Bones of the Empire (3 page)

The group began riding again, this time with Turess taking the lead. As fresh snow fell, they descended slowly into a bowl-shaped section of land where the existing snow cover was even deeper, gradually making their way toward the hills on the far side. At the foot of those hills, Estin made out dozens of huts, sheltered from much of the snow by the evergreens uphill from them. The sudden darting shapes of fleeing elk to the north drew his eyes briefly, but once he was sure of what was moving, he returned his attention to the huts.

“An old mining village,” Raeln mentioned as they kept riding. “That wouldn’t have survived two thousand years. Be ready for anything. Turess can’t know this place as well as he thinks.”

“It might be one of the old Turessian cities,” offered Dalania, giving them a halfhearted smile, likely meant as reassurance.

“Looks like a mining village,” replied both Raeln and Estin almost in unison. They stared at each other for a moment.

“Abandoned one near Lantonne was set up similarly,” said Raeln, returning his attention to the path ahead.

“Same one I saw,” Estin added. “Right before it fell down around me.”

That seemed to surprise Raeln, and he eyed Estin suspiciously but said nothing further.

As they got closer to the village, Estin reached down and loosened his sword in its sheath. Feanne cast her cloak back to keep her arms and legs free—her preferred weapons, if she could not get her fangs onto an enemy. They all knew a trap could be waiting, but no one really wanted to say it.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Dalania drop back, keeping well away from the others in case of violence. She would support them, but not fight on her own. If they were lucky, she would be able to use her magic to assist in some way.

Their already slow pace slowed further as they approached the village, despite no sign of movement—except for the occasional white rabbit or small deer in the woods nearby. Estin could see the doors of most of the huts were rotted away or missing entirely. The place had been abandoned a while. Not two thousand years, but still a long time. Certainly far longer than the old village near Lantonne.

Turess continued up the slope and past the first houses, pointing at a distant black spot on the hillside Estin had to assume was the entrance to the mines. Turess spurred his horse on, even as the rest of the group slowed to glance inside the huts.

“These have no furniture and most have no place to light a fire,” noted Dalania, leaning in the open window of a hut. “Who builds a home in these lands without a place to warm themselves? Feanne and I could probably manage, but I doubt all of Turessi had the same tricks.”

“Fires weren’t allowed in the slave camp I stayed at,” Estin said without thinking. It was not something he had willingly spoken of in years and now it felt so distant that it might have happened to someone else. “Only fires the taskmasters built were permitted. We lost five or six people a week during the winters. The fear was that the slaves would hurt themselves or others if they had access to fire.”

Dalania looked over at him sadly, but then frowned and looked back into the hut. “There are rusted chains at the rear of the home. You may have it right, Estin.”

Farther up the rise, Turess stopped his horse and called something back to them.

Yoska watched until Turess had finished speaking and then translated. “He says that slavery was illegal under his rule, but that the clans tried to keep their old traditions. He agrees that they went back to their old ways after his death. Also, for some reason, he apologizes to Estin.”

Ears perking in surprise, Estin asked, “How did he know? Does he actually understand what we’re saying?”

Yoska relayed the question, and Turess held up one of his arms and tapped his fingers against his bare wrist, where he had visible scarring. When Estin looked down at his arm, the fur at that spot was still thin around the scars from wearing chains. Turess had apparently been studying him. They had those scars in common.

“Keep moving,” Raeln interjected. “I don’t want to be caught out here. Good plan or not, standing around in the open is a sure way to get us all killed. We can reminisce about the awful things we’ve gone through another time.”

Estin flicked his horse’s reins and followed Turess into the hills. The whole group formed into a single-file line as the snow deepened, each horse following the tracks of the one ahead. At the far rear, Raeln practically stood in his saddle, watching the rolling lands around them for anything that might have followed. When he saw Estin watching him, he gave a quick shake of his head to let Estin know he had seen nothing specific.

They proceeded up the rise and into the trees, though most were young pines that were easy to navigate through even on horseback. Thicker tree cover everywhere else on the slope hinted at a road where they were walking, but if there had been one, Estin could no longer see it. There was little more than snow and trees between the slave huts and the gaping hole in the side of the stone-strewn hill. The only disruption of the terrain were several snow-covered mounds up the hillside that could have been more huts at one time, though Estin thought they could have just as easily been uneven stones. Every so often, another group of birds or small wildlife would abruptly race from the trees, trying to stay out of their path.

Near sunset, they reached the opening to the mines, which looked little better than a natural cave to Estin. If the place had been crafted from the stone, it had been allowed to crumble in the elements for far too long. Dwarves, dark elves, or magic—it did not seem to matter after so much time.

“We need light,” Yoska announced as he came alongside Estin and Turess dismounted and led his horse toward the mine. “Will be long walk in dark, unless one of you magic people does something. I do not bring torches so far, no?”

Turess stopped at the edge of the daylight and raised his hand, as if he were about to cast a spell. Stopping, he turned partway and looked at Estin. Pointing at the dark tunnel, he said, “Light.”

“Well, my days of having job that does not get me arrested may be over,” Yoska said, smirking. “Now we have Turess to say obvious things. Light?”

Estin and Yoska both turned to look back at Feanne and Dalania, who were the only others who might be able to summon magical light if Turess was unwilling or unable. Given recent events, Estin was not about to try.

“Ne lemur des ceristu…light,” Turess announced, sounding somewhat frustrated. “Ceristu lemur.”

“What was that all about?” asked Estin, glancing at Yoska for some help. “I still don’t understand anything he’s saying.”

“This time, I don’t either,” said Yoska, shrugging. “I think it was, ‘no, you will have something something make a light. The something does it.’ On’esquin did not give me enough words to keep up with him. I think he says have argumentative fuzzy man do it, yes?”

Waiting on their horses, they watched Turess until his shoulders sank slightly and he pointed at Estin. Motioning for him to come over, Turess then pointed at the cave.

“Didn’t you explain to him that I can’t do magic anymore without throwing up or passing out?” Estin asked Yoska, who nodded. “Feanne, would you mind…?”

Turess let out an exasperated sigh and motioned for Feanne to stop. Pointing at Estin again, he said with more than a little frustration, “Light!”

“I can’t!” Estin snapped back, and Feanne put a hand on his arm to calm him. That caught him a little off guard, given that she was normally the one who was quick to anger. “No magic. She will do it.”

Turess eyed Feanne and shook his head. Pointing again at Estin, he motioned him closer.

“Do not let him get to you,” Feanne warned softly. “He probably does not understand. Sooner or later he will figure it out and let me create a light. If he pushes the issue too long, I’ll ignore him and do it anyway.”

Thanking her, Estin hopped off his horse and led it to the entrance of the cave. Stopping alongside Turess, he opened his mouth to object, but Turess made a sharp click with his tongue and pointed at the cave.

“All right,” Estin told him, stepping into the crumbling entryway. “I’ll aim for your boots when this goes badly. Does ‘vomit’ translate easily?”

Lifting his hands to attempt to form the spell he knew would make him ill, Estin stopped when Turess grabbed his wrist. Behind him, he heard a soft growl from Feanne or Raeln, though he was willing to bet it was Feanne. She had been a little overprotective of late, mostly under the guise of giving Estin time to recover his magic and strength.

Turess eased his grip and started to say something before frowning, as though he could not think of the right words. Posing as though he were frozen with fear, he pointed at Estin again and made a point of relaxing with a deep sigh. He gave a meaningful glance at Raeln and then back to Estin, gesturing toward the cave.

“Relax? That’s your advice?” Estin demanded as he realized he was tensing up. Taking a slow breath, he calmed himself and lifted his hands to cast the spell. This time Turess did not stop him.

Whispers of the dead came to Estin as magic rushed in, bringing with it nausea and exhaustion. He nearly lost his concentration, but he kept trying to form the relatively simple spell. With a flicker, a ball of pale blue light formed in the palm of his hand, even as his stomach clenched painfully. The magical light held, but only barely.

Turess smiled and nodded at Estin before marching into the tunnel ahead of the others.

“What was that all about?” Estin asked when Yoska and Raeln caught up, and Feanne helped Dalania across the rough terrain at the entrance to the mines.

“I think this has to do with something he said other night that made no sense,” Yoska told him. “He say something about everyone being too poorly trained to do what is needed of them. You get whipped into shape, yes? Maybe next comes jogging and other exhausting things?”

Raising the light somewhat, Estin peered into the entrance of the mine, where smooth walls marked the change from the broken exterior to the well-constructed interior. Turess went on ahead, stopping only when reaching the end of the light’s reach. Outside the mine, Dalania whispered to their horses, gently removing the reins from each before sending them off toward freedom.

Glancing down at the ball of light Estin held, Raeln commented, “Always hated those things. My sister used to cast them on my tail at night so I couldn’t hide from her. I think I was about the only thing she didn’t accidentally light on fire.”

Blinking in surprise, Estin looked at Raeln as though he were joking, but he seemed serious. “You can cast these on something? I only learned to make them float over my palm.”

“Poorly trained, he says, yes?” noted Yoska, heading into the mine.

“Ignore him. He’s still upset that Turess told him he was an idiot again this morning,” Raeln explained. “They were arguing about whether we should turn around. Yoska lost. Again.”

“How did you know? Am I the only one here who doesn’t speak Turessian?”

Raeln snorted and began walking, with Estin keeping pace and the women following them. “The gypsy couldn’t keep a secret if our lives depended on it. He muttered for an hour in our language. I think he forgets that we understand his accent after this long.”

The group continued into the mine, passing support beams every twenty feet or so. After the first few, Estin studied them as they went, trying to determine how the wood had held up for centuries. Soon he spotted engraved symbols in the wood, which likely would keep the mine intact until their magic faded completely. That made him wonder if the Turessians used magic for everything, if even slave-mined tunnels used this much. Altis had far less magic in use, and it was one of the largest human cities in the region where Estin had grown up.

The tunnel wound around and descended into the hills, quickly destroying Estin’s sense of direction. Their group adjusted, leaving Estin and Raeln in the lead, with Turess and Yoska right behind them, occasionally indicating a turn in the passage or which part of a fork to take. At the rear of the party, Feanne helped Dalania, whose poor vision in the dark made it all too easy for her to trip or fall. Estin knew full well Feanne would have preferred to lead the way into danger, but she seemed to take turns mothering Dalania and Estin. This time it was Raeln’s turn to babysit Estin.