The guard pauses and turns to look at Miko. “Nice?” he asks with a short laugh. “Hardly. Slaves are expensive and we have a quota of iron ore to mine each day. We’ll not have anyone messing with our schedule. Understand?”
Miko nods his head and continues to follow with his group further into the tunnel. It’s grown very dark now, with only occasional patches of light from a lone lantern illuminating slaves hard at work to mine the ore from the walls.
They come to a branching tunnel and the guard moves into it. He leads them down the tunnel until they reach a gang of slaves hard at work, chipping the ore from the walls.
One slave, who’s carrying a whip, comes over to them. “This is Essin,” their guard tells them. “He will be your overseer and you will do as he tells you.”
“New bunch, eh?” Essin asks the guard as they near.
“Just arrived today,” the guard replies.
“Good,” Essin tells him, “we’ve been falling behind in our quota and old Vorn has been complaining.”
“Not your fault though,” the guard says, “since that cave-in took out half your group.”
Essin nods and says, “I know, but try telling that to him.”
The guard laughs as he turns and returns back the way they came.
Turning to the new arrivals, Essin announces, “My name is Essin and welcome to the Mines of Sorna. Whether you live or die will be determined by me, understand?”
Six heads nod agreement.
“Alright,” he says as he hands each of them a pickaxe or a hammer, Miko gets a pickaxe. “Here we dig out the iron ore that the empire needs. We have a certain quota that must be achieved each day.” He glances around at the new arrivals and says, “We will meet it or you’ll wish to whatever gods you worship we had.”
One by one he takes the new arrivals and assigns them to work beside a slave who has been there for a while. “Each of you are to work alongside your partner, learn from them and any questions you have be sure to ask them,” he explains as he’s matching them up.
Miko is partnered with a man of about twenty with sandy hair. “Name’s Nate,” the man says to Miko as he extends his hand.
Taking the offered hand, he returns with, “Miko.”
“Here, let me show you what to do,” he says. “You take your pick and swing it at the wall as hard as you can,” he says as he demonstrates by striking the wall. “You want to strike near the veins of iron that run through the stone.” He shows Miko what the veins look like and watches as he takes a swing at one. “Sometimes it takes several hits before it will come loose. If the first hit doesn’t work, then strike in the same place again until some comes away.”
Miko raises the pickaxe and swings with all his might. The jolt of the pick hitting the stone causes his hands to sting. “Not bad,” Nate tells him. “You don’t want to stop though, try to find a rhythm and keep swinging. We have a lot to do before the day is over,” he explains as he takes up his own pickaxe and resumes chipping chunks from the wall.
Miko takes up the pickaxe again and strikes the wall, this time a sizeable chunk comes loose and falls to the ground. He looks to Nate who smiles and nods his head in approval. They continue chipping away until they have a sizeable pile at their feet. Then Nate has him pick up the chunks and carry them over to the waiting wagon where he drops them in.
They continue like that for a while, chip away the stone before carrying it over to the wagon. Miko’s arms begin to tire and his hands become sore, as blisters start to form.
Nate notices that he’s slowing down and says, “Keep up.” He nods over to where Essin is watching another pair, “You don’t want Essin to think you’re slacking.”
Doing the best he can, Miko continues to chip away with the pickaxe despite the sores on his hands. After a little while longer, his back and arms begin to ache and hurt.
Essin hollers, “Rest break!”
All the slaves give out a sigh of relief, especially the new arrivals, as they rest their pickaxes on the ground. They go over to where Essin is standing with another slave who is holding a bucket of water and a sack containing stale bread. The slave goes around the group, giving each a piece of bread and drink of water that he draws from the bucket with a ladle.
“We get three such breaks every day,” Nate informs him. “They’re not doing it to be nice, but so we can have the strength to continue removing the ore all day.”
“Oh,” says Miko as he takes his piece of bread and drinks from the ladle.
It seems like he just received his bread when Essin announces, “Back to work!”
With a groan, the new slaves return to the wall with their partners and resume the arduous work of removing the iron ore.
Shortly after the break, Miko turns as he hears Essin’s whip strike out and hit someone. “Who gave you permission to stop working?” he shouts at one of the new arrivals.
“But my hands are sore and bleeding,” the man wails as he holds his hands out, showing Essin.
“I don’t care if they fall off!” he shouts, knocking the hands away. “Grab your pickaxe and continue working!”
When the man hesitates, Essin lashes him twice more. The man grabs his pickaxe and starts chipping at the wall again.
“See,” Nate tells him, “you don’t want to be slacking. He got off easy because he’s new. If he’s caught again, he’ll be put to much worse jobs.”
“Worse?” ask Miko after striking the wall again.
“There’re always worse jobs,” he explains. “Don’t ever forget that. Certain sections of the mine cave-in more often than others, the trouble makers and slackers are the ones who get to work those areas. You understand?”
Miko just nods his head as he continues to wield his pickaxe. As bad as this is, he definitely doesn’t want to go where it’s ‘worse’.
After a couple more hours of mining, the sores on his hand begin to rub raw and every strike now causes him pain. His shoulders and back feel like they’re on fire, their strength beginning to fail.
Nate sees how he’s struggling to continue and says, “I’ll do this and you take the rocks over to the wagon, okay?”
Too tired for words, Miko just nods in relief and begins to carry the rocks over to the wagon.
When their group has filled its second wagon since Miko’s arrival, Essin announces it’s time to head up to the surface. “Take your picks with you,” he tells the new arrivals.
Grabbing his, Miko rests it on a shoulder and follows Nate as they begin to leave the mines for the night. “When they first started mining here,” Nate tells him, “they used to have the slaves remain within the mines all the time. But many kept getting sick and dying so they started bringing them out every night and the sickness began to go away.”
“Quiet back there!” Essin hollers back to them.
Whispering, Nate continues, “Remember worse? The ones at the very furthest end aren’t allowed out at night. They stay down here a week at a time as punishment, few make it more than a month.”
A shudder runs through Miko when he thinks about having to stay in the mines for days at a time, never seeing the outside or having fresh, clean air to breathe.
They make their way back toward the winding road that leads to the surface. Other slave groups join them as they make their way up and out of the mine. Able to breathe fresh air again, Miko begins to feel a little better and some of his strength returns. Essin leads them over to a large, single story building with many doors spaced along the outside. Coming to one, he opens it up and leads them inside. “This is where you will be spending every night,” he tells them as the new arrivals drop to the floors, one even passing out. “No one is permitted outside during the night.”
Once they’re all in, he says, “In a little bit, someone will bring you food and water.” He glances around at the exhausted new arrivals and then to the one who has passed out, “Use this time to rest. I expect you hard at work in the morning.”
Just before he
leaves, he says, “Share the food evenly, those who don’t will go without food for a day.” He glares around at everyone before leaving the room and shutting the door.
When the door closes, the new arrivals begin to quietly complain and bemoan their situation. “Shut up!” one of the old timers says.
“You’ll get use to it after a while,” another adds.
“Yeah,” a third says, “the first couple days are the worst, but your hands will toughen up.”
Miko looks at his hands in the dim light coming through the cracks in the walls and the one lone window. Open, oozing sores cover his hands, each one adding its voice to the throbbing pain.
When the food arrives, the old timers make it a point to share evenly with the newcomers. In fact, Nate actually gives Miko some of his portion, saying, “You can have some of mine, it looks like you need it.” The old timers know that a poorly fed worker only hurts the group, and it’s the group that counts down here. Everyone looks out for each other, those who don’t, tend not to make it long.
“Thank you,” he says gratefully as he takes the offered portion. The bread and meat they’re given isn’t the freshest he’s ever had, but after all the exertion in the mines, it tasted wonderful. Not nearly enough to fill him completely, but enough to quiet the grumbling in his stomach.
After he’s done eating, he goes over to a corner where he quickly falls asleep.
It seemed like he no sooner fell asleep before Essin is there waking them up. After a quick meal, they’re again marched back down into the mines. His arms and back are stiff and aching, it’s all he can do just to carry that heavy pickaxe as he descends into the mines. They arrive back at the same spot they worked the day before and commence to mine the ore.
After the first couple of swings, his arms begin complaining and by the first break, his back and arms are again on fire. His hands are slippery from the oozing sores that the swinging of the pickaxe has reopened from the day before. Nate does his best to help him along, he’s thankful that his partner is so nice and helpful. As Nate chips away at the wall, he carries the rocks over to the waiting wagon and deposits them inside.
When Essin calls for the first break, Miko is dazed and exhausted even though his day isn’t even half over. When the slave comes over to give him his bread and water, he at first doesn’t realize it, but then his eyes focus on who the slave is. Black Tooth!
When he reaches for his bread, Black Tooth gives him a dark look and drops it to the ground before he can take hold of it. When he gives him the ladle, he finds that it’s only half full of water.
Black Tooth gives him an evil grin as he takes the ladle back. Nate, standing beside him doesn’t fail to notice what is going on. After Black Tooth is gone and the break is over, they return to mining the ore.
“You know him?” he asks, referring to Black Tooth.
“Yeah,” Miko replies as he carries the rocks over to the wagon. “He lost his hand because he tried to attack me one night and the guards cut it off, probably because he had a knife.”
“That’s the general rule,” he says. “I take it he doesn’t care for you too much, then?”
“You could say that,” agrees Miko.
“You’ll never survive if he only gives you half rations,” Nate tells him.
“What should I do?” Miko asks.
“If he does it again,” he explains, “tell Essin. I’ll back you up on it.”
“Alright,” he says, “I’ll do that.”
The rest of the day passes pretty much as the previous one had. Apparently their quota was four wagon loads a day. “And there better not be just rock in there either!” Essin keeps telling them. At the second to last break of the day, Black Tooth is again the one to bring their bread and water. Miko figures he’s given that job because a one handed man is of little use otherwise.
When he comes to Miko, he gives him another of his crooked grins as he fills the ladle again only half full. Instead of taking it, Miko hollers over to where Essin stands, “He’s only giving me a half ration of water!”
Black Tooth’s smile disappears as he quickly dips the ladle back in before Essin has time to come over to see what he’s doing.
“What’s going on over here?” he asks, obviously not pleased at having been disturbed.
Indicating Black Tooth, Miko says, “This man here is only giving me half rations of water.”
Essin speaks to Black Tooth and gets a reply. “He says you just want seconds,” he says to Miko.
Nate steps in and says, “I’ve seen it. He’s been shorting Miko because of an old grudge.”
Essin looks from Nate, Miko and then to Black Tooth. Making up his mind he says something to Black Tooth and then walks away.
Black Tooth gives Miko a dark look, dips the ladle and gives him a full measure. Miko takes it and says, “Thank you” to him very pleasantly just to irritate him.
“What did Essin say to him?” Miko asks Nate once they’ve returned to work.
“He said if he ever shorts one of his workers again, he’ll have the other hand cut off,” he replies.
“Good,” Miko says with malice. He really doesn’t care too much for Black Tooth.
Near the end of their shift, there’s a rumble from off in the mines and then someone comes running and says something excitedly to Essin.
“Leave your picks boys,” he tells them. “There’s been a cave-in and we’ve been told to go help dig ‘em out.”
He turns and leads them at a quick pace down a side tunnel that has dust belching out of it. They go down it a ways and arrive at a spot where the ceiling has fallen in and has either trapped or killed the men that had been working this area.
They begin to clear the rubble as fast as they can, sometimes several of them have to work together to move a sizeable boulder. Miko works diligently and suddenly sees an arm sticking out of the rubble after removing a stone. “Someone’s under here!” he hollers.
Everyone begins to clear that section until the body can be removed. Miko gets sick when he sees the skull has been smashed and the man’s brains are oozing through the cracks.
They find three more bodies before they break through to the other side where the rest of the crew had been trapped. One has a broken arm and another a broken leg, the rest of the crew are unscathed.
After they’ve removed the rubble and the men are being taken to the surface to mend, Essin leads them back to their area. On the way back, Miko sees a group of men coming with timbers and hammers to shore up the fallen area.
Once back and again picking away at the wall, his mind keeps returning to the cave-in and he can’t get the picture of the man’s skull, crushed by the fallen stone, out of his mind. The tunnel feels smaller than it had before and every noise he hears, scares him as he thinks the tunnel is caving in.
When they at last head back up to their room, Miko is happy to be out of there. All night long, he has dreams of being trapped inside the tunnel as it caves in around him.
Chapter Twenty Five
The day before, they headed south as directly as they could and had put many miles behind them. Several times they came across dead soldiers and horses, all having been flayed by the storm. Every corpse had a good portion of their skin removed, some even with bones exposed from where the flying debris had shredded the skin and tissue from them.
They remained out of sight of the road to the west while paralleling its course south. Once they detoured further to the east to avoid patrols and each time James had dreaded the thought of possibly having to do magic to escape them. But thankfully, they managed to avoid detection and hadn’t needed to use magic.
Close to nightfall, they come across a small spring and made camp. Barely three foot across and two deep, it held enough water to quench their thirst and satisfy the horses. By the time they were done with drinking and filling their water bottles, they had practically drained it dry. By morning, though, it had refilled to its previous level and they were able to top off th
eir water bottles again before setting off.
Prior to leaving, James pulls out his mirror to see if he can determine Miko’s whereabouts. When the image begins to appear, he starts to panic because it is so dark. At first he thought he was looking inside a grave but then a light appears and he sees Miko with a pickaxe in hand, swinging it against a rock wall.
“I found him!” he announces excitedly. “It looks like they have him inside some kind of mine.”
“A mine?” Jiron asks. “Can you determine where?”
He tries to expand the image but to no avail. Shaking his head he says, “All I see is the inside of the mine, others are there working beside him.”
“Must be a big place then,” Jiron figures.
“Perhaps,” he replies. “I’m sure the locals would know of it, but we don’t dare inquire.”
Jiron nods in agreement, “Yeah, we would stick out all right, what with us not knowing the language. What do you propose we do?”
Thinking a moment, he takes out a strip of cloth and says, “I’ll keep using this to show us the way and eventually we’ll find him.”
“Even across water?” he asks. “Remember, he was on a ship a few days ago.”
“There’s no reason to believe he’s not on the mainland,” James says. “They could’ve simply used it for quick transport from one city to the next along the coast.”
Looking dubious, Jiron shrugs his shoulders and says, “Either way, sitting here isn’t going to get us any closer.” He tops off his water bottle and then allows his horse a last drink from the spring before mounting. Once mounted, he waits for James to do the same and then they’re on their way.
Jiron looks over to James and sees him holding the piece of cloth as it sticks straight out from his hand. It’s pointing to the southwest. “Should we head that way now or stay south until he’s due west?” he asks.
“May as well head straight there,” he says. “We don’t know if going south or southwest is the safest way. So we may as well go in as straight a direction as possible.” He looks to Jiron and then says, “Until our circumstances change that is.”
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