The nights after the bells were dead silent.
Not that anyone had the energy to waste making noise after hours of breaking stone with their bare hands. The people down here might be miserable, but they weren't stupid. Every breath was precious when you lived on thin gruel and thinner hope.
The soldiers and Captain Sarkas lived topside, where the air didn't taste of metal dust and despair. Their drunken laughter and gambling curses never reached this deep into the mountain's belly. Down here, the only sounds were the occasional flutter of Winker wings behind cloth-covered lanterns and the endless scurrying of rats grown fat on crumbs and tears.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, the scrape of metal against stone cut through the silence like a blade through flesh. Eighty-Seven dragged a heavy pickaxe behind him, the tool gouging furrows in the tunnel floor. The sound made men's teeth ache, made them press against the walls to give him room.
They watched him with the hollow eyes of the damned, whispering prayers to gods who'd forgotten this place existed. Some crossed themselves. Others just stared, recognizing the look of a man who'd finally snapped.
"Oh, bloody hell," Tam muttered, his tin plate forgotten in his hands. "Is that-"
"The little menace," Patrick confirmed, his pretty face going pale. "And he's got a pickaxe."
The pickaxe's metal head sparked against the stone, throwing brief flashes of light across the watching faces. Each scrape echoed like thunder in the confined space, announcing that something was about to break-and it probably wouldn't be the tool.
Eighty-Seven dragged his burden until he reached the food station, where a bored soldier stood ladling what passed for soup into wooden bowls. A soldier looked up with an irritated expression.
"Oi, shit-for-brains!" His voice carried the casual cruelty of a man who'd grown comfortable with his small portion of power. "Did you forget to rack your pickaxe? Go put it back before-"
The words died in his throat.
Eighty-Seven gripped the pickaxe handle with both hands, muscles coiling like springs under his scarred skin. The tool came up in a perfect arc, gathering momentum as it traced its deadly path through the stale air. Physics and fury combined into something beautiful and terrible.
The flat side of the pickaxe head met the soldier's skull with a sound like a melon dropping onto stone.
-Crack!
The impact sent shockwaves through both weapon and wielder. The soldier's eyes rolled back, showing nothing but white, and he toppled sideways into the cauldron of broth. His body hit the liquid with a wet splash that sent droplets of their evening meal across the tunnel floor.
Not a sound. Not even a death rattle. Just the slow settling of a corpse into soup.
"…Holy shit…" Patrick breathed, his tin plate slipping from nerveless fingers to clatter against the stone.
Tam grabbed Patrick's arm and pulled him back. "He's finally lost it"
Around the tunnel, miners pressed themselves against the walls, suddenly remembering they had pressing business elsewhere. But their feet seemed rooted, unable to look away from the madness unfolding before them.
But one among them was watching it with special attention as if expecting it - the giant - he was watching eighty-seven with cold, calculating eyes.
The remaining soldiers stood frozen, their minds struggling to process what they'd just witnessed. It took several heartbeats for reality to crash over them like ice water. When it did, their hands flew to their sword hilts.
"You fucking lunatic!" The nearest soldier's voice cracked. "You're dead! You hear me? DEAD!"
Steel rang against leather as five swords cleared their scabbards. The sound cut through the tunnel like bells tolling for the dead. Behind them, the sixth soldier turned and ran for the elevator, his boots slapping against stone as he fled to summon help.
'So far so good,' Eighty-Seven thought, hefting his bloodied pickaxe. Now he just had to figure out how to stay alive long enough for Russ to keep his end of the bargain.
The soldiers spread out in a practiced formation, their blades glinting in the Winker-light. These weren't green boys playing at war-though they may appear as lazy arses, they had still gone through the Empire's soldier training regime.
"Drop the tool, boy," one of them growled, his sword held low and ready. "Drop it, and we'll make this quick."
Eighty-Seven's response was to spit onto the tunnel floor.
"Yeah? Go fuck yourself."
They came at him like wolves, spreading wide to prevent him from using the tunnel walls for protection. The oldest among them led the charge, his blade aimed at Eighty-Seven's throat in a thrust that would have ended things clean.
But Eighty-Seven was not a sitting duck.
He dropped low, letting the sword pass over his head, and swung the pickaxe in a wide arc that caught the soldier across the ribs. The man's leather armor split like rotten fruit, and he stumbled backward with a scream caught in his throat.
The second soldier came from the left, his blade seeking Eighty-Seven's kidney. The boy twisted away, but not quite fast enough. Steel kissed his ear, and suddenly the left side of his head was on fire.
"-Garhh!"
His severed ear hit the ground with a soft plop, followed by a shower of blood that painted the stone crimson.
"-fuck!" The curse tore from his throat as white-hot agony exploded through his skull. His hand flew to the wound, coming away slick with blood and something that might have been cartilage.
The soldiers pressed their advantage, swords flashing in coordinated strikes. Eighty-Seven gave ground, swinging his pickaxe in desperate arcs that kept the blades at bay but couldn't stop them all.
A sword point traced fire across his chest, opening his shirt and the skin beneath in a line from shoulder to ribs. Blood flowed down his torso like spilled wine, soaking into the threadbare fabric of his clothes.
But pain was just another type of fuel, and Eighty-Seven had learned to burn everything.
He feinted left, then pivoted right, bringing the pickaxe around in an overhead strike that split the soldier's collarbone like kindling. The man dropped his sword and fell to his knees, clutching the ruin of his shoulder as blood poured between his fingers.
"Kill him!" The soldier's voice was thick with pain and rage. "Kill the mad bastard!"
They rushed him together, abandoning formation for the fury of men who'd seen their comrades fall. Steel rang against the pickaxe's handle as Eighty-Seven fought with the desperate energy of a cornered animal.
A sword pommel caught him across the temple, sending stars exploding across his vision. Another blade opened a gash along his left arm, adding fresh blood to the growing pool at his feet. His breath came in ragged gasps now, each one a struggle against the fire burning in his chest.
But he was still standing when the third soldier made his mistake.
The man lunged forward, overextending in his eagerness for the kill. Eighty-Seven sidestepped the thrust and brought his pickaxe down on the soldier's extended wrist. Bone cracked like dry wood, and the sword went spinning into the darkness.
Before the screaming man could recover, the pickaxe's point found his throat.
The remaining soldiers backed away, suddenly realizing that their prey had teeth. Their faces were pale in the Winker-light, eyes wide with the kind of fear that came from watching the impossible happen.
Eighty-Seven swayed on his feet, the pickaxe now weighing more than a mountain. Blood loss was making the world swim around him, turning the tunnel into a shifting kaleidoscope of shadow and pain. His left ear was gone, his chest was painted red, and every breath felt like swallowing broken glass.
But he was alive.
Somehow, impossibly, he was still alive.
And just then, the sound of the elevator's descent echoed through the tunnel like distant thunder. Heavy boots rang against metal as someone with authority descended into their small corner of hell.
The soldiers - the few that were still alive - stepped back, embarrassment and shame evident on their faces as they saw the captain.
Sarkas stepped down from the elevator platform with the measured pace of a man who'd already decided how this was going to end. He moved into the carnage with murder written across his purple face. His uniform was immaculate, his sword already unsheathed, and his eyes burned with the fury of a man whose carefully ordered world had just been shattered by one stubborn boy.
"What in the name of the Nine Hells-" His words died as he took in the scene.
Three bodies. Blood-painted walls. And at the center of it all, one half-dead boy with a pickaxe and eyes like burning coals.
But then Eighty-Seven saw something that made his heart skip a beat.
Another figure limped down from the elevator, his walking stick clicking against metal with each painful step.
Russ.
The rotten rope he'd decided to hold onto had finally shown itself. Whether it would lift him up or drag him down remained to be seen.
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