Behind him he could hear the rumble of a rolling explosion echoing up the mine shafts. Behind him, Dwemer knew wounded men were being finished by either the blast of the explosion of crushed under the falling rock.
As the slaves fought their way to the surface, the Strangers were fighting their way down to try to prevent further collapse of the only escape of their entombed city. The strangers were tall, shrouded and powerful.
One stood up as a slave leaped at him with a pick. The stranger grasped the man in the air its long powerful arm, catching him by the throat and then crushing the neck and then throwing the limp body away. The man might have been little more than a mosquito. The stranger backhanded another man away, throwing the man to the side.
Dwemer ducked the sweep and swung up a long crowbar, catching the creature in the armpit. Had it been a man, Dwemer would have felt the impact of muscle and bone breaking under the blow. But instead the body just fell away, as if the cloak was held up by air alone. Beneath the falling cloak a dark black stain grew on the rock, and then disappeared into the earth.
The slaves had picked what weapons they had, shovels, axes and picks. A small group of the strangers tore through the slaves rushing up, a phalanx plowing through the mob of desperate slaves. Slaves threw themselves, occassionally bringing down one or the other, but not stopping the formation from reaching a juncture.
But too late. Even as they reached the place where the explosives had been hidden, a rumble tore up from below, turning bodies into fragments and liquid, and then exploding through the formation until it too was crushed under tons of rock.
Dwemer saw a stranger bring a man's head and woman together with bone crushing violence, then leave the bodies to fall. Than Ivan stabbed through the cloak, the sharp end of a shovel used as an instrument of impaling.
Yet no matter h ow powerful the strangers, the slaves pressed forward, using their numbers to overwhelm the powerful creatures that could not be men. For no matter how one sided was the strength of the strangers against any man, behind the men was certain doom. Already the mines had collapsed behind them, cutting off the long lost city again.
Dwemer saw one slave throwing sticks of dynamite down holes and corridors, regardless of whether he threw the exploding sticks at the aliens or his compatriot. One fuse was to fast, or perhaps he delayed his thrown but a thunder clap and a brilliant flash appeared near his arm. Dwemer turned away at the blast, but when he looked back he saw the man looking at the bleeding stump of an arm, then collapsed.
"We're almost there!" Called back Ivan, as other slaves broke through towards the control room.
The chip! The damn chip! It's almost there.
But even as Dwemer got closer to his destination he foresaw the future. The blasts in the mind had broken the back of the vault's structural integrity. It was beginning to crumble apart, it was collapsing.
A shower of rubbles and stones, and Dwemer was knocked to his feet. He tried to get up, but was beginning to be trampled underfoot by the slaves desperate to escape the collapsing tunnels.
Then Dwemer felt arms grasp him and pull him up. "You're not going to die now are you?" Said Ivan, his rescuer.
"Let's get the fuck out of here or we'll be here forever."
In the control room, the battle was joined. The last of the slaves fighting the remaining strangers. For a moment Dwemer went for the computers, knowing that the waterchip had to be there, somewhere.
But even as he did so, the roof of the room began to fold in. Still, to be so close...
Ducking falling rocks and avoiding the arms of the strangers which lashed at the slaves like whips, Dwemer climbed over one of the computer banks, rolled over as he got hit in the side, stumbled to his knees. THen lurched forward again.
The water control unit! He reached for it, his hands closing over the chip.
ANd then felt a sudden blow against his head, knocking him to the side and over. A less strong man might have been killed, but Dwemer was only stunned. He felt himself lifted, smelled dust and dirt, and he heard the roar of the ground giving way above and below him, He heard the screams of men and the shreaks of the strangers, but he didn't see anything.
Dwemer felt his eyes sting, and then his head throb, and then he fell into unconsciousness.
