by Ben Wolf
Calum tilted his head. Out of all the other workers, he was both the youngest and the weakest. He’d always felt like the runt of the litter around the quarry, but the sight of the Saurian towering over everyone else made him feel even smaller, even more insignificant.
With creatures like the Saurian roaming Kanarah, what was Calum even worth?
“If they’re so dangerous, why would Burtis bring one here?”
Hardink pushed himself up to his feet, leaning most of his weight on his good foot. He picked up the pan, and the gemstone rattled around in it. “Ten times as strongs means ten times the works, probably. Worth the risk. A boulder that takes seven or eight mens to moves? That Saurian can do that on his owns.”
“If he’s that strong, can’t he break out of those shackles?”
“Now what’re yous askin’ me all these questions for?” Hardink shook his head and pointed at Calum’s pile of rocks with the gem in his hand. “Get back to works. I gots this first gem near done, and you’ve made hardly any progress since thens. You wanna gets us all whipped?”
When Burtis looked over at them, Calum tightened his grip on his pickax. He raised it over his head and swung at a chunk of the boulder he’d already split once. It was a quick and careless swing that only glanced off the rock, but at least it would appear to Burtis that he’d been working the whole time.
After a few better-placed strikes, Calum stole a glance at the Saurian, whom Burtis had chained to a cart full of huge rocks.
As the Saurian pulled the cart behind him, a feat that even a trio of horses would struggle to accomplish, his golden eyes met Calum’s again. Just as before, they contained nothing but disdain.
“Calum.”
His head swiveled toward the call, and he almost dropped his pickax.
Burtis glared at him. One of his hands rested on his hip, and the other held a leather whip, all coiled up. For Calum and anyone else working in the quarry, that whip only meant one thing.
Pain.
He stood there, tan, hairy, and bare-chested with his belly lolling over the front of his belt. He wore his usual scowl and extended his pointer finger. “Get over here.”
Calum swallowed the lump in his throat and glanced at Hardink, who didn’t make eye contact with him. Hardink just kept chiseling and scrubbing the ruby in his pan.
“Now.”
When Calum got there, Burtis snatched the pickax from his hand and tossed it aside.
Calum braced himself for a blow, but it never came.
“You don’t need that no more.” Burtis held out his whip toward Calum, still coiled. “Take this. You’re in charge of that thing over yonder.”
Calum glanced over Burtis’s shoulder at the Saurian. “You mean… him?”
“You deaf now? That’s what I just said.” Burtis grunted. “As it is, you’re not good for much ’round here, so we’re not losin’ much by you not workin’.”
Aside from his bald head and thick black beard, the only things that distinguished him from the other workers were a dirty purple foreman’s sash he wore across his bare chest and the rusted sword hanging from his belt.
“Teach ’im all the jobs you’ve done here.”
Calum couldn’t believe his ears. Burtis wasn’t known for his bright ideas, but this one was especially bad. “You trying to get me killed, boss? That thing’s gonna eat me ali—”
The back of Burtis’s hand stung Calum’s cheek, and he staggered backward, woozy from the blow. He tasted the copper tang of blood in his mouth as he tried to regain his balance.
“What’d I say ’bout how you talk to me?” Burtis growled.
The wooziness faded, and Calum spat a red glob of saliva onto the ground. Then he clenched his teeth until Burtis grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
Burtis stood a few inches taller than Calum and was twice as wide, though aside from his gut, most of his bulk was muscle. And when he hit, he didn’t hold back.
Before his promotion, Burtis had worked in the quarry along with the rest of the men, often doing the hardest work, including routine forays into the Gronyx’s pit.
No wonder everyone feared him.
“I asked you a question, boy. You got an answer for me, or do I gotta beat one outta you again?”
Calum bit his lip. “You said I need to speak to you with the respect you deserve.”
“Better start doin’ it, then.” Burtis shoved Calum to the ground and tossed the whip beside him. “You oughta count yourself lucky I picked you for this task. Make sure the Saurian learns every job, and I mean every job. I want ’im busy all daylight hours. He don’t get no breaks. Doesn’t need ’em. Crystal?”
Calum stared at the whip on the ground next to him. “If that’s what you want.”
“Don’t be a’feared to use that thing. He’s not movin’ fast enough, you lash ’im once or twice. He’s real sluggish, you give ’im a few more, just like I do with the men. You can’t kill ’im with it, which means you can’t use it too much.”
“What do you mean?” Calum grabbed the whip and stood to his feet. It didn’t happen often, but men in the quarry had died from excessive thrashing before, including a few by Burtis’s hand.
“Saurians regenerate. They heal much faster ’an humans do. Least that’s what the soldiers told me when I bought ’im.” Burtis smirked, but Calum barely saw it through his thick beard. “So flay ’im as much as you like. It’ll hurt ’im enough to keep ’im workin’, but it won’t do any lastin’ harm.”
Calum had already decided he wouldn’t whip the Saurian unless he had to. No sense in making an enemy out of a giant—and probably carnivorous—creature. And if Hardink had been right about Saurians being another race of people, then whipping the Saurian just because he was a Saurian and could handle it was unnecessarily cruel.
Calum might’ve been a lot of things, but cruel wasn’t one of them. He’d endured enough cruelty in his life to never wish it on anyone or anything else.
“You’re done with your old job ’til I tell you otherwise.” Burtis glanced over at another group of workers, all big, burly men like him. “I’ll send Jidon over to help you keep ’im in line. When he’s learned everything else, Jidon can show ’im how to work the Gronyx’s pit. I want ’im down there this afternoon.”
Calum raised his eyebrows. The Saurian had just gotten there, and Burtis already wanted him down in the Gronyx’s pit?
“Don’t act surprised. Just ’cause Markham died down there last week don’t mean anyone else will. Asides, if we lose that Saurian, I’m only out a few hundred in gems anyway. Better ’im than one of us.”
Markham had tried to run off, and when Burtis and the others had caught him and brought him back, the Gronyx pit had been his “reward.” He’d gone down into the pit and never come back up.
Calum shuddered. No one deserves that kind of fate. No one.
Aloud, he said, “If you say so.”
“Look, kid…” Burtis clapped a meaty hand on Calum’s shoulder and leaned down to look him in the eyes. “You’re more or less a good worker, even if you can’t do but a fraction of what the rest of the men can do. And I won’t be here forever, y’know.”
Calum kept his mouth clamped shut. Hopefully not.
“You do a good job with this, you might make foreman someday. Sounds pretty good, don’t it?”
Calum raised an eyebrow. Foreman? Why would I want to be foreman of this miserable place?
But the more he considered it, the better it sounded. It would sure beat everything else he’d been doing here for the last eight years.
“It’s not like you’re goin’ anywhere else. Might as well get the top job here.” Burtis patted his shoulder. “So don’t let me down, son.”
Calum’s blood instantly boiled. “I’m not your son.”
Burtis glared at him and stood to his full height. “No, you’re not. Then again, I didn’t get myself killed by the King’s soldiers eight years ago, neither.”
Calum c
lenched his fists, wishing he could use the whip on Burtis for his unfair jab. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Those soldiers murdered my parents.”
“You think I care?” Burtis scoffed. “Don’t care what happened then, don’t care what happens to you now. Long as I meet my quota at end-of-day, none of it matters. You don’t want this job, I can find someone else.”
Calum exhaled a sharp breath through his nose. Compared to hauling rocks and cracking stones open, Burtis’s offer was practically a vacation. “No. I’ll do it.”
Burtis folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t seem all that interested to me.”
“Thought you said you didn’t care,” Calum muttered.
Burtis raised his hand for another swing, and Calum flinched, but the sting never came.
“Some day, Calum, I’m gonna lose my patience with you,” Burtis warned. “Lots of ways a man can die in a quarry, and I’ve seen just about all of ’em. Keep it up with your disrespect, and you’ll find out which one of ’em hurts the most.”
Calum yearned to bite back, but he bit his tongue instead.
Burtis turned toward the Saurian, who had just stopped pulling the cart. Muscles rippled in the Saurian’s powerful arms and legs as he turned around and lifted the cart up. In his wildest dreams, Calum could never have hoped to be that strong.
Boulders dropped out the back of the cart into a pile, and a group of pickax-wielding workers each quickly grabbed one and began to chip away at them, as if eager to get far away from the Saurian as fast as possible. In return, the Saurian only glared at them.
“Soon as he returns that cart to the lift, you start showin’ ’im ’round.”
Calum looked down at the coil of whip in his weathered hands. “He got a name?”
“You don’t needa know his name,” Burtis sneered. “Make one up for ’im, and not a good one, neither. Do not be nice to ’im. He’s not your friend, and he’s not like the rest of the men. He’s a slave. Scum. Worse ’an that, if there is such a thing.”
Calum nodded, though he didn’t like any of what he was hearing.
Burtis pointed his finger at Calum’s face. “Treat ’im like that for long enough, and he’ll eventually think like that. And if you can get ’im thinkin’ like that, he’ll be your slave forever. Crystal?”
Just like you do with the rest of us. “Clear.”
“Go on, now. I’ll send Jidon over with the key to unlock ’im from the cart in a minute.”
Calum approached the Saurian, who backed the cart up to the edge of the quarry where a rope-and-pulley system would deliver the next load of boulders within a few minutes.
When the Saurian finished positioning the cart, he noticed Calum. His black pupils—slits instead of round like a human’s—darted between Calum’s eyes and the leather whip in his hands.
Calum gulped down his rising nerves and stopped ten feet from the Saurian. He could do this. The beast was shackled and chained to the cart. As long as Calum kept his distance, he’d be fine.
“You’re gonna come with me now, and I’m gonna show you what’s what. Show you what else you’re supposed to do around here.”
The Saurian’s embittered golden gaze persisted, and he exhaled a loud breath through his nostrils. He still wore the leather muzzle around his snout, and his large hands rested at his sides, still shackled and clenched into scale-covered fists. He was still chained to the cart by his neck, too.
Did he understand what Calum was saying? Could he talk? Did they even speak the same language? Calum had seen a keen spark of intelligence in the Saurian’s eyes, but that didn’t mean they could communicate.
“Jidon will be along soon to unlock you from the cart. Until then—” Calum let the business end of the whip drop from his hand, into the dirt, and he stepped forward.
The Saurian squared his body to face Calum, and a low growl rumbled from his throat.
Now only a few feet away from each other, Calum stared up at the Saurian and tried to hide his wonder—and his primal terror—at being so near to such a monstrous creature. Calum was neither short nor especially tall, but the Saurian towered over him all the same.
Calum squeezed the whip’s leather grip tighter. Burtis’s direction was clear. He didn’t want to whip the Saurian, and he hadn’t intended to do so, but he’d already angered Burtis enough for one day.
But would that whip even get the Saurian moving in the first place? Could Calum even swing it hard enough to get the beast moving?
Ultimately, this Saurian wasn’t his friend, and Calum needed to establish who was in charge. He had the whip, and he supposed he had to try to make use of it. “Look, you and I—”
“You gonna talk ’im into submission?” A burly brown-haired man stepped forward from behind Calum and snatched the whip from his hand. Jidon. “You’ll never get ’im workin’ that way.”
If Burtis hadn’t made foreman, Jidon would have. As it was, Burtis relied on Jidon for extra muscle when he needed it, whether for work or keeping order. After all, who wouldn’t want the biggest, strongest worker on his side?
But as big as Jidon was, the Saurian was bigger. Even so, that didn’t stop Jidon from lashing the whip at him.
The Saurian recoiled from the blows with his eyes shut but didn’t try to shield himself. He withstood eight of Jidon’s lashes, each of which carved long red slits into his smooth reptilian skin, some along his chest, some along his arms, and one that stretched from just below his eye down his neck.
When the onslaught stopped, he opened his golden eyes, gave another low growl, and glowered at Jidon.
“That’s how you do it.” Jidon coiled the whip and smacked it against Calum’s chest so hard that he had to take a step back to keep his balance. Then Jidon faced the Saurian again. “You stay still when I unlock you from that cart, or you’ll get another eight. Crystal?”
The Saurian didn’t move, but his gaze narrowed. When Jidon approached, the Saurian’s muscles tensed.
Calum’s heart seized. “Jidon, he—”
“He’s not gonna do anythin’. Not ’less he wants to get lashed again.” Jidon reached for the lock that connected the Saurian’s shackles to the cart and twisted a key inside. The lock popped open and fell to the ground, and Jidon stepped back. “See? Nothin’ to worry about. Now, go on. Take ’im to the pit like Burtis told you.”
Calum nodded. He met the Saurian’s eyes. “Come on.”
Along the northwestern edge of the quarry wall, a gaping hole in the ground threatened to swallow anyone who stepped too close. As perilous as the hole appeared from the outside, its true terror resided within. The Gronyx lived inside that hole, though nowhere near the surface.
Of the seventeen or eighteen men who’d entered the Gronyx’s pit for gems since Calum first came to the quarry, only three had ever made it out alive. Burtis and Jidon had not only survived several encounters with the Gronyx and lived to tell about it, but they had also recovered the most precious stones Calum had ever seen, and in the highest quantities.
The third survivor was Scrim, the oldest worker at the quarry, but he never said anything about his encounters with the Gronyx. He’d been down there more times than anyone else, but he’d made it abundantly clear that he was never going back again. Now he mostly just kept to himself and stayed quiet.
Hardink once told Calum that whatever had happened during Scrim’s last time down there had scarred him permanently. What that was, Scrim didn’t say. He wouldn’t say.
Between Scrim’s silence and Jidon and Burtis’s stories, Calum hoped he’d never have to go down there.
The Saurian, on the other hand, didn’t have a choice. Burtis had decided to send him down, so down he would go.
A few of the men strapped a leather harness to the Saurian’s torso then fastened a rope through some iron rings attached to the harness’s straps. The rope threaded into an overhead pulley system that hung from a tall wooden A-frame that stretched over the pit.
Prior to that d
ay, Jidon had been the heaviest person strapped to that harness, but the Saurian weighed much more. Nonetheless, Burtis insisted it would hold.
Once they secured the Saurian, he glared at all of the men and let out the same low growl as before.
Burtis grabbed the harness and pulled the Saurian close. “I know you think you’re bad news because you’re a Saurian. Maybe you are. Here’s your chance to prove it. Bring up as much glimmer as you can carry before that thing shows up. You see a green light, that means he’s comin’ for you. Hurry up and get out, or you’re dead, and I’m out a few hundred in gems.”
The Saurian’s eyes narrowed at him, and a long hiss issued through his muzzle.
“Reminds me. Better take this thing off in case you gotta fight your way out. Same with the shackles.” Burtis pulled a key from the ring on his belt. “I’m gonna unlock you, but if you try anythin’, I won’t just drop you down there. I’ll leave you down there ’til it gets you. Crystal?”
The Saurian snorted.
“Good enough for me. Jidon, take off his muzzle. I’ll get his shackles.” Burtis eyed Calum while he worked on the Saurian’s bonds. “You stand over there and spot ’im.”
Calum glanced at the Saurian. “What do you mean?”
Burtis tossed the shackles aside and hooked the key back to the ring on his belt. “I mean stand there and watch what happens in that hole. You see green light, you holler so we can pull ’im out.”
“Got it.” Calum took his position about a quarter of the way around the pit from the men who held the rope. Last thing he needed was to get knocked into it by accident.
They began to lower the Saurian into the pit. In one hand he held a pickax, and in the other he held an empty burlap sack, which Burtis expected full of gems before the Saurian came back to the surface. He made eye contact with Calum one more time before he disappeared into the darkness below.
Nothing happened for the first few minutes. All Calum could hear was the intermittent chipping of the Saurian’s pickax against the inside of the pit. The rope would occasionally tug twice in succession, which meant he needed more slack. Three tugs meant to pull him up.