Roger perched on the fence, partially obscured by a tree, watching the guards. He had not moved from his position since he had taken it a few hours before sunrise. He had scarcely slept the night before despite overwhelming exhaustion. He ran the plan over in his mind hundreds of time, considering every possible scenario. Six shots. He'd have to make them all. No one in the main camp would question six shots; there was no need to worry regarding reinforcements (though just to be safe he had asked Hoople to situate himself so that he was last in line that he might jam the gate of the inner fence after they had gone through), the guards knew the prisoners were unarmed, they would simply assume there would be a few more emaciated bodies to bury - that some trouble makers had needed to be put down. Roger watched as the line of prisoners approached led by their guard. The mine guards gave them a cursory glance as they disappeared into the gaping maw of the earth. He began to count. Sixty seconds. One hundred twenty. One hundred eighty. Two hundred forty. Three hundred - they would have reach the meeting place. Three hundred sixty - Roger readied his gun, taking aim at the furthest guard. Four hundred - his finger pressed the trigger.

An explosion ripped through the quiet morning air shaking the ground. Roger grabbed the bar at top of the fence to keep from falling off. Black smoke and ash spewed from within the mine. Roger watched in horror as the guards ran toward the mine entrance when suddenly one of them doubled over vomiting; he fell over on his side and lay still. In seconds the other guards collapsed to the ground with not even enough time to drop their rifles. Roger vaulted over the top of the fence, sliding more than climbing down the other side. He rushed to the guard and pressed his fingers to the man's neck, checking for a pulse. He felt nothing.

He raced into the mine. Acrid smoke and dust choked the breath from his lungs and stung his eyes. He covered his nose and mouth with his shirt and ran on to the meeting place. He had to find Hoople! Perhaps there was still a chance some of the men might have survived. Small fires still burned from the blast, lighting the tunnel. Men and body parts lay strewn about the mine floor. Roger desperately scanned the meeting place for any sign of Hoople. He saw the wooden door, or what was left of it, splintered about the floor. Shards of wood jutted from bodies pinned to the walls. "Hoople!" Roger shouted. "Jeremy!" He recognized the burnt face, or what was left of the face, of one of the Greeks, still staring in terror at the empty black portal where the door had once been. "Jeremy!" he cried, following the tunnel. Slight movement arrested his attention, he ran to it. A few yards from the blast sight he saw the form of a slight young man lying prone on the ground, blond hair singed black at the tips, clothing half burned from him. Beneath him another man lay, tall, twig thin arms splayed out on the ground, copper hair waving slightly in the breeze from the tunnel. "Oh Jeremy," Roger moaned, falling on his knees to check the man for a pulse, "you should have just run." He shook his head sadly, turning the man over. His boyish face had survived the blast unscathed, from this angle he appeared like a sleeping child who only needed shaking to awake once more. He placed his fingers on Paul's throat, detecting only the faintest flutter. "Paul!" he called, slapping the young man's cheeks. "Paul, wake up!" The Welshman did not stir. He checked the man's pulse again. Had he simply imagined a heartbeat? The man's throat felt cold, lifeless. The guards would be here in minutes. He stared at the skeletal body before him - there didn't seem much wrong with him beyond some burns to his legs and arms. Perhaps some air. He decided. He hefted the body upon his shoulders - it was surprisingly light for the young man's size. As he stood he suddenly noticed something scrawled upon the wall before him in red, the flickering firelight giving the image a ghastly appearance. He recognized the form of it from Gun's handkerchief, though this was the symbol in its complete form. A giant circle within which a large A had been scrawled, the points of the letter extending out beyond the boundaries of the circle, bisecting it in five places. On the right side of the upper part of the A a smaller K was written, on the left a small M and at the center the face of a sheep stared at him menacingly. Above the symbol, in dripping, bright red letters, read: Ecce Sanguis Agni.

The End


What happened in the mine? What does the symbol mean? Did Paul survive? What is going on?

Roger's going to need all his friends in order to solve this case.

Tune in for the next exciting Mina Moore Mystery "The Kingdom of Muenster"