Revolt of Blood and Stone: A Stone War Chronicles Novella

Chapter 7 - Daylight

"Go," Jarod called to Svetka as he ran toward the rocky staircase. Sebastian raced after him, quickly grabbing an abandoned hammer near the foot of the steps.

Knife in hand, Jarod ran up the stairs, clearly hoping to surprise the soldier at the door. But the guard had the common sense to keep an eye out for anyone coming his way and turned to fend off his attacker. A sword slashed toward Jarod, and he ducked against the wall to get out of the way. The soldier immediately jumped at him with intentions to kill, but this time, there was nobody to stop Sebastian from intervening. As the man brought his sword back for another swing, Sebastian hurled his hammer across the gap. It hit the soldier in the chest. His armor protected him from any serious harm, but it distracted him for the briefest of moments and brought him off balance. Jarod jumped up and drove his knife into an unprotected part of the soldier's leg. The man stumbled backward to avoid another stab and disappeared over the edge, cursing them on his way down.

Wasting no further time on the soldier, Jarod ran toward the door.

"Marek, Tom! It's us. Open up."

They all had to pull and push together before the damaged door opened. Marek and Old Tom emerged and looked at them in relief. Marek's face was unusually white.

"Are you okay?" asked Sebastian.

"He's fine," said Tom. "Just—just do not go in there."

But Sebastian could not help it. Somehow, he needed to know what was behind the door. That cursed door, that stood so painfully present above them in the hall. He looked through the little barred window and immediately regretted his own stupidity. Inside, a crude wooden table stood in the center of the room. On the ground was drawn a strange symbol, barely visible beneath the bloodstains that covered everything in the room. The atmosphere felt thick, terrifying and somehow black—even with the torches lighting the corners. Hatred, anger and despair all hung in the air; Sebastian could feel it pressing down on him. Below one of the torches, the rigid remains of several infants lay in a pile, tossed aside like garbage.

Jarod peered over his shoulder while Sebastian stood frozen in shock. He softly shook Sebastian's shoulder.

"Come on. There's nothing we can do."

Finding his voice again, Marek said, "Ca—Can't we go back through the palace?" The sound of fighting down in the cavern made his face turn even paler.

"No, the quickest way out of the mine is through the side entrance. If we go through the palace, we'll get pinned at the gate or on the mountain road. We need to disappear into the forest. It's our only chance. Circle the city and hopefully throw them off our trail," explained Jarod. He ran up the stairs, used a torch to barricade the door that led to the palace and came running down again. "Now move."

As the four of them rushed down the stairs and made their way toward the main exit tunnel, they heard a loud crash. If the main hall fight had been chaotic, the battle near the underground guardhouse was pure mayhem. The workers were destroying everything in sight in a blind rage, fed by a deeper panic of what would happen if they failed. Dozens of guards and slaves lay dead on the ground, the cave's rocky floor slippery with blood. One of the transportation wagons was a pile of rubble; their ghol'm had smashed into it to stop one of the guards who had crawled in the back with a scroll. Large iron cooking bowls and wooden planks acted as shields against the crossbow bolts that tried to pick them off one by one. But the slaves were many, and the reload time of a crossbow prevented them from firing quickly in succession. The guardhouse was on the verge of being completely overrun.

Ducking from one cover to another, Sebastian saw Svetka shielded by several of the kitchen staff as she rummaged through the wreckage of the wagon.