Fires of Prophecy: The Morcyth Saga Book Two (43 page)

James’ eyes fly open and he looks tiredly to
Jiron as he nods understanding.

When the storm doesn’t subside, he yells to
James, “Stop! You’re going to kill us!”

Yelling back, James says, “I have! The storm
has taken a life of its own. I can’t control it any more!”

“Damn!” Jiron curses as they continue
galloping to the south.

The winds steadily keep increasing and soon
larger stones have been picked up by the winds and begin to pelt
them. One stones strikes James on the thigh causing him to cry out.
“Stop!” he yells to Jiron.

Coming to a stop, they both dismount. He has
Jiron stay close to him as he attempts to create a barrier around
them to keep the storm out. Suddenly, all is calm as the dome
springs into being, the sand and wind continue pelting the outer
side of the dome. The dome extends fifteen feet in diameter and ten
feet high.

“How long can you hold it?” Jiron asks,
retaining tight hold of the frightened horses’ reins.

Considering it, James replies, “It was the
initial construction that used the most magic. It’s drawing what I
call maintenance magic now, just enough to keep it stable. Probably
for quite a while.”

Jiron says, “Good.”

The horses are restless, but appear they’ll
be okay. Jiron looks out at the swirling mass of sand and stones in
awe. “Just what did you do?” he asks as he turns back to James.

“I thought I would make a dust storm to hide
us in so we could escape,” he explains. “But when I cancelled the
spell, it continued. It seems I inadvertently triggered something
that was on the verge of happening anyway, though maybe not to this
degree.” Indicating the storm outside, he says, “It’s probably
situations like these that make people hate mages, or at least
distrust them.”

Jiron nods his head and is about to reply
when they hear a scream and turn to look as a man, at least they
think it is, hits the side of the invisible dome. Most of the skin
has been flayed from his bones by the storm. A ghastly appearance,
they can see its skeletal mouth opening and closing and then it’s
picked up again by the wind and disappears.

They look to each other, James feeling very
bad about the whole thing. “I guess we’re not going to have to
worry about pursuit when this is over,” Jiron states.

Trying to fight back nausea, James replies,
“You’re probably right.” He looks out to the storm again and then
says, “Maybe you should try to get some sleep, I don’t know how
long this will last.”

“What about you?” he asks.

“I dare not fall asleep,” he replies. “The
barrier might end.”

Jiron unconsciously looks out at the storm
and nods his head. “Alright,” he says as he makes to lie down.
“Though how I’m going to sleep in this is beyond me,” he
states.

James sits there as the storm rages outside
the dome. He realizes after a while that Jiron has finally managed
to fall asleep and hears soft snores coming from him. As the day
progresses, the storm continues in its intensity and as night
comes, the light begins to fade.

Casting his glowing orb for light, he keeps
it soft so as not to awaken Jiron. The horses finally settle down
as they become use to the roar outside the dome. Sitting there with
nothing to do as he maintains the domes integrity, he becomes bored
and tired. He’s beginning to find it hard to stay awake. The events
of the last few days and the continual draw of magic to keep the
barrier up are starting to take its toll on him.

Getting to his feet, he paces around to keep
himself awake and begins to sing songs from home. Some he knows in
their entirety and others he gets through the first couple of
verses before losing it. All through the night he stays on his
feet, refusing to give in to the tiredness that’s making his eyes
droop and voice start to slur.

Sometime near dawn, the storm finally begins
to subside and quiet down. Jiron comes awake and sees James sitting
there, head drooped down to his chest, asleep. Startled, he gets up
and begins to go over and wake him up when he realizes the dome
hadn’t collapsed with him falling asleep. It was covered completely
with sand, light from the morning sun dimly filtering through.

Calming down, he sits back down and allows
James time to sleep, knowing he has to be extremely tired after all
he’s done the last couple of days. He only has to wait a short time
before James awakens. He begins to panic when he realizes that he
fell asleep. “Relax,” Jiron tells him reassuringly, “you’re spell
didn’t fail.”

“Yes, it did,” he corrects him. “I no longer
feel any drain used to maintain it.”

Gesturing to the dome around them, he asks,
“Then how?”

Going over to the side of the dome, James
examines it and says, “The storm has packed sand and dirt around us
so tightly, that it held together when the dome failed.”

“You mean we’re buried under the sand?”
Jiron asks incredulously.

“It would seem that way,” replies James.

“Incredible!” Jiron exclaims as he moves
over to the dirt packed in around them. He touches the side and a
small portion of the dirt comes loose. Then suddenly more begins to
cascade down until the integrity of the entire dome fails and
collapses down upon them, burying them in a foot of dirt and
sand.

The horses panic as the dirt hits them and
James cries out but quickly realizes that there’s really not that
much dirt covering them.

When the dust clears, they see the morning
sun just cresting the horizon. Looking around, James doesn’t find
any sign of the man who had crashed into the side of the dome the
night before, nor anyone else for that matter. From horizon to
horizon, the land is barren, most of the plants are gone as well as
a few of the trees. Of the trees that do remain, most are bent and
broken.

Getting the horses out of the dirt and sand,
they take stock of the situation. “I doubt if we’ll need to worry
about encountering anyone for a while,” Jiron announces.

“Let’s hope not,” James agrees. “I’m getting
worn out and need to lay off the magic for a day or two if
possible.”

Jiron pats him on the back and smiles, “If
we encounter anyone, we’ll ask them if we can fight tomorrow so you
can rest, okay?”

“Very funny,” replies James as he gives him
an annoyed look before breaking into a smile himself.

“We better get going,” Jiron says as he
climbs into the saddle. “Even though the enemy we encountered
yesterday may be scattered to the winds, there still could be
others on their way, hunting for us.”

Mounting, James says, “I agree.”

“Should we go south for awhile?” suggests
Jiron.

“Probably,” he agrees. “I’ll try to find him
tomorrow, let’s just put some distance behind us for now.” With
that, he kicks his horse into a gallop and they head off toward the
south.

_________________________

As they follow the road leading down into
the pit, they pass several wagons on their way back up. Miko and
the others have to press close to the inner wall in order for the
wagons to be able to make it by. He looks into the wagons as they
pass and sees they’re filled with rocks. Once the wagons have
passed, they resume their march down into the pit.

When they’ve descended to the point where
they pass the point of direct sunlight, a sound of hammering comes
to them from the depths. They continue down and begin passing by
the mouths of other passages branching off into the rock from the
road. At the third such branching Miko looks down and sees a group
of slaves using pickaxes and hammers as they pound away at the
rock.

It’s a mine!

The slaves then pick up and carry the rocks
they remove from the wall over to a wagon standing nearby. Is this
my fate? Am I to spend the rest of my life underground? Worse fates
than this has coursed through his mind at various times since the
fall of the City of Light.

They pass by many other branching passages
as they continue to make their way down, most have groups of slaves
working at removing the rock from the walls as had the earlier one.
When they finally reach the bottom, they enter a long, wide tunnel
leading off into the distance.

This tunnel looks more a continuation of the
road than another offshoot, it’s wider than the others have been
and has many tunnels branching off like veins from an artery.
Spaced periodically along the tunnel are lanterns hanging from pegs
in the wall to light the way. Empty wagons are spaced throughout
the tunnel waiting to take the place of ones currently being
filled. The horses of the empty wagon are removed and then hitched
to the full one which is taken out of the pit.

They don’t progress far down before a man
comes over and they’re brought to a halt. He begins talking to them
while others divide them up into different groups. To Miko’s
relief, Black Tooth is taken away by one of the guards and led back
up to the top. Five others are grouped with Miko and once the man
stops talking, are led deeper into the mine.

“What are they mining?” he asks the guard in
charge of them after passing a group of men working on the
beginnings of another passage.

The guard replies, “Iron ore, as you soon
will be as well.”

“You speak my language!” he exclaims.

“Of course,” the guard says. “There are many
here from the north.”

As they continue deeper into the mines, the
tunnel they’re in begins to narrow. The frequency of other
branching tunnels diminishes the further they go. The guard begins
talking again, alternating between the empire’s language and the
north’s. “This is where you will spend the rest of your days. We
have only three rules here but they are enforced strictly. First of
all, if you try to escape, we will kill you.”

“Second, you will work hard when and where
we tell you. If you fail to, you shall be punished,” he says.
Pausing momentarily in his speech, he has them move over to the
side of the tunnel as several slaves carry others past them. The
ones being carried are bloody and a few are even unconscious, maybe
even dead. Miko asks, “What happened to them?”

The guard looks at him and says, “Cave-in.
It happens sometimes, that’s why we need new slaves
occasionally.”

Once they’re past, the guard gets them
moving again and they walk in silence until Miko asks, “What’s the
third rule?”

“Don’t hurt or hinder other slaves,” he
explains.

“That’s nice of you,” Miko replies.

The guard pauses and turns to look at Miko.
“Nice?” he asks with a short laugh. “Hardly. Slaves are expensive
and we have a quota of iron ore to mine each day. We’ll not have
anyone messing with our schedule. Understand?”

Miko nods his head and continues to follow
with his group further into the tunnel. It’s grown very dark now,
with only occasional patches of light from a lone lantern
illuminating slaves hard at work to mine the ore from the
walls.

They come to a branching tunnel and the
guard moves into it. He leads them down the tunnel until they reach
a gang of slaves hard at work, chipping the ore from the walls.

One slave, who’s carrying a whip, comes over
to them. “This is Essin,” their guard tells them. “He will be your
overseer and you will do as he tells you.”

“New bunch, eh?” Essin asks the guard as
they near.

“Just arrived today,” the guard replies.

“Good,” Essin tells him, “we’ve been falling
behind in our quota and old Vorn has been complaining.”

“Not your fault though,” the guard says,
“since that cave-in took out half your group.”

Essin nods and says, “I know, but try
telling that to him.”

The guard laughs as he turns and returns
back the way they came.

Turning to the new arrivals, Essin
announces, “My name is Essin and welcome to the Mines of Sorna.
Whether you live or die will be determined by me, understand?”

Six heads nod agreement.

“Alright,” he says as he hands each of them
a pickaxe or a hammer, Miko gets a pickaxe. “Here we dig out the
iron ore that the empire needs. We have a certain quota that must
be achieved each day.” He glances around at the new arrivals and
says, “We will meet it or you’ll wish to whatever gods you worship
we had.”

One by one he takes the new arrivals and
assigns them to work beside a slave who has been there for a while.
“Each of you are to work alongside your partner, learn from them
and any questions you have be sure to ask them,” he explains as
he’s matching them up.

Miko is partnered with a man of about twenty
with sandy hair. “Name’s Nate,” the man says to Miko as he extends
his hand.

Taking the offered hand, he returns with,
“Miko.”

“Here, let me show you what to do,” he says.
“You take your pick and swing it at the wall as hard as you can,”
he says as he demonstrates by striking the wall. “You want to
strike near the veins of iron that run through the stone.” He shows
Miko what the veins look like and watches as he takes a swing at
one. “Sometimes it takes several hits before it will come loose. If
the first hit doesn’t work, then strike in the same place again
until some comes away.”

Miko raises the pickaxe and swings with all
his might. The jolt of the pick hitting the stone causes his hands
to sting. “Not bad,” Nate tells him. “You don’t want to stop
though, try to find a rhythm and keep swinging. We have a lot to do
before the day is over,” he explains as he takes up his own pickaxe
and resumes chipping chunks from the wall.

Miko takes up the pickaxe again and strikes
the wall, this time a sizeable chunk comes loose and falls to the
ground. He looks to Nate who smiles and nods his head in approval.
They continue chipping away until they have a sizeable pile at
their feet. Then Nate has him pick up the chunks and carry them
over to the waiting wagon where he drops them in.