My Book. (WIP)

Prologue

Clank, Clank. The rhythmic strikes of pick hitting rock echoed throughout the subterranean cavern. Clank, Clank. No bats or reptiles stirred in those caves, driven away by the earsplitting noise. It saturated and filled the depths, potent enough to drive a man insane with the constant notes. The cave was craggy, and further down there appeared to be an amount of glittering mineral. Down on a ledge was a line of boys, breaking the rock into chunks with pixaxes. Other boys took the chunks away to have the small bits of mineral that were lodged in the rock separated and put into a barrel. The boys were as old as thirteen and as young as five, and thin and muscular from years of physical labor. As they worked, another boy came out of a door in the side of the tunnel, accompanied by a large Grum with a whip. As the boy appeared from the inner chambers of the cavern, the boy at the end of the line gave a low whistle, warning any idle boys to get working lest the Grum slavemaster see them. The newcomer walked down the line until he stopped in front of one of the older boys. He stood in front of the boy for a while, observing him. The other boy continued at his works, not acknowledging the boys presence.
"Hullo, Nachtick," The boy broke the silence.
“Hullo, Breton,” The older boy responded.
"I hear that you're going to be sent to the slavers next month. Daddy says that the only respite the Ja’qi give their slaves is when they're going to sacrifice them to their demon gods."
This was the way that things went in the mines. The children were sent in from hired kidnappers from around the world at the ages of four or five, and they were worked hard and cruel until the age of thirteen, when they were sent to the Ja’qi slavers, the lizardfolk of the jungle. Rumor had it that no boy survived more than a few fér there.
"You shouldn't be talking, Breton" he said. "I hear that the only reason you father doesn't ship you off is because your mother won't let him."
“You should watch it, Nachtick, I could persuade Daddy to sell you to a worker instead of a priest. You might live a few fér longer.
“I’ll be sure to tell the Ja’qi that you’d make a nice large sacrifice.”
Breton, red with anger, stepped up and punched Alyan in the face, furious.
"Nachtick scum! Let’s see you so smart when the Lizard-men cut out your heart and burn it on an altar."
The boy grinned as Breton walked away. He was not hurt a bit, and the punch had given him an opportunity to slip his hand into Breton's pocket and get just what he needed. He whispered to his neighbors:
"Tomorrow night. Pass it on."

Chapter 1

The following morning at work, the children were whipped relentlessly, but none of them cared. They were to preoccupied by the news that had come at last night's midnight meeting: They were going to have an Escape. The Escape had been some time in the making. For years the children had longed to get away from their cruel overseers, but had not had a means until Tom, a boy who worked in the uppermost reaches of the mine discovered that the patch he was mining was only a few strokes of the pick from the surface. It was then that it was decided to escape through that patch into the surface and run away, but even they had problems. The door to the quarters where the boys slept was always locked, and even then the boys had no food to last them; the storage hold was locked as well. Anything that might be used as a lockpick was kept away form the boys; silverware was carefully counted after each meal, and it was impossible to smuggle a pickaxe into the sleeping quarters under the watchful eye of Brox. Then, one day, a boy had spotted Breton showing a slavemaster a new pocketknife with several attachments. The boys knew that that knife could be used to pick the locks, but they had not gotten a chance to pickpocket it until that day. With it and the fire stone that Tom had filched, they just might be able to make it out and survive in the wild. Nightfall seemed to take an eternity to come that day. None of the boys slept, not even the younger ones, and, when the noises from the overseers of the mine had faded, they gathered around for a council.
“It is time,” said Alyan, the older boy whom Breton had struck. “The Escape will happen tonight. I tried the lock, and I can pick it easy.”
“What’ll happen if we’re caught?” asked one of the younger boys.
“We won’t,” said Alyan simply.
“So, what’s the plan, then?” asked Tom.
“We wait ‘till midnight, then gather up some food and things and get out of here”
“That’s it?”
“Well, can you think of a better one?” asked Alyan, a little defensively.
“Guess not,” said Tom. “What’ll we do in the meantime, then?”
“We wait,” said Alyan firmly.
When midnight came, Alyan walked up to the door, stuck the penknife into it, and, after some fiddling around, the lock clicked, and the door slowly creaked open. It took great self restraint on the part of the boys not to cheer, but they managed it, and Alyan and the older boys split their group up to do different tasks. Alyan and some of the stronger boys went to the food storage and came back with some waterskins, apples, and plenty of salted meat and jerky. The smaller boys stood guard as the party then crept into the main cave, picked up several pickaxes and started up the various ladders and stairways to the top. While they were climbing up, Alyan snuck off quietly. He knew he what he was about to do would be taking an enormous risk, and he did not want the others to see him. Quiet as a cat, he crept along to the hall that led to Larth's bedroom. When he got there, he discovered to his amazement that the door was ajar. He cautiously crept into the room and over to the drawers that contained Larth's papers. It creaked as he pulled open, and Alyan caught his breath. Larth stirred over on his bed, mumbled indistinguishably, and started to snore. Alyan slowly let his breath out, and started to rummage in the files. He found the ones he was looking for, and then, after more searching, pulled out a long folded piece of paper. He put the paper in his pocket, and then walked over to the fire. He started to feed the files into the fire, watching them disintegrate into little slivers of ash. When he had burned the last of the papers, he crept out of the room and went to join the others. They had started to work on Tom's patch, not with great strokes like in the daytime, for fear of waking Larth or the overseers, but with small taps. The noise still made them nervous, but as there was no noise from the lower chambers, they seemed to be safe. To their joy, the stone and earth was starting to crack, and after a short time they could see a gleaming light. Only some of the boys remembered moonlight, and it still mystified them. They started their picking again and soon the silvery light flooded the cavern. They stood, transfixed, and then walked through the hole into the night. They were in a forest, with birds hooting and the wind rustling through the trees. They did their best to patch up the hole behind them with rocks and sticks, and then started off deeper into the woods. They traveled some miles, sustained by their mutual desire to get as far away as possible from their former oppressors. When they finally stopped for a rest, they ate some salted meat and started up a small fire, using the fire stone. With the help of some of the larger boys, they soon had a roaring fire going. They all gathered around as Alyan started to speak.
“They’ll try to follow us with Wuls, you know. We need to find a stream of brook as soon as possible, that’ll hide our scent.”
“After, we lose ‘em, what’ll we do then?” asked Tom.
“Well, these woods go on for a while, but then Suluvia and ‘Qirt are after that, and we can easily hide in a big city.”
“Alright, but ‘till then, what’ll we do to survive? Our food won’t last forever.”
Alyan considered this for a moment, then said
“As soon as we can, we should kill some leq’s or something with rocks, and then I can make a proper stickthrower. I read in one of Breton’s books that you make stickthrower sting out of animal muscle.”
“Where did you get one of Breton’s books?”
Alyan shrugged. “Stole it.”
Tom whistled. “That’s settled, then. We should get some sleep.”
“Alright, but we should each take turns keeping watch.”
“Alright.”
“I’ll go first”
“Thanks.”
They slept well that night.