Chapter 29: Clearing the Mine

The castle was completely quiet. The only sound was the howling of the winter wind rattling the wooden shutters of Jack’s bedchamber.

Jack sat in his high-backed chair, waiting. He watched the small fire in his hearth slowly burn down to glowing embers. He had to be absolutely sure that the villagers were asleep, and that Giles and the village militia patrolling the courtyard were settled into their routines.

Tonight’s operation could not be interrupted.

When the grandfather clock in the distant hallway chimed midnight, Jack finally stood up.

He moved to the corner of the room, dragged the bear-skin rug aside, and pulled the iron ring. The stone trapdoor groaned open, releasing the familiar, soothing draft of cold, ancient air from the crypts below.

Jack took a deep breath, letting the clean chill fill his healed lungs, and began his descent into the dark.

He moved past the grand, sealed tombs of his ancestors and walked directly toward the rear of the subterranean vault. This was where the fifteen skeletons of his Night Shift stood waiting in the shadows. They were perfectly still, their empty eye sockets staring forward, completely dormant.

Jack stopped in front of them. He leaned his weight onto his cane and closed his eyes.

He reached into his chest, grabbing hold of his Grey Core. He pushed the death mana outward, splitting the energy into fifteen distinct threads. The magic washed over the white bones.

The fifteen skeletons stepped forward in unison. The mental weight settled over Jack’s mind immediately. It felt like a suffocating blanket wrapping around his brain. But his core was stable now. He gritted his teeth, focused his thoughts, and the pressure slowly became manageable.

“Pickaxes and shovels,” Jack commanded mentally.

The skeletons moved to the old maintenance racks. They picked up the iron tools, their bony fingers gripping the dry wooden handles tightly.

Jack led the silent, fleshless crew toward the very back of the crypts. They reached the jagged breach in the stone wall. Beyond this hole lay the old, collapsed tunnels of the Frost-Grip coal mine.

Jack stopped a good ten feet away from the opening.

He could see the heavy air resting in the tunnel beyond. It was choke-damp. A deadly, invisible poison that settled in deep places. If Jack took even three steps past the broken wall, the toxic gas would fill his lungs, and he would simply fall asleep on the stone floor, never to wake up.

“Go,” Jack commanded the Night Shift. “Down into the dark. Follow the main tunnel to the very end.”

The skeletons marched past him. They stepped through the broken wall and descended into the pitch-black, poisoned mine.

They did not hold their breath because they had no breath to hold. The toxic gas washed over their ribs, completely harmless to the undead.

Jack sat down on a flat stone near the entrance. He set a single tallow candle on the stone beside him to provide a faint light. He closed his eyes, transferring his entire focus into the mental links.

Through the perspective of the skeletons, Jack navigated the dark.

The main tunnel was wide, supported by massive wooden beams. The skeletons marched past the areas where they had previously mined the coal reserves. They kept walking deeper into the mountain, moving for nearly twenty minutes until they finally reached a dead end.

This was the deepest part of the upper vein. Above them was solid rock, leading straight up toward the surface of the mountain slope.

“Stop,” Jack ordered.

The skeletons halted.

“Look up,” Jack commanded. “We are going to dig a chimney. Straight toward the sky.”

Digging a horizontal tunnel was simple work. Digging a vertical shaft was a nightmare. Humans could not easily swing iron pickaxes upward. The angle was awkward, the tools were heavy, and every time the rock broke, it would fall directly onto the miners’ heads.

But skeletons did not tire, and they did not feel pain.

Jack organized the fifteen workers into three distinct squads. He had the first five skeletons step directly into the center of the dead-end tunnel and raise their pickaxes.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

The iron struck the stone ceiling. Shards of hard rock and dirt rained down. The debris hit the skeletons directly on their skulls and shoulders. The impact made a loud clack against their bones, but the undead did not flinch. They simply raised their tools and swung again.

Up in the safety of the crypt, Jack winced.

Every time a falling rock struck a skeleton, Jack felt a phantom jolt in his own mind. His head began to throb with a persistent ache. It felt as though someone was lightly tapping his skull with a wooden mallet over and over again.

He ignored the pain. He forced his mind to focus on the logistics.

As the skeletons carved a hole into the ceiling, a massive pile of loose rock and dirt began to form on the floor beneath them.

“Squad Two,” Jack commanded. “Shovel the loose rock. Do not throw it away. Pile it directly under the hole. Build a mound.”

This was the simple, brilliant method Jack had devised while reading the old architectural journals in the castle library. The skeletons needed a way to reach higher as the vertical shaft grew taller.

By packing the falling rubble into a tight, rising mound directly beneath the hole, the digging squad could step onto the rocks to gain height. As they dug higher, the pile of rubble grew taller, creating a constant, rising platform for them to stand on.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The hours dragged on.

The work was incredibly slow. The stone inside the mountain was hard, and the progress was measured in inches.

Jack sat in the crypt, sweating profusely despite the freezing temperature. The constant vibration of pickaxes striking stone echoed in his brain. His nose began to run, and when he wiped it with the back of his hand, he saw a faint smear of dark blood.

He was pushing his core to its limits, but he refused to stop. The village needed the rest of the coal in this mine, and they could not get it until the air was clean.

Thump. Thump. Thwack. Suddenly, through the eyes of one of the digging skeletons, Jack saw a change.

The iron pickaxe struck the ceiling, but instead of the hard resistance of solid rock, the tool sank deeply into the material. The stone had given way to frozen dirt and loose gravel.

They had reached the topsoil.

“Push through!” Jack commanded, a surge of adrenaline washing over him.

The five skeletons swung wildly.

A massive chunk of frozen earth gave way, collapsing downward. Through the newly opened hole, a beam of pale, silvery moonlight spilled into the dark shaft.

They had broken through. The vertical chimney reached all the way to the surface of the mountain. A freezing gust of winter wind blew down the shaft, swirling the dust around the skeletons.

“Halt the digging,” Jack ordered, his chest heaving with exhaustion.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead. The first phase was finally complete.

“Clear the base of the shaft,” Jack directed.