"We'll...we'll set them free and...and offer them the choice of following us or not." He blushed as he said it because it was a horrible blunder, a mere attempt to cheat common sense. What choice did the slaves have? He was condemning the men who depended on him because he had no heart to kill men who were already virtually dead.
Franz and Pavel nodded, satisfied, but Gustaf grunted, disgruntled, and Giano protested. The others looked evasive. Reiner pulled the keys from the dead barbarian's belt and advanced into the main tunnel.
Franz started to walk beside him.
"That was a nasty trick, that one about pushing me into danger."
Reiner gritted his teeth. He was sick of feeling guilty.
"I had faith in you."
"But I've lost a little of the faith I had in you." The boy replied, then shrugged. "You're doing something brave now, though."
"I'm doing a stupid thing."
The slaves backed away warily as Reiner and his men emerged from the tunnel. There were sixteen of them, four groups to push the four debris-laden wagons. The starving members of each quartet were bound together by shackles around their ankles.
Reiner held up the keys.
"Don't be afraid. We are going to set you free."
The slaves gave him a blank, blank stare, and recoiled again in fear as he approached them.
"Stand still."
The slaves obeyed. Orders seemed to be the only thing they understood. Reiner squatted down and opened the four locks in turn. Franz and Pavel followed him and slid the chains that held them out of the shackles, until all the slaves were free.
Reiner faced them.
"That's it. You are no longer slaves. You may follow us to freedom or..., or follow whichever path you think best."
The slaves looked at him with expressionless eyes, blinking. Reiner coughed. What was wrong with them? Were they deaf?
"Do you understand? You are free. You may come with us if you wish."
One of the slaves, a bald woman, began to cry in dry, harsh sobs.
"It's a trick." Said another. "They plan to detain us again."
"Stop torturing us!" cried a third.
"It's not a trick." Franz interjected as the slaves whispered among themselves, "You are really free."
"Don't listen to them!" said the slave who had spoken first. "They just want to catch us in falsehood! Get back to work! Warn the masters!"
He backed away from Reiner and began to run back down the tunnel. The others ran with him, as sheep run because other sheep run.
"Damn it!" growled Reiner. "Stop!" He grabbed a fleeing slave, but the skeletal man slipped through his fingers. "Stop them!" he said to the others.
"What are they doing?" asked Franz, confused, as the others tried to corral the slaves. "Why are they running?"
"They're lost, as I told you," Gustaf interjected with a smirk.
Pavel, Hals, Oskar and Giano caught a handful of slaves and made them lie on the ground, but others were already disappearing into the darkness.
"It doesn't matter why." Reiner replied as he ran down the tunnel. "We have to silence them before they throw their overseers on us. giano, get the lantern!"
Reiner and Franz chased after the slaves with Giano, Ulf and Hals behind them. The lantern Giano carried with the curtain barely open cast dancing bars of light on the uneven walls. Reiner was surprised at the speed of the slaves.
He thought they would be weak from hunger, but it seemed that constant toil had conferred strength on their slender bodies, and Reiner and the others found it hard to follow, let alone catch up, for the slaves seemed to know every inch of the tunnels and could advance in the dark.
"Come back, damn you!" he called to them, but that order they did not obey.
The slaves reached the main tunnel and turned right. As they turned behind them, Reiner saw torchlight glare ahead. He sped up and grabbed the last slave by the throat, pulling him down.
The slave screamed. The others jumped up, screamed and scattered. Some continued down the main tunnel and others went into side tunnels. They all began shouting as loud as their hoarse voices would allow.
"Masters! Masters! Help!"
"Intruders, masters! Protect us!"
"They have killed our foreman!"
Franz rushed into the first side corridor after two slaves, but Reiner grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back.
"Don't be stupid, we must stick together!"
"Too late, anyway." Giano sighed as the mastiffs began to howl and bark and the barbarians' harsh commands echoed through the tunnels. The dull thud of heavy boots began to converge upon them. Reiner growled.
"Let's get back to the others, quick."
He turned and bolted back down the tunnel. Franz, Giano, Oskar and Hals followed him.
Franz looked almost on the verge of tears.
"Why did you do that? We just wanted to help them."
"They've been underground too long." Hals said. "They don't believe in the sun anymore."
"I don't understand." Franz groaned.
"I'll explain it to you if we survive." said Reiner. "Now, run."
They raced back to where they had left the others. The barbarians were too burly to move quickly and did not close the distance, but the mastiffs were faster than horses. Reiner could hear their barking and howling getting closer and closer. At last they turned the bend in the tunnel and saw Pavel, Oskar and Gustaf beside the wagons, standing guard beside the slaves they had captured.
"Run!" shouted Reiner to them.
"Up you go!" Pavel growled at the slaves, nudging them with the spear. "On your way."
But when he and Oskar let them up, the slaves ran toward Reiner and his companions. Reiner tried to stop a woman walking past him, as did Franz, but the slaves dodged them and continued running toward the mastiffs.
"Stupid." Franz sobbed.
The group of men passed tightly around the wagons. Shrieks of pain and bestial grunts echoed behind them. Reiner felt a pang of disgust at himself as he found himself wishing that the mastiffs would stop to devour the slaves he had gone to so much trouble to free only moments before. But that did not seem to be the case, for the howls and screams continued to draw nearer.
They turned another bend and Giano fell as long as he was when he tripped over a loose rock. The lantern leaped from his hands and shattered against a rail. The flame went out and absolute darkness closed over them. They pressed against each other.
"Nobody move." Reiner said as the barking and the sound of running boots echoed closer and closer to them. "Everyone hold hands. If you don't have anyone by the hand, say so."
He reached out an arm and grasped a rough hand. He had no idea who it belonged to.
"I am alone." Gustaf said.
"You bet you are, mate." Hals said. Reiner extended an arm toward Gustaf's voice.
"Take my hand."
Gustaf's soft fleshy hand bumped against his and he took it.
"Hurry up!" groaned Oskar. "They're coming!"
Reiner looked back. At the far end of the tunnel, huge shadows of mastiffs were leaping and running along the walls. Then the mastiffs themselves came into view, huge black silhouettes running before the torches of the Nordic soldiers.
Reiner turned and ran, and though he forgot to give the order, there was no need to do so. The rest ran with him, completely blind, whimpering to themselves. They all knew it was useless to run, but they found it impossible not to. Fear drove their legs, not thought, a primal instinct to flee from the prospect of certain death.
Reiner stumbled over the rails, managed not to lose his balance and stuck to the wall to avoid the sleepers. He heard Gustaf panting and stumbling behind him, and the panting and grunting of the mastiffs.
So that was the end, Reiner thought. He was going to die, lost to all those he loved and all those who loved him, inside a black tunnel beneath the Central Mountains, eaten by monstrous mastiffs. Inside his head crowded the things he had yet to do, all the money he had not yet earned or spent, all the women he had not yet slept with, the books he had yet to read, the mistresses he would not love. He found himself weeping with grief. It had all been so damned useless, the whole horrible trip..., his whole life.
Franz let out a shriek from the end of the row. Ulf roared something incoherent and Reiner heard an impact and an animal screech. He looked back but there was little to see but prancing shadows and flickering torches in the distance.
"Franz?"
The boy's reply was inaudible because, from the front of the line, Giano let out a shriek. The shout was echoed by Pavel and Hals. And there was a clatter of pebbles and strange echoes. Reiner tried to stop before he stumbled into the hidden danger, but Gustaf, Ulf and Franz collided with him from behind and threw him forward again.
"Wait!" he shouted. "Something..."
His left foot plunged into the void. He yelped in surprise and threw his hands forward, expecting to fall flat on his face against the tunnel floor. His hands didn't come in contact with anything. There was nothing underneath him.
He was falling into a bottomless void.