When the last worker had stumbled outside and fallen into line, the campmaster reached into the pocket of his jacket and unfolded a small square of vellum. As he did every morning, he took a moment to smile at his handiwork. Then he gave a slight cough, and began to call roll.
"Aryl," he barked.
"Here, sir," came a timid reply. The campmaster looked up, identified the source of the voice, and when he was satisfied that it had in fact come from Aryl, turned his attention back to the list. Stupid, thought Jeina, though she dared not say it. Why does he always pause between names? He had called the list so many times he likely knew the list by memory.
"Anaia."
"Here, sir," answered a second woman.
"Br—-" began the campmaster, his voice momentarily lost in the howl of a particularly forceful gust of wind. "Brin," he finished, when the wind had died down. As he continued his way down the list, Jeina had to work hard to keep her eyes from rolling. Impatience would only get her in trouble, she knew. Besides, the worst part of her day was yet to come. To be sure, there would soon be breakfast and the warm fires of the kitchens to enjoy, but after that it was down into the mine, hunting for silver in the cold and clammy depths of the mountains.
"Irina," the campmaster continued, and Jeina made ready to reply when her named was called. But then came something odd—silence. The campmaster's head jerked up. "Irina," he repeated. Jeina glanced about nervously, trying to find Irina's figure somewhere nearby. When the campmaster's eyes finished sweeping over the workers before him, he sighed, folded his list, replaced it in his pocket, and closed his hand around his staff. In a few strides he had made it to the door of the barracks, kicking it open with the heel of his boot and storming inside. Moments later, a shrill cry from within told Jeina he had found his quarry and he soon reappeared dragging the dazed and half-dressed form of Irina. The woman was complaining of a fever and begging to go back to the warmth of her bed. Ignoring her pleas, the campmaster threw her to the ground in front of the other workers and gripped his staff with both hands. As Irina struggled to her knees, he delivered three swift blows to her midsection. There was a sickening crunch as the third blow connected with her ribcage, and Irina collapsed in the snow, gasping for air.
The campmaster relaxed, and took a step back. He reached into his pocket, drew out his list, and read out Irina's name once more.
"Here, sir," came the hoarse sob from below him, and for the second time that morning, the campmaster smiled.
After that, breakfast was an unusually sullen affair. Jeina ate in silence, dreading the whistle that signaled her meal was over, and her work in the mines was to begin. As a silver seeker, she spent most days on her knees, crawling in the coldest and darkest corners of the mine looking for the dull reflection in the light of her torch that might be a vein of silver. Behind her she could sometimes hear the steady rhythm of clinking and scraping as the male workers mined the rock in which silver had already been found. Lately, though, she had grown used to working in complete silence. Untapped veins of silver were becoming scarcer by the day, and Jeina and her fellow seekers were forced to delve deeper into the chilly darkness of the mountain than ever before.
The demand for mountain silver was fierce. Tobin, the younger Mountain Prince, was in desperate need of coin to fund his battles against the occupying Marshland army. Ever in need of more miners, enemy captives were sent away to work and die in secret mining camps scattered throughout the Silver Mountains. But it was not enough—the ill-provisioned Hinnjari army's raids were not always successful, and it seemed that as often as Tobin defeated a Marshland garrison, his own forces were either captured or killed. In a desperate attempt to continue his mining operations, Tobin had issued an edict throughout the few provinces he still controlled permitting delinquent Hinnjar to be sent to the mining camps. Beggars, thieves, murderers, and other criminals—all were hauled out of jail or off the streets and sent to work in the silver mines. The Prince had promised that the camps which housed his own people would be more humane than those which housed the enemy, but Jeina could not think of anywhere more bleak and grueling than the camp which was now her home.
She had been thrown in jail when she was caught pinching a handful of coppers from the pocket of a grain merchant. Normally such a pittance would have landed her in jail for a week, maybe two at the most—she had been in such situations before when she had lived in the Iron City years ago. But theft during wartime was considered a heinous crime and so Jeina had found herself imprisoned for an indeterminate length. She had been in jail for almost a month when a party of soldiers had come bearing the edict from the Prince. The very next day, the cells had been emptied and their occupants marched off into the mountains. Jeina had not known exactly what was happening at the time, and she even thought when she heard the whispers of a "work camp" that the prospect of labor would be preferable to shivering her days away in a prison cell. Now, however, she longed for the comfort of her tiny prison cot.
At least, Jeina reflected as her stomach growled, they fed her decently in this place. Helping herself to another heaping spoon of oat-mush, she looked around at the other women breaking their fast. Some sat in pairs, a few were in small groups, but most ate alone. The few conversations she could hear were murmured, and even those faded into silence before long. Jeina had never minded a bit of company, in fact she often used to spend her evenings talking with strangers or bored tavern workers when she could afford a mug of ale. Even now, after a day spent alone in the dark tunnels of the mountain, Jeina often felt completely starved for human contact. Sometimes in the evenings all the women would huddle around the heating stove in the barracks and tell each other stories, or talk about their lives before the camp. Sometimes they would just sit and sing softly in the faint glow of the stove. Then, it felt good just to be with other people, to know that she would not go to sleep alone. But in the mornings, with the prospect of another day's seeking ahead of her, she felt sick at heart and could not bring herself to try and talk to anyone.
The men were different. Most days, as Jeina was leaving the mess and the men were coming in she could hear the hum of steady conversation, even the occasional sound of laughter. But the men worked in teams all day, remaining together as they smashed through the mountain rock to get at the silver ore. The rays of their lanterns combined to make anywhere they worked passably bright, and there was never a time when they could not hear each other working. It was rare that Jeina heard anything but her own footsteps in dark and cramped mountain tunnels, for in order to maximize the exploration of the mines it was commanded that each seeker work alone.
The campmaster's whistle signaled that it was time for the women to leave. Jeina stuffed the last of her food in her mouth, picked up her waterskin and made her way outside. The sun was just beginning to clear the mountain peaks and Jeina tried to drink in every bit of warmth its rays provided. It helped, sometimes, just to think of the sun when she was thousands of feet into the surface of the earth. It was easy to forget that there was such a thing when one's world became limited to the weak light of a lantern for hours on end. As she came to the mine entrance one of the guards handed Jeina her kit, which consisted of some stout rope, an oil lantern, flint and a bit of steel, a ball of multicolored twine, a few strips of bark from a mountain elm, and a whistle. Theoretically, if she were to injure herself, get lost, or have her lantern go out, the whistle would help the others find her and save her...if they could hear it. Jeina had never heard of anyone being rescued from the mines, though she had heard of plenty of deaths and disappearances. The campmaster had made clear, though, that the whistle was a privilege of the Hinnjar. Enemy miners or seekers did not get them.
By this time Jeina knew her route pretty well. Even if she did not, she merely had to follow the twine she had laid down in previous explorations. Blue, red, and yellow were her colors and would tell the miners where to go if she found any silver. Each seeker had her own colors, and the entrance to the cave was crissc
rossed with a myriad of colorful twine paths shooting out into the darkness. By the time she reached the cave where her journey had ended yesterday, however, only her twine of blue, red, and yellow would remain.
The network of tunnels in the mine was vast and complex, with passages so large half a dozen men could walk though shoulder to shoulder without any difficulty, while some were just big enough for a small woman like Jeina to explore. If she found any silver, men would be sent to widen the tunnels for mining, but when Jeina was seeking, she had to navigate where she could through the natural formations in the rock. More than once, Jeina had thought herself trapped while struggling through a tight crevice or crawling on her belly through a low tunnel. She would feel the panic start to rise in her core, a pure and primal fear of being trapped alone and in the dark with barely any space to move or breathe. When that happened, she would have to fight back her fear and force her mind to think logically. Usually if she drew her shoulder blades together, sucked in her stomach, or made some similarly small adjustment, she could wiggle out of even the tightest spaces.
After miles of making her way through the dim tunnels, Jeina came to the end of her twine. She broke off a piece of the mountain elm bark and popped it in her mouth while she looked around for where to go next. The sweet sap that laced the bark improved a person's vision in very low light, and as Jeina chewed slowly, those parts of the cavern touched by the dim glow of her lantern began to creep a little more into focus. She settled on a large crevice to her right which, from its size, looked like it might extend into another, wider area. Jeina stepped up to the crevice and made a hissing sound into the darkness. If at the other end of the crevice there was only rock, the sound would come back almost as sharp as it had gone out. If, however, there was an opening on the other side, the sound could fade away almost entirely.
When Jeina was satisfied that this was not a dead end, she hooked her lantern to the side of her belt, her twine to the other and began to step sideways into the crevice. There was just enough space for her body to fit if she stood very straight and took shallow breaths. At one point the gap narrowed slightly and Jeina thought she might not be able to get in any farther, but by moving her body in a slow vertical undulation she was able to pass through the gap, and found herself in another open cavern. It was a very large space, one of the largest Jeina had seen in her many months spent scouring the tunnels. She shone her lantern around the walls and near the ceiling, but she saw no glimmer of silver, just the slightly wet luster of cold mountain rock. Ahead she could see a fair-sized tunnel extend into the darkness. Walking slowly so that she could press her lantern close to every patch of surrounding rock to look for silver, Jeina made her way down the tunnel. When she got to the end, a pile of rubble seemed to slide out of the darkness as it became illuminated by the rays of her lantern. Damn, she thought. A cave in. A dead end. She would have to retrace her steps and find her way out. Jeina was about to turn around and make her way back to the crevice when something caught her eye. A shadow on the wall that looked vaguely like a hand, or at least something like a hand. She thought for a moment that her mind might be playing tricks on her, and looked around for the source of the shadow. And then she saw it. Sticking out of the rubble just a few steps away was the hand and forearm of someone, or rather something. As Jeina moved in closer she could see that it did not appear to be human at all. The skin was gray and leathery, and where the fingernails should have been were five dark, curved, and very sharp looking claws. As Jeina's imagination conjured up images of what sort of a body might possess such hands, the darkness around her became overwhelming, and Jeina groped around her neck for her whistle.
Chapter 2: Nicolas
For the third time that week, Nicolas Corriver awoke in a strange place, his shirt soaked through with sweat and the lingering taste of blood in his mouth. This time he was at the foot of a hill below the western lighthouse, and thankfully it appeared that there had been no one around to witness his fit. The first time the tremors had come upon him he had been at the market, buying some hides from the tanner to take back to his master. The fit had not lasted long, but he could still remember the sudden swell of energy that had gripped his body, the fog that had dulled his thoughts, and most of all—the plain horror on the faces of those standing around him when he had awoken from the seizure. Today, at least, there would be no questions to answer, nor lies to tell.
Wincing as he called his beleaguered and uncooperative muscles to action, he climbed the hill and sat on the edge of a small cliff overlooking the sea. The salty mists that rose into the air as waves crashed into the rocks below felt good on his skin and helped to dissipate the grogginess that still clouded his mind. Gazing out to sea, Nicolas let his mind worry for a while. His master, Gleydon, had not said anything yet, but his was a profession of confident and steady hands. What good was an engraver's apprentice whose unpredictable tremors risked ruining hours of careful craft? Gleydon was not an unkind man, but he was not the sort to keep an apprentice that might potentially ruin his business. If Gleydon should end his apprenticeship, what would Nicolas do? He had no family to whom he could turn for help. His mother had died last year of a cough that had come in the winter and never left, and she had been the only family Nicolas had ever known. Nicolas supposed that he had a father, somewhere, but he doubted the man had any desire to see him, let alone take him in.
Nicolas' mother had almost never spoken of his father. In fact, Nicolas could only remember a single occurrence when his mother had revealed anything about the man. He had been seven or eight at the time and had heard a story in a local tavern about a woodcutter who had died saving his wife and children from a pack of hungry wolves. It struck Nicolas that if ever there was a good way for a man to leave his woman and children, dying in their defense was it. He had gone home with the strange hope that his father was dead, his life cut short by some sort of heroic act of self-sacrifice. When he had asked his mother if this was the case, his mother had gone very quiet and stared blankly at the parsnips she had been chopping for a long moment. After a while, she had looked straight at Nicolas and said, "Your father was very much alive when he left us, Nicolas. He loved his drink more than his family, and that's all there was to it. I should have known better, his father was the same way. When we were younger, he told me he would be different, he promised he would never leave me. But in the end his promises ended up like the rest of him—drowned in spirits."
And thus Nicolas had no family, no established trade, little money, and the friends he did have were too young to be of much help. Then again, he thought as he tried to be positive, there was always the chance the tremors would stop as suddenly as they had come. These days, it was hard to know what tricks his body had in store for him. He was growing like a weed, his voice always seemed to crack at the times when it was sure to embarrass him. Stubble had begun to sprout on his chin that made him itch like mad, and worst of all—he had started having unsettling dreams about one of the baker's girls. In short, he mused, everything about his body and mind was going awry. Perhaps, just as one day his body would stop growing, so might the tremors fade away. Perhaps he would be able to settle into his trade and—
Nicolas' thoughts were interrupted when a particularly large wave sent up such a cloud of spray that caught him full in the face. A gasp of surprise rewarded him with a mouthful of sea mist, the salty invasion leaving Nicolas sneezing and sputtering. A sharp sting in his mouth revealed that his tongue was cut in at least two different places. He gingerly touched his finger to the salted wounds and frowned as his finger came away stained a light crimson. The cuts were deeper this time, and would not heal nearly as quickly as his last. It was beginning to get dark, and Nicolas knew that Sister Stacy had some tea which had helped heal his wounded tongue before, so he made up his mind and set off into town.
As he was walking home through the woodland path that led from the lighthouse to the village, Nicolas began to hear dull smacking sounds that grew louder and louder
as he approached. Curious, he followed the sound a little ways off the path and saw in the distance a short and portly boy wielding a large stick engaged in a furious battle with the trunk of a tree. It was undoubtedly Rujo, a boy who had been taken in and raised by local monks since he was a babe. He was easy to pick out, for he was almost as wide as he was tall, had blond hair so pale it was almost white, and when he was exerting himself as he was now—a face as florid as the Blood Marsh itself. He had begun his training as a scribe many years ago, so Nicolas was surprised to see him thumping away at a tree instead of pouring over a book or parchment. Nicolas had often seen Rujo at the monastery, for the monks were some of his master's best customers. It had often seemed to Nicolas that the vanity which the monks forsook by way of their clothing and hairstyles often found its way into the books they so laboriously crafted. No one could tool a leather book cover as intricately as Gleydon, so he was much in demand with the monks.
"Hello there," called Nicolas to Rujo, who looked about him like he was in a daze. Finally his eyes found Nicolas and his face broke into a grin.
"That tree is even thicker than you are," said Nicolas.
"I know.," Rujo grinned. "It saves me the trouble of aiming."
"Shouldn't you be at your books?" asked Nicolas.
"Ah, Nico," Rujo sighed, "you don't know how good it feels to get away from my books and my lessons and...well, do something. I just let my body take over for a bit while my mind gets a bit of rest."
"Well," said Nicolas, "at least that only happens when you want it to."
"What do you mean?"
"Nevermind. Going back to the monks soon? It's getting dark."
"True enough, let me just get in one last thwack…"
The Weight of a Crown (The Azhaion Saga Book 1) Page 2