Читать книгу Legend. Dark kingdoms - Dmitry Nazarov - Страница 9

Another name for the Kandugan quarry, where Maryin stone was mined, was the cave of the Blue Dragon. And when I saw her from the inside, I understood why.

The mine struck with its unusualness, evenness of the floor, walls and stalactites hanging from the ceiling, and all this is bright blue. At regular intervals, torches hung on the walls, which served as the only source of light. It seems that work has been going on here for more than a dozen years, and the stone remained unmeasured.

The soldiers divided the prisoners by gender: the men worked with saws, sledgehammers and crowbars, and the women, in groups of four, drove almost unbearable carts with stone to warehouses located near the exit from the cave, from where, as Milana and I understood from conversations standing next to women, they were transferred to the laboratories, where artisans already worked with them.

The same women mentioned that the craft of working with marina stone is available only to gnomes, who were slaves to the dark elves, but my brain rejected this information as unnecessary and detrimental to my mental health.

Milana was assigned to my group, which I was incredibly happy about, Sessy’s friend, who, as it turned out, was called Assen, and a tall, beautiful blonde with pointed ears, who in the dining room did not come off from the bloodthirsty neighbor.

She didn’t introduce herself to my friend, preferring to shirk work and constantly turn up her nose, as if she were not the same prisoner as we were, but at least the Queen of England.

Looking at her shabby dirty clothes, Milana and I could only smile to ourselves, and not pay attention to her outbursts. In a place like this, it didn’t make much sense to show off in front of others, since the soldiers in the iron masks hated everyone equally, and at any moment they could arrange a demonstrative flogging.

His gaze darted in the direction where another of our neighbors with big black horns was working. After a recent skirmish with soldiers in the canteen, he had a split lip, a huge bruise under his eye, and a stab wound on his forearm bandaged with a dirty rag, but he did not seem to care much.

It is completely incomprehensible why he had to climb on the rampage. Obviously, this guy had the same energy as his cellmate, who was removed from the shackles for the duration of the work, and they needed to blow off steam from time to time.

Working together in one niche, one wielded a crowbar, and the second a sledgehammer, naked to the waist, with powerful torsos and cast muscles, they attracted the eyes of all female prisoners. Even my friend and I, no, no, and even stared in their direction, however, unlike other women, we did not salivate the floor under us.

Waiting for a slender, eared guy to drag a huge cobblestone to us, I, not used to such work, sat on the ground, hardly catching my breath, and not feeling my arms and legs.

Milana perched next to me, and looked just as broken.

– Assen says it’s always the same routine here: breakfast, work in the mine until the sun goes down, and even no breaks for lunch, then dinner and lights out. No days off, nothing at all, – clutching her head, her friend looked up at me full of despair, – Snezha, I can’t stand it for so long.

Looking around to see if anyone was watching, I leaned in to her ear and whispered:

– You need to get out of here, and as soon as possible. If I only knew how to organize everything, – the «witch» nodded quickly.

– Kandugan is surrounded by water. The only way to get out of here is by boat. But we do not know where to get it, where and how long we will have to swim, and how we will be without food. The thing is bad.

– Then what shall we do? – My voice was filled with desperation.

– Remember when I told you about the two portals in our kingdom? – she whispered in response, – so, one is located in the cave of Aris, where you and I were, and leads here, to Kandugan, and the second is somewhere here. Where it leads, few people know, but what difference does it make if he helps us escape?

– Don’t tell me, what if it leads to some terrible place where we will be dismembered and buried by some monsters?

– We won’t try, we won’t find out, – her friend bent, seriously determined to find the portal.

– Why don’t we return to the caves of that same Aris? – We would get to the city where we met, and from where I could try to return home – the idea seemed great to me, but Milana immediately destroyed all hopes.

– Portals do not work in two directions.

– Heck! – doomedly I held out, – then we have no more options. We need to find out where the portal is here and run.

– I think the local guards know all too well.

– They think we are witches and shun us like lepers. We certainly won’t get anything from them.

– So, we need to include in our plan someone else who can find out this secret, – after a short pause, we both sighed sadly, realizing that implementing our idea is as simple as going one on one with a dozen guards and staying alive.

– Why are you sitting here? – came the voice of an arrogant blonde, who was standing a couple of meters from us, – who will pull the stones for you, or what?

– What makes you better than us? – I could not restrain myself, – the same powerless prisoner.

My words had an effect on her like a red rag on a bull. A terrible grimace distorted his face, his hands clenched into fists, and steam almost poured out of his nose.

– I’ll kill you, bastard.– At first, you can’t take your eyes off my man, and now you’ve decided to jump on me, – she squealed, and rushed in my direction with all her might.

I was still sitting on the ground and, out of surprise, didn’t think of anything better than to stretch my leg forward and trip it up, but I didn’t take into account the fact that all this carcass would fly at me.

The girl turned out to be agile. Grouping in time, she grabbed my shoulders, and we flew in a ball on the cold floor. Seeing nothing in front of me, I struck punches and kicks where necessary, and she also did not lag behind me.

A blow to the nose, causing sparks to fall from my eyes and blood to gush out, immediately soiling my clothes and the floor, made me throw back my head and load my knee into her stomach. The girl gasped loudly, and I got a response poke under the ribs.

Screams began to be heard from all directions, but to me they were just background noise.

– Skilla!

– Beat her!

– Fight! Fight! Fight!

And only Milana, rushing about nearby, not knowing which side to approach us from, was on my side.

– Snow! Her side is open, kick her harder.

And then there was a screech of a siren, beating on the eardrums, upon hearing which my opponent immediately rolled to the side and stood at attention, and I, not realizing that it was all over, kicked the air with my foot.

The leather-gloved hand of one of the soldiers grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the floor. Kicking my legs, I tried to loosen his grip, but I couldn’t. There was not enough air, and I felt that I had only a few seconds to live.

The iron mask came close to my face, and the slit smelled of rot.

– Filthy witch! Have you decided that you can break the local order? Yes, I’ll raze you to the ground!

– Let her go, – Milana hung on the second arm of the soldier, bursting into tears and shouting out words that I did not understand, very reminiscent of our earthly curses.

The warrior didn’t even pay attention to her. He shook it once, and the girl flew off to the wall, crashing into it with all her might.

– As soon as I deal with her, you will follow your friend … – he did not have time to finish.

There was a loud crack and the hand holding my throat loosened. I thoroughly kissed the ground, and the body of a soldier lay beside him, from under whose mask blood flowed to the ground.

Squeezing my mouth with my hand so as not to scream, I quickly crawled to the side and only after that raised my head.

Above the body, with a sledgehammer in his hands, my fanged neighbor froze. In his glassy gaze directed at the corpse of a warrior, undisguised hatred was read. The powerful chest quickly fell and rose. A fierce mask froze on my face, at the sight of which my heart went to my heels.

For a second it seemed that he would now raise his sledgehammer again and lower it on my head. I closed my eyes tightly, waiting and waiting, but nothing happened.

A deathly silence hung in the quarry, from which the head was spinning, but it did not last long. About a dozen soldiers burst into the cave with a loud cry, who immediately attacked the man in a crowd. It looks like they were called by the partner of the deceased.

Milana grabbed my shirt and dragged me to the wall so that I would not accidentally fall into the very mess, and I still could not take my eyes off the action that had taken place.

They covered him from head to toe. They pulled out some small black plates, and while someone was trying to hold him by the hands, and someone by the legs, they put them on the hoop around his neck.

The man roared in pain. The sledgehammer fell from his hands and sank to the floor with a loud thud. He still managed to free his hands, which immediately grabbed the collar, trying to tear it off him. His whole body shook in agony, and it was unbearable to see this torment.

I was already crying sobbing, but the torture did not stop, and not a single prisoner rushed to his aid. They all pressed against the walls, afraid to look away from this terrible picture. Everyone understood that if they made at least one movement, the same fate awaited them. An execution was going on before our eyes, and we could not interfere in any way.

At that moment, a shadow separated from the wall, and, unnoticed by the carried away soldiers, grabbed the sledgehammer that had fallen from the neighbor’s hands.

A moment, and the cave was announced by the already familiar crunch of a broken skull.