And all I could think of at first while waiting for the cave to stop shaking and for my own death was how I was going to die a nobody. How my plans of ruling the island were a failure and how the slavers were going to come in and destroy the island's people and force them into slavery again.

I was thinking more about the former than the latter.

And the cave stopped shaking and then there was silence.

But in that silence there was breathing.

"Looks like we made it, Ivan." Boss said.

I almost felt like crying. She was still alive. SHE WAS STILL ALIVE. WHY THE FUCK COULDN'T SHE HAD DIED? "Y-yeah." I said, almost dizzy in despair.

I could almost see the smirk grace her lips. "I think you owe me. I did just save your life."

I owed a dog my life. I really wished I had a knife or something. And hands. Slitting your wrists with a knife in your mouth sounded really hard. But... why the hell did she save me? I closed my eyes. Not that it made a difference. It was the same level of darkness. "What do you want?" I fished into my satchel with my muzzle and thanked who ever the hell I was supposed to thank that I still had it. I placed the the ruby in my mouth.

It's interesting how I knew it was a ruby. It was like the stone itself whispered it's name into my ear.

Boss laughed. It was a bitter laugh with the faintest hints of happiness. "I'm not dumb. I know you planned to kill me the second you saw me. I have a good feeling I know what you are planning to do with the island. And... I would like to offer you my services in exchange for promising to not kill me directly or indirectly. And I want an island."

I channeled a bit of my magic into the gem and the faint red glow allowed me to see. We were only a few feet apart from each other. There was a cave in on both sides of the tunnel and the walls of the tunnel were slowly getting hotter. It must've been unbearable to the ones still trapped in the caves below.

I shut my eyes tightly again and thought over her offer.

I couldn't fight. She could. She had saved my life and could've easily kill me at that very moment.

After that thought I realized that there was no choice at the present. And... an irrational hatred of dogs was one of the things that a particularly savvy enemy could find a way to use to his advantage.

I guess I needed to get over that. "Ok. I accept your terms. You are now in my employ. We'll get a contract drawn up after we get out of this damned cave." I kept my eyes off of her and tried to picture her as something other than a dog.

Ok. Idea. First thing I do after I take over this island and make sure it's mine is to get cured of this dog thing.

Right. Add the expenses of a psychologist, or at least some form of therapist, to my list.

The rock was getting hotter. "Yeah. We need to get out of here soon." I stopped. I had a question. "Wait. If all you want are the gems and the ore, why do you need slaves to dig it out? Why don't Diamond dogs just dig them out themselves."

She growled and furrowed her brow. She laughed harshly. "Do you see how orderly these tunnels are designed? Nice and orderly very low slopes? Try getting a bunch of slathering mutts to dig orderly lines in the earth instead of gulping down every gem. Freaking idiots." She grabbed a rock and started to shift them.

I sighed. Dogs. "Any why aren't you stupid?"

She paused from moving the increasingly warm rocks. "Occasionally, by some fluke of breeding or magic or whatever, there's a diamond dog born that is a bit smarter than the others. Of course, if she isn't alpha, she is either forced to live with the shadow of the alpha breathing down her or leave and try to seek her fortune. I bet you can't guess which one I am?" She went back to shuffling them aside.

"You left." I said the statement she left unsaid.

She looked down and nodded. "Yep. Left them all there to rot. I could care less what happened to them."

I shrugged. "Why didn't you kill me just now? I was helpless."

"I took a moment to think about it. Odds are I can't fight off the slavers. With you sweet talking everybody on the island to your side it made sense to let you lead."

I walked over to her and nudged her with my eyes shut. "Which way is the way out?"

She stopped moving and I opened my eyes. "Well. We found where those magic slingers went." I said out loud.

And then my mind slipped into exactly what I had done before walking into the undead hordes.

I had killed.

I mean, at the time it seemed perfectly reasonable! I was making a point; that we shouldn't show mercy to those who would have us dead.

But I had killed him with my own hooves. That was probably going to haunt my dreams.

More to the point, my first real kill was on a defenseless zebra.

And then it struck home a horribly uncomfortable truth; I might go insane if I didn't have company in my empire.

Back to the cave, I was staring at the brutalized remains of the two unicorns. One of the two's horn had shattered into more pieces than I cared to count for and the other...

Was perfectly preserved and almost a foot long. And sharp.

If canary was right and the horn of a unicorn is one of the best foci for magic.

I smiled widely. I had a better foci.

I snapped back to reality. I needed to stop day dreaming and actually accomplish things. "Can I borrow one of your swords for a second?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "No. What do you need one of them for?"

I rolled my eyes. D- I almost thought the reason for her negative response was because she was a dog. She probably had an actual reason. "I need this horn off of this unicorn and as intact as you can get it."

She nodded. "Any particular reason why? And you can help with the cave in on the other side, that's the way out." She shoved me to the side.

I barely managed to not growl at her.

I began shoveling the rocks out of the way as I could while ignoring the horribly unfamiliar sound of someone sawing on something that was not supposed to come off. And I almost jumped when I heard the thing finally come off and tried to ignore the urge to look over at her. From what I could imagine, the horn was attached directly to the skull.

And I really didn't want to see the brain of the unicorn that just died.

Boss chuckled. "Stupid thing put up a bit of a fight. I got it off in the end though." She gently handed it to me. The end was red with blood and soaked in brain juice.

"Oh god. Don't tell me I have to put this in my mouth." I gently took the very tip of the thing into my mouth and tried to ignore just how dirty that sounded. I placed it into my satchel.

She looked at me oddly. "I think you should get it washed off first before you give it that sort of treatment." That sounded so wrong!

And then abruptly, the rock around us grew hotter. We both stopped talking and worked on shoveling our way out of the cave.

We broke out shortly after. We squirmed through the narrow tunnel we dug and sat there panting for a few minutes before I spoke up.

I sighed and looked down. "I think... we should leave the Magickers alone for a bit. You know, just until we have a method to counter their magic."

She turned to me and growled loudly. "But what about the slaves?"

I looked at her blankly. "You mean the slaves that you put down there?"

She looked away. "I guess I did put a few down there."

I nodded. "Look, we can't take another attack from them unless we have weapons. And your swords look like they could use a little sharpening."

She sighed. "I hate it when you are right. But I still need better weapons than these to take on anything.

I sighed and looked down. "I don't know... I can't get you a sword. Can't you just use your paws?"

She looked down at her paws. Honestly, I was more than a little jealous of her killing devices. "I guess. I really do prefer having something between me and the enemy."

I guess... we were allies. Kinda. If she pulled a knife on me though, I was going to jab this new unicorn horn so far up her... Right, let's not think about that.

But what should I think about? Oh yeah. What happened in the tunnel.

I grit my teeth. It was odd, those two unicorns. They had done the stupidest thing, just sitting there and shooting spells at me. They only teleported at the last minute and that was under the rock slide. And all of those zombies kept coming back seemingly without the unicorns controlling them...

To my mind, it read bad news. Something was happening that I didn't understand and it was confusing me.

"Hey..." A very familiar voice said. "Looks like you two made it out. I couldn't help but over hear your plan..." It was Canary.

I almost groaned. "Tell me you brought the flock and, in a way that isn't a terrible plot device, have two swords on you?" I think the stress was scrambling my head.

Canary shook his head. "I brought Skinner... but I don't have any weapons."

I shut my eyes and calmed down. "Right. Boss. Change of plans. We are taking out the Guards first."

Boss frowned, then nodded at me. "I can agree with this, Ivan."

Skinner's cap squelched slightly as he bobbed his head. I tried not to look at him.

Canary smiled. "How can I assist you in taking out the Guards?"

I smiled at all of them. "Right. Here's the plan."