Alistar didn't recognize any of these voices. What's more, they had said Sim. That was the nickna a number of guards had called against his father, one that had stuck and carried on through each new shift of guards despite the passing years. From the sounds of it, this group of unknowns had skipped breakfast in order to follow him and Kaila away from the Resident Cavern. There was a good chance that this was a planned encounter. No, judging from their conversation, it must have been. They were talking about his family, about him.
A brief mory filled Alistar's vision, of several guards leering at Kaila as they made to leave the Resident Cavern many months ago. Since that ti, Alistar had wondered how he hadn't noticed the lasciviousness that misted over many pairs of eyes that he'd peered into in the months that followed. He didn't entirely understand why he was discomforted by such stares, but he sensed maliciousness in them that he hadn't been aware of until recently. The strange maliciousness that so n had toward won.
He gulped nervously.
"You sure nothin' bad'll happen?" the first speaker asked. "I know they're slaves and all, but even the captain in charge of their tunnel got told off by the count for what he's been doing."
"That ain't an nothin'," said the second bickerer. "The count's 'is bloody father. He only got pinched because he killed those people, 'n' only 'cause they were expensive people. You know what they say, one miner from Crystellum's worth a castle in Casova. Why you think we get punished if we kill them, when they do it in droves at the silver mines south of the mountains?"
"The people in that tunnel are different," grated the fourth man. "And our paps ain't the count, neither. Even if he's paying us, we've gotta be careful. We'll just rough the boy up a bit 'n scare the girl."
"Just enough to see if it really is blue," said the plain voice. "His blood, that is."
The group shared a murmur of agreent and then fell into silence. Alistar and Kaila had just reached the bend in the wall and would make contact in less than a minute.
He squeezed Kaila's hand and they rounded the bend.
Five n, all of them sturdily built, were striding in their direction. Alistar instantly felt their stares, but urged himself to keep walking. He prayed that they would sohow co out of this situation safely.
He led Kaila along the right side of the wide-set tunnel, as close to the wall as possible. Tension was building rapidly throughout his body, his face heating as they drew nearer to the group. None of the n had been graced with good looks. From the short, stubby man with greedy eyes in the middle to the gangly n that drew up on the sides, each gave off an unpleasant feeling.
Much to Alistar's surprise, both groups passed each other without incident. Still, his suspicions never left him. He was not so simple-minded as to believe that they were simply going for a leisurely stroll down so random tunnel, not after what he'd just heard. He didn't dare to look back. Keeping his eyes forward, he walked on for nearly a minute before turning his head and risking a glance. He straightened imdiately. The group was following them silently, a few smug and excited smiles on their grubby, chewed lips. Even the two that weren't smiling, the lean man with dark skin and the portly fellow with a ss of black hair, had glee in their eyes. All save for one seed to have left their helts and spears back at the barracks.
The mont he saw them trailing not five paces behind, he could have vomited. Light footsteps and the quiet jingle of chainmail filled his ears.
I need to get Kaila out of this tunnel.
Hoping to get her attention, Alistar squeezed Kaila's hand with excess force, relaxing his grip and then tightening it several tis over as he willed her to understand the ssage he was trying to convey. Hopefully, she would notice that he intended to act in so way.
He took a steadying breath. He maintained the sa pace and kept his sights on the exit of the tunnel, which was a re sixty paces away.
Without warning, Alistar sprung into a spontaneous sprint. Kaila was used to chasing after him whenever he would initiate a sudden race, and was right behind him.
They hadn't taken five steps when the butt of a spear dug sharply into the back of his leg. The strength behind the wooden shaft sent him down with a cry.
"Ah!" he hissed as he flipped over and made to crawl away.
Kaila remained between him and the approaching n, fearfully cowering over Alistar as the two of them inched away from the wall. Within seconds, they were surrounded on all sides, one of the lanky n leaning on his spear as he stared down at them with a nacing smile.
"Where're you runnin' off to so quickly?"
"L—leave Alie alone!"
Walking forward, a stout man cupped Kaila's shaking face and violently threw her aside. "You wait your turn." He didn't spare her a glance.
The force of the throw had sent Kaila's small body sprawling a few paces away, her shriek lost the mont her head bumped into a hard rock that was protruding out of the wall face. She struggled to get up but fell weakly, whimpering, and then stopped moving.
Hatred burned within Alistar's gut as he stared at the man that had just hard his best friend. Protected as he was by his chainmail, there was no way that Alistar could hurt him. Even without the armour, Alistar was only a nine-year-old boy. He stood no chance against a grown man. But that didn't matter. The man had hard Kaila and for that he couldn't be forgiven. He had to do sothing.
Thinking quickly, he feigned incapacitation until the opportune mont and then sprung up with his good leg. He had noticed a small tear in the man's scarlet surcoat, just below the emblazoned patch where the red serpent sat. Rather than attacking the man, Alistar jabbed his fingers into the tear and pulled down with all his might. The gap widened so that a flap of fabric the size of a man's hand hung loosely, drawing more attention to the chainmail beneath. The guards had to pay for any repairs to their uniforms, so if he couldn't hurt the man, then he would hurt his coin purse.
"Fucking brat!"
The man lifted him into the air with a whoosh. Before he could get his bearings, Alistar was slamd down to the ground with a muffled thud, his breath driven from his lungs upon contact with the dirt. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, and couldn't think. The only thing within his starry vision was Kaila, her stirring form just a couple of paces from where he'd landed. He tried to get up in his shocked state, but before he knew it he'd been flipped over by rough hands and a heavy fist slamd into the side of his face. His mind felt as if it had been frozen in a block of ice as a terrible sensation of shock and dread washed over him. The blow had hurt him, and not just a little bit.
Utter blackness.
Had he lost his vision? No, there it was, slowly returning as the ringing in his ears settled into a ss of incomprehensible conversation. He had lost hold of his consciousness for a mont. If he'd been seeing stars before, now he couldn't see anything else. As he ca to, he realized that he had actually been unconscious for several minutes. When he regained enough control, he struggled to sit up and angled himself against the tunnel wall, his face an incomprehensible combination of cold numbness and searing heat. He winced every ti he sucked in a half-breath.
"—old you ee was stiw awibe!"
The guard who had struck him was squealing beneath the tall, dark-skinned man, whose knuckles were bloodied as he sat atop his plump accomplice. Standing, he spat out in his dawdling accent. "His death ans our death, you moron."
"Dere's do way dat would hab kiwwed 'im!"
One of the n was now seated opposite him, beside the spot where Kaila had lost consciousness. He was gently stroking her gri encrusted cheek with a fat, dirty finger. Finding joy in Alistar's predicant, the narrow-eyed man spoke in a quiet voice that he hadn't heard while eavesdropping on their previous dialogue. "Such tiny little fingers. I wonder if she'll wake up if we remove one of them?"
"Let her go..." Alistar whispered coarsely. He had never been so terrified in all his life. His face was rapidly swelling. He was finding it harder to move his mouth and to see through his left eye.
"Yes, that's the look we ca to see," murmured the dark-skinned man.
"What dib we...eber do to you?"
One of the taller n walked over, his thin, unshaven face shining with grease in the torchlight. He squatted next to Alistar, malice in his husky voice. "Now, about that finger."
His companion drew a dagger from a small scabbard on his belt, and slowly traced the tip along one of Kaila's unmoving indexes.
"No..." Alistar trembled. It hurt more than anything he rembered, but he forced himself to crawl over to Kaila, whose finger had been sliced into by a slight margin. It imdiately began to spill a loose trickle of bright blood, the blade resting within the tiny fissure of flesh.
"No...!"
"Durk," the dark-skinned man held up a hand. He was staring at Alistar's arm, specifically at the crude bracelet fastened tightly around his wrist. The characters were glowing, dimly at first, until a radiance that far surpassed any seen before suddenly lit up the light-deprived tunnel. The tal was hot, enough to singe his skin.
The man who had drawn his sword, Durk, set his jaw rigidly, all humour draining from his face. Slamming his weapon back to its sheath, he strode over to where they had allowed Alistar to crawl and kicked him in the gut with enough force to make him vomit. "What are you trying to do, boy?"
Alistar was montarily lifted off the ground, staring up at the flickering shadows that swam across the ceiling with an empty look on his raw, stinging face. He had been overturned so forcefully, so suddenly. He struggled to draw in breath, turned over and vomited so more.
The man that had initially struck him made a sudden exclamation. "Bwat's dat?" When his colleagues muttered suspiciously, he pointed and said, "Dere, by da boy!"
Still struggling for breath with his forehead planted in the dirt, Alistar listened as an unexpected silence struck the group.
"That's...that's a high-class magic crystal!"
"The colour...."
"I've never seen one like that before!"
Nobody moved. Turning his head, Alistar managed to see what the guards were staring at.
My stone...
He dared not lay claim to it. For slaves, the cost of possessing even a single magic crystal was at least a finger. Since that was already on the agenda, he had to deny that it was his lest he incur an even greater punishnt. Even guards had to be wary when pocketing crystals, as the consequences for them were almost equally severe. Alistar kept his mouth shut and waited to see what might happen.
The n eyed each other carefully, like starving animals on the verge of cannibalism. Durk was the nearest, but the mont he made to pick up the scarlet crystal the dark-skinned man viciously tackled him. By that ti, the others had already jumped in.
Kaila was left discarded and forgotten by the wall. Alistar pushed thoughts of his precious crystal—his single most valuable possession—from his mind and scurried to her side as quickly as he could. He hauled her up with all his might and began stumbling for the exit, unchallenged as the guards fought one another for his stone. He'd only taken a dozen steps when one of the n erged from the disorderly scuffle and distanced himself from the others. With a smile on his bloodied face, the heavyset man held up the crystal in triumph. He yelled his good fortune, but didn't make it past his second word. "It's mi—"
Injured as he was, Alistar was unable to bear Kaila's weight and the two of them ultimately sagged to the floor.
Eyes bulging, the heavier man's face abruptly took on a sickly pallor, his raised hand dropping the crystal without a sound as a fit of shaking seized his limbs. Struggling to stay upright, he slowly drew his quivering hands toward his neck where strange red veins had begun snaking along the surface of his skin. Slithering as if alive, these veins clawed their way upward and spread out to cover his entire face, the lines seeming to pulsate along with his unnaturally audible heartbeat. Nobody moved as he began shedding tears of blood from swollen, bloodshot eyes, which soon rolled into the back of his head. Choking on his final breaths, his mouth began to spew white, bubbling foam. He collapsed to the ground, and was dead before he hit the dirt. The veins were still climbing up his face and down his arms, the only signs of movent on the otherwise still body.
"C—cursed stone!" one of the taller n scread as he stared down at the corpse in disbelief. He stepped around the body and made for the exit in a panicked sprint.
The other guards were right behind him, all picking their way around the body as if they might catch whatever had killed the man by simply breathing in the air around him. They were gone within monts, not sparing Alistar or Kaila a single glance as they rushed off.
The two of them found themselves alone with the fresh corpse, sitting dazed in the swaying torchlight as the full weight of their injuries bore down upon them. Kaila had awoken just in ti to catch the backs of the remaining guards as they disappeared into the Long Tunnel, her eyes slowly coming in to focus as a series of emotions beca visible from her expression.
"A—Alie?" she quaked, rubbing at the growing bump on her forehead as she stared at the body. Alistar wrapped her finger in a tiny strip of cloth that he'd torn from his clothes. "Alie..." Tears cut glistening pathways through the gri on her face as her body began to tremble like the surrounding torchlight.
"It's okay, Kaila," he assured her, doing his best to keep his voice level despite the swelling around his mouth and the side of his face. "We're safe now."
He hugged her tightly, pulling her head over his shoulder and gently smoothing her hair as he diverted her eyes away from the body. As he did his best to comfort her, his gaze landed upon the fallen crystal. Its sleek faces caught the weak lighting with a now devious glint, leaving Alistar to wonder about what had just taken place.
His adrenaline began to fade as he embraced Kaila, the rush quickly replaced by pangs of agony. He hurt terribly, worse than he'd ever felt. He wanted to curl into a little ball and cry. But he knew that other guards would show up soon to retrieve the body and the crystal, which he'd kept hidden about his person for nearly three years. Mindful of his injuries, he word over and scooped up the fallen object before returning it to his hidden pocket.
He was no fool. The mont the bare skin of the guard's hand had co into contact with the surface of his secret treasure, the man's fate had been sealed. His mother had freaked out once she'd seen the peculiar stem of the flower, and he suddenly recalled what she had said at that ti.
Do not touch the stone at its centre.
The crystal was dangerous, but for so reason it didn't seem to affect him. Here in the mines where any number of unfortunate things might happen at any given mont, he saw value in having an object that could kill all but him at the touch of a finger. Although he was soon to depart, he had no idea what awaited him in the world outside.
If he'd learned anything today, it was that he was utterly powerless.
"Kaila," he said, swallowing his fear and lifting her chin so that they could stare into one another's eyes. He strained so that his swellings didn't distort his speech, carefully sounding out his words. "I can't help that I have to leave tomorrow. But no matter what happens, no matter how long it takes, I will co back for you." His voice hardened as he made an irrevocable decision. Self-loathing and disgust had found a permanent place within him, but if anything, that weakness further fueled his burning desire to change. "I'll co back for you, no matter what the cost. I promise."
Supporting one another, the two left the tunnel and stumbled their way back to the Resident Cavern where their unsuspecting families were readying themselves for another day of grueling labour. Regretfully, Alistar lost hold on his consciousness the mont he tripped into his horrified mother's arms. He was forced to spend his last day in the mines unconscious at his family's sleeping space, while his mother and uncle were worked to the bone trying to fill three boxes full of crystals.
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