by Jason Howard
Nightblade
Book One in the Tales of Ascadell Series
By
Jason Howard
Chapter One
“With magic and steel we conquered nature, but we will never fully conquer our own nature. That is the struggle we must focus on now.”
–Willem Garrissey, the High Conduit of Timberton City
Sweat clung to his once fair, white skin, which was now burnt to a permanent tan and tic-tac-toed with the kiss of the slavemaster’s whip. A gentle breeze came down the tunnel and caressed him. Zac breathed a sigh of relief.
“I don’t hear you!” the slavemaster said, his voice echoing from far behind Zac, in the secure part of the tunnel.
“Sorry, sir.”
Zac raised his hammer and brought it down—clang.
This part of the mineshaft had partially collapsed earlier and killed two of the other slaves.
Clang.
He had volunteered to repair the supports because he understood why the rockslide occurred and didn’t want to endanger anyone else . . . except maybe the slavemasters.
Clang.
Zac could feel the rock around him trembling. When you work in mines all your life, you just know. But Zac had already told the slavemaster it was too dangerous. He had already told him that there must be some kind of pressure built up around the walls here. Even if he repaired the supports it still wasn’t safe to continue tunneling here.
Clang.
Unfortunately, the mineral vein here, rich with qurellium, was too valuable to pass up. It was worth the risk. It was worth his life. The slavemaster knew he would probably die this day—but he could purchase a handful of slaves for the value Zac would uncover. Plus, Zac was dangerous. The other slaves loved him, saw him as a leader, would do anything for him. And the slavemasters couldn’t break him. It didn’t matter how many lashings or hotbox hours they gave him. He was too strong for them to destroy. He had too much spirit.
Clang.
They had assumed that the pressure was from a gas pocket or a heavier compound in the rock here. Such obstacles were common enough. But Zac hadn’t told them something. He hadn’t told them that it might just be water. He hadn’t told them that if it was water, then the whole mine would flood, and they would lose it all. Zac smiled.
Clang.
Ksssshhh.
A leak. Water pooled around Zac’s bare feet, cooling the ravaged, callused skin.
Clang.
The leak was a fountain now.
Clang.
The leak was a geyser now.
“Master!” Zac screamed. “Master! Water! There’s water.”
Zac sprinted back through the tunnel, the torchlight a-flicker, his gleaming white teeth bared into a smile of vengeance.
Zac erased this smile as he came into the slavemaster’s view. He replaced it with a look of fear.
“What?” the slavemaster said. “Oh . . .”
“It’s okay, if we move quickly, we can all get out—”
“—I don’t think so,” the slavemaster said. “I can see the water already.”
You’ve got to be kidding me, Zac thought as he turned. But no—the water rising up the mineshaft to meet them. Zac had underestimated the water pressure. His heart sunk deep into his suddenly tight lungs—how are the others going to get out? Have I killed my brothers?
Zac exchanged a wide-eyed glance with the slavemaster, a strange moment of forgotten authority in the face of danger. Without a word they sprinted for higher ground.
***
The main chamber of the mine was filled with machinery, sharp, echoing pangs and interminable grinding. There were two dozen slaves working and three slavemasters watching. Mined rock moving through the machine was reduced to powder. A lift at the high end of the room was attached to a powerful pair of chains and a pulley system.
The slaves were covered in grit. Like Zac, they were all branded with a simple mark: a long black line that extended from shoulder to wrist crossed by a series of diagonal slashes.
They looked up, seeming to awaken from their labor inflicted daze when Zac exploded into the room.
“Water,” Zac gasped. “The mine is flooding, hurry, everyone get on the lift.”
The slavemaster caught up to Zac moments later. “No. No one gets on the lift. First we need to get these machines out.”
The other three slavemasters said at once:
“How much water—”
“How long do—”
“I told you not to dig—”
The slavemaster who had followed Zac out of the flooding shaft screamed for them to shut up. They did.
He then said, “Slaves, get the sifter, the grinder, the cutter, and that load of ore onto the lift, now!” He nodded for the other slavemasters to get on the lift.
Zac knew that the lift couldn’t hold the machinery and his brothers. So they were to be left here. To drown.
He was still holding his hammer. From all the hours swinging it, the hammer had become an extension of his arm. He hadn’t even thought about keeping it with him.
It was so light as he lifted it above his head. It was like he was swinging air. His arms felt the resistance of the slavemaster’s head—he thought of pounding a rail into stone—but it wasn’t like that at all. When you hit a rail the vibration bursts back into your arm, rakes your muscles, and burns into your elbow and shoulder joints. When you hit a rail, the clang and the shock rock you all the way to the inside of your skull.
Hitting the slavemaster—that was easy. The thump was nice and soft. When he hit the ground his skull was already spewing gore.
Zac looked up. All his brothers stood—wide eyes unblinking. The three slavemasters reached for their swords, but before they could unsheath them, Zac screamed and threw his hammer at the nearest one. The hammer smashed into the slavemaster’s chest. It only stunned him, but Zac’s brothers got it. They knew what they had to do. All the times they’d been told they were nothing. Well they rose up right then, and if they were nothing—well then nothing can sure swing a hammer.
***
They all piled onto the lift as the water reached the chamber. It was coming fast. As the lift struggled upwards, toward the far off circle of light high above, Zac’s mind raced.
There was a lurch and a terrible unspindling noise echoed through the cavern.
Zac realized what the sound meant. The cavern was about to collapse below them, then they would plunge into it. Currents would toy with them, flowing debris would batter them, and in the end, they would drown, buried under rock, silt, and water.
There are too many people on the lift.
“Zac—” an old, wiry man with faded blue eyes said. Gemin was his name.
Zac stared up at the descending sunlight. They would never make it in time. The two strongest strong men were pulling as hard as they could on the chains, but it wasn’t enough.
“Zac, listen to me.”
He snapped to attention.
“We can’t make it up with this many people—and even if we do, we’ll be summarily executed for killing the slavemasters. Unless you make up a story.”
“What could possibly explain four dead slavemasters and no dead slaves?” Zac said.
“I love you,” Gemin said. “You are not my blood, but you are my son.”
A memory flashed into Zac’s mind. Zac had been a scrawny boy, new to the slave camp, new to the work and abuse—and far, far from home. Gemin had taken him aside and taught him how to box. Every evening after the work was done, Gemin would teach Zac more, how to jab, how to slip punches, how to put together combinations. Eventually Zac had started sparring with the men and older boys. Soon he had their respect, and from that he took the confidence that had made him a man. Thanks to Gemin, he wa
s invulnerable to the slavemaster’s whip. Thanks to Gemin he had a strong heart the slavemasters couldn’t reach.
Zac reached for Gemin, but he dove off the platform. Zac tried to jump after him, but hands grabbed him from every direction.
“We need you, Zac,” a voice he knew said—the voice of his best friend, Arrice.
Zac looked up in time to see four more men, mostly older ones, jumping off the platform.
“No,” he said. “No, no, no!”
He forgot why he was screaming, he did it in reflex.
Zac struggled.
“Let me go with them,” he said.
“Zac, please understand—”
“But Gemin—”
“Zac—”
“Don’t!”
Zac nearly wriggled free, nearly leapt off the platform to join Gemin—but before he could a meaty fist filled his field of vision. He took the heavy left hook on the right side of his face. His world went black.
Chapter Two
Zell (slang)
–noun
1. an abbreviation used as a racist slur for the slaves that have been taken from the conquered northern country, Raezellia.
2. a person lacking intelligence that relies on their physical strength and brawn to make their way in the world. Often used colloquially.
*All dictionary definitions have been excerpted from Morgaugh’s Dictionary Volume VIII
He awoke, blinking hard at the sunlight. The sunlight was then blotted out by a dark silhouette rimmed in fire. His eyes focused slowly.
Lord Arthur Temnick loomed.
“Wake up,” Temnick said—and then Zac’s ribs imploded.
Zac thought he’d been stabbed, but then realized that it was just Temnick kicking him with his steel-toed boots again and again. Temnick’s steel-toed boots were well known to all the slaves. Temnick was Zac’s second master since he was sold as a child. The first had been humorless but fair. He had expected hard work, but he always took care of them. Zac had worked on the man’s farm, and then as a house slave in the restaurants and taverns he owned in the City of Emerald Shore. Temnick was different. He took sadistic pleasure in making his slaves suffer.
“What happened here? Where are my men?”
Zac stood up and then stumbled and fell back down. He rose to a knee, then stood again, this time staying up. He looked around. Far behind him, a geyser of water erupted from the ground—a light mist wafted from it. It felt good on Zac’s face.
“They’re all dead, sir. Everyone that isn’t here is dead.”
“I know that!”
Temnick kicked Zac in the stomach and knocked him down, sliding, to his ass.
“What do you know about the collapse?”
“The masters wanted me to fix the tunnel. I was almost done when I tapped into a pressure spot and water came up. And then we tried to run. They didn’t make it out of the tunnel.”
“They were all with you?”
Zac didn’t hesitate here—this was the important part. “Yes, I found a rich vein of qurellium, and they all wanted to see it. They wanted to congratulate Master Richard for his good idea in making me fix—”
“So once all the masters were there, you started the flood? How did you get away?”
Zac didn’t know how to explain this part.
He stood up, slowly, stalling for time. He met Temnick’s eyes.
“I got lucky. Part of the shaft collapsed as we ran. I was hit pretty hard,” Zac said as he pointed to the swelling welt on the right side of his face.
“Once I got to the main chamber, I got hit by another rock and I passed out, but the others got me on the lift. But as you can see we lost some slaves as well as masters.”
“What if it was sabotage?” one of the slavemasters asked.
Temnick looked at the man like a bug he’d stomped on and was trying to scratch off the undersole of his boot. “The thought has crossed my mind, but thank you for stating the obvious.”
“No, I’m not saying the zell sabatoged the mine—what if Roen’s Raiders did it? What if Roen has his agents among us? He could have weakened up the supports so that when the zell was hammering, they just collapsed. Maybe he did it so our ore won’t reach the capital.”
This drew a murmur from the other slavemasters.
“That’s ridiculous,” Temnick said. “Roen’s Raiders haven’t hit any towns this deep into the heartland.”
“But there is talk of incursions . . . destroyed bridges, captured caravans. They were in Velvain a month ago.”
“There is an old saying—the simplest tale is often the truest,” Temnick retorted. “And the simplest tale is that this wretched zell either caused the flood, or he was negligent and his stupidity did. Either way, it’s much more plausible than Roen sneaking saboteurs into our midst. In short, you’re a paranoid fool and you’re proclaiming it by opening your mouth.”
The slavemaster said nothing.
Temnick turned to Zac and said, “You’ll be put to death tomorrow, zell.”
“I did nothing wrong.”
“Even if it was an accident, you should have tried to save them. You should have sacrificed yourself for them. One master is worth . . .”
Temnick waited.
Zac spat the answer back, “A thousand slaves.”
“So you should have gone back for them. You should have died trying to save them.”
“But it all happened quickly and before—”
“Tomorrow you’ll be tortured and then executed. I want you to spend the night thinking about that. Men, take him away.”
Temnick turned and stared up at the geyser that had once been his thriving, lucrative mine. Zac wondered if he even thought about the lost lives of his men.
All he sees is the lost ore. Well there it is, Temnick. The powder is in the water, can you smell it? I can.
Zac held back his smile at the thought. He was grabbed by two slavemasters and pushed toward the small mining town of Detren. Zac nodded to his brothers as he passed.
Arrice reached and clapped him on the shoulder. One of the slavemaster’s kicked Arrice in the stomach and sent him staggering back. Arrice never took his eyes off Zac. Zac nodded to him.
It’s worth it, Zac realized: the struggles he’d been through, the friends he’d lost, even tomorrow’s torture. It was worth it just to see the look in their eyes right now. The respect. The loyalty. The love of his brothers.
***
Zac woke up to the taste of blood in his mouth. He blinked to consciousness and remembered why his nose was clogged and swollen. One of the guards had punched him before they’d put him in the cell. Zac sat up and saw the guard looking at him from behind the bars. He had stringy, gray hair and a skinny face.
“You okay in there?”
Zac laughed. “Like you care.”
“Don’t be like that, zell. I’m just trying to be a good host. Trying to be hospitable.”
Zac ignored this. Hospitable? I’m going to be tortured to death tomorrow, and you pretend to care about my health?
“You need any water or anything?”
“You’re not going to bring me water.”
The guard nodded and smiled slowly. “Usually they get really excited for that one. You’re pretty smart . . . for a zell,” he said, finishing with a hearty laugh.
Zac laughed along with him, then stopped short and said, “You’re a spineless chulgar.”
There was a moment of silence as the guard sobered.
He seemed to be thinking hard about what to say when a gentle rumble wafted from the floor and hung in the air. They both listened in silence for a few moments as the rumble thickened.
There was a single dormer window with bars on it high on the opposite side of the cell. Zac ran to it and stepped onto his bed, straining to see between the bars. Outside he saw dark, grim shapes materialize among the trees. They swept among the sleeping houses of Detren. Zac’s racing heart stopped short as a chorus of unsheathing swords was followed by the
glimmer of blades.
“What do you see?” the guard asked.
“You’re dead, chulgar,” Zac said. “We’re all dead.”
Zac thought of his brothers out there. He turned away from the window and watched the guard’s confused and scared expression. He savored it.
There was a crash as the door was kicked in. Zac dropped to his stomach and rolled under the bed. From there he watched as the guard tried to fight off the intruder. Zac could see only blurry glimpses of their boots. The intruder’s boots were a gleaming jet black. There were grunts and clangs, then a wet tearing sound. The guard fell, a blade thrust deep into his chest. The guard’s head lolled to the side, facing Zac.
No. No, just die, don’t you give me away, you dirty spineless—
But with a gentle gasp, the guard went limp. His dead, glassy eyes stared sightlessly at Zac.
The intruder put a foot on the guard’s chest. With a grunt he pulled his bloody sword free.
Zac heard the faint din of combat. Colliding steel, hoofbeats, bootfalls, grunts, and shrill, terrified screams.
There was a dry popping sound. Zac leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the intruder. The intruder’s hand was alight with magical fire. He held it to a wooden chair and then to the floorboards below.
Zac’s eyes widened as the flames spread.
Before Zac ducked out of view, he noticed that the intruder’s armor was gleaming black except for the red hourglass mark of a black widow emblazoned on his breastplate. He also noticed that the man hadn’t bothered to clean his sword, so the fresh blood still slicked the blade. Zac hid as far back as he could and waited until he was sure that the intruder was gone.
When Zac emerged the heat of the flames assaulted him, pulling water from his eyes and a cough from his lungs.
The guard had fallen near the bars of his cell, and he had a keyring attached to his belt. Zac leaned out for the keys, but the bars were hot and seared his forearms.
Gods damn it.
He took a deep breath and steadied himself. The voracious flames roared closer.