The Goblin Bride (Beneath Sands Book 1)

in the ground. We didn’t think anything of it, just stepped past it and kept going.”
  “I went back to get more water for us. I wasn’t gone that long, but it must have been long enough. Something came out of that hole, something big. Bigger than the five of us, and I’m no small man.” He chuckled, though nerves showed clearly in the sound.
  “I stood there frightened out of my wits. I watched as this beast came up out of the ground and started tearing at them. There was blood on the walls. It kept knocking their heads against the side of the rock and then it flung their bodies down the hole it had come out of. Each man it pulled the helmets off of. Like it wanted to leave a hint that it had been there. Like it wanted to mark its territory and let us know that it didn’t appreciate us disturbing it.”
  He shuddered. The largest man she had ever met, shuddering in fear at a memory that he could not understand.
  “It looked back at me. I looked right into those soulless eyes and saw nothing but black. It was the most terrifying thing I have ever seen in my life.”
  “So you can see, Lad, I know there’s something down here with us. But the next time I see one, I’ll be taking its head off with my axe.”
  Her legs had drawn up as he spoke, curling into herself. Suddenly every shadow and every drip of water sounded like something far different. The mines were more dangerous than she had ever imagined. There wasn’t just the risk of cave ins or men killing her for a gemstone. Now there was also the worry that some kind of creature would be crawling up out of the caverns to kill her.
  The hardhats made sense now. There wasn’t any light down here other than the ones on their heads. Anything could be standing just ten feet away from them and neither she nor Simon would be able to see it. If only they gave them stronger lights, or took the initiative to put electric lights down here, then perhaps it might have been safer. But who really was going to believe the explanation that there were monsters here they needed to see?
  “Hey.” The sound of Simon’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “Lad, there’s nothing that’s going to get us down here. I wasn’t ready years ago. I am now.”
  “How can you be ready for something like that Simon?” She asked quietly. “How could either of us possibly fight against something that lives in these caves?”
  He got up to kneel in front of her, the wrinkles around his eyes evident. “Yer young. Ye don’t know what it takes fer a man ta kill another thing.” He patted Jane’s knee in that firm way of his. “I do. You let me do the worrying. Now we’ve got to get back to work.”
His words made her uncomfortable. He knew what it was to kill a man? She didn’t know anyone who had ever murdered another. Their mining town was not one filled with convicts. What he said would haunt her.
  Those rocks wouldn’t break themselves so it seemed. Every strike made her arms tremble, this time from something more than just shear force. She was finding herself listening a little too hard for the sounds around them. One of the men in a nearby tunnel would shout and Jane would jump in response. Before the goblins had just been stories, but now they were something much more than that.
  The rest of the day passed at a sluggish crawl. Every hit against the stone seemed to take eons longer. Every sound made her flinch towards the rocks as though something was going to attack her at any minute. But throughout the rest of the day there was nothing to make her think that something could be in there with her. There was no movement or sound that seemed questionable. As always, the cave remained quiet.
  Eventually she calmed once again. She hadn’t been working in these mines for two weeks without starting to understand them. The echoes from other miners were calming. Sometimes she could hear an excited shout, then the teasing laughter of others as they realized the “stone” the man had found was nothing but a simple rock.
  The mines were an easy place to be for someone that was looking for camaraderie. These men were loyal to each other and to the cause. Surprisingly, they wanted to find the gemstones. That was where the loyalty would end. There was a reason everyone jumped at even the slightest hint of stones. Some would steal from others, but most would likely kill. In the end, friendship only lasted so long.
  So consumed was she in her thoughts that, once again, she hadn’t noticed Simon had stopped his work until he tapped on her shoulder. Breath sawing out of her chest, she turned to look at him.
  “My light’s starting to go out.”
  Sure enough, the light on his helmet was flickering every so often. They couldn’t afford to have a light go out down here, not when it was their only chance to see.
  “I’ll be right back. Ye gonna be alright by yerself for a moment laddie?”
  She had calmed down enough to know that there was very little chance of something terrible happening while he was gone. So many men worked in these tunnels on their own, and no one had miraculously disappeared from them. Perhaps the creatures didn’t live in these tunnels, or perhaps they didn’t care about the humans any more.
  Whatever the reason, Jane was not a child. She did not hide in her mother’s skirts or worry about nightmares. These shadow beasts could very well just be the figment of a man’s imagination. So she nodded at Simon, gave him a shaky smile, and wiped sweat off of her upper lip.
  “I’ll be alright. You keep your light on. Holler if you need me to