Enough. The word screams through him, so loudly he begins to shake.
The two guards at the end of the tunnel are dead before they even knew what was happening.
Blood soaks his clothes and his bare arms, and he wipes it from his face as he storms down to the chamber.
He could have taken the swords from the fallen guards, but it had to be the ax. He wanted them to know what this hellhole felt like.
He reaches the entrance to their section of the mines. The first two overseers die when he heaves the ax at their necks, slashing back and forth between them. Their slaves scream, backing against the walls as he rages past them. His broken chain clinking against his shackles.
When he reaches the two overseers, he lets them see him, let them try to draw their blades.
He knew it wasn't the weapon in his hands that made them stupid with panic, but rather his eyes – eyes that told them they had been tricked these past few months, that cutting his hair and whipping him hadn't been enough, that he has been baiting them into forgetting that a creature bearing a human skin is in their midst.
But he has not forgotten a second of pain, nor what he had seen them do to the others – to that young woman who had begged to gods who did not save her.
For six long months he had kept to himself. He's survived the longest from what others have told him. Even with the scarce meals they get here in the mines, his arms and legs are thick with muscle.
The men died too quickly, but he had one more task to complete before he would meet his end. He prowls back up the main tunnel that leads out of the mines. Guards foolishly come rushing out of tunnel mouths to meet him.
He surges upwards, hacking and swinging. Two more guards go down, and he takes up their swords, leaving the ax behind. The slaves don't cheer as their oppressors fall; they just watch in silence, understanding.
Though he misses the fresh air and open spaces, he does not miss, however, the problems and politics and power struggles that had buzzed around his head whenever he was free to walk the streets.
And yet . . . something keeps him going. He still holds on; he keeps drawing breath even though his life has no meaning anymore. He'll never be able to bury his dead, nor endure the mourning months until they are over and return to life.
This is not a fight for escape.
Enough.
The light of the surface makes him blink, but he is ready. His eyes having to adjust to the sun would be his greatest weakness. That is why he had waited until the softer light of the afternoon. Twilight would have been better, but that time of day is to heavily guarded, and there are too many slaves about that could be caught in the crossfire.
This last hour of full daylight, when the warm sun lulls many to sleep is when the sentries go lax on watch before the evening inspection.
The three sentries at the entrance to the mines didn't know what was happening below.
Everyone is always screaming here. Everyone sounded the same when they die. And the three sentries scream just like the others.
And then he is running, sprinting for the death that beckons to him, making for the towering stone wall at the other end of the compound.
Arrows whiz pass, and he zigzags. They wouldn't kill him, by order of the king. An arrow through the shoulder or leg, maybe. But he will make them reconsider their orders once the carnage is too massive to ignore.
Other sentries come rushing from everywhere, and his blades are a song of steel fury as he cuts through them.
He took a gash in the leg – deep, but not deep enough to cut the tendon. They still wanted him able to work. But he won't work – not again, not for them. When the body count is high enough, they'll have no choice but to put that arrow through his throat.
But then he nears the gate, and the arrows stop.
He starts laughing when he finds himself surrounded by forty guards, and laughs even more when they call for irons.
He is laughing when he lashes out one last time – one final attempt to touch the wall. Four more go down in his wake.
He is still laughing when the world goes black and his fingers hit the rocky ground – barely an inch from the wall.