"Wake up, you dozy devil!" a harsh voice grated above him, and the boot nudged him again.
He stirred and rolled onto his side, shielding bruised ribs. With an effort, he rose to a sitting position. The chain and fat padlock binding his right ankle to the staple in the wall dragged on the flagstone floor with a teeth-hurting jangle. He grunted and glared up at the ogre standing over him. "I'm awake, I'm awake."
"Good." The creature leered, exposing rotting teeth like ancient gravestones. Greg thought it was like staring through the gates of a disused cemetery. The creature flung a hunk of black bread into Greg's lap. "Eat quick. You work."
Greg stared at the unappetizing fare. "The old refrain, you sweet-talker, you."
The ogre snorted and stalked off to persecute the other slaves. Greg fumbled for the battered tin mug and dipped it in the basin carved in the rock wall. A slow trickle of water filled it over time from a hidden source. He drank. It tasted brackish as always. He guessed it was full of mineral salts. Drink up, Gregory! People pay good money for this stuff back home. He wondered how many times he'd told himself that. His brain shied away from the thought.
Greg chewed the bread, wiped long hair from his face and stared around the cell. Nothing had changed overnight — or whatever period of time equated to night on this world. The walls were of crude stone blocks, mortared together in slapdash fashion. The roof looked like one solid piece of stone. One side lay open to a passageway connecting several cells together. He could hear coughs and groans, occasional sobs and even screams from other slaves as the ogre went about his business. The air reeked of urine and feces. Greg realized he'd grown used to the stench.
He muttered a curse and finished the bread. No chance to gain weight on this diet. He felt the bruising on his chest and noticed with a shock how much his ribs protruded. I'm losing weight fast. Thoughts of escape surged up in his mind. He felt his heart beat faster in classic fight-or-flight reaction. A fight's out of the question after what the ogre did to that guy who defied him the other day. The ogre had literally beaten one slave to a pulp before the horrified gaze of the others for daring to stand up to him. Two of them had to drag the bloody remains to the garbage chute. Greg shuddered.
Heavy footsteps announced the ogre's return along the passageway and Greg stumbled to his feet. He stood ready when the creature appeared to release his chain from the wall. It gestured him out of the cell, cuffing him on the back of the head as he passed to fall into line with the other slaves as they emerged. The scumbag must be in a good mood today.
The ogre fastened the slaves to a long length of chain with manacles attached, before leading them a mile along a lamp-lit tunnel to the work-face. Another ogre waited here impatiently, its slaves already chained and whipped into line. The two creatures snarled at each other as they changed shifts. Their slaves merely waited listlessly until the spat subsided and the other ogre marched away up the tunnel, all but dragging his workers behind in his eagerness to quit the shift.
Greg and his fellows were pushed to the pile of tools dropped by the other slaves, mostly shovels, picks and sledgehammers, before moving to the coal-face. Their overseers chained them to a long rod stretching along the work area and barked a command to begin. Greg plied his pick with as much energy as he could muster.
"A heck of a comedown for a civil engineer to do the donkey work," he groused, his voice covered by the noise of many tools.
The emaciated man working alongside him glanced his way. "Keep quiet, fool, unless you want to follow Erik down the chute."
Greg winced at the memory. "Screw you, too, Mungenast," he retorted in a quieter tone. Mungenast cackled and Greg glared at his grimy face where he could see it amid the matted black whiskers. They hadn't been paired off for long before Greg surmised the man was a swivel-eyed lunatic. He wondered how long it would be before Mungenast tried to bite an ogre slavemaster.
They worked for hours until Greg could hardly lift the pick. The air grew fetid with the stink of coal dust and body wastes. Slaves remained chained at all times. When they needed to relieve themselves, they tried to do so away from the immediate area where they worked. The ogre allowed them this much before kicking and punching them if they didn't move back to work fast enough.
The creature swaggered along from farther up the line, the leg of some kind of large bird clutched in its hands. Tearing at the greasy-looking meat with its brown fangs, the ogre passed the slaves, black eyes peering from beneath lowering brows. All those upon whom the gaze fell, flinched, expecting a blow. Some weren't disappointed. The ogre had a sporadic view of inflicting punishment.
The ogre drew near Greg. It took a large bite of the almost-finished leg and kicked out at Mungenast in passing. Mungenast stumbled, caught hold of the creature's foot by instinct and caused it to stagger off-balance — at which point the ogre swallowed the meat and began to choke.
All the sounds of mining slowed to a stop as Greg and the other slaves lowered their tools and turned to stare at their captor. It staggered, grasping its throat and making choking sounds as its ugly face turned blue. For a moment, Greg considered smacking its back to dislodge the morsel, possibly earning the creature's undying thanks.
Then reality hit home. He raised his pick, took a step and a good long swing, and buried the vicious point deep in the ogre's chest.
The impact caused
