by Jon F. Merz
“Here. You eat.” He thrust a bowl of gruel at Ran, who took it and started to slide back.
Bagyo dipped another bowl into the gruel and shoved that toward Ran as well.
Ran smiled. “I get double portions today?”
Bagyo shook his head. “That bowl not you. For other man.”
“You mean Kuva.”
“Kuva,” said Bagyo. “That his.” He moved on to the next pen, and Ran huddled over his bowl, slurping up the foul-tasting gruel. He swallowed it down as fast as he could, figuring the less time spent on his tongue, the less bad it would taste. The watery rice mixture had little bits of some type of meat in it, but Ran didn’t feel like guessing what animal they were from. The sooner he got it down, the better.
He heard a rush of movement then and put the bowl down. As he did so, the door to his pen opened and two of Mithrus’s guards dragged Kuva’s body in, dumping him on the hay before leaving once again.
Ran rushed to his friend. “Kuva!”
Kuva groaned and rolled over. His eyes were nearly swollen shut, and bruises ran down the side of his neck. Ran shook his head. They had worked him over badly. He held the bowl of gruel to his friend’s mouth. “Try to eat.”
As Kuva lapped at the gruel, Ran’s jaw tightened. They would escape.
But before they did, Ran would kill Mithrus.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bagyo eventually left after the slaves had eaten, leaving them free to roam about if they wished. But none of them seemed the least bit interested in doing so. Even Cassandra wanted to sleep.
“Don’t get me wrong, Ran. I’m happy you’re here. But until we can get out of here, I’ve still got to work or face Bagyo’s wrath. To do that, I need to get some rest.”
Kuva, meanwhile, had passed back out after eating the gruel. Ran watched him for a while to make sure he wasn’t going to die, but Mithrus and his men had only roughed him up, and Ran guessed the injuries were mostly superficial—even if they’d left him horribly bruised.
For a few minutes, Ran sat in the pen, wondering about what his next move should be. Rinzo, his old instructor back in Gakur, had always been insistent when discussing escape techniques. Ran could still see the wiry elder standing in front of the class lecturing at length on how most prisons work.
“If you are captured, then escape must be your number-one priority—for one simple reason: the longer you stay in captivity, the more you risk being moved to a more secure facility.”
“What if you’re already in a secure facility?” one of Ran’s fellow students asked.
Rinzo nodded. “The same principle applies. Perhaps even more. Your own spirit will also grow weaker the longer you remain in captivity. The time to escape is as soon as possible after capture. Look for any opportunities you can. Take the risks early, and you may find loopholes you can exploit. The security may not be as tight as it will be later. Take chances if you think you will be able to escape.”
That was all well and good if you were alone, thought Ran. But what if you had two other people with you? And Kuva was injured. As much as Ran wanted to escape that night, he had to give Kuva time to rest. If he was well enough tomorrow, then they would make their attempt tomorrow night.
In order to do that, however, they had to first have an escape route. That meant Ran had to do some reconnaissance. He eyed the hay floor of the pen and noted that Kuva’s breathing was now slow and steady. That was a good sign. The temptation for Ran to rest was strong. He wanted nothing more than to lay his head down after the full day of work and get some sleep. He had two people relying on him, however. Sleep would have to wait.
Ran lifted the latch to his pen and crept out into the cavern. Only one lone blue-flamed torch flickered on the wall, casting shadows. Ran eased out of the cavern and, at the entrance to it, checked slowly around the corner to see if there were any guards about. He saw none.
There had to be another part of the catacombs that housed Zal and his mercenaries. Ran hadn’t seen it, however. He moved slowly down the tunnel back toward where the slaves dug during the daylight hours. There was a chance that Bagyo was still about, even at this late hour. Ran doubted Zal would permit the beast to live with the rest of them in the other part.
He found him soon enough. Bagyo snored loudly in one section of the work area. Ran approached with caution, but saw the slumbering beast huddled over a rock ledge. Ran had to move past him to reach the conveyor-belt area and made sure to watch his foot placement. Bits of loose rock were everywhere. Sending even one stone skittering across the cavern floor would risk waking Bagyo up. His training enabled him to move past Bagyo without a sound. Soon Ran eyed the entrance to the conveyor belt.
Nothing moved on the belt now. It had been shut off hours back when the slaves had finished working for the day. Ran noted a rudimentary lever on the wall that must have powered it somehow. The entrance before him was large enough to permit the slaves to dump loads of rocks through. It was just large enough for Ran to fit through, and he squeezed into the opening. Once on the leather belt, the space around him opened up a bit. He frowned. Kuva might find getting in here difficult. If was just as small at the top, the big man would be stuck inside the shaft.
Up above him, Ran saw the incline and had to brace his hands on the shaft walls in order to gain any purchase for his ascent. If he hadn’t had to worry about Bagyo, Ran could have climbed the shaft much faster. But any sound he made risked alerting the beast below. So Ran made sure he maintained three points of contact at all times, while either his hand or foot scouted the next position. Ran gave thanks to his instructors back in Gakur who had developed his ability to see in the darkness. Inside the shaft, it was nearly impossible to see any details. The only illumination—if it could be called that—came from some ambient light up near the top of the shaft. That gave Ran hope that it might lead to the outside world.
It was cooler in the shaft as well, making Ran consider that there was air coming in from outside somewhere. The higher he climbed, the fresher the air tasted. He had to calm his excitement and force himself to keep from rushing the climb. His foot slipped twice on the leather conveyor belt from moisture of some sort. Farther ahead, Ran heard telltale dripping on the belt. Another good sign, he thought. Perhaps it was melting snow?
The belt leveled out without warning, and Ran bumped his head on the ceiling. His assumption that the belt only went up at an angle had been wrong, and he now had a bruise for failing to remain objective. Ran frowned and pushed the desire for this climb to end in a way out from his mind. He had to stay calm and detached. Whatever the climb eventually revealed, Ran would utilize it as best he could.
Hunger gnawed at his stomach now. The gruel had barely given him any strength, but Ran had just depleted his energy by engaging in reconnaissance tonight. He hadn’t had any real choice in the matter, though. His training dictated he try to find a way out as soon as possible. Tomorrow would be a tough day, no doubt. Ran would simply have to gut through it.
The belt wound its way around a curve and then started back up again at a steeper angle. Climbing it now became even tougher. At this height, Ran was less concerned about noise filtering back down to Bagyo far below, but he still had to maintain some degree of awareness. As the belt climbed, the air grew fresher still, and Ran relished being able to breathe without wanting to vomit. If the climb produced nothing useful to his escape, it had been worth it to at least get some fresh air into his body.
Ran stopped climbing and sniffed the air. Smoke. And something else. He sniffed again, using a technique to rapidly breathe in and out with his mouth open slightly to help him distinguish what he smelled. After a moment of doing so, he felt his mouth water. He smelled food. Beef, most likely. Hunger swelled within him, and Ran felt his stomach grumble at the possibility of being able to get some real food into him.
Ran took several deep breaths and forced himself to stay calm again. The presence of food did not necessarily mean he would be able to pilfer some
. Although if he had the chance, he would take it. The benefit gained from even a small portion of beef would be worth the risk, he decided. Especially if he had a full day of work ahead of him tomorrow.
Ran continued his ascent, and again the belt leveled off and then curved around. To Ran, it seemed almost as if the conveyor was coiling around on itself. He wondered how the belt kept moving in this fashion, since he would have thought a straight path would be most efficient. Then he decided he didn’t much care. As long as the belt led him to a viable escape route, that was all he cared about.
The darkness inside the shaft lessened now as well. More ambient light seemed to be spilling into it from somewhere up ahead. Ran’s muscles complained as he continued to climb, but he forced himself to forget the aches and pains. Ran focused on his breathing, as he so often did, to block out his mind. He knew his body would do what he demanded of it; it was his mind that would attempt to sabotage him. For that reason, Ran would breathe or use other techniques to distract his mind while his body worked. It was one of the most simple things he could do, and at the same time, it was also one of the hardest to master.
Noise.
Ran stopped mid-climb as the sounds registered. He couldn’t pinpoint what they were, but they were definitely out of rhythm with the ambient sounds of the shaft interior. His awareness had detected them, and Ran now knew that he would have to be even quieter if he hoped to find out where the conveyor belt concluded.
He started moving again, this time even slower. His arms and legs were both stretched out, and the muscles along them shook from the exertion. Ran took a deeper breath and then pushed on. His eyes now saw flickers of blue light. Ran guessed there might be more of the strange blue torches up ahead of him.
The smells of something cooking also grew stronger with every small distance he traveled. Ran’s mouth continued to water, and he had to continuously swallow to keep from drooling. He’d known hunger before, but not like this. Food fueled his body, after all, and Ran was demanding everything of himself at that moment. Anything edible would be welcome.
He sensed the opening before he actually saw it. As the conveyor belt lifted higher and higher, the flickering ambient light revealed a crude opening much like the one he’d first climbed into hundreds of yards below him in the bowels of the mountain. How far had he climbed, Ran wondered. He hoped the opening ahead of him would answer his questions.
More sounds reached his ears now. Metal. And voices. He frowned. So he wasn’t alone. Did the conveyor belt empty out ahead? Had it reached its destination?
Ran crawled the last few feet and then laid his body on the belt itself. At least in this position he could sneak forward without worrying about the belt suddenly turning on. He moved incrementally. Inch-by-inch. The strain on his body was profound, but Ran kept his focus. The voices were louder now. He counted at least three of them. Other smells overpowered his nose now as well. In addition to some sort of beef, he could smell vegetables and even rice. Ran closed his eyes and imagined what sort of meal it would be. Perhaps a type of stew bubbling up in a cauldron over a fire. He shook the image from his head and crept forward the final few feet to the edge of the opening and looked beyond.
The belt leveled out suddenly and appeared to pass through a section of the shaft that was exposed in another cavern. In this cavern, Ran saw the making of some type of sentry outpost. Blue torches flickered on the walls while an actual fire blazed several feet away from the belt. Held aloft over the flames was a large iron pot. And around the fire sat three of Mithrus’s men.
Ran turned his attention back to the belt. Perhaps four body lengths’ distance were open here before the belt once again disappeared into a dark shaft on the other side of the cavern. That was a huge distance to attempt to cover without being seen by the guards. Granted, they wouldn’t be expecting a slave to attempt the rigorous climb that Ran had just completed, but even if they didn’t expect it, Ran’s chance of making his way across undetected were slim.
One by one, the guards scooped out a huge serving of the beef stew from the pot and started noisily devouring it. Ran felt a wave of despair come over him. He had no idea what lay beyond, although he could feel a breeze of fresh air still blowing across his face. That was something. But it wasn’t indisputable enough to risk three lives on. Worse, Ran had to wonder how easily Kuva and Cassandra could make the climb. In their weakened states—and after a full day of toiling in the catacombs—they would be exhausted. Ran was trained for this type of thing, but they weren’t shadow warriors. The risk of them slipping during the climb and alerting the entire mountain was great.
Ran let his breath out slowly. He felt as though he had just expended far too much energy for a wasted trip. He had found out some important things, but it wasn’t what he wanted to find out. His desire and his ego had deceived him with the thought that he might have found a viable escape route. Ran looked at the open expanse of belt before him and knew that he couldn’t risk trying to cross the gap. If the belt was their only way out, then he had to save the element of surprise for when it actually counted. If he tried and now and was discovered, Zal and Mithrus both would know they had a problem. But if Cassandra and Kuva could make the climb tomorrow night, then Ran could use surprise to overwhelm the three guards and dispatch them quickly before they continued on their way.
He just hoped this was the only part that was exposed like this.
He took a breath and turned around. He would need to climb back down the shaft now and return to his pen. Ran figured he’d spent roughly two hours making the climb. Descending would be easier in some ways, but not in others. The risk of noise was always greater, he’d found, on the way down than on the way up. And with Bagyo slumbering far below, Ran would need to use extra caution as he returned. He just hoped the big beast slept all night long.
Because if he woke up and roamed around, or went to check on the slaves, Ran was going to have a very big problem on his hands.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ran was nearly all the way back down the conveyor belt when it started up.
Fortunately, Ran’s hands were pressed into the sides of the shaft, and when he felt the belt move, he instinctively jerked his feet up off of the belt. Suspended there, he looked down at the belt and wondered why it had suddenly started up again. Had his disappearance been discovered? Had Bagyo gone to check on the slaves and seen Ran missing? Ran frowned and maneuvered so his feet could touch the walls on either side of the belt, giving his arms a break from holding himself up.
If Bagyo had discovered him missing, then the beast would have raised more of an alarm than simply switching the conveyor belt back on. There was no guarantee that Ran had used the belt to escape anyway. Ran shook his head in the darkness. No, perhaps Bagyo or someone else had simply switched it on to warm it up for the day ahead. Ran knew it was already after midnight. But he didn’t know why the belt would need to be switched on right then.
There was a chance, he decided, that Bagyo had indeed concluded that Ran might have gone up the belt. Perhaps he was simply trying to cover his bases. If Ran had been caught on the belt, then the guards back above would certainly have spotted him when he came through the gap.
Ran worked his way down some more. The small comfort in the belt being on was that Ran didn’t need to be as quiet as he had on the ascent. The leather conveyor belt made a ton of noise as it wound its way up the mountain. Still, Ran would need to make sure he didn’t simply pop through the opening at the bottom and end up in Bagyo’s arms.
He crept closer to the opening, now soaked with sweat as he did so. The fresh air he had enjoyed on the climb had been replaced with heat as the belt rumbled on below him. Ran paused to wipe his brow and then peered out of the opening.
He heard Bagyo before he saw him. The beast appeared to be whistling or humming some sort of song as he moved around the catacombs work area. Ran watched the hulking mass move past the opening twice and then disappear elsewhere. He sighed. This was go
ing to be a huge problem. How was he going to climb out of the opening without Bagyo seeing him? Ran tried to crane his neck so he got a better view of the work area, but without knowing where exactly Bagyo was, escaping the hole was impossible.
I could bluff, he thought. If Bagyo saw him by the opening, Ran could simply tell him he’d heard the belt start up and assumed it was time to work. But would Bagyo believe him? As dumb as the beast seemed, Ran sensed he had more of an intellect than was apparent. Underestimating him could prove fatal.
The other option was to simply wait it out until the work shift started up. When Bagyo brought the slaves here, Ran could blend in with them and pretend he’d simply been overlooked. But as quickly as he considered it, Ran knew it wouldn’t work. Mithrus had escorted the slaves to the work area. And Mithrus wasn’t someone he could fool easily.
No, Ran had to get out of the opening and back to his pen as fast as he could. The safety of his friends and their escape plan depended on it.
But how?
Bagyo moved past the opening again, and this time, before Ran could think about it, he simply eased out of the opening, carefully landing on his feet between two rocks. Without pausing, Ran ducked around the corner and then out of the work area. All the while his heart hammered inside of his chest. But he didn’t stop until he finally reached his pen. Sliding inside, he sat there breathing deeply to calm himself down. It had happened so quickly—almost as if his body had simply taken over and gotten him where he needed to be without any interference. Ran was grateful but simultaneously mystified by what had just happened.
Still, it had worked. No sense thinking about it too much, he finally concluded. Bagyo hadn’t seen him, and that was a good thing indeed.
He glanced at Kuva. The big guy still slept soundly, his chest falling in time with his gentle snores.
Ran’s clothes were soaked with sweat, and he shivered slightly as he lay on the hay. He figured he still had an hour or two before the new work day started up. He shut his eyes and breathed slowly, willing himself to fall asleep as fast as possible. In seconds, he was asleep.
