“Was there any record of how he escaped?”
“Yes, sir.” Meryst frowned. “Most of them jump or dive off the bridge. Devoryn didn’t. Somehow he was one of the handful that no one saw escape. He just wasn’t there when they mustered them to go back. I did check the records for the last two years. Until this year, there were only four like that. About eighteen, if I counted right, that went off the bridge that we never found any traces of.”
“How many went off the bridge and didn’t make it?”
“Thirty-three, sir.”
That surprised Dainyl. “How many miners are there? Some two hundred?”
“Right now, the roster lists two hundred and seventeen.”
“How many have died while serving in the mine?”
“Not that many, sir. Eight over the past year, and most were in accidents.”
“But a fifth of them have tried to escape in ways that kill more than half of them?”
“More like a tenth, sir. You see, maybe half the miners in a year are there for five to seven months—for the minor offenses.”
“Do you know if this… the one who shot at me… if he had been there more than once?”
“I’d have to check more for sure, sir, but I don’t think so. The number on his ankle is one of those used about a year ago, and he escaped in the late winter.”
“What about the rifles?”
“They were from here, sir.”
Dainyl looked at the captain, raising his eyebrows.
“Ah… it looks like… I mean…”
“Are you trying to say that one of the rankers either lost or gave his rifle away, then took one from the armory? And that the one that the escaped miner had was that ranker’s rifle?”
“Ah, not exactly, sir. The missing rifle belonged to a squad leader named Hirosyt. He finished his term a month ago, and no one knows where he went.”
“So… he lost or gave the rifle to one of the rebels, and used his position as a squad leader to lift another rifle from the armory?”
“It looks that way, sir.”
“I would strongly suggest, Captain, that every rifle in both companies be checked against the records.”
“We’ve already started, sir. We’ll know by tomorrow.”
“What about the other one?”
“It’s a standard Cadmian rifle, and it was never issued to anyone. Someone took it directly from the armory.”
Dainyl asked another round of questions, and a full glass passed before he stood to leave. “Thank you, Captain. I look forward to hearing what you have to tell me tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he walked back toward the mess, Dainyl considered what he’d learned. First, there was a way to escape the mines that wasn’t suicidal. Second, conditions had to be > even worse in the mines than anyone believed. When that many miners tried escapes with such a high fatality rate, something was driving them. His thin lips curled. Ifryn was dying, and even Talented alectors were hesitating in trying translations to Acorus and Efra—and death was certain in time if they didn’t. Yet death was far from certain as a miner, but people were dying to get away.
Dainyl had already suspected that the so-called rebellion had to have been helped by someone in the Cadmian compound. The question was just how many rifles the rebels had. There weren’t any other sources of weapons, not in any large numbers. While smuggling was possible, he would have thought it highly unlikely, if not impossible, given that rifles were only produced in Faitel and Alustre, and only for Cadmian units.
The other troubling thing had been the escaped miner’s words. Dainyl had no idea who would have known what the man had said—except another alector—and that was a frightening thought indeed. It just wasn’t something that an alector would do, and Dainyl doubted that there had even been any alectors in Dramur during the time the prisoner had been in the compound or afterward. The more he learned, though, the less he liked what he was finding out.
18
At the ninth glass on Londi morning, Dainyl walked into the council building. Sturwart and an angular blond man waited in the director’s study. Both stood as Dainyl entered.
“Colonel, this is Bleamyr,” offered Sturwart. “He’s the head of the crafters’ guild. Tulcuyt will be here shortly, but he was out on his boat this morning, and had some trouble with his nets. Can’t see as I’d be adding much. So I’ll leave you two and let you know when Tulcuyt comes in.” With a smile and a nod, the council director departed, closing the door behind him.
“Colonel, we don’t see Myrmidons often,” said Bleamyr, a puzzled tone to his words.
Dainyl sat down on Sturwart’s desk, then gestured to the chairs. “Please sit down. The chairs are a bit small for me.”
“I can see that.” Bleamyr smiled. “Sturwart said you might have some questions.”
“I have a few, because of the mine. Have any alectors been here recently, besides me?”
“Not for a few years, leastwise,” replied Bleamyr. “I don’t think we’ve seen an alector here since, well… after the big storm that bashed up the harbor, and that was a good six years ago. We send our reports every quint, and that’s been it.”
Dainyl nodded, catching the feel of truth in the crafter’s words. “What is your craft?”
“Me? I’m an ironworker. In the old days, I’d have been called a smith, but things like nails, bolts, all that, they come out of Faitel and arrive here in boxes and crates. Most of what I do is decorative ironwork, grillwork, or locks and bars for strong rooms, that sort of thing.”
“Do you do work for the mining compound?”
“Just when something needs repairing. Probably been a half year since I’ve been there.”
“I’d heard that more young men were being sentenced to the mines. What do you think?”
Bleamyr squinted, although the chamber was dark, with the light-torches off, and the sole light coming through the two high windows. Finally, he answered, “Every few years, . someone says that. We started keeping track of the ones who were in the guild. Year in, year out, it doesn’t change. It’s mostly those who drink too much, or those who think they’re fitted for better tasks.”
“Did you ever know someone named Devoryn?”
Bleamyr snorted. “He’s in the mines now, unless something fell on him. He was one of the troublemakers. Used to be a laborer for Asadahl, the plumber. Must have smelled too much lead. Kept telling everyone that Asadahl stole the plumbery from his uncle. Asadahl gave him the job out of charity. Devoryn was always wandering off. Said he needed time to himself, up in the hills. People would ask him why, but he never said. That was one thing he’d close his mouth about, and it was always open. Anyway, it must have been two years ago, Devoryn went out of his head and tried to brain Asadahl with a lead ingot. Busted his arm. Justicer then, that was Goeryt, sent him to the mine.” Bleamyr paused. “Why did you want to know, Colonel?”
“He was one of the miners who escaped who we know survived.”
“Well… he spent enough time in the hills and in the rugged places south of the mine. I suppose he could have made it, if anyone did. How did you know he survived?”
“He tried to shoot someone, and the Cadmians caught him. He took poison.”
“Sounds like Devoryn. Never did have much sense. Him and his wild ideas.”
“What were those ideas?”
“You know, I don’t know. Never paid any attention. No one with any sense did.”
They might not have, reflected Dainyl, but he wished they had. “There’s been talk of the escaped miners trying to take over the town, even all of Dramuria.”
“That’s Majer Herryf again. Not that I have anything against the majer, but he’s talked to us at least three times in the past season about that. Says there could be a hundred miners up there, and if they got the shamblers and the plantation workers together, they’d outnumber his Cadmians.” Bleamyr shook his head. “That’d never work. Even if they did overrun the Cadmian compoun
d, one company of your Myrmidons would fry them in moments.”
“That’s what’s puzzling about the talk,” Dainyl replied.
“The only thing I can figure is that there have been more miners getting away than the majer realized, and he figures he’s got to do something. There’s nothing to live on up in the higher hills, not for more than a handful of men. They’re already raiding and stealing stuff from the outlying plantations. The majer told the growers that guarding the fields wasn’t the Cadmians’ task. I’ve heard that some of the plantations have been using dogs at night. That’s here in the east. The big western growers, they don’t have to worry.”
“Have you heard anything else? Do these men have weapons?”
“Some say they do. Some say they don’t. I don’t know…”
Dainyl kept asking questions, but learned nothing significantly new, either about the mines, the so-called rebels, the guilds, or about Bleamyr.
The door opened. “Colonel…” Sturwart’s voice was apologetic. “Tulcuyt’s here.”
“I’ll be with him in just a moment.” Dainyl stood and looked at Bleamyr. “Thank you very much. You’ve given me a much better idea of what we’re facing.”
“I don’t know that it changes things much, but anything you want, I’ll try to help with.”
Bleamyr left, and Tulcuyt—a man with a weathered and leathery face—walked in and half bowed to the colonel.
In the next glass, Dainyl learned almost nothing new or different from Tulcuyt, except that the boatmen had seen a number of fast schooners—the kind used by smugglers— off-loading in a sheltered cove some thirty vingts north of Dramuria several times over the summer. What they were off-loading, Tulcuyt didn’t know, because no fisherman would tangle with armed smugglers, except there were crates being passed to the flatboats receiving the smuggled goods.
In the end, Dainyl thanked the head of the fishers’ guild, as well as Sturwart, and left the council building. Rhasyr and the two Cadmians were waiting outside, patiently.
“Back to the compound. I don’t think I’ll be leaving it again today.”
“You would not mind, Colonel, sir,” asked Rhasyr cautiously, “if we did not tell Captain Benjyr that, not until after the midday meal, sir?”
Dainyl laughed. “Right after the midday meal.”
“Yes, sir.”
Back at the compound, after getting something to eat and retrieving his flying jacket and gloves, Dainyl searched out his Myrmidon rankers. He found them in the sunlight next to the squares where their pteridons were sunning themselves.
“Colonel?” Quelyt and Falyna straightened.
“Who wants to take me flying?”
“Might be better if I did, sir,” replied Falyna. “Trading off works better. Where to, sir?”
“There’s a cove on the coast, maybe twenty-five vingts north of here. I’d like to go there, then head west to the mountains. Smugglers have been landing things there. I’d like to see if there are trails or paths to somewhere north of the mine.”
“North, it is.” Falyna grinned. “I’d rather fly than sit around, sir.”
Dainyl understood that all too well. In the past, when he’d been a lowly ranker, he’d spent far too much time waiting to fly, rather than flying.
Within moments, Falyna had donned her jacket and gloves, and the pteridon was carrying the two Myrmidons northward along the coast. For the first ten vingts there was an outer bank, mostly of sand, if with some grass and bushes, but the bank vanished when the coastline swung more to the northeast. Dainyl only saw three fishing craft, all in the protected waters between the inner shore and the outer bank.
The cove was as Dainyl had envisioned from Tulcuyt’s description, a half circle less than a vingt across cut out of a low bluff, with an entrance no more than a few hundred yards wide.
“Lower, if you can, above the beach, when you head west!”
“Yes, sir.”
Dainyl thought he could make out a narrow footpath threading between the man-high, greenish gray, brush olives, the kind with long and sharp thorns. There was a natural depression or narrow valley that led upward toward the hills, and the mountains beyond, almost between two plantations that held the nut trees. Dainyl could make out the path—or a path—in places, but he didn’t Talent-sense anyone on or near it. Still, he wanted to see where the trails from the cove might lead. As Falyna neared the higher hills, the valley ended, and so did any trace of the path.
“Take us up, in the higher ranges right ahead,” Dainyl called.
With the plantations so close to the hidden trail, if the es-caped prisoners were anywhere, they had to be higher in the hills, perhaps even in the mountains beyond.
Circling to gain altitude, several times, the pteridon lurched in the turbulent air, but finally rose above the lower peaks.
A glimmer—or a reflection from something to Dainyl’s left—caught his eyes.
Dainyl concentrated. On the edge of the short bluff below a peak, still several hundred yards above them, there was something… something that drew both his eye and his Talent. Was it a faded golden green? He wasn’t sure.
“Can you get over that bluff?” Dainyl called. “The one just to the left above us?”
“We can try, sir. It’s getting rougher.”
The pteridon strained, and the blue wings lifted them higher, until they were almost level with the edge of the bluff. For a moment, Dainyl could make out a golden archway—hidden back inside a natural cave, but they swept past, and the rock blocked his view.
Then the pteridon’s left wing was buffeted upward, and they slid sideways through the air, losing hundreds of yards, before Falyna and the pteridon recovered, all too close to another jagged ridge that had been well below them moments before.
“Better head back, Colonel.” Falyna gestured to her left, where the clouds had moved closer and gotten darker.
“Go ahead.” If Dainyl had been flying solo, he would have made another pass, but the pteridon was carrying double. That reduced maneuverability and the altitude the pteridon could reach.
Dainyl looked back once more, but he could see nothing of the mysterious cave.
After they had landed in the courtyard and dismounted, Falyna turned to Dainyl. “A little touchy there, Colonel. I’m sorry we couldn’t get any closer, but the wind was picking up, and there was a good chance of another downdraft—”
“In better weather, could you set me down on that bluff?”
Falyna frowned. “If we went at dawn. The air would be colder, and calmer. That’d be worth another couple hundred yards in altitude.” She paused. “Might I ask why, Colonel, sir?”
“There’s a building inside that cave. We didn’t build it. I don’t think the locals did, either.”
“You think it’s the rebel miners?”
“I don’t think they built it, but they might be using it.”
“Maybe both Quelyt and me should come. We can circle there if we’re not carrying you. Flame anyone if you get into trouble.”
Dainyl smiled. “Maybe you should.”
“Glass before dawn, sir?”
“A glass before dawn.” As he left Falyna, Dainyl had another idea. Rather than head for his quarters, he made his way to the headquarters building, where he found Captain Benjyr in his study.
“Colonel, sir… ?” Benjyr jumped to his feet.
“I have a favor to ask, Captain. I’d like to talk to a handful of your rankers about their duties at the mine.”
“Ah… yes, sir. Third and fifth squads are on standby.”
“Good. If you would escort me there?”
Dainyl followed the captain across the courtyard to the barracks. He had loosened his jacket, but not taken it off.
Benjyr stepped into the second doorway and called out, “Stenslaz?”
A squad leader jumped up from where he had been sitting on a foot chest. “Yes, sir?”
“The colonel here wants to ask the men a few questions about their
duties.”
“Yes, sir.” The squad leader looked around. “There’s no study here, sir.”
Dainyl smiled. “It’s nothing that has to be too private, and it won’t take much time for each man. We can just talk outside in the courtyard.”
Dainyl walked out into the sunlight with the captain. After the chill of flying, the warmer air and sun in the courtyard felt good. “You can stay if you want, Captain.”
“If it’s all the same, Colonel… there are a few reports…”
Dainyl grinned. He understood about reports. “Go take care of them.”
“Thank you, sir.” Benjyr nodded, turned, and walked quickly back across the courtyard.
Through the open doorway, Dainyl could hear the Cad-mian rankers.
“What’s he want with us?”
“Wearing a jacket, and he looks cold…”
“… say they like it hotter ‘n we do…”
“Daclyt, you go first,” called the squad leader.
A few moments later, a ranker appeared. He looked barely old enough to carry a rifle. “Colonel, sir?”
“Yes. I have a few questions for you. You can tell anyone you like about what I’m asking.” Dainyl offered a smile.
It didn’t seem to help. Daclyt still looked frightened as he stared up at the colonel.
“What are the prisoners—the miners—like?” asked Dainyl.
The Cadmian ranker moistened his lips. “I’d guess they don’t want to be there. They don’t work any harder than they have to. They complain about the smell. They complain about the food. They shouldn’t. We eat the same stuff for the midday meal.”
“Exactly the same?”
“Pretty much. It’s the same chow line. We just get to eat first… well, half of us do.”
“Have you ever shot a prisoner?”
“Shot at a couple. Captain told us not to shoot to hit ‘em on the first shot, not unless one of us might get hurt. Never hit one. Solisyr’s the only one in the squad ever hit one. Fellow had a big stone… was trying to brain another prisoner…”
After a glass and a half and talks with almost twenty of the Cadmians, Dainyl thanked the squad leader and walked slowly back toward his quarters. He had a better feel of how the rankers felt and acted, and that just made matters more puzzling.
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