Free The Elemental Jewels (Book 1) by Jeffrey Quyle

may or may not float in here tonight, depending on what they may be doing for Matey.”
    “Does everyone do something for Matey?” Grange asked as he crawled into his covers, anxious to warm up.
    Grange fell into an uneasy sleep that night, despite how tired his body felt from the terrible rigors of the journey to the labor camp.  He was vaguely aware of men who entered and left the tent, but when a loud bugle awoke him early the next morning, he found no further men had entered to sleep in the tent.
    "Go get breakfast first," one of the others recommended. 
    He sleepily complied, joining a long line to receive a meal much like the dinner the night before, except with lumpy porridge inside the bread bowl.   As he ate, he waved to Garrel when his friend passed by.
    Before Garrel returned though, a guard roused him from his seat. 
    "Get up and fall in," the guard barked.
    “But I just got here yesterday,” Grange unthinkingly protested.
    The guard uncoiled a whip that hung from his hip, and Grange hastily got up.
    “First day to work and you’re already on your way to the tunnel.  Congratulations!” the guard mocked him.  “Now, get in the line and follow,” he ordered.
    Dejected, fearful, and astonished again at how bad luck managed to multiple, Grange fell into line and trudged along behind the others.  They walked through the camp to the canal bed, then turned and followed the towpath along the canal, straight towards a sheer mountainside ahead.  Half an hour later, Grange looked in amazement at the steady stream of men who rolled wheelbarrows full of stone out of a dark entrance in the squared-off face of the mountain.
    “In you go,” the guard who had nabbed Grange ordered, and the squad of prison-laborers moved into the murky interior of the mountain.  Grange stumbled immediately in the nearly complete darkness, before his eyes gradually adjusted and he realized that there were widely spaced torches placed in brackets on the walls.  As they moved further into the interior of the tunnel they walked through sections where Grange heard constant dripping sounds, while the stone surface grew wet and slippery, and drizzles of cold water even fell on their heads.
    They passed a steady stream of men who were carting more stones out of the tunnel while they strode deep into the mountain.
    “How far does this go?” Grange asked the man closest to him.
    “It’s going to go all the way through the mountain,” the man answered in a low voice.  “This is the highest ridge the canal has to cross, and the Tyrant’s staff plans to go through the mountain instead of over it.
    “We’ve been working on this tunnel for six months, and we’re less than half way through.  Plus we lose a couple of men every day in here due to accidents or roof collapses or fights,” he explained.
    There was a ragged cheer from a work crew as the new arrivals approached.
    “This is your station.  Relieve the previous shift,” the guards ordered.  There was a disorderly changing of personnel, in which Grange found himself holding a pick at the end of the line, several feet away from anyone else, facing the blank wall that was the next portion of the mountain waiting to be pierced.
    “Get to work, you scrubs!  Get to work!” the guards started shouting.  Grange could see little in the thick darkness at his end of the cavern, where the rocky surroundings seemed to soak up the rays of light that weakly reached him.
    He raised his pick and swung it, breaking a small amount of rubble free from the wall, with a loud clanking noise and a momentary spark.  He heard the sound of the guards’ whips cracking somewhere nearby, so he raised the pick and swung it again, knocking more stones free.  He set a deliberate pace, trying to preserve his arms and shoulders and back from too much effort too early in the shift, then stopped ten minutes later when a pair of men with wheelbarrows and a lantern rolled up and hauled away the