The Bloodstone Prophecy - Book 2 (complete)

Chapter 17 - Legends

So I've added a little music video with a Roman vibe to it. It seems to me the words fit Alexander pretty well too. What do you think?

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Liam seethed inwardly and kicked the wall of his wretched cell. He was sick of being cooped up in this tiny space, sick of the foul water, sick of the nasty food, sick of the little rat skeleton constantly taunting him of just how inconsequential and puny and helpless he was in here. For all he knew, if he didn’t find a way to get out of this place soon, it could be Yasmin next, or him, or any of the other prisoners dead, their bones stretched out on the sands to join the infinite bones under the surface. He knew too well how ruthless the queen could be.

He had hoped the guards would put him with the other prisoners so he and Jamal could work out an escape plan. Maybe it had been wishful thinking that the gods would align the stars in his favor, but it still was strange that he couldn’t charm or manipulate things to go his way in here. Judging by the way she had acted around him, maybe he could have “worked” with the queen, but her price would have been to steep. He didn’t want any of her blood on his hands.   

Liam thought of his parents and knew they were probably frantic by now. Surely they’d contacted the authorities, but could the police be trusted? Were his parents even safe with the authorities? He wondered for the hundredth time what Kami and the others were doing. He had been confident they would return and try to rescue them, but as each day passed, the doubts began to creep in. He couldn’t blame them if they were too afraid.

Rubbing his hand against the rough textured wall, Liam took a deep breath and let it out. Getting all worked up wasn’t going to help anything, though it was hard not to worry with all that was going on. Normally he was laid back about most things, but something about the queen just got under his skin. He was most concerned about what he had seen in that hole, and what the guards were most likely bringing in under those tarps. He could only imagine what the Shadow Queen would do with it. 

Liam heard a scrapping sound outside the door to the cell and recognized the sound. He stepped back to let the guard enter. His ribs had mostly healed from the vicious kick from the guard, but in his weakened condition, he couldn’t afford to invite any more trouble.

Liam followed the guard out into the working area, this time a little farther away from the cave, where he was handed a shovel. He looked around for Jamal. It might raise the suspicion of the guard to work near him, but it was worth the risk. He needed answers. He scanned the faces for him, unnerved to see several missing from their group. He wondered if he had they all gone under, or if Jamal had.

He answered his own question when the other group of prisoners walked out and Jamal was among them. So the guard must have suspected something and transferred him, it seemed. Blast! He felt the irritation thrumming through his body. This was a serious setback. The Shadow Queen had singled him out apparently. Yasmin was in this group, so it was possible Jamal might work with her, but that didn’t help him much. The guards were watching him closely and would likely move anyone he tried to communicate with. He felt so alone.

He wondered why Yasmin hadn’t been singled out as well and kept in isolation. Maybe the queen didn’t consider her as much of a threat?

Liam heard a commotion and looked up to see a procession of prisoners rambling toward the enormous bone pile carrying large, plaited baskets. Each set of prisoners loaded a basket heavy with bones, then carried it back inside the cave. The guards were having a hard time keeping the prisoners under control, the coherent ones anyway. The guards shouted curses and threatened them, but it was as if their voices were muted. Liam couldn’t look away, and neither could the others.

The other strange thing was it seemed like there were a lot fewer workers. The day before, there had been at least twice as many digging holes. Maybe part of the group was working somewhere else, or maybe some were sick. Liam wished he could speak to Jamal about it.

Everyone was on edge. Tense. Something was up. Something big. The air seemed to crackle with an ominous energy. Liam counted the baskets as they passed. Ten, Eleven, Twelve. He shuddered. Twelve baskets. What could the Shadow Queen possibly be doing with all those bones?

As the final group of prisoners carried their basket into the cave, it was as if a spell had been broken. The prisoners resumed their work and the guards eased up. Liam did his part, and by the time they lined up for water, he’d amassed a tidy pile of bones. Judging by the location of the sun, it had to be a little past noon. He stood in line and kept his head down. Two boys in front of him began speaking in Arabic. They spoke freely, probably not realizing he could understand them. He pretended indifference, but listened in.

“Gamal? And Fadi? And Bahir? They all turned in the night?” the shorter one said in disbelief.

The other nodded.

“Where did they go?” the short one asked.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and terrified from a bad dream. All around me, men were sitting up, in a trance, as if they were being called by something only they could hear. They stood and walked in a mass toward the door. I was afraid, but I had to know what was happening. So I pretended to be one of them.

“A guard unlocked the door, and I followed them down the corridor. We passed a room, where I overheard two guards speaking. I slipped away from the group and listened from outside the doorway. I heard one of them call us unfortunate devils. When the other guard asked why, the first said he had been working with the queen. He said something about Alexander’s helmet.”

“The one with the ram’s horns carved into it,” the short boy said.

“That’s the one. I guess she is using it somehow to mess with people’s minds. She’s getting stronger now that she’s using the helmet. That’s why so many went into a trance in the night. The guard said she kept mumbling something about the collective mind, whatever that means.”

The other boy shivered.

“No way she’s messing with my mind,” he said. “If she grows too powerful with the helmet, no one will be able to stop her.”

“But that’s not even the worst of it. The guard said he was working with the queen on a secret project. He said the queen has seen the army coming in vision, and she’s preparing for it. She has found a way to extract human souls and use them somehow. The second guard asked why. The first guard told him he didn’t want to know. Something worse than the jinn. Something lethal. Something terrible. That’s why she needs the bones, to create a weapon with the power to stop the army and fulfill the legend.”

“What else did they say?” the short man said.

“That’s it. I listened for more, but they quit speaking. I worried they might leave the room and catch me, so I snuck my way back to my bed.”

They hushed as a guard drew near, leaving Liam reeling with the revelation. So she was in there, now, creating something with what he had seen in the ground. He wondered what it could possibly be. He wondered what they meant by an army. Could it be an undead army?

Suddenly he heard a blast and felt his body being slammed to the ground. He heard an inhuman cry reverberating through the air. He clapped his hands over his ears tightly, curling his body up into a fetal position.

At last the sound dimmed, and he slowly removed his hands and looked around. The other prisoners and guards had been thrown to the ground also. He stood up, brushing the sand from his pants. The guards recovered rapidly, standing and yelling at the prisoners to get back in position and back to work. They brushed off the explosion as if it hadn’t happened. When Liam turned to look at the cave, it appeared untouched other than a plume of dust emerging from the entrance. What was going on in there?

He stood back in line, drank his water, then grabbed his shovel and went back to digging. Questions hammered his brain. What did the blast mean? Did she fail? Did she succeed?

About two hours later, festering in the heat and desperate for another sip of water, he wiped his forehead and pushed his shovel into the ground. He felt something, a pounding reverberating through the ground. Tension knotted his shoulders. He could hear the whispers all around him and feel the charged air.

Something was coming. Whatever the Shadow Queen had been working on, it was coming from inside the cave.

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