The Marshal Of Mercia
The next day, Amy travelled with Sally to the province of Mercia. The pair stepped their way through the soft black earth, laden with twigs and fallen leaves and sheltered beneath a thick canopy of vegetation from where they would find relief from the sweltering heat above.
The sunlight seeping from above struck the forest floor in occasional shafts of gold between green-tinted shadows cast by the leafy canopy. Moss grew thick on the bark of the oaks and elms, and tufts of Spanish moss hung like woman's hair from the branches. Rhododendrons and vine maple grew in thick, tangled patches that made passage difficult, but between them were clumps of low bear grass where it was possible to walk.
Although the heavy humidity wafting forth from the forest floor was cool, the two had trudged through sun-drenched fields abuzz with flies and midges, so sweat now matted clothes to the skin. So the pair eventually came to a rest beside a stump crowned with jagged, chunks of shattered wood. Perched atop the stump was a brightly coloured Flickie which Sally whistled to and the bird much to Amy's surprise seemed to whistle back in reply.
Amy, her mouth twisted in a pensive frown, stepped up and with a loud snap of a twig beneath her foot the Flickie, startled, flitted over to a low hanging bough.
"Back then, in Moebius," Sally said, "I could actually speak to them."
Sally believed she had kept it a secret but many a night she would spend covered by a few blankets and strung securely from a hammock from the trees. Gradually, she would be lulled to sleep by the steady thud of her heartbeat, the screeching of cicadas and the occasional chitter from the small rodents scattering below.
For several months after their return from Moebius, she had spent as much time as she could with the birds, trying to get them to talk back, much as Gulliver had done to his horses after returning to England from the land of the Houyhnhnms. One day, Sonic had found her slowly enunciating words in the hopes that they would repeat them back Sonic had ridiculed her. After that, she had stopped the futile language lessons, but every once in a while, she still carried her bedding out to her special tree.
A few nights before Amy's first major mission, her stomach had ached from anxiety. Sally wondered what would happen when Amy would finally step outside of the microcosmic safety of Knothole and out onto a dangerous world.
"So, Sally what do they say," Amy asked.
Sensing the bone-weariness of her charge, Sally took out a flask of cider which she took a sip from before offering to Amy which she drank greedily and gratefully from. "They're saying it's not safe here and they're migrating away to where it's safer." with a sad look on her face she continued "I fear what has become of the province of Mercia and of your cousin."
Amy gulped.
Sally, seeing a pall of worry come over the Freedom Fighter initiate asked, "Are you nervous?"
Amy squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.
"I'm always nervous too before a mission," Sally said, shielding her eyes as she gazed thoughtfully into the sky. "But there's a trick I've learned. Want to know what it is?"
Amy nodded.
"Now, I want you to picture Robotnik, dressed only in his underwear."
Amy snorted and held back a titter of laughter at the sheer incongruity of the mental image that was conjured up. "That's funny" she gasped upon recovering
"Never mind. Just relax. I'm gonna be there by your side and everything be fine. Besides aren't you glad that you're returning home?"
Amy frowned "I was very young when I left. I don't even remember my parents. Just what cousin Rob told me about them. Um, you said something about my cousin—"
"We've got to be proactive, looking for new allies in the fight. Some of the new arrivals suggested there was some sort of resistance group based in Mercia calling themselves the 'Crazy Cats' or something like that and your cousin Rob O' Hedge was supposed to be leading the movement." Retrieving the hip flask from Amy, Sally flipped open her palm pad NICOLE to get her bearings. "According to NICOLE we're deep in their territory now and I've haven't heard hide nor hair of them."
"I'm sorry," Amy whispered.
"Hey Amy, it's all right. I just thought that maybe because Mercia was the least developed of the provinces. Nothing much for Robotnik's to retool. I thought that maybe - "
Then, taking a step forward the forest floor seemed to creak beneath Amy's shoes.
Sally frowned. "That wasn't a twig. That sounded like-"
Amy gasped as the ground gaped open beneath her. "Sally!" she screamed, and then she slid down into darkness.
Without hesitation or thought, Sally pointed her hands and leapt as if diving into deep water. She slipped through the trapdoor just before it snapped closed.
A stream of leaves, twigs, and dirt fell with her. Amy struck a hard, smooth surface tilted at a steep angle. It knocked the wind from her lungs, and she began to slide. Gasping, she thrust her arms out and tried to grab something to arrest her descent, but only met more of the same surface. Unable to find a purchase, she plummeted headfirst into pitch darkness.
She took in a gasp of air and rasped, "Amy!"
Amy, somewhere down below, shouted something unintelligible back. Her body slid partway up a rounded wall as she struck a curve. With a hand, she found a lip and thereby discovered that she was sliding down a trough rather than a tube as she initially believed. She tried to grab the lip, but her momentum was too great, and it slid from her grasp
"Sally!" Amy shouted again. She sounded even farther away.
"You're all right!" Sally shouted back. "I'm here!"
The darkness lessened, and Amy could now see stalactites, edged with green light, glistening overhead. The light was coming from down below, where, over the lip of the trough, she could see a forest of impossible huge Stalagmites dangling from the ceiling.
"Oh gosh!" Amy shrieked.
"Stay with me, Amy!" Sally called back having managed a firm grip of her charge's hands.
The trough grew steeper, and Amy hit her face hard on the bottom, scraping a patch of flesh away from her chin. Up ahead, Sally, her signature blue vest resembling chlorine in the greenish light shot out of the end of the trough and crashed into the churning waters below. The water was shockingly cold, striking like a thousand knives through her skin. Like a vice, the water closed over her barrel, pushed against her ribs, and stole her breath. Sally's soft hands lost their grip and the world fell silent save the churning of water.
But even here in this forsaken place, there was air and warmth. She washed up in a cavern, wandering and stumbling for what she was certain were many hours until the sun was a golden beacon perched on the rim of the subterranean world. Amy, now hopelessly lost, found herself in a rocky waste with no clear memory of how she had made her way there.
Unsure in which direction home lay in the depths of the cavern below she shivered partly out of the fear that coursed through her veins and partly from the chilly air. A harsh wind swept across the desolate landscape, picked up dust and grit, and flung them in her face.
"Toto," she muttered. "We're not in Kansas anymore." Amy looked around for any trace of Sally before giving up. "I'd best find some sheltered place to sleep."
She leaned against a rocky wall to rest and find her bearings, only to gasp when, with a harsh, hollow noise like grating stone, the wall opened to reveal a dank tunnel full of inky darkness. Amy trembled again, when a gust of chill wind blew through, as she stared into the black. The opening promised shelter from the wind, so she stepped inside. But as soon as she cleared the entrance, the stone again ground shut.
"Fiddlesticks, how shall anyone find me now," she whined Though she couldn't see, she could hear a steady clanking up ahead as if something metal were repeatedly striking against .stone.
The floor of the cave was slick under her buckled shoes. Several times, she fell as she tried to make her way across the treacherous, slippery landscape. Fragile helictites shattered to dust when she stumbled against them. Occasionally, she plunged up to her knees into cold, slimy water. Still, she climbed from the water and kept walking.
Gradually, she began to be able to discern shapes in the dimness. Cenotes, often surrounding lumpish, glistening stalagmites, glowed with a soft green light. Layered draperies of calcite pulsed and shimmered with colour fringed the mouths of tunnels which seemed hand-made rather than natural. Hints of red and blue shone from shafts overhead. Some of the stalactites twinkled with a faint inner fire, as though they were like primitive lanterns enclosing fireflies. Amy found one hanging as low as her nose and she approached it cautiously, expecting it to be hot. But when she reached out and touched it, but found it cool.
The glow grew brighter until it became like reddish dusk, and the details of the cave's delicate formations were plain to Amy's eyes. At the centre of a great shelf above a vast pit, the bottom of which stood a being of metal. A creature spoke of only in hushed whispers: a Robian. In his metallic fingers, he held a long metal pole with a small barbed tip. Curiously, however, this one displayed no untoward hint of aggression toward her
Her knees shaking, Amy approached the machine. "Excuse me, sir, but I seem to have lost my way. Could you—?"
The Robian that was once Armand D'Coolette stroked a metal whisker just below his chin. His glowing blue photoreceptors seemed to crinkle as he smiled. "What have we here? Another worker for the master." His voice was stern and gentle but roughened slightly with age, much like a doting grandfather.
Amy's knees shook so hard, that as she backpedalled she fell onto her back. "Who are you?" she cried. "Where am I? I wanna go back home!"
"I am The Marshal, loyal Satrap to Robotnik. This-" he began indicating the cavern Amy now stood in "will be your new home. You will stay here and dig ores with the other Mobians who haven't received the privilege of being clad in steel and silicon as I."
"Other Mobians—?" Amy stood and tried to run from the deranged Robian, but was shocked to find that the drone had in spite of its clunky appearance rushed upon her with a burst of speed and seized her by the arm. Amy struggled frantically but found herself being unable to break free.
As if she were nothing but a sack of sugar, he tossed her over his back and into a tunnel where several other Mobians were using a wide complement of crude tools to smash stones and reveal the dull ochre ores within.
"They will show you what do to," The Marshal said. With one hand, he dumped a terrified Amy unceremoniously on the floor, leaving her in a heap. Then he slipped away into the darkness as though he had never been.
Amy arose shakily and walked to the nearest fellow Mobian. Her eyes had just enough time to adjust to the pervasive darkness and could just about discern the form of a lanky moose with an impressive rack of antlers "Boy am I glad to see you," Amy said. "We've got to get out of here—"
But there she paused, gasping when the Mobian turned a dirt-streaked face toward her. A section of antler completely gone and an ugly burn just under his left eye. It reminded Amy of scrambled eggs, burned and whisked together. "Too late f'r us," the moose whispered, his voice as hollow as if speaking through a brass tube. "Thee need to get out while thee still can."
Amy whined loudly when she felt a whisker-coated nose rub against her shoulder. She turned to see a sparrow with clipped and atrophied wings dragging along the ground. The sparrow's feathers were matted and filthy.
Amy screamed.
The Marshal wielded an electrified prod. When Amy refused to dig or failed to dig fast enough she would be struck with a blow that seared like fire. Tears poured from her eyes as she smashed the crude mallet into the stone walls of the cave, monotonously chipping and scratching, burrowing like a mole in search of those minerals for which Robotnik lusted after. Whenever exhaustion overwhelmed her and she collapsed, the prod was always there to goad her on again.
Her muscles ached. She could barely walk, let alone dig, but the beatings didn't cease. They smote her and drove her into narrow, twisting tunnels where she crawled in pitch blackness as the rough stone ceiling scraped loose quills from her back and the rough stone floor scraped flesh from her legs and belly until at last, she saw a sliver of dull brownish ore up ahead. Then, unable to turn around, she wearily crawled backwards with the lump of ochre-coloured rock in hand.
She could not discern the passage of days and nights. She did not know how long she was forced to work, but every so often, just when she thought she could not lift her arms to take another swing the abuse abated. She fell against the cool ground and nothing struck her to make her rise again. Then, her captor reappeared and laid before her a bowl of watery gruel. Sometimes, he whispered sweet and kind words of encouragement making the torment all the more horrible.
Relief came when she was allowed to sleep. She nestled with the others, who always huddled for warmth. There were thirteen of them, thin, emaciated creatures and they all had hollow voices as if fading into ghosts. Coughing and wheezing echoed through the cave in which they slumbered, but Amy slept anyway, being too exhausted to be kept awake.
The one with the dyed hair with flecks of purple was named Mina Mongoose. During a break, she nestled against Amy, pressed her nose to her cheek, and whispered, "Do you see?"
"Yes," Amy whispered back.
Working her mouth as if she were nibbling on cud, Mina gently ran her hands covered with sores over Amy's face. "I think you must be very pretty." Her voice cracked as she added, "I know I was pretty once, long ago. If you may, tell me please, am I still pretty now?"
Amy could dimly discern Mina Mongoose's outline in the dark. Her ribs showed through the torn rags of a dress. Her limbs had become bony and wasted. Crisscrossing her body were cuts, abrasions, and scars. When Mina stumbled Amy could see her joints were swollen and bruised, and on her legs were running sores.
"Yes," Amy said. "Yes, you're still very pretty."
The former starlet smiled, closed her weary eyes, and slept.
Even compared to the others, Mina was especially thin, and oftentimes her high-pitched, wheezy cough would echo through the darkness. Amy noted, when the thin watery gruel was doled out by their unfeeling captor, the others didn't finish theirs, but left half an inch in their bowls and, silently, pushed them in front Mina and coaxed her to drink.
Though the ever-pervasive pangs of hunger gnawed her, Amy knew she still had a plump body from eating heartily in Knothole. Feeling somewhat guilty, she began to push some of her rations in front of Mina as well. Mina coughed and, urged by her friends, ate as much as she could, which was often not much.
That male sparrow with the dragging wings, whom the others called Bow Sparrow whispered, "Mina doesn't have long."
"She'll go, just liketh the oth'rs," Friar Buck, the moose with the missing antler whispered back.
"Long for what?" Amy asked. "Like what others?"
They didn't answer, but the time came when Amy, staggering back to the sleeping cave from another long session of digging and pain, found Mina laying on her side in a work tunnel as if taking a nap. "You can't sleep here," Amy said. "Come on home." She beckoned. No response came and Amy bent close to Mina's cheeks, but no breath came from her nose, and chest remained stock still.
From somewhere up the tunnel, Amy heard a hacking cough and then another. She understood: Dust. That was why their voices sounded hollow. That was why they coughed. She breathed deep and realized her chest felt heavy and tight. She murmured and noted her voice was beginning to sound hollow as well. In time, she knew she would end up just like Mina.
Sometimes, as she worked on the edge of one of the cavern's ledges Amy would look down to see needle-like stalagmites jutting upward through the darkness. She would get dizzy, and they would seem to leap up at her. She tried not to think about it, but her imagination ran wild, allowing her to clearly envision sharp fingers of rock gouging deep into the skin, pry past her ribs, and dig deep into her body.
The thought sent a sickly, crawling sensation coursing through her veins and she shook as if a horde of flies had descended upon her for she realized the thing she had never realized before: she was going to die. Somehow, soon, whether by slipping or through slow starvation and lung-sickness, she was going to fall down and not get up.
When that revelation struck her, the world changed shape, and all at once the threats and the stings from his stun baton no longer mattered. Wincing as her bruised feet sent shocks up her legs, she marched over to the chambers and said to her fellow wretched slaves, "Follow me."
Hollow-eyed faces met her own and the first, Bow Sparrow, asked "Followeth? Wh're?"
"Just do it."
"Now is a moment of rest," Thorn the Lop, a white rabbit protested.
Friar Buck didn't bother to move, "Why? Th're will be w'rk and pain enow tom'rrow."
"Consarnit," Amy cursed. "I'm going to leave and get help from the Freedom Fighters. We've got to get out of here!"
"Stay," Thorn said. "It will all be better if we just give in."
"At least try!" Amy cried. "Please! What more can he do? Kill us? We're dying anyway. If you love freedom, if you even remember freedom, then rally to me."
For a moment, the slaves were silent, but then Bow Sparrow, though on his knees wobbled "I rememb'r freedom and the warmeth drafteth of the th'rmals sending me skybound." pausing to flex one dragging wing Bow Sparrow continued " l might nev'r flyeth again, but i still wanteth to beest free. I shall followeth thee"
Thorn Lop, grunting, took to her feet as well. " In summ'r solstice, the kitchen wast so warmeth, and the smelleth of sweet ging'r did fill" The rabbit paused, ruefully staring at her hands which were covered in cramps and sores. " I may nev'r baketh again, but i still wanteth to beest free. I shall followeth thee"
One by one, the residents of Mercia rose as well. Each spoke her story. Each declared their need to be free. At last, only Munch Rat a sickly Mobian dressed in a torn green tunic remained on the floor.
"Tis not w'rth it," he groaned. Though masked by darkness, Amy could see fresh tears streaking Munch Rat's cheeks. " What doest it matt'r if I am free? Ev'rything that was dear to me I has't hath lost and can nev'r has't backeth again."
A tear ran down Amy's own face. "Please," she begged. "I can't give you back your old life, but at least take back yourself. The Marshal has taken so much of you already. Don't let him have the rest."
"Cometh with us, Munch Rat" Friar Buck whispered. "Please f'r old times' sake."
"In the old times with the Crazy Kilters," wheezed Bow Sparrow, " thee w're nev'r one to giveth up, nay matt'r how hard the going wast. Thee can't giveth up now"
"Please," said Thorn.
"How?" Munch Rat asked. " Wh're do we even go?"
"I know a place that is free and safe," Amy answered, "you can follow me there." She looked back and forth among the exhausted, sickly Mobians. Though her throat hurt, her chest felt heavy, and her voice sounded ungainly in her ears, she began a piping off-key hum to the beat of the heavy footsteps behind her. Amy picked her way across the broken cavern floor until she came at last to her captor's domain.
The Robian stood in place and rubbing a metallic whisker stared at the slaves and asked in a gentle mocking tone, "What do you want, slaves? Return to your place and sleep."
"No," Amy answered. "No more."
"You will not work?" The Marshal hissed gripping one metal fist.
She shook her head.
"Then you will suffer."
As anticipated, the Robian lashed out with his instrument of torture, lighting crackled forth and raced through the young girl's body. Amy's knees buckled, and tears fell from her eyes. She fought every one of her panicked instincts. The ones that told her to beg and cry.
She took to her feet, gritted her teeth, and growled, "No more."
"Then you will die." The Marshal raised a metal fist, and lightning seemed to arc from the baton in his hand. In the twinkle of an eye, he struck Amy in the bosom again with his impeccable swordsmanship; a holdover when Armand still lived and breathed. Amy fell back and howled.
"I give you one more chance," The Marshal said, his voice soft kind and reasonable to Amy's frazzled mind. "You may dig, sleep and eat your meals, or perish in agony. Choose."
Amy didn't answer. She only rose and took a deep breath. She winced against the burning pain that stretched tightly across her chest. She dug in her feet, and, with a snort, she charged., running straight at the flabbergasted Robian, mallet in hand.
As she raced, she felt anger course through her body. She swung wildly and an enormous toy piko-piko hammer materialized into her hands. Not questioning her stroke of good fortune, she swung the mallet as hard as she could. With a loud crunch as the toy hammer made contact. The Marshal's eyes opened wide before he staggered backwards and tumbled off a cliff, his arms extended as though reaching for the ledge. Amy never heard him strike the ground.
Then, Amy heard an explosion. Something sliced her left side, feeling like a hammer pounding against her ribs and refusing to let up. A similar blow slammed into her left hind leg. The explosion echoed from the cavern walls, and stalactites cracked and fell, shattering with a sound like breaking glass. After a minute, all was silent except for the quiet trickle of gravel and the hiss of settling the dust.
"The Freedom Fighters!" she suggested.
Then began the endless trek to the surface. With acid burning in her throat, she walked, throbbing feet sent pains like knife cuts straight up into her skull, and though festering wounds on her knees wept pus. Her head throbbed, and her chest, burned by The Marshal's blows blazed as if struck by a branding iron.
Behind her, the slave Mobians followed. In too much exhaustion to scream or moan, they merely breathed in rhythmic gasps as they stumbled in the dark. They were past the point of crying, past the point even of giving up. They walked and kept walking because the act of lying down to die would have taken too much thought, too much will: their decision to follow had drained the last of their energy, and they now staggered on because they had suffered until they could do nothing except suffer further.
Tears poured from Amy's own eyes. "Oh, Sally," she whimpered. "Where are you? Why have you left me here? Will it not end? Will none of this ever end?" She doubled over and vomited on the floor.
After what seemed like years, decades, or centuries, they turned a corner in the cavern, and Amy beheld a blinding white light from outside. At last, the dusty, suffocating air of the cave fell away, and she breathed fresh, clean air for the first time in more days than she knew. She fell down at the cavern mouth, kissed the ground, and wept.