own. So far, the supports were holding the passages together, but already she could see some that were bowing under the weight of misplaced stone and earth above. Whatever trouble he’d managed to get himself into was bigger than anything she could’ve anticipated. Some kind of explosives, maybe? She didn’t know. She hoped he was
okay.
I’ll come back for you, Daniel, she swore silently.
With the surge of adrenaline pumping through her veins, she felt—momentarily, anyway—better than she had in days. The throbbing in her head was still there, but had been driven from the forefront of her consciousness; her skin still felt hot, but the aches that had plagued her muscles for days had gone. She hoped it would last long enough for them to get out of this place.
They turned down another passage that she was pretty sure ran parallel to the main tunnel. From far away, they could hear the strident clanging of the bell, mingling with the shouts and curses of the guards. She strained to make out any familiar voices in the din—Daniel’s, Maddy’s—but she couldn’t. If they were there, they were being drowned out by the roar of falling rock and the frightened shouts of the guards.
“We need a crossway,” she shouted at Corbbmacc over the noise, pointing at the wall to their right. He grunted and kept running. They had to get into the main tunnel to find the way out Derek had shown her. She quickened her pace, moving ahead of Corbbmacc and leading the way. He didn’t protest.
All at once, she felt a blast of hot wind at her back, and she was flying. Her feet pedaled uselessly in the air for a moment, and then the world was full of thunder. It pressed on her skull like a weight, and she could feel its deep vibration in every corner of her body. Time seemed to grind to a halt, suspended in an unending instant as she lost all sense of direction.
She hit the ground hard, skidding across loose and jagged bits of rock. She felt the sting as skin scraped away from her flesh, but that pain was driven instantly from her mind as Corbbmacc hit the ground beside her and, unable to slow his momentum, slammed her into the tunnel wall.
She felt the crystal Maddy had given her digging into her ribs, and all the air went out of her in a single explosive breath. For a moment, she just lay there, watching as a fresh crack slowly crept its way up the wall above her like the line of an Etch A Sketch. There was something almost insectile about the way it moved, like the twitching legs of a dying spider. Beside her, Corbbmacc’s body pressed against her own, and she could feel the rapid pounding of his heart through the soft leather of their jerkins.
Around them, the deafening roar went on as bits of the mountain crumbled and broke away from the walls and ceiling, filling the passage. It gradually rolled away as she and Corbbmacc stared at one another, their faces mere inches apart. Much of the torchlight had winked out, but enough remained that she could see his pallor and the dark circles beneath his eyes. He was frightened, but doing his best to hide it from her.
She watched, panting, as Corbbmacc got to his hands and knees, and then to his feet. She could see his lips moving, but her ears seemed to be stuffed with cotton. She couldn’t hear the bell or curses anymore.
Corbbmacc offered her his hand and helped her to her feet. She stood beside him, breathing hard and assessing their surroundings.
Ahead, the tunnel had partially collapsed, leaving a mound of loose rubble in their way that peaked a few feet from the ceiling. Over its dark shape, they could just make out the flickering light of a torch still miraculously burning in its holder.
Emily turned on her heel, peering into the darkness behind them. All was pitch black that way. Either the torches had all fallen from their brackets or the tunnel had entirely collapsed. In either case, they’d have to keep moving forward. They were damn lucky the support above their heads was still holding.
She glanced at Corbbmacc, and he nodded.
She took a few steps forward and began scrambling up the side of the mound of rubble that blocked their way. Loose earth and stone slipped out from beneath her as she sought foot and handholds. For every foot she gained, she lost half the distance almost immediately. Jagged stones and tiny pieces of crystal bit into her hands, drawing blood.
Beside her, Corbbmacc was having a worse time of it. The rubble almost seemed to melt away beneath his heavier frame as he moved, and he lost almost any progress as soon as he’d made it.
As they climbed, sounds slowly began to penetrate through the cotton in her ears, and she could hear Corbbmacc’s muttered oaths as he fought his way upward.
She heard him start to slide again, and she turned in alarm to glance his way. As she did, the rock she was balanced on gave way beneath her foot, and she flailed for purchase, sliding halfway back down the mound.
Concentrate on what you’re doing, she told herself as she finally managed to halt her slide. Corbbmacc will be fine.
She focussed on putting one hand above the other, testing the handholds she found before trusting them with her weight. One foot…two…four…
The progress seemed so slow for such a short distance, but at last she swung herself up on top of the small mountain, and glanced back down into Corbbmacc’s face, just a few feet below her. His brow was damp with sweat, and his expression was a web of deep lines. A small trickle of blood ran down his chin where his teeth had dug into his lip as he’d focused on the climb.
She placed her palms against the stone beneath her and shifted her weight into a more comfortable position, intending to wait for him to reach the top.
He frowned up at her.
“Keep going,” he told her, although it was hard to tell for sure. Everything still had the strange, muffled quality of sounds heard in dreams.
“No way,” she told him, shaking her head for emphasis. She wanted to be able to track his progress. They could slide down the other side together and…
A few bits of stone beside her shifted, tumbling down the side of the mound of rubble in a miniature avalanche.
She braced her hands beneath her, intending to move away from the unstable section, when a hand shot out from between the stones and closed around her wrist.
A strangled shriek escaped her lips, and she tried to yank herself free, but the cold, damp fingers held her fast. Thick streamers of flesh were peeling away from the bones like strips of raw bacon, revealing fat white maggots that squirmed between the thing’s creaking tendons and crackling knuckles.
Below her, she saw Corbbmacc’s panicked face as he struggled to reach her. For a moment, it seemed he would defy the laws of physics and be able to swing himself up on top of the pile of rubble despite the shower of stones vanishing beneath him. But then he was tumbling back down again, spewing a barrage of profanity.
She twisted away from the thing, but it held on, and she realized with dull horror that she was actually pulling it free of the rubble it had been buried beneath. It’s arm was nearly exposed up to the elbow now. Long yellow fingernails bit painfully into her flesh.
Her free hand closed around a loose rock the size of a softball, and in desperation, she picked it up, raised it high, and brought it crashing down on the things decaying wrist.
She felt more than heard the bones snap beneath the impact, and the swollen and blackened flesh seemed to explode. Bits of rotting gristle flew in every direction as muscle disintegrated like wet styrofoam. She felt the fingers let go, and then she was rolling away down the far side of the mound.
Jagged edges of rocks dug into her ribs. One struck her temple, causing a smattering of pin-pricks of light to bloom before her eyes. She hit the ground, trembling uncontrollably.
How was it, she marveled dazedly, that she hadn’t managed to break a few bones in the last few days? Or maybe she had and just hadn’t noticed yet. That famed grit hockey players were known for, right?
She sat up, raising a hand to her head where the stone had clipped her. Her eyes fell on a fat, wet maggot clinging to her arm amidst a spray of red tissue.
With a shudder, she closed her eyes and wiped her arm on the dirt beside her.
Don’t think about it. Do…not…think about it.
She opened her eyes again and looked up toward the place where she’d grappled with the buried deader. There was no sign of it now, save for a few wriggling white maggots on the rocks that gleamed in the torchlight.
“Are you
okay!” Corbbmacc’s voice sounded muffled and far away, but there was no mistaking the panic in it.
“Okay,” she shouted back. “I’m okay.”
“I’m coming.”
“But what about…”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t get back the way we came. I saw where it grabbed you. I’ll be careful.”
She got to her feet, watching the top of the mound anxiously for any sign of movement. All was still.
Please let it be dead, she thought, and then the stupidity of that wish struck her, and she pushed it away with a grimace.
The minutes stretched out, feeling like hours. Where was he? What was taking him so long?
She was about to call out to him again, when his face appeared over the top of the pile of rubble. He wound an arm around one of the largest stones, swung his leg up and over, and pulled himself at last onto the top of the mound.
She watched, her eyes flicking back and forth between Corbbmacc’s face and the place in the rocks from which the deader had grabbed her, but nothing moved.
Without wasting any time, Corbbmacc slid down the other side, coming to a stop just at her feet. He was breathing hard, and sweat was running down his handsome face. This time, she offered him her hand. He stared at it for a moment, then grudgingly clasped it in his own and allowed her to help him to his feet.
“We’ve got to keep going,” he said, panting and wiping sweat from his face with the back of one arm. He scanned the tunnel beyond her.
She turned, and together they stumbled on.
There had been no more sounds of destruction since that final, devastating blast, and though the lack of guards had so far been reassuring, the silence was beginning to weigh heavily on them.
They turned down a short passage, clambering and stumbling over smaller piles of loose rock and debris. Cracks lined the walls, and though the wooden braces over their heads were bowed or broken in places, the tunnels here had not yet collapsed like those farther back.
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