Part 19 (1/2)

The healer stopped, her face guarded. ”Your throwing axes with their red hawk harness are much admired. Good steel, excellent craftsmans.h.i.+p.”

No mention of the crystal dagger. ”I need my weapons.”

”They are being held in safe keeping.”

The meaning behind the words. .h.i.t Kath hard. ”So we're prisoners.”

”Not prisoners...guests who are not yet trusted.”

”But we both fight the Mordant.”

The raven stared back at her, eyes as cold and hard as ebony chips. ”Freedom is hard won.”

Her reply struck like a cold slap. Kath felt as if she teetered on the edge of a chasm, a division of history and customs, a great divide sundering potential allies. ”How can I win the trust of your people?”

The raven retreated, letting the woman return. ”The Ancestor will decide.” She raised a hand forestalling any more questions. ”When the old man's battle is either won or lost, then you will be tested.” Her voice held a note of finality. ”In the presence of the Ancestor, much will become known.” She turned. ”Now come, your friends await.”

24.

Duncan ”On your feet, maggots!” The harsh cry came from overhead. ”Rise and serve. The Mordant needs his ore.” A grated trapdoor clanged open and a wooden ladder was thrust through the hole. Three boys in ragged clothing scampered down into the chamber. Two carried large buckets while the third held a bulging sack over his shoulder.

The smell of sour gruel pierced the chamber, pulling even the sick and the feeble from their straw pallets. Only the dead did not respond, two men sprawled face down in the soiled straw.

Fifty-eight prisoners rose and stood along the rock walls, a clang of chains and a shuffle of bare feet, every pair of eyes focused on the two buckets. Like a pack of starving wolves, the men slavered to be fed. Duncan stood with the others, fighting the urge to lunge for the pail of murky water. More than food, he craved an end to his raging thirst, but he bridled his need, refusing to act like an animal.

Light blazed in the chamber's heart, a lantern lowered on a chain through the trapdoor. Grack, the one-armed turnkey followed, the ladder groaning under his ma.s.sive weight. Maimed and battle-scarred, the ogre-like Taal wore cruelty like a cloak. ”Get to it boys.” His voice sounded like gravel. ”Feed the maggots and then we'll get them into their holes. The day's a wasting.”

The three boys leaped to obey, working their way around the chamber.

One at a time, the prisoners reached into the bag and grabbed a small metal bowl and a cup. The bucket boys followed, allowing each man one dip of gruel and one cup of murky water. Duncan waited his turn, watching the buckets with desperate eyes, angry if even a single drop was spilled. Any man who wasted water or gruel rarely lived to see another morning.

When his turn finally came, Duncan plunged his bowl into the grayish-brown gruel and dipped his cup into the bucket, careful not to spill a drop. Like the others, he ate standing, quickly lapped the foul-tasting gruel like a starving cat. A sour mash of barley and wheat, he licked the bowl clean. Finished, he gulped the muddy water, the taste of metal fouling his mouth. All too soon, the cup ran dry, leaving his raging thirst unslaked. One cup was never enough.

While the others slurped their morning meal, Grack prowled the chamber, swinging his spiked mace in a deadly arc. ”We'll have no slackers in this cell.” The fearsome weapon whistled with threat. ”Only death frees a man from the mines.” Moving with surprising speed, the ma.s.sive Taal strode to the nearest dead man, smas.h.i.+ng the mace into his head. Blood and brains splattered the chamber. Grack laughed. ”Meat tonight, boys.” Two quick strides and the mace struck the second corpse. The skull shattered with a sickening crunch. Death was never feigned in the mines.

Accustomed to cruelty, the boys continued working their way around the chamber, gathering the empty cups and bowls. Grack chose two prisoners to strip the dead, lifting their shattered bodies up through the trapdoor. Duncan used the time to stretch, knowing what lay ahead. Bare-chested, he'd cut his leather s.h.i.+rt to strips, wrapping his feet for protection against the rock shards. His ankles were free of chains but he still wore shackles on his wrists and an iron collar around his neck. Collared and chained like a beast, they'd even put a brand on his left forearm, a rune of some sort, marking him like cattle. The brand had long since healed, but Duncan couldn't stand the sight of it. Being 'owned' was anathema to the people of Deep Green...but he was a long way from the great forests, chained in this h.e.l.l-sp.a.w.ned pit. His hatred ran deep; the Mordant had much to pay for.

”All right maggots, time to earn your gruel.”

The prisoners shuffled into line as Grack unlocked the iron-studded door. One at a time, they shambled through. Duncan waited his turn with the others. His fellow prisoners were a strange bunch, as if a freak-show carnival had been captured and forced to work the mine. Hal was a giant of a man, with a face like a Taal and the mind of a child. Gren was a dwarf with a nasty temper. Simeon and Brent were hunchbacks. Trell had a clubfoot and Stan a cleft lip. But Nef and Bredan were by far the strangest. Nef had six fingers on each hand, making him an excellent juggler, but Bredan's deformity was downright eerie. The older man had a closed eyelid in the middle of his forehead, like some monster from a bard's nightmare. Duncan found himself staring at it, wondering if the lid truly hid a third eye. He s.h.i.+vered at the strangeness of the thought. Deformities were not unknown to the villages of Erdhe, but it seemed to Duncan that nature had run amok in the pit...or perhaps nature was not the cause. The Mordant's h.e.l.lhounds were not natural...and neither was a third eye. Shuddering, he made the hand sign against evil, following the others toward the door.

”Hurry up, maggots.” Grack growled, ”The Mordant needs his iron ore. Meet the quotas or no one eats.”

The prisoners quickened their pace. Duncan reached the doorway and one of the bucket lads handed him a flaming torch. Every tenth man got a torch, the only light in the depths of the mine. Twenty steps and the rocky corridor opened onto the side of a deep vertical shaft, the throat of the iron mine. A ma.s.sive set of chains dangled down the center, with buckets attached every ten feet. Rumors said the chains went all the way to the surface. Duncan stared up; hoping for a glimpse of sky, but the mineshaft was too deep.

One at a time, the men swung out into the shaft, clinging to the iron ladder. Hammered into the rock wall, the ladder disappeared into the depths, a line of ragged men clinging to the rungs. Some of the rungs were missing, making for a tricky descent. Careful not to drop the torch, Duncan followed the others. Like spiders descending a single strand, they made their way down. Abandoned galleries began to appear, dark mouths gaping in the rough rock wall. More than a few side tunnels were clogged shut with rock-falls, proof of the danger of cave-ins. Duncan wondered how many men lay buried beneath the rubble, a grim way to die.

A hundred rungs of the ladder and still he descended, as if h.e.l.l had no bottom. The mine grew hot and the air tasted stale with sweat and rock dust. Above him, a man slipped, his foot missing a rung. Duncan braced for the impact but it never came. Dangling by his hands, Clovis regained his footing. Relieved, Duncan kept moving, slick with sweat by the time he reached the bottom.

A deafening clatter filled the central shaft. The bucket-chain rattled to life like some ancient metal monster wakened from slumber. Running all the way to the surface, the chain slowly jerked around a wheel fixed to the bottom of the mineshaft. Clanking and clattering, the empty buckets went down one side while full buckets went up the other, an endless chain of buckets starving for ore.

Giving the bucket chain a wide berth, Duncan paused to stretch muscles aching from the long descent. Clovis joined him and the two men entered the long gallery that led to the ore face. Forty smaller tunnels branched off the main gallery, two men working each tunnel. Hammers pounded against rock, flooding the mine with a wild heartbeat. The men worked without overseers, yet they wasted no time, knowing if the quota was not made none would eat. Hunger proved a powerful force, bending the men to the will of their jailors.

Duncan walked the length of the gallery. His torch guttered and dimmed, as if struggling to breath. The air was heavy, stale and hot and spiked with the stench of p.i.s.s and sweat and fear. The dark depths reeked like h.e.l.l, torturing his sense of smell.

Seating the flickering torch in an empty bracket, Duncan entered the first tunnel devoid of hammering. Forced to his knees by the low ceiling, he crawled toward the ore-face, pulling a wooden sledge behind him. Clovis followed, his workmate for the tunnel.

It was Duncan's idea to pair the strong with the weak. The stronger of the two worked the ore-face, while the weaker pulled the sledge from the face to the bucket-chain. He'd chosen Clovis despite his racking coughed and slight build. The redheaded man had served less than half a year in the mines and already showed signs of rocklung. Despite his weakness, Duncan liked the older man, finding his tales of life in the north the only relief in an otherwise d.a.m.ned existence.

The tunnel narrowed, choking the light from the torches, but Duncan had no problem seeing. He reached the ore-face and found his tools waiting, a pointed metal wedge and a heavy stone hammer. Hefting the hammer, he checked the ceiling for signs of telltale cracks, always wary of cave-ins.

Clovis slumped to the ground behind the wooden sledge, consumed by coughing.

Duncan waited for the fit to pa.s.s and then asked his first question. ”Why are so many prisoners deformed?”

Clovis chuckled, ”You never run out of questions.”

Duncan shrugged. ”I've a friend who says knowledge is power. Perhaps if I understand this place I'll find a way to defeat it.”

”Still hoping to see the sky again?”

”When you lose hope, you die.”

The older man fell silent.

Duncan studied the rock-face, setting the wedge into a thick band of blood-red ore. ”Why are so many malformed?” Kneeling, he hefted the stone hammer, taking aim at the wedge. Stone pounded against metal, driving the wedge a finger's width into the stubborn rock-face.

Clovis began to talk, weaving his words around the hammer's cadence. ”I don't know the why of it, only that it has always been so. The Pit is fecund with freaks. The breeders keep track of every deformity. The useless ones are sent to work the mines, while those of value are encouraged to breed, given ample access to the pit brothels. The Taals are the breeders' greatest achievement, prized for their brute strength. Even rarer are the Duegar, the stunted dwarves who can sniff magic.” Clovis coughed, his voice falling to a hush. ”But not all deformities can be seen.”

Hairs p.r.i.c.kled at the back of Duncan's neck. ”What do you mean?”

”Some of us hide our special abilities.” His voice dropped to a whisper. ”A rare few are born with the third eye, the gift of prophecy.”

Duncan s.h.i.+vered. Prophecy had brought him to the G.o.d-cursed north. He hefted the hammer, swinging it with vengeance. ”What kind of prophecy?”

”Our best seers tell of a Light Bringer, one who will release our people from the Pit.”

Anger pulsed through Duncan. ”People always expect someone else to save them, for the G.o.ds to send a hero.” He swung the hammer sideways, his gaze fixed on the metal wedge. ”If you wait for the G.o.ds you're lost. You have to save yourself.” The hammer struck a mighty blow. The rock face crumbled, releasing a cloud of dust. Coughing, Duncan pressed his face against his arm. When the dust thinned, he began dumping rocks in the sledge. He flicked a glance at Clovis. ”What do you believe?”

”That your golden cat-eye lets you see in the dark.”

He glared at the older man. ”Then we both have our secrets.”

”I believe you are the Light Bringer.”

”Me!” Duncan barked a rude laugh. ”You're mad, old man. I'm just a G.o.d-forsaken prisoner like you.” He lifted a chunk of ore, throwing it onto the sledge.