Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 205

Chapter 205: The Rescue
Ford jumped at the sound of another voice. He opened his eyes, expecting the same darkness as before, but now a dim sort of light shone around him.

“What?” He blurted, and coughed some more.

“You think death is enough to get you time off of work, think again. No way Boss’ll let that happen.” The foreign accent was unmistakable.

“Martin?” Ford blinked several times to try and clear his eyes. “How did you get here?”

Martin rolled his eyes. “Moron. How do you think I got here?”

The words confused the young man. “Am I being rescued? Or am I hallucinating?”

“Really not the brightest, are ya?” Martin shook his head. “Or maybe you got hit by a rock too hard on the noggin. Come on. Why you laying on the ground like a lazy idiot?”

Ford hesitated before replying. “Leg’s trapped.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Martin came closer, the candle on his helmet lighting the surroundings. He flicked his hand at the trapped limb as if by such an action he could move the boulder away that held Ford in place.

The ground quaked, and Ford screamed.

“RUN!”

He hated that his instinct to warn others still took precedence over his own sense of self-preservation. He should be screaming for help, not for the older man to flee.

“Why?” Martin’s condescension was shocking in the situation, but less so than the fact that Ford’s leg was now free.

“Wh… what just happened?” Ford blinked rapidly in the low light. It looked as if a new piece of rock had jutted up from the ground to lift the boulder that had been pinning him.

“You’re even slower than you look,” Martin rolled his eyes. “Come on, afore I regret wasting my precious effort getting your idiot rear end out alive.”

Ford blinked, and then rolled to his stomach, crawling towards the man who was somehow standing upright. The opening jutted up so suddenly near him that the younger man was quite shocked at how such an oddly-shaped pocket of air would form.

Once he got near enough, Martin leaned down to take him by the arm and help him to stand. The pain of the blood rushing down to his broken leg almost made Ford pass out, but he refused to appear weak in front of the grizzled foreigner.

Martin sighed deeply and pulled Ford’s arm around his shoulders to support the orphan as he limped forward.

Ford blinked heavily, fatigue threatening him as he looked ahead at the strangely smooth tunnel.

“How long have I been down?” He asked.

“Not too long. Half a day, maybe.” Martin shrugged lightly.

“How did everyone tunnel to me that quickly?” Ford shook his head. The collapse had been extensive, he was sure. The timeline didn’t quite fit in his mind. Maybe he’d been closer to the surface than he’d thought?

“Not everyone,” Martin corrected. “Me. And you better not go blabbing it around who rescued you.”

Ford watched the older man out of the side of his eye for a few steps, trying to concentrate through the pain.

“You… you have magic?” Ford finally put the pieces together. Nothing else made sense. “Why doesn’t everyone know?”

“People in this stupid country can’t keep secrets to save their life,” Martin complained. “So I don’t tell no one, except who I gotta tell to get my pay. Where I’m from, you wouldn’t believe the secrets people kept, and for how long. Course, it helps when people are willing to kill to keep ’em. I guess I’m too soft that way.”

“What secrets?” Ford hobbled and sucked in a breath through his teeth as his broken leg brushed up against a rock and sent a shockwave of pain up his spine.

The ladders were next, and he paused in front of one. This would be difficult.

“Didn’t I just say people were willing to kill to keep the secrets, and here you are wantin’ them? Foolish.” Martin grumbled.

Ford struggled up the ladder, using his arms and good leg to climb to the top of the shaft before they turned down the next tunnel.

“I’ll keep your secret,” He promised Martin. It was the very least he could do.

“First smart thing you’ve said today,” Martin muttered.

“Who else knows?” Ford was curious.

“Just the owner,” Martin shrugged. “But no reason for him to ever talk to a runt like you.”

That stung, but it wasn’t wrong. The owner of the mine barely knew that Ford existed, much less cared to risk the safety of his foreman to rescue him. Ford was nobody.

And Martin, it seemed, was much more of a somebody than Ford had realized. No wonder their mine led the nation in productivity; they had a magic user down in the shafts between each shift—

“You don’t do safety inspections, do you?” Ford asked wearily. “You’re using magic to expand the mine shafts between the shifts.”

“Another point for the idiot. Maybe it’s the mine dust that makes you dumb.” Martin sniffed. “Getting closer to that fresh air finally getting some sense into your head?”

“I guess,” Ford swallowed at the strange half-compliment half-insult. The man was odd. Were all people from his country like this, or was Martin an anomaly even there? Their travel continued, up and up, tunnels and ladders at an achingly slow place.

Still, Ford recognized where he was. It wasn’t that much further to freedom, to the surface. From here there was just a long slope upward and one more ladder. The cave rumbled ahead, and Martin laid a hand on the wall.

“Blast it.” Martin frowned. “Roof fell in ahead. Fool place is unstable.”

“Can’t you just open it?” Ford was panting with effort.

Martin huffed. “Sure, act like it’s all easy as pie. No, I can’t just open it. Used up all my power getting down to you and getting you freed. Gotta wait for it to replenish, so settle in for a bit.”

“Magic runs out?” Ford had no idea.

“Can you run forever? No. So don’t act like it’s such a shock that I don’t have some endless supply of magic. Moron.” Martin deposited Ford on the ground and sat near him.

“How long will it take? To replenish?” The younger man looked ahead.

“Time. It’ll take time.” Martin shrugged.

Ford sighed, and grimaced at the pain in his leg. He wouldn’t be able to afford the doctor, or to feed himself while he healed. He probably would starve unless the other men in the bunkhouse took pity on him and shared their food.

“What do I tell people?” The young man asked. If Martin didn’t want the story of his magic told, he must have an alternative.

“Your story is I wandered in and you’d crawled close to the entrance, after being buried in dust and small rocks. Search party probably walked right past you without seeing,” Martin warned. “You were unconscious, so you don’t rightly know for sure and can’t completely explain the utter incompetence of the search party. You’re pretty mad at them, but glad to be alive.”

Ford nodded, taking in the information and trying to commit it into his muddled memory. He did have plenty of anger about the entire circumstance. Passing that onto the rescue committee shouldn’t take too much acting.

“But why save me?” Ford shook his head. “Why risk your secret for someone else?”