KINGDOM OF THE STONE -- a Wattpad featured novel

Chapter Fifty

"Hurry!" Amantis pushed Apaidia through the shelves in the cellar into the secret passage.

"I am holding a baby, you know. It's kind of hard to go on my hands and knees."

Mention of the baby twisted his stomach in a knot. After cutting the thing from Charissa, he had been stunned by its gross and misshaped form. He first thought someone had played him for a fool. It looked like a crude parody of a human child fashioned from clay. As the nurse lifted the malformed thing, it opened tiny idiot eyes sunk in its large block of a head and gave a cry like a strangled goose.

My heir, he thought, despondently. He was to carry on my rule, a link between the Lords of Heaven and the lands below.

Holding the lamp in one hand, he pulled Apaidia by her elbow. She clutched the massive baby in its blankets, scowling straight ahead. He led her to the underground lake and they waded carefully out along the edge to a side passage a quarter of the way around.

"Take this tunnel straight to the end," Amantis said. "You'll have to shove aside a piece of wood which blocks the entrance. It's covered in a layer of dirt, it may be heavy, but it is not attached in anyway."

"I'll have to?" Apaidia objected. "What will you'll be doing?"

Amantis gestured back across the lake. "I have to go free the other children."

"Other children? What are you talking about? What other children?"

"Don't argue with me! Just go. Karux's men may already be behind us. Cross the river and head straight to Mari. I'll meet you there."

"Go to Mari by myself? Why can't you come?"

"I have to make sure Karux doesn't follow you. Don't worry about me." He smiled but she recoiled from the expression. "I have the favor of the Lords of Heaven."

"You are going to give me the lamp, aren't you?" Apaidia asked as Amantis turned to leave.

He paused. "It's a straight path, no turns or branches, unlike the one I'll be taking."

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Apaidia muttered not quite under her breath.

Amantis sloshed through the lake, then paused and turned back. "Oh, that tunnel is the only other exit besides my house and the Lord's House. Once I let the children free they will head toward you and they're probably hungry. So I would advise you to keep moving and move quickly."

-=====|==

It was time for Amantis to die.

Karux rose from Charissa's side and strode out of the room leaving a trail of bloody footprints. Lalein stood sobbing in the hallway while his reavers looked on with vaguely distressed expressions. "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"Where is Amantis!" Karux roared.

"I don't know!" Lalein wailed.

Karux turned away in disgust and stomped back to the entry room. There he raised his horn and gave three blasts.

The house trembled from its roof to its foundation. Warriors and household servants alike came running in shocked obedience. "Amantis was just in this house," Karux said when everyone had gathered. "I want to know where he is right now!"

One of the spears spoke up. "Oracle, we've searched the house from top to bottom. We haven't found any sign of him."

Karux walked up to one of the servants and pressed the point of his spear into the soft flesh beneath his chin. "If Amantis were to have snuck out of here, where would he go?"