Rebels of Vulvar (Vulvarian Saga Book 2), стр. 45

“Die like men!” Greyson shouted.

“Yes, like men!” another shouted.

A loud murmuring began among the slaves.

I raised my hands for silence. “When the overseers take us to the mines to work, pass the word man to man. Today we revolt. Inform those of the other cells that today we will seize freedom or die. After enough time has passed to alert every man, I will shout the command, ‘Feed.’ Then, every man can join the revolt, or not, as he sees best.”

“We are with you!” someone shouted.

Everyone had finished the meal and were sitting on the floor when two different overseers came to get us from the cell. “To work,” they said when they had opened the iron door.

We followed them to the lift. Six men at a time, they hauled us up to the mine tunnels above. There, other overseers issued us our hand picks and ore bags. The slaves from the other cells arrived. Soon we were all picking ore from the walls of the tunnel. Furtively, those of my cell passed the word to the others. There was a sensation of tension in the air. I could not know how many slaves would join me in the revolt. Even if I perished, it would be preferable to staying deep beneath the surface for even one more day. I tried to follow the whispers along the neighboring chains to judge when the time was right to shout the command.

All the overseers were outside our tunnel in an area where the ceiling was higher. There they did not have to move about on hands and knees. The men of my chain were nearest that chamber. I whispered to Jumah, then to the man on my left.

“We must move nearer to the opening of the tunnel occupied by the overseers,” I said. “We will strike first.” Nodding, they passed the word to those next to them. Then we moved but continued to chip at the wall with our picks. Sullenly, the overseer I had resisted that morning peered into our tunnel. In his eyes, I saw that he was angry but also fearful. I smiled at him, then shouted, “Feed!”

Those of my chain scrambled into the tunnel, facing eight overseers. They raised their whips and lashed us, but we were impervious to the pain. Their whips were no match for our picks. I buried the point of mine in the surly overseer’s forehead, he who had dared to torment us. We quickly subdued and killed seven of the overseers in a matter of seconds. One fled from us, screaming, and escaped. The other slaves were pressing us from behind, trying to get out of their tunnel into the one we stood stooped inside.

“We must move quickly,” I shouted. “The one who escaped will alert the other overseers and the administrator!”

At the head of his chain, Greyson was beside me.

“Do you have any idea what we will face at the surface?” I asked.

“There are no warriors on the surface,” Greyson said. “Once they deliver slaves to the mines, they return to their barracks in Nisa.”

“Are there weapons here for the overseers?” I said.

“I’ve never seen an overseer with anything but a whip,” he said. “But the administrator may have weapons to distribute to them for a time like this.”

I nodded. “Let’s get to the stairway!” I shouted.

We streamed through the tunnels, climbing ever upward toward the rickety wooden staircase that led to the surface. Before we were halfway to it, water sloshed about our feet.

“They have shut off the pumps!” someone shouted. “The mines are flooding!”

We moved as quickly as possible. But in some passageways, the low ceilings forced us to move on hands and knees. Even when we could stand, we had to crouch. And the shackles about our ankles slowed us down.

By the time we reached the stairway, the water was already waist-deep. I heard a screeching racket from above as I led the men of my chain up the stairs.

“Someone up there is sawing,” Jumah said. “I was once a carpenter. I recognize the sound. They are attempting to drop the stairway before we reach the surface.”

Jumah’s words only added to our desperation to get to the surface. Looking down, I saw men packed the stairway behind us. Men on the floor of the cavern below us, waiting to start the climb, were standing in chest-deep water. I hadn’t understood how fast the water would rise once they had shut down the pumps. Would I succeed only in getting us all drowned? The stairway violently lurched to one side. We were only about three-quarters of the way to the surface.

“They have cut one side of the stairway loose from the platform,” Jumah said balefully. It could collapse at any minute.

The sawing sounds continued. With all the weight on the stairway, I feared Jumah was right. Once whoever was feverishly sawing above us weakened the remaining stair support, a collapse would hurl us all to the flooded cavern below.

Suddenly, a sizeable chunk of rock hurtled down on us from above. It struck the head of the man behind Jumah. He immediately collapsed, either dead or unconscious. Jumah and the slave behind the injured man grabbed his arms and struggled to pull him up the stairs. The man was dead-weight and slowed us considerably. But with us all shackled together, there was no other option.

It was getting lighter, and I knew we were near the surface. More stones hurtled down from above, but we expected them now. We moved and dodged them, and most of us avoided them. Men below us on the tunnel floor, waiting for their chance to mount the stairs, screamed at us to hurry. About twenty feet above, I could see an overseer I recognized. He was on his knees on the platform, desperately sawing the remaining stairway support. I aimed and threw my pick at him like a hand ax with all my strength.

The point of the