Book One: Rise of the King

Chapter Nineteen

 The Night Guard, which now included the construction engineer Benton Singer, sat underneath a thick-trunked tree that shielded them from the wind. Privately, they all wished desperately for a fire, but knew that they were definitely too close to their target to be taking chances now. It was after the evening meal and they were waiting for the sun to go down so they could go to the valley Eli and Tanis had found. Josan was curled up against Gray, trying to defeat the cold. Though they had not kissed again, she had stayed closer than ever to him. It was difficult at times, particularly at night, not to get distracted by her proximity. He knew it would only take one movement on his part and she would do what they both wanted her to do.

When the sun had finally gone down, the men of the Night Guard, dressed all in black, left Josan with Tanis and slipped quietly into the woods. Benton, who was still getting used to the peculiar gifts that the forest had given the Humans, tended to get distracted and had to be led by Charlie at times. Still, they made it to the top of the mountain and stood with the valley below them.

The western mountains rose up into the sky, the tops sharp and jagged, high enough for the very tops to be covered in snow. As the mountains dipped downward, the valley was created, as if it were a huge bowl in the center. The valley itself stretched out for miles before them. The left side of the valley was covered in a thick evergreen forest. The right side of the valley had been abused. The mountains were shattered halfway down. A zigzag path had been slashed into the side, headed upward into the bare stone.

Slaves beat the side of the mountain into chunks the size of a watermelon. The chunks were loaded into wheel barrows, which were pushed down the side of the mountain by other slaves. The wheel barrows were taken to one of two large machines that were roughly the size of a tractor trailer. Slaves loaded the rock into one end. On the other the dusty remnants of the rock and the crystals of rutile were separated. The rutile was taken by wheel barrows to a conveyor that disappeared into a cavern in the side of the mountain some distance from the dig sites.

Huge lights that brought to mind a Hollywood premiere lit the entire area even in the middle of the night. The lights illuminated the inhumanity of the situation. The pig-men serving as guards seemed to enjoy taunting the Ranthos slaves, appeared to randomly select people to pelt with rocks or whip. When a woman pushing a wheel barrow of stone collapsed on the ground, a Gauran guard walked up, nudged her with his foot. The woman didn't move. He kicked her over the side of the path and she rolled down to the next length of trail. He casually walked down to where she was, kicked her over the side of the path and watched her roll downward to the next section. He did this until she was at the base of the mountain, rolling her limp body with a kick of his foot. When he reached her, he grabbed her leg and drug her across the open ground to a pile the Guard had not noticed. The Gauran added her to the stack of Ranthos corpses near the tree line. There were already two piles that reached over the Gauran's head.

"Oh my God." Nate whispered.

Gray breathed a foul curse.

Eli closed his eyes, turned his head. Charlie and Benton stared, shocked.

After a moment, Gray turned away, sat down on the ground.

"If we shut down the machines, that'll put things at a stand-still, won't it?"

Charlie looked over his shoulder at him. "It might."

"Then we need to do that."

The men moved to join him on the ground, watched him draw a simple lay-out of the valley in the sparse layer of dirt on the ground.

"What do you have in mind?"

Gray shook his head, let out a frustrated breath.

"We shut down the machines and take out the lights. We kill all the Gauran and get the Ranthos out of there. We've to get into that cave, too. I know that's where the Komeh are." He said. It was simple to say all these things, but not easy to do. "We need to think. Let's get back."