Free From the Ashes by Gareth K Pengelly

clear.
                  “Will I still be… me?”
                  Air landed atop his shoulder, stroking his cheek with a tiny, slender hand.
                  “You will always be you, Stone.”
                  He nodded.
                  “Then do it.”
                  Fire roared, filling the gargantuan cavern with his orange, incendiary glow.
                  Then let us begin. Let us take the weapon of our enemy and turn it against them.
                 
     
    ***
     
    The laughter came out in desperate fits of giggles. They knew it was madness, but the more they tried to hold it in, the harder it threatened to burst out. This East Coast wine was potent stuff…
                  “Crabs?”
                  The word sent them both into muffled hysterics yet again. Naresh wiped tears from his eyes as they settled down.
                  “You survive being raided by Slavers. Then you endure hauling a block up the heights of the Beacon. Then you escape the Clansmen that try to murder you by leaping a thousand foot drop. And out of all this, it was the crabs that scared you?”
                  “They were big crabs,” Jafari chuckled, as he took yet another swig from the bottle before handing it over to the Steppes man.
    Naresh accepted the drink gratefully, the aching in his chest slowly beginning to subside. The silence and darkness of the cellar was comforting, a safe and sure cocoon that granted the two fugitives some respite from the horrors of the world outside. As they settled, they had time to think, each ruminating over the fates of their respective families.
    “Your family,” began the Nomad. “They live in the city? Do you see them often?”
    Naresh sighed.
    “They live in the city, yes. But I don’t get to see them too often. Maybe once a month or so. They work us hard in the Pen and we have little time to ourselves. And we live deep beneath the Keep, in the servants’ quarters. It takes a long time to make our way up to the outside world and into the city.”
    Jafari nodded in understanding, taking a bite out of a hunk of cheese they’d carved from a wheel. Rats, thought Naresh, with a smile.
    “How about yourself?” he asked in turn. “When did you last see your family?”
    The Nomad looked downcast at the question and Naresh guessed the answer before the other man had even spoken.
    “Taken,” he replied, his heavily accented voice low, all levity gone now. “At the same time as I was. They dragged me off in a net and I was knocked out as I hit my head. The last I remember of my sisters is the looks of horror on their faces as the Savaran bore down on us.” He glanced down at the cheese in his hand, casting it aside, all appetite gone now. “I don’t suppose I’ll see them again. They could be miles away by now…”
    Silence for a few moments, a war waging within Naresh as he recalled the slaughter above, only a short time ago. He thought of his family, far off in the weapons district of the city, working the forges; there was no chance they could make it all the way there. His own family would have to take care of themselves, he thought, with an inward sob. But Jafari’s sisters…
    “Perhaps they’re not as far off as you might think…”
    The other man looked up, frowning, a tiny glimmer of hope in his eyes, reflected by the dim light of the lamp that sat between them.
    “How so?”
                  Naresh replied slowly as his mind raced, trying to remember the myriad routes he’d traced in the Warrens beneath the Pen.
                  “These tunnels we’re in; they don’t just go up and down from the docks to the kitchens – they go further beneath the Pen. Even as far as the prisons beneath the Arena and the Market…”
                  The Nomad leapt up, this new information lending fresh strength to