After several twists and turns and jumps into Rhys’ arms, they came to a dark tunnel. The entrance yawned like a giant’s mouth in front of them.
Rhys held the torch high. “Dirt walls and wood beams.”
“Will this take us away from the castle?” Heather asked, peering around his shoulder.
“We shall find out.” He turned his head toward her. “The tunnel appears narrow and may get narrower. Keep your hand on my back at all times, so that I know you are there behind me and in case we lose the light.”
The scent of earth grew stronger and stronger as the passageway grew so narrow that Rhys’s shoulders brushed the dirt walls, sending some of the dirt flying into her face.
Try as she might to ignore that the walls seemed to be closing in on her, she was not able to and with fear in her voice, she called out, “Rhys!”
He stopped and eased himself sideways and she immediately tucked herself under the crook of his arm, planted her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist, and there she stayed.
Rhys felt her body tremble and knew her fear. He had experienced the same gripping fear himself the first time he had entered a similar narrow passage. But there was little room to console her here and little time to linger.
“How can you walk this barely passable corridor with no fear?” she asked, fighting the fear that any minute the walls would collapse around them and bury them alive.
“Fear was forced out of me through the years.”
“I cannot believe that fear does not touch you in this confined space,” she said and shivered.
He ran his hand down her arm and covered her hand that hugged at his waist. “I was forced to stand in a corridor such as this one with a line of men in front of me and behind me for endless days, shortly after I was sold to Haidar. Scraps of food and drink were passed down the line once a day. If you were lucky, some of it reached you. Those who seemed to lose their minds as the days went on were quickly disposed of by the person in front of him or the person behind him, sometimes both. The bodywould be kicked down the line beneath everyone’s bare feet until it reached the opening where it was removed. Those who survived began training to be one of Haidar’s infamous slave warriors. I was one of the unlucky ones—I survived.”
“Do not say that,” Heather scolded, easing away from him with tears glistening in her eyes at the horror he had endured. “Never, ever say that.”
He reached out and wiped at the tears that were yet to spill. “I prayed for courage, then I prayed for death, then I stopped praying, but now that I am with you...I am glad I survived.”
“We must hurry and get you out of here,” she said, giving him a slight push.
“Me?” he asked with a slight smile.
“Aye, you do not need to relive such a horrible ordeal. We must get you out of here. Now hurry along,” she said with a wave of her hand.
“Stay close,” he reminded again as he turned slowly away from her.
“Always,” she said and latched on to the hem of his leather armor.
After a few more feet, the corridor narrowed to the point that Rhys was forced to walk sideways, and her heart went out to him when he looked at her with concern.
“Can you manage this?”
“If you can, so can I,” she said and eased herself sideways.
He slipped his hand in hers and they made their way slowly along the corridor until suddenlythe passage widened and brought them out into a small area. The walls there were constructed of wood planking, though much of it had rotted. A ladder was braced against one wall, and it led up to what appeared to be a trap door.
Rhys turned to Heather. “You need to stay down here while I go see what is up there. If for any reason I do not return after a short time, you are to go back the way we came and wait for my warriors, though you will probably meet them on the way.” His voice turned stern. “I mean it, Heather, give me your word or I will pull the ladder up after me.”
“I will not come up after you,” she said, of course that did not include going up the ladder with the purpose of finding a way out, but she did not tell him that.
Rhys climbed the ladder and eased the latched door open slowly, then quickly disappeared up through it.
Heather waited in the dark, thinking about what Rhys had told her. She could not imagine standing in a confined corridor for days in the dark with no way out. She did not know how he had not gone mad. There did not seem to be an end to this Haidar’s cruelty, and she prayed she would never meet him.
“Heather!”
Rhys’ shout brought a smile to her face, and she looked up at him peering down through the opening. “Climb up.”
She eagerly climbed each rung, grabbing onto a rope that dangled from a hook by the ceiling beam to help hoist herself further up the rungs. It struck her as she climbed that he had not mentioned if it was safe and before she neared the top, she whispered, “Is it safe?”
