Outside, Koradan looked around for Paul, keeping an eye out for Lynette at the same time. He didn’t want to force a confrontation with her, but he’d more or less accepted that one would be inevitable.
Paul was loitering near Mitch and the other miners, but Koradan also saw that a group of people had gathered near the shaft that led down into the lower chamber. “What’s going on over there?” he asked Mitch.
“A bit of reconnaissance,” Mitch said. Koradan couldn’t quite pick the tone of his voice. “They’re having a look to see how badly damaged the shaft is. Someone had the bright idea of tying a lantern to a rope and lowering it down. Your man Melowin’s over there, by the way. He said to give him a shout if you need him.”
Koradan took a longer look at the group and saw that Lynette was among the people standing around the shaft. She was pointing at something and gesturing, though he couldn’t hear what she was saying. Still, if she was occupied for the moment, that would work in Koradan’s favour.
“Hey, Paul. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.” The eager young lad hopped up from his seat on a rock and hurried over. “What do you need?”
Koradan hesitated, not sure how to phrase the request. “We have a job that needs doing. And before I ask, I want to make it perfectly clear that you’re free to say no. It’s dangerous and it could be quite scary, so I don’t want you to feel any pressure to do it if you’d rather not.”
Paul’s eager smile faded to a frown. “Okay. Fair enough. What needs doing?”
Koradan explained the situation inside the mine, the narrow gap, the rocks blocking the way, and the fact that they couldn’t fix the problem from this side. “I need you to understand that there is a real risk that more of the mine could collapse,” he said, looking Paul in the eye. “If you don’t want to do it, we’ll find another way.”
Not surprisingly, Paul shook his head. “There could be men alive down there,” he said. Koradan had deliberately left out the part about knowing at least one man was alive. “If there are, then we need to help them. I’m not afraid of the dark, or small spaces, or whatever. I’ll go through.”
“If there’s no easy way to clear a path, then I want you to come straight back,” Koradan said. “You’re not responsible for saving everyone. No heroics, you understand?”
Paul nodded, his expression sombre. “Yeah, I get it. Believe me, I don’t want to be buried in a mine any more than anyone else.”
“Mitch, is that okay with you?” Koradan asked the miner. Mitch had been listening in, eager for news on their progress.
“Like Koradan said, no heroics,” Mitch said, levelling a pointed glare at Paul. “You go in, you clear a path, and you get out.”
“Got it,” Paul said.
Inside the cave, Koradan took the time to explain what they’d done so far, how they believed the far side of the blockage was open, and the exact rocks which were blocking their path. Squished up beside him in the tunnel, Paul took a good look around and asked plenty of questions. He seemed to have no qualms at all about pressing his body against Koradan’s, even touching his skin, which made Koradan wonder just how much he knew about his father – or how much of Lynette’s philosophy on life she’d managed to pass onto her son. If Paul’s father had been part of the army guarding the gate, and ostensibly a hero for his role there, then shouldn’t Paul feel something more similar to his mother’s stance; a firm belief that his father’s sacrifice had been a noble one, and by extension, demons could never be anything other than evil?
“Okay, I’m ready,” Paul said. He took one of the lanterns still sitting at the end of the tunnel and pushed it through the gap. Then he lay down on his belly, using his elbows and knees to wriggle forward. Koradan watched him go, feeling his heart thumping in his chest. What if Paul got injured? What if the passageway collapsed? What if…?
“You were right, there’s a whole pile of room back here,” Paul’s voice filtered through the tunnel. “The rock fall’s not too bad, though. There’s a bit of debris blocking the rocks you want to move. Give me a minute and I’ll move it.”
“Make sure you’re not undermining anything more heavy that could fall on top of you,” Koradan called. Gods above, if anything happened to Paul, Lynette was going to kill him – properly this time, rather than her half-baked attempt with the fire poker. She’d probably slit his throat in his sleep.
“Yeah, I’m being careful. There’s lots of space to move stuff around, though.” The minutes ticked by as Koradan listened to the rough scraping sounds, the occasional skittering of gravel sliding downwards, and Paul’s offhanded muttering about some piece or other that refused to move where he wanted it to.
Finally, though, he gave a small cry of victory. “Yes! How’s that?” he asked, sticking his head back through the gap. “You think you’d fit through now?”
Koradan knelt down, then lay flat on the ground. The gap wasn’t large, but it was about twice the size it had been before. Steeling himself, he wriggled forward, ducking his head to keep his one remaining horn from scraping the ceiling. It was a close fit, but after a prolonged and graceless shuffle, he emerged out the other side.
“Nice work,” he said to Paul. His next priority was to get Paul safely out of the mine again, but he took a couple of seconds to have a quick look around. The tunnel looked like it had suffered minimal damage in the earthquake. The wooden support beams were intact, and a closer inspection looked like they weren’t even cracked. The tunnel was two metres high and just as wide, and Koradan could see a railroad track emerging from underneath the rubble – presumably used to haul carts along full of copper ore.
“Looks good,” Koradan said. “All right, let’s get you back into the fresh air, and then we can-”
“Do you hear that?” Paul suddenly interrupted him.
Koradan went still, listening intently…
“Heeeelllllooooo….” a distant voice called. “Can you hear me?”
“There are men alive down there!” Heedless of both the firm instructions to not do anything heroic and Koradan’s frantic shouts for him to stop, Paul grabbed a lantern and rushed off down the tunnel. Koradan muttered a curse to himself, then grabbed his own lantern and ran after him.
The tunnel continued on for a good fifty metres before it came to an abrupt halt. The cause was obvious – one of the support beams had collapsed, and they could see the wood sticking out from beneath the pile of rock.
“Hello?” Koradan called, waving for Paul to be quiet.
