Fires of Prophecy_ Book Two of the Morcyth Saga - Brian Pratt [138]
Calming down, he sits back down and allows James time to sleep, knowing he has to be extremely tired after all he’s done the last couple of days. He only has to wait a short time before James awakens. He begins to panic when he realizes that he fell asleep. “Relax,” Jiron tells him reassuringly, “you’re spell didn’t fail.”
“Yes, it did,” he corrects him. “I no longer feel any drain used to maintain it.”
Gesturing to the dome around them, he asks, “Then how?”
Going over to the side of the dome, James examines it and says, “The storm has packed sand and dirt around us so tightly, that it held together when the dome failed.”
“You mean we’re buried under the sand?” Jiron asks incredulously.
“It would seem that way,” replies James.
“Incredible!” Jiron exclaims as he moves over to the dirt packed in around them. He touches the side and a small portion of the dirt comes loose. Then suddenly more begins to cascade down until the integrity of the entire dome fails and collapses down upon them, burying them in a foot of dirt and sand.
The horses panic as the dirt hits them and James cries out but quickly realizes that there’s really not that much dirt covering them.
When the dust clears, they see the morning sun just cresting the horizon. Looking around, James doesn’t find any sign of the man who had crashed into the side of the dome the night before, nor anyone else for that matter. From horizon to horizon, the land is barren, most of the plants are gone as well as a few of the trees. Of the trees that do remain, most are bent and broken.
Getting the horses out of the dirt and sand, they take stock of the situation. “I doubt if we’ll need to worry about encountering anyone for a while,” Jiron announces.
“Let’s hope not,” James agrees. “I’m getting worn out and need to lay off the magic for a day or two if possible.”
Jiron pats him on the back and smiles, “If we encounter anyone, we’ll ask them if we can fight tomorrow so you can rest, okay?”
“Very funny,” replies James as he gives him an annoyed look before breaking into a smile himself.
“We better get going,” Jiron says as he climbs into the saddle. “Even though the enemy we encountered yesterday may be scattered to the winds, there still could be others on their way, hunting for us.”
Mounting, James says, “I agree.”
“Should we go south for awhile?” suggests Jiron.
“Probably,” he agrees. “I’ll try to find him tomorrow, let’s just put some distance behind us for now.” With that, he kicks his horse into a gallop and they head off toward the south.
Chapter Twenty Four
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As they follow the road leading down into the pit, they pass several wagons on their way back up. Miko and the others have to press close to the inner wall in order for the wagons to be able to make it by. He looks into the wagons as they pass and sees they’re filled with rocks. Once the wagons have passed, they resume their march down into the pit.
When they’ve descended to the point where they pass the point of direct sunlight, a sound of hammering comes to them from the depths. They continue down and begin passing by the mouths of other passages branching off into the rock from the road. At the third such branching Miko looks down and sees a group of slaves using pickaxes and hammers as they pound away at the rock.
It’s a mine!
The slaves then pick up and carry the rocks they remove from the wall over to a wagon standing nearby. Is this my fate? Am I to spend the rest of my life underground? Worse fates than this has coursed through his mind at various times since the fall of the City of Light.
They pass by many other branching passages as they continue to make their way down, most have groups of slaves working at removing the rock from the walls as had the earlier one. When they finally