Queen of Rebellion

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

We traveled down the tunnel for a long time. I realized about halfway through it was a handmade tunnel and not a cave naturally occurring inside of the mountain. The boards and rods holding up the walls and ceiling above also indicated this might not have been the most stable of tunnels with that. The man carrying me didn’t use a light so most of what I caught was from my own adaption. It wasn’t until the end of the tunnel, when light from the other end came pouring in, that I saw cords were also intertwined into the rods holding the cave up. These were leading into the walls and then disappeared. It didn’t take a lot for me to realize these cords must have been connected to explosives.

As we exited the tunnel, the man turned right onto the ledge of another mountain face. This ledge was so thin I wasn’t sure how he managed to get across without slipping. I could see frost and ice thick as the wind hit this side harsher than the other. He was obviously a native to this place and knew his way around well. Much closer behind, in eyesight now, were the others. I could see, through the snow and wind, only two other figures carrying bundles a little larger than myself causing me to fear Tommy might have been left behind.

I began to struggle again and kicked the wall throwing my captor off balance. I heard him help as my body flew forward and nearly off the rock face, hundreds of feet of fall below us followed by several hundred more feet of sharp rocks like knives for my death to come swiftly.

“Do not struggle, we are almost there.” I wiggled again only to be met with a tighter grip and a shifting of my fur from one of his shoulders to the other were I didn’t place us at risk of dying.

We declined the mountain on hand carved steps and were soon going down another long winding tunnel with many different connecting tunnels again. When we popped out of the end of this one we finally stopped and awaited the rest of the group.

“Where are you taking us?” I demanded as I tried to move again. The fur was now so tight around me I found breathing was incredibly difficult, “Are you one of the beasts? Are you going to try and eat us?”

To my surprise I was met by a laugh at this. The man looked down into the small opening I could see out of and exposed his face to the harsh winds for a moment. He was hairy like a beast but anything but a beast itself. In fact, he was very much human and seemed somewhat entertained by the position.

“My name is Maxwell Osiris, Kala. I am a loyal follower of the Courts and a Court Enforcment Agent of the Fifth Circle.”

“A what?” I asked as several of the others began to exit the tunnel. To my right, a woman was out of breath and coughed as she threw her bundle over another shoulder. She, like the man, was very tall and strong outside of proportion from the normal human stature.

“We enforce Court law on our individual circles. You are your crew were in danger so we had to perform a covert operation to get you away. It seems your guard had become compromised.”

“Kala, is that you?” She asked desperately from the bundle he was in over her shoulder.

“I’m here.” I shouted back to him. I could feel the relief flush over his frozen little body as I replied and both the agents laughed again.

Three other agents came out of the tunnel, the last carrying the small bundle I had been looking for. I could relate to the relief seeing Tommy causing more hell to her agent than I even had with mine.

“Let me go you grubby, mindless piece of…” She looked out her hood and saw the rest of us peeking through and let out a deep sigh, “What the Gods is going on here?”

“There’s no more time for that.” The woman carrying her commanded as they turned back to the entrance of the tunnel. With her free hand she opened a casing disguised as a rock and entered in a code. Three beeps followed which caused for them all to turn and continue down the mountain again.