CHAPTER 14. THE ESCAPE

Quite a lot of time passed before Mor decided to act. The first thing he did was tell Vuk to shout loudly.
“Why?” Vuk asked in surprise.
“Someone must be by the door. After all, there’s no way they aren’t guarding us. So, when he hears a shout, he’ll open the door to check. And that’s exactly what we need. We’ll be able to see whether it’s still day outside, or already night,” Mor explained.
“Right. Got it. And what should I say if the guard asks what’s wrong?”
“Think of something. It doesn’t matter. The main thing is for him to open the door. Well, say, for example, that you have no strength left from the centipedes, that they bite very painfully.”
“Got it. And why should I be the one shouting, and not Nuk?” Vuk wouldn’t let up.
“Because you’ll do it better. You’re a born shouter, after all. And besides, such an important task will help atone for your loose tongue,” Mor answered and smiled. But in the dark, naturally, no one saw it.
“Got it. I’ll do it in the best possible way. So, should I start?”
“Start,” Mor commanded.
“Aaaaah, it hurts so much! My poor little head! Bring light!”
Vuk shouted so loudly that Mor’s and Nuk’s ears rang.
Silence fell, and the goblins began listening carefully to every sound. But unfortunately, they didn’t hear the sound of the door opening. Then Vuk, without asking anymore, shouted even louder and again demanded light. To the nearly deafened Mor and Nuk, it seemed that even the centipedes had scurried into the cracks from such a shout. Nevertheless, the door didn’t open again.
“Vuk, one more time. If no one opens it, we’ll take the risk anyway and get out now. And you can shout a bit quieter.”
“Got it. Shouting.”
Before Vuk managed to shout even two words, the door opened, and a displeased voice came from it:
“So what’s happened here? You’ve been screaming for the third time already. I’d only just dozed off a little.”
“If you heard everything, why didn’t you open it after the first shout? I was shouting that it hurts and that they should bring light,” Vuk shouted indignantly.
“So what if it hurts someone in there. That’s none of my business. And I’m not going to bring light either,” the voice from the door said.
“Why aren’t you going to?” Vuk asked, even a little insolently.
“Because I’m forbidden to go into the cellar. Only if one of you dies. Has anyone died?”
“No,” Vuk answered.
The door closed. But the goblins had already made out, in that moment, that not even a faint light came through the door.
Mor finally opened his palm, carefully put the warm pouch in his mouth, and bit into it. He felt a thick, slightly sweetish liquid slowly spreading over his tongue. But now was not the best time to enjoy the taste of the Ant Power, and Mor quickly swallowed it.
It’s tasty, he managed to think, before he began to feel everything Azuel had told him about.
His body grew warm, and a few moments later felt a surge of incredible strength.
“So how are you?” Nuk asked, who had already begun to worry about why Mor was silent.
“Good. Even very good. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life.”
“So the Ant Power has started working?” Vuk asked.
“I’ll check now.”
Mor wanted to get out of the cellar through the far wall, because there it would be less audible when he started digging a passage. But first he needed to get out of the cage. He stretched out his arms and began moving in small steps in the direction opposite the entrance door. The cage was not very large. So he quickly felt the iron barrier in front of him and began to bend the bars. At first they gave way easily, but to squeeze through, he needed to bend them further.
After that Mor had to use all his strength. The master who had made the cage knew his craft perfectly well. He had bound the vertical bars with two thick lengthwise strips. So the bars bent quite easily forward and back. But spreading them apart sideways turned out to be very difficult.
Mor didn’t have enough strength to tear the strips and free the bars. He could only bend them, which he was now doing, waiting for the iron to crack. After struggling a little, he managed to make a hole through which it was possible, though with difficulty, to squeeze.
He climbed out of the cage first. Next was Vuk’s turn. However, for him the hole turned out to be too small. And he got stuck.
The poor goblin tried everything. First he sucked in his belly, then he kneaded it as much as he could with his hands, pressed on his sides, and swore before the Supreme Rider that he would fast for ten days. Nothing helped. He began begging Mor to give him a good pull and finally free him from the trap. Mor, of course, could have pulled Vuk out. But he couldn’t promise he’d pull him out whole and unharmed. So he refused, despite Vuk’s insistent pleas.
Meanwhile Nuk was growing more and more nervous. After all, the door might open at just such an inopportune moment.
In desperation, Vuk even told Mor to make another hole for Nuk, so that the two of them could escape. He would stay here, hold his tongue, and steadfastly accept whatever the treacherous Warden Appo had in store for him. He only asked that they bring help as quickly as possible, because his endurance most likely wouldn’t hold out for long.
Of course, neither Mor nor Nuk intended to abandon Vuk, and both were ready to stay if he couldn’t be pulled out. Right now they were frantically running through their minds what they could possibly do.
At that moment a centipede fell on Nuk again. And right then an idea came to him. He didn’t shake the centipede off — instead, he grabbed it. With his other hand he immediately began feeling around for Vuk’s leg. The centipede tried to break free and bit the goblin’s fingers desperately. But he endured it, continuing his search.
Before long he felt the leg, placed the writhing body on it, and at that same moment bit his brother’s heel as hard as he could.
“Aaaaah!…”
Vuk howled in wild pain and thought that a particularly bloodthirsty centipede had reached his leg and was now about to start gnawing on his heel.
Terror seized him. He began flailing his legs in every direction, knocking Nuk over. Then he grabbed the cage with his hands and felt such a burst of strength that he pushed himself out of the iron trap.
Having crashed to the ground with a scraped belly and sides, Vuk immediately began feeling his heel. Fortunately, it turned out to be intact. There was only a small wound from the bite.
“I nearly lost my leg,” he breathed out in relief. “Nuk, the hole’s free. Let’s get out of here quickly, while we still have all our arms and legs.”
Nuk left the cage without any trouble, while Mor, meanwhile, had already felt out the wall and pulled out several stones near the top to reach the earth. After thinking for a moment, he removed a few more stones from the bottom row.
“Now no one will get stuck for sure,” he said aloud.
One last obstacle remained before the goblins. But it turned out to be an easy one. It cost Mor no effort to dig a passage through the earth. He cleared the dirt away with his hands so quickly that any mole would have envied him.
Quite quickly a small opening appeared, through which a ray of light broke in. It puzzled the goblins. After all, just recently, when the door had opened, it had been dark. Could they really have been at this until morning?
But when Mor finished his work and climbed outside, it became clear that this was the light of the Cold Sun. Nuk and Vuk also climbed out of the cellar without any trouble.
Now the goblins had to decide what to do next.
“We need to get home as quickly as possible and tell Warden Ogl everything,” Mor said firmly.
“You’ve got so much strength in you right now that you could handle all their warriors. So I say we fight. “Let’s get back at Warden Appo for everything we had to go through because of him. Especially for my torn-up body,” Vuk proposed, with a warlike air.
“Just understand — I’ll be stronger than them only until they drink Ant Power, and they have plenty of it. And then what? They’ll seize you even without Ant Power. We need to run from here,” Mor insisted.
“Let’s at least take our own rams, and grab one more of theirs while we’re at it. And we could take Brakha with us. I think he’d agree, because he’s got nothing to lose here,” Nuk proposed.
“We won’t be able to ride on rams for a long time. They need rest, and we’d have to keep stopping. And what if Warden Appo finds out soon that we’ve escaped and sets off after us in pursuit? With Ant Power they’d easily catch up to our rams. So right now we need to get away from here fast, and as far as possible,” Mor repeated once more.
“And how are we supposed to do that?” Nuk asked.
“My strength will last two days. So we’ll run. Now, if rams turned up along the way afterward, that would be good.”
“You’ll have it, sure, but we don’t. And honestly, I’m not much of a runner. And besides, I’m seriously injured,” Vuk said, pointing to his belly and heel.
“Trust me, I’ll have enough strength to carry you both too,” Mor said with a smile.
“How’s that?” Nuk asked, not understanding.
“I’ll show you now. Wait a little.”
Mor climbed back into the cellar and came out with three cloaks. This was the only thing they had left. He was sorry to leave them here. Besides, with nothing else at all for the long journey, even cloaks might come in useful. Last of all, Mor covered the passage over with dirt.
Now they needed to figure out the best way to carry Nuk and Vuk. First Mor set them on his shoulders and, holding their legs, tried to run. But he quickly realized this was awkward. The brothers kept bouncing and sliding off, and part of Vuk hung in the air entirely. Mor stopped, thought for a moment, and scooped the goblins up under his arms. Now, even though they dangled at his sides, at least they no longer got in the way of his running.
The night was bright. In the distance a river gleamed silver, and Mor used it to find his direction. However, he had no intention of approaching it. On the contrary, he wanted to go as deep into the forest as possible. If a pursuit began, they would be much harder to find among the trees.
Mor ran without stopping until dawn itself. The valley had long since fallen behind. When it began to grow light around them, a low hill appeared up ahead, slightly off to the side. Mor decided to climb it, to look around and let his brothers rest. He himself felt no tiredness, but Nuk and Vuk had long since been begging him to stop, even if only for a little while. From the constant jolting, Nuk’s head was splitting, and Vuk was tormented by nausea.
While the brothers came to themselves, Mor peered intently back toward where they had escaped from. He noticed no movement at all.
We can relax a little now and give Vuk and Nuk more time to rest, Mor thought.
Though there was no pursuit behind them, no less a danger might be waiting ahead. The goblins were approaching the Black Lands.