Chapter 19: Unchained

For a long moment, nobody moved a muscle while the broodmother hung at the edge of the darkness, swaying back and forth like a snake about to strike, and slime dripped from her teeth and hissed against the stone. Her pale skin was covered in scars, long thin whip marks running down her sides and small round burns exactly the size of the handlers’ prods.

Then the miners started screaming and scrambled for the lift, shoving each other out of the way, while Mira pushed the two closest ones in the right direction and Dagna helped carry Tam.

"How many can fit on the lift?" Kai yelled.

"Ten!" Garrick yelled back. "Maybe twelve if they’re small!"

"They’re all small!" Kai said.

"Then twelve!" Garrick said.

There were forty miners and room for twelve at a time, which meant four trips up and down a shaft so deep that nobody could even see the top of it.

[That is a lot of trips]

"I know," Kai whispered.

The guards stood frozen with their buckets, staring up at the broodmother, and one of the handlers dropped his iron prod, which clattered across the stone, still sparking.

"She’s loose!" the handler squeaked. "She broke her chain! The rockfall must have knocked the anchor out!"

Kai looked at the chain, which was as thick as his waist and should have run from her collar to an anchor in the cave wall. But the anchor bolt was lying on the ground, half buried in the rubble that had come down when the ore cart smashed into the guard post, which was the ore cart Kai had hit with his Smite.

[Kai. You freed the broodmother]

"I know," Kai whispered.

The broodmother turned her eyeless head towards the fire and the guards, and then she lunged at the two handlers who had been torturing her and took them both out in an instant. The rest of the guards scattered in every direction, and some of them ran straight for the lift.

"Don’t let them on the lift!" Dagna shouted.

"Let them on the lift!" Kai shouted at the same time.

Dagna stared at him in disbelief.

"If they’re on the lift, they can’t stab us," Kai said.

Dagna opened her mouth, closed it, and shoved a panicking guard onto the lift, and once it was full, Garrick pulled the lever and sent it up.

The broodmother spun around, finished with her meal, and swung her massive body to the left and then to the right, searching for more while wet gurgles bubbled out of her throat. Then she turned her head towards the miners lined up for the next trip and let out a deep, rattling roar.

"She’s going after the miners," Elowen said.

"She hunts by light," Garrick said. "Just like the others. She’s going for the torches by the lift."

Kai looked at the torches by the lift, then at the broodmother, and then down at his own pants.

"Oh no," Kai said.

[Oh yes]

"I need to make some light," Kai said. "Something big, and far away from the lift."

"You’re going to aim it?" Mira asked.

"I’m going to TRY to aim it," Kai said.

He pointed at the cave wall farthest from the lift.

"Minor Light!" Kai shouted.

An orb of light appeared in his hand and hovered there for a moment, and then it slowly drifted down and came to rest right on the front of his pants. His balls began to glow brightly enough to light up the entire cave.

The broodmother stopped searching for the miners and slowly turned her head away from the lift, straight towards Kai.

"Well," Kai said. "At least it’s away from the lift."

"RUN, KAI!" Mira screamed.

Kai sprinted across the cave and away from the lift with his glowing balls lighting the way in front of him, and the broodmother came scuttling after him as fast as she could, her broken chain scraping along the stone behind her.

[Your chances of survival are very low]

"They’re always low!" Kai yelled.

[This time, they are lower]

(Garrick, get everyone up) Kai thought as hard as he could. (I’ll keep her busy)

Three days downriver, old Tobin heard the word "busy" and dropped his paintbrush.

Kai ducked behind one of the cages full of baby maws, and the little ones shrieked and pressed themselves against the far side of the bars. But when the broodmother reached the cage, she stopped, curled her huge body around it, and pressed her face against the bars, and the babies stopped shrieking while Kai just stared.

"Elowen," Kai said. "Does she care about them?"

Elowen had followed him across the cave and stopped a few feet behind him with her sword drawn.

"I cannot see her," Elowen said. "The collar she wears is not only iron. There is something else in it that is draining her light, and that is why she looks like a void to me."

"So Draven’s collar is eating her," Kai said.

"It is what keeps her obedient," Elowen said. "The pain keeps her in line, and the handlers did the rest."

The broodmother lifted her head from the cage and turned back towards Kai, and she let out another ear-splitting roar that shook him all the way down to his bones.

[You have 15 divinity points. Lesser Blessing is available]

"How does that help?" Kai whispered.

[It can bless up to three people at once]

"If I bless them, will they have a better chance of getting out?" Kai whispered.

[Garrick, Mira, and Dagna are at the lift, loading the miners. If you bless them, they will be stronger, and they will have a better chance of getting everyone up]

Kai looked over at the lift, where Garrick was shoving miners onto the platform and Dagna stood in front of them all with her gaff hook raised, ready to fight a monster the size of a house to protect her brother.

"Buy it," Kai whispered. "Let’s buy them some time."

[Skill learned: Lesser Blessing. Divinity points remaining: 9.]

The broodmother pulled her head back, ready to strike, and Kai jumped out from behind the cage and pointed at his three friends by the lift.

"LESSER BLESSING!" Kai shouted.

Three golden orbs burst from his fingertips, bigger and brighter than any blessing he had ever cast, and they streaked across the cave towards his friends. Then all three of them stopped in midair, turned around, flew back across the cave, zipped right past Kai’s head, and slammed into the broodmother’s collar, sinking straight into the iron.

[Those were not your friends, Kai]

"I know," Kai said.

The collar began to glow with the same gold as Garrick’s hammer and Brekk’s keys, and the light spread outward from where the orbs had struck until the entire collar was shining. The broodmother went completely still and just stood there swaying, and then, one by one, the bolts holding her collar together began to unscrew themselves and drop to the ground with soft little clinks. Finally, the whole collar fell off her neck and crashed onto the stone.

"She has light," Elowen whispered. "Kai, she has light. It is dim, but it is there."

"Garrick said his hammer goes where he wants it to go," Kai said slowly. "Maybe the collar went where she wanted it to go."

"And where did she want it to go?" Elowen asked.

Kai looked down at the broken collar lying on the ground.

"Off," Kai said.

The broodmother leaned down until her face was level with Kai’s, so close that he could feel her horrible breath blowing his hair back, and Kai didn’t move, because he wasn’t sure that he could. Then she turned away, curled her body around the cages full of her young, and laid her head down on the ground.

A ding went off in Kai’s head.

[Faith gained. Follower: Unknown (Broodmother). Faith: 1%. Status: Hungry.]

"Does that count?" Kai whispered.

[I suppose it does. She has some faith in you]

"She’s HUNGRY," Kai whispered.

[Yes. And she is still a follower. I do not make the rules]

"KAI!" Mira shouted. "LAST TRIP!"

Kai and Elowen ran back across the cave, and the moment they reached the lift, Mira grabbed Kai by the vest and threw him onto the platform with everyone else. Garrick pulled the lever, and the lift began to rise.

Kai looked down into the cave, where the broodmother was still curled around her young beside the broken collar.

"You freed the thing that was eating our village," Dagna said.

"I didn’t mean to," Kai said.

"I know you didn’t," Dagna said, looking down at Tam, who had passed out against her shoulder. "You never do."

"Draven is the one to blame," Mira said. "That collar is how he controlled her."

"And now she’s free," Garrick said. "And Draven is coming to see her tomorrow."

Everyone went quiet, and then Kai slowly started to smile.

"Oh no," Mira said. "I know that smile."

"What smile?" Kai asked.

"That’s your scamming face," Mira said.

"I don’t have a scamming face," Kai said.

[Oh, you have a scamming face. I have seen it many times]

"What’s your favorite face of mine?" Kai whispered.

[I will not say]

The heat faded as the lift climbed towards a circle of torchlight far above, and then the lift jolted to a stop in front of two dozen of Draven’s soldiers with their spears pointed straight at them, and standing in front of them was Captain Brekk, with his hair still sticking up and a cloth pressed to the back of his head.

He looked at the miners, then at Garrick, Dagna, Mira, and Elowen, and finally at Kai. Then he lowered the cloth from his head and stared at Kai for a long moment.

"I heard a voice in my head earlier," Brekk said.

Nobody said a word.

"It told me that someone had a big ass," Brekk said.

Garrick closed his eyes and sighed.

Brekk stepped forward, and all two dozen of his soldiers stepped forward with him.

"So," Brekk said. "Which one of you is the god?"