"Our king has fallen!" a voice rang out over the sharp clanging of our pickaxes striking the walls of stone. All at once, the clanging ceased in the mine and every man's head turned to the right, their eyes landing on one of our fishermen. He must have dropped everything he was doing when he heard the news because he still carried his fishing rod with him, the hook dangling and dripping water onto the ground.
His face was grave in the flickering flames from the torches and with the little light, the shadows made the situation even more dire than it already was. Many of the other miners, including me, stared at the man because we couldn't do anything else. We all looked at each other then, our voices caught in our mouths like fish in a net.
"How has this happened?" Poe finally asked, taking a tired step forward with his pickaxe hanging at his side. His voice bounced in the cave and he seemed to be the only one of us who hadn't lost his.
The fisherman's mouth opened and closed and his watery eyes darted around at us, finally landing on Poe. "It was—it was an attack," he stammered, "Aldaia. An Aldaian assassin. He was found inside the castle and—"
"When?" Poe interrupted over the murmurs and curses coming from the others.
"Why, I don't know...about an hour or so since the sun went down? They caught him before he could flee and it's been chaos back in the city. I ran all the way here to tell you guys!" he exclaimed. "Prince Noch—er—King Noch I guess it is now—has ordered the army to head for the Aldaian village and they're moving onto the city before sunrise. There won't be anything left of them by nightfall tomorrow."
"Good!" a voice shouted out.
"Serves them right for killing our king!" another called.
Poe's eyes narrowed. "And what becomes of the assassin? What has Noch planned to do with him?"
The fisherman dipped his head, the firelight reflecting off the sweat on his forehead. "He is to be publicly executed," he announced.
Everyone broke out in cheers, roaring their excitement for the Aldaian's demise. The mine shook with the whooping and laughing and though I wasn't making noise with them, I felt a surge of power and importance swell in my chest. I looked around at the others who had abandoned their tools and were now chanting something about revenge, throwing their helmets into the air in celebration.
"Hey, Avlock!" Mottey's voice appeared beside me. His hand slapped me on the shoulder and I turned to see my friend's toothy grin, his eyes crinkling as he chuckled and pulled my helmet off my head. His sandy hair stuck up in the air. "Work's over! No more hacking away!" He threw it up into the air and sprung up to catch it as it came back down, howling with laughter. "I'm gonna go home and—and I think I'm gonna cook up a nice, fat pig," he said, "yeah...and then I'm gonna get all cozy in my bed and sleep for two days straight!"
One of the other miners shouted to Mottey. "You'll miss the execution if you sleep that long!"
Mottey dismissed the miner with a wave of his hand and rolled his eyes. "Who cares about that when my feet hurt?"
I cracked a smile and Mottey slung his arm around my neck, the bitter smell of ale on his clothes. He definitely had something stashed away somewhere and I wouldn't be surprised if he'd been drinking all day instead of working. Being down here could get boring with all the repetitive swinging at stone and the air could be warm and suffocating at times. If I didn't see my parents and sisters every day, I would probably be drinking all the time too.
Mottey talked my ear off as we followed everyone out of the mines and he described the stew he'd make to go with his roasted pig. Not once did he—or anyone for that matter—bring up that the king was dead. None of them cared about the news, and to tell the truth, I didn't either. It was shocking, of course, but when that fisherman ran in here and told us everything and we'd gone quiet, we weren't sad about it. At least, I wasn't, and Mottey sure wasn't. We worked hours upon hours under here for the king. All we really cared about was the possibility of going home early or having something to entertain us.
