The Skeleton King (The Silk & Steel Saga) (19 page)

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 massive 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 massive Taal strode to the nearest dead man,
smashing 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 shirt 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 hell-spawned
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 shivered 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 hellhounds 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 massive 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 hell 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 piss and sweat and fear. The dark depths
reeked like hell, 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 damned 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 pass 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 prickled 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 shivered. Prophecy had brought him to
the god-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 gods to send a hero.” He swung the
hammer sideways, his gaze fixed on the metal wedge. “If you wait for the gods
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 god-forsaken prisoner like you.”
He lifted a chunk of ore, throwing it onto the sledge.

“I’ve watched you, Duncan Treloch.
I’ve seen how you’ve changed the others with nothing but words.” He pointed to
himself and then at Duncan.
“The weak working with the strong, helping each other to survive. You’ve given
us back our humanity, turning animals back into men.”

Duncan stared at his friend. “Yes, but will they
listen? Will they dare to save themselves?”

“Ask them.” His voice rang with
conviction. “I believe they’re ready to hear your plan.”

“Is this your second sight
speaking…or just the last hope of a tired old man?”

Clovis shrugged the leather harness across
his bony shoulders. “Perhaps a bit of both.” Coughing, he turned and leaned
into the harness. “Perhaps you’re not the only one who wants to see the sky.”
Wood scraped against stone, as the sledge slowly lurched toward the tunnel’s
mouth.

Duncan grunted and hefted the hammer, his
hands hardened with calluses. Pounding his anger against the wedge, he sent a
steady beat through the tunnel. Sweat dripped into his eyes, his knees ached
and his thirst raged. He worked the ore-face, falling into the weary drudgery
of the mine. Clovis
returned with an empty sledge, but by then neither man had the strength to
talk. They filled the sledge with tumbled rock, coughing on the dust. Clovis leaned into the harness and Duncan picked up the hammer, each man yoked
to his task.

One stroke after another, Duncan
kept beating his rage against the ore-face. Better to have died in the steppes
than in this hellhole. He longed for fresh air, for the smell of green on the
wind, for the crystal waters of a mountain stream…and for Kath. The hammer
missed the wedge, striking stone, sending chips flying. He swore, ducking the
shards, but then he noticed a trickle of water. Dropping the hammer, he pressed
his face to the flow. Sucking the rock like a tit, he swallowed the trickle,
the tastes of rock and iron lingering on his tongue. The taste didn’t matter,
only the water…warm and wet, like a balm to his parched throat.

Clovis’s voice came from behind. “See, the
gods watch over you, Duncan Treloch, suckling you even in the depths of the
earth.”

The trickle ran dry before he could
get enough. “It’s only water trapped in stone.” He gripped the hammer. “The
gods care nothing for the plight of men.”

“You’re wrong.”

The conviction in the old man’s
voice made Duncan
turn. “Why?”

“Because I’ve seen pure evil.” Clovis sketched warding a
sign with his left hand. “I’ve witnessed things you wouldn’t believe…for I was
once a guard in the citadel.” His voice dropped to a hush. “The Dark Lord is
real, the true master of the north. If the Dark Lord exists, then there must be
other gods, benevolent gods, else what chance does mankind have?”