Rebels of Vulvar (Vulvarian Saga Book 2), стр. 46

pick buried itself in the overseer’s upper right arm. It wasn’t a severe wound. But he had not expected the sharpened point of a miner’s pick to pierce his flesh. As a result, it had stunned him, and he lost his grip on the saw. I heard a splash when the saw hit the water far below. The overseer stood and stumbled away, out of my view. The stairway creaked and felt even more unstable. I heard wood groaning and cracking. Only a dozen steps were remaining to the surface.

The Battle Joined

When we crested and set our feet upon the platform, we found ourselves opposed by a dozen overseers armed with the spears of Vulvarian warriors. Udo, the Administrator of the Mines, stood behind them armed with a rakir.

“Forward!” Udo cried. “Press them back down the stairway.”

But the overseers stood as if rooted to the spot. They held spears, but they were not warriors. I saw the abject fear in their eyes. Courage failed them. Everywhere they turned, more chains of haggard, violent men boiled up from the stairway onto the platform behind my chain to confront them. They had expected that their fellow overseer would have successfully dropped the stairway to save them from the peril they now faced.

Except for me, all of us held the picks used to chip ore from the walls of the shafts below. I saw the overseer I had wounded with my thrown pick cowering behind the others with blood on his right arm. When we advanced, the overseers stepped back even though Udo was striking them with the flat of his sword blade to urge them to attack us. While most were simply holding their spears level hoping the menace of the sharpened points would dissuade us, one overseer decided to cast his. As the spear point flew toward me, I used the agility and footwork I’d learned while training with the katana. Leaning away and turning, I struck the wooden spear shaft behind the bladed tip and deflected it harmlessly away. It hit the stone wall of the narrow room and feel to the ground. Swiftly, I snatched up the spear and now faced the overseers with a formidable weapon that I had trained to use in battle. With the shrill cries of the Thivan warriors, I attacked. I had skewered two men and struck another in the face with the butt of the spear before they could react.

It was a day like no other in the history of the mines of Nisa. The overseers fell back. Had not Udo been behind them, menacing them with his short sword, they would have turned and fled.

We swept over them like the flow of lava from a volcano. Armed with a single spear and miner’s picks, we made quick work of the remaining spearman. The men of the chains showed no mercy to their former oppressors.

Seeing his poor defense collapse before him and our murderous intent, Udo thought to save himself. He was a big man and not likely fleet of foot. Yet I expected he felt confident he could outrun men chained together with shackles about their ankles. But he failed to consider one thing. Setting my feet, I cast my spear with all my might. Before Udo had taken three steps, the spear took him between the shoulder blades. He sank to his knees. His rakir clattered to the stone floor. Then he toppled forward onto his face. The victory was ours, but more remained for us to do.

“Greyson,” I said. “Take the men of your chain and find some rope. We must shore up the stairway, so it doesn’t collapse before we get all the men below to the surface.”

Greyson nodded. “Men of my chain follow me,” he cried. They hurried ahead as best they could. The men of my chain had limited movement because of the man killed by the large stone. I turned to the leader of another chain.

“Take your chain and look for tools we might use to remove the shackles,” I said.

The men rushed away to search. Greyson’s men soon returned with coils of heavy rope. Quickly they set so work securing the damaged stairway to prevent it from collapsing. Men still filled it from the top down to about the halfway point. They looked down nervously at the water rising from below that still threatened some of them. Soon, able men had made the necessary repairs, and the line of chained men continued up and onto the platform. Looking about, it astonished me we had only suffered the one man dead. Only a handful of others had minor injuries. Yet we had killed all of those who had operated the mine.

Men had found hammers, chisels, and a small anvil. They set the anvil on the stone floor. One by one, we filed past it. A man with experience as a metalsmith struck the shackles off our wrists and ankles with expert blows. Those of us free of our bonds stumbled out into the bright sunlight. Once again, the sun hurt my eyes. After many days deep beneath the planet’s surface, I blinked again and again, to lessen the torture of the glare.

Exhausted, I sat down on a massive windlass that the mine operators had used to pull the loaded ore carts up the track from the mines below to the surface. Around me, cheering joyful men were embracing and slapping each other on the back in celebration. It was the lightning-fast, spontaneous brave actions of the men that gave them renewed respect for themselves. Their chains were struck off, and for the moment, we were all brothers. We were men of the chain, men of the mines of Nisa. I felt both happy and proud.

Greyson came over, climbed up, and sat down beside me.

“You did it, brother,” he said. “You freed us.”

“No,” I said. “These men freed themselves.”

“But it was you who led us,” Greyson corrected. “No one would have dared to revolt had