The Swords & Salt Collection

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Practicing your Science?” Falcon asked casually, though his eyes held an intensity that suggested the answer mattered. “The kind they’ll want to see?”

  And not the sissy earth stuff was left unspoken. “I have been,” Yanko said.

  “Good, good.”

  “Are you going to be here long? Maybe we could spar and you could show me your military moves, anything that would give me an advantage.”

  “Are you worried about that part of the test?” Falcon asked.

  “I’m worried about the whole thing.”

  Falcon’s face grew bleak, and Yanko wished he hadn’t been so honest. His brother had never put the pressure on him that Father had—he had never cared much if the family held an honored status or not—but something seemed to have changed.

  Falcon replaced the grim expression with an easy shrug. “You shouldn’t be. You’ll do fine on the physical events and the sparring. You were always athletic. When you could be bothered to be.”

  “Well, I—”

  A deep bong resonated through the mine, reverberating from the walls and floor like a tremor in the earth. It sounded again and again, insistent in its tenacity.

  “What’s that?” Falcon asked.

  “The alarm. Someone’s in trouble.” Yanko had heard the warning twice in the months he had been there, both times because some large equipment had broken in a way that endangered lives. Though a similar event had likely spawned this alarm, for some reason he thought of the bodies he had stumbled across in the lower level months earlier, men who had died from methane poisoning.

  “Should we go somewhere to help?” Falcon eyed his sword belt.

  “If you have tools in that duffle, maybe. I’m sure it’s not an invading army.”

  Footfalls sounded in the tunnel outside, and Mishnal jogged into the office. Yanko frowned. Mishnal never jogged, nor hustled in anything other than a stately manner. His uncle gave them a curt nod, then delved into the bookcase behind his desk. He pulled out a couple of handwritten journals and skimmed through them, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

  “Honored Uncle?” Falcon asked after a time.

  “Mine operations.” Mishnal set down the first journal and dug into the second. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with on your leave.”

  Falcon frowned at Yanko, who could only shrug in response.

  “Uncle, if there’s something I can do to help, I’m pleased to lend my blade,” Falcon said.

  Mishnal placed the second journal on his desk. “Nothing in here. Weasel’s luck.” He headed for the door, but seemed to remember Falcon’s offer. “Don’t concern yourself. I’ll handle this problem. At this point, there’s likely nothing you can do anyway.” His gaze fell upon Yanko. “Well, perhaps…” He opened a trunk and withdrew a light globe, a Made device with more power to illuminate than a lantern and which wouldn’t run out of fuel. “Come with me.”

  Yanko thought the order was for him rather than his brother, but Falcon grabbed his weapons belt and followed them. He strapped on the saber and kyzar, the short, stabbing sword favored by infantrymen for close combat.

  When they entered the lift and Uncle Mishnal pushed the lever for the lowest level, Yanko wondered if he too should have brought a weapon. Or a big torch with a very long handle. “Is it trouble with methane again?”

  “No,” Mishnal said.

  His tone didn’t invite further inquiries, but Flacon either didn’t notice or considered himself adult enough now to question his elders. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mishnal said. “Two people are dead.”

  “But… not from methane,” Yanko said.

  “Not unless it’s a special type of methane that gnaws on people’s bodies when it’s done killing them.”

  The lift stopped before Yanko could do more than mutter an ineloquent, “Uh.”

  Mishnal stepped out first. Two security guards were waiting for him, both wearing boiled leather armor and carrying round shields and axes suitable for hewing sizable branches from tree trunks. It wasn’t the usual gear for keeping indentured miners from lazing about on the job.

  “Controller Mishnal,” one of the men said, bowing and clapping axe to shield before his chest, the armed alternative for the palm-to-palm salute that usually accompanied a greeting to one’s superior. “Shee Naw and Kotu are waiting by the bodies of the miners. They went to the end of the tunnel and found an opening leading to a natural limestone tunnel.”

  Mishnal drummed his fingers on the light orb, its opaque surface keeping the illumination from being too intense to look at directly. “The miners must have broken through this morning, else someone would have mentioned it in the end-of-shift report yesterday.”

  The guard nodded. “It was the farthest point in the tunnel.”

  “Have the men gone through the hole to explore yet?”

  The two guards exchanged uneasy glances. “No, Controller. I thought—everyone thought—it would be best to wait for you and your wisdom.”

  Yanko might not know what these workers had found, but he could read between those lines well enough. The guards were afraid.

  Mishnal’s lips twitched, as if he might snort—he would have read between the lines too—but he must have thought better of it. He merely extended a hand for the guards to lead. “Let’s take a closer look then. All together, eh?”

  “Yes, Controller.”

  Before heading off, the lead guard eyed Falcon for a moment, taking in the weapons swaying at his hips and the blue and silver of his military issue silks. He met Falcon’s eyes and nodded, as if taking some strength from having a marine along, then strode down the tunnel. Yanko decided it wouldn’t be appropriate to be envious of the respect his brother commanded, even if he was a stranger here, and even if Yanko had been working here for months, more than once displaying his skills as a fledgling mage. All right, maybe a hint of envy was appropriate, so long as he didn’t whine about it. Not out loud.

  The small group made several turns, Uncle Mishnal’s light pushing back the darkness for a dozen meters ahead and behind. Workers had expanded the tunnels in the three or four months since Yanko had been down there last, and the beginnings of a cart track marked the white-gray flooring.

  The tunnels grew tighter and narrower. At an intersection, the tracks ended with segments stacked neatly to one side. The guards turned to the left, one of them having to duck his head as they continued, now in single file. Yanko had thought he’d outgrown the claustrophobia he had experienced upon his first descent into the mines, but it returned again now, along with that tightness in his chest, that feeling that he wasn’t getting enough air.

  Calm down, nobody else is panicking. Falcon has never been here before and he’s fine.

  Yanko inhaled deeply, but the scent that came to his nostrils did nothing to ease his nerves. “Is that blood?” he asked, his voice higher pitched than usual.

  Yeah, good, squeak at them when you’re asking dumb questions. That’ll make them feel comforted by your presence.

  “Yes,” Uncle Mishnal said.

  Another minute, and the group stopped. In the tight tunnel, Yanko couldn’t see past the guards and his uncle—all three men walked ahead of him—but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. The scent of blood had grown more prominent.

  Don’t be a coward.

  Mishnal shifted, and a dark splash on the chiseled wall came into view. Yanko gulped. Blood. A spray of blood, as if a man’s artery had been cut open and spurted his life force into the air.

  He wanted to tell himself he was being overly dramatic, but the guards moved ahead, and Mishnal stepped aside, pressing his back to the opposite wall so Yanko could see. He wasn’t being dramatic at all, simply imagining the truth.

  Yanko put a hand on the wall for support, realized he was touching the bloodstain, and yanked it back. He started to wipe his hand on his robes, but dirty fingers were the least of the problems down here.

  The miner had
died with his pickaxe in his hands, his body twisted, as if he had been running and trying to strike at something behind him. He might have died because of the slash that had severed that leg artery, but it might have been death by a thousand cuts as well. Something had shredding his gut, tearing a pile of intestines from his body, and his arms and legs had suffered dozens of incisions as well.

  “By the wrath of the wolf god,” Falcon whispered, lifting a fist to his mouth. He looked away.

  Yanko’s stomach wasn’t settled either, but the question of what had done this kept his attention riveted. Insects? Large insects? That didn’t make sense. What insect, animal, reptile, or other being would be roaming about down here? Creatures didn’t kill indiscriminately anyway. Could a man have staged this? And if so, why?

  “Yanko?” Uncle Mishnal asked.

  Yanko met his eyes. “Yes?”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “I…”

  “There are prints,” the senior guard said, “sort of. And they go back to that hole. We figure that’s where the creatures came from.”

  “Creatures?” Yanko tugged at his topknot. Even though his thoughts had also been of animals or insects, it didn’t make sense, and he balked at the idea. “We’re five hundred meters below the surface of the earth.”

  The guard looked at him if as if he were sputtering irrelevancies.

  “As far as I know—as far as the books I’ve studied have stated—neither insects, birds, nor mammals have been found to live this far beneath the earth’s surface. What would they eat? We’re far too deep for the sun to reach, so there’s no plant life to support herbivores, and carnivores need prey to survive.” Yanko shrugged. “You don’t usually run into anything living down here, do you, Uncle? I can’t imagine…”

  “This is the first time,” Mishnal said. “I checked the logs of the previous controllers. Even when the lake and other natural openings were discovered on previous levels, no animal life was found.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting animals at this level are unnatural enough to be suspicious? That they might have been placed here somehow?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe something came down via the lift.” Yanko met the guard’s eyes. “You said there were prints?”

  “Yes, up here.” The man walked down the tunnel, his head bent to avoid the low ceiling, though he kept his eyes straight ahead and his hands tight around the axe hilt.

  He stepped over a second man who had died similarly to the first, then stood sideways and pointed to the rough-hewn floor. Yanko wouldn’t call the drops and smudges in the dents and divots tracks; true, they indicated something had passed this way, but they did little to suggest the weight and dimensions of the being, or beings.

  “Let’s see this hole,” Mishnal said. “And where are the other two guards? Didn’t you say they were waiting for us?”

  “Yes, Controller. They might have gone ahead a little.”

  The group padded farther down the tunnel, nobody speaking, everybody’s steps as soft as they could make them. Even the rustle of clothing and whispers of breaths barely stirred the air. Yanko thought to stretch out with his mind, to see if he could sense other life around them, but he decided to wait until they reached the hole and someone was guarding his back. If whatever had attacked those men charged out of the darkness, he didn’t want to be caught distracted.

  “Stoat’s teats,” one of the guards cursed and halted.

  Uncle Mishnal stopped so quickly that Yanko almost ran into his back. Everyone had stopped. Yanko’s stomach sank to his toes; he doubted he wanted to see what had caused the curse, but feared he already knew.

  “They weren’t supposed to go in the hole,” one of the guards whispered.

  “They didn’t. They died right here,” the second responded.

  Mishnal sighed and murmured a soft prayer, asking for the blessing of the badger goddess. Yanko could have pushed past or peered over someone’s shoulder to see the dead, but his curiosity wasn’t that insatiable.

  “I should be leading,” Falcon said from behind him. “Step aside, Yanko. Uncle?”

  “Should we go on?” one of the guards asked.

  “This couldn’t have happened more than ten minutes ago,” the other said. “Controller…?”

  “How far are we from this hole?” Mishnal finally asked.

  “Perhaps two dozen meters.”

  “I’ll lead the way to it,” Falcon said and tapped Yanko on the shoulder.

  Trying not to feel like a coward for remaining in the back, Yanko pressed against the wall to let him pass. He got his chance to see soon enough. With Falcon in the lead, the group shuffled off again, each man stepping carefully over the ravaged corpses of the two guards. Their axes were out, but there was no sign of blood on them. The shields had fallen at their sides, dented and scoured in dozens of places. If they had damaged their foes, Yanko couldn’t see sign of it.

  Struggling for detachment, he knelt to examine one of the axes, thinking he might discover some tuft of fur or hint of blood or ichor that would provide a clue about the men’s opponents. Dents in the blade suggested the weapons had seen use before the men had fallen, but that was all the edges revealed. He couldn’t even be sure the dents hadn’t been there for years.

  The influence of Mishnal’s light faded as the group rounded a corner. Yanko rushed to catch up. True, he could make his own light if needed, but the idea of being caught alone down here made him shudder.

  “Here,” the lead guard stopped again, then shuffled back so the others could come forward and look—or so he wouldn’t have to stand so close to the hole. Freshly mined salt crystals littered the area.

  Falcon strode past the guards, his kyzar in hand. His longer sword would be hard to wield in the tight confines, but the small blade could strike swiftly without much arm swing involved.

  Even with the guards and his uncle hanging back, Yanko had to peer around his brother’s arm to glimpse the hole. A ragged two feet by two feet in diameter, it opened in the middle of the wall, the top near the ceiling. A larger chunk of salt lay on the floor before it, the piece that had fallen away to open the hole. Yanko wondered if something had jumped out right away, or if the miners had poked their heads in to explore.

  Something. You’re thinking like the others. There shouldn’t be anything alive down this deep, and you know it.

  His theory that something had come down the lift in the night made more sense, but what desert animal would know how to operate it? There weren’t any open shafts a creature could simply fall down. And even if there were, what could survive such a long fall? Besides, if this hole had been opened on the same day that the men had been killed… it seemed a large coincidence that the two events were unrelated.

  Falcon poked his head through, but pulled it back within a couple of seconds. “It’s dark in there.” He shrugged sheepishly at this statement of the obvious. “Uncle, do you want to bring your light up?”

  Yanko almost volunteered to make a light of his own—he could send his floating some distance into the passage after all—but remembered his earlier thought. “Wait a moment. Let me check to see if I sense anything in there. Falcon, will you… well, if anything comes out, I’d appreciate it if you whacked it before it ate me.”

  His brother’s eyebrows twitched, and he held up the short blade. “That should be a given.”

  This wasn’t the time to mention how vulnerable practitioners were when concentrating on their craft, so Yanko only nodded. He let his chin drop to his chest and closed his eyes. At first, he could only sense the auras of the other men in the tunnel and the rapidity of their heartbeats, even in this quiet moment when no one was exerting himself. Falcon, though he’d strode confidently up to the hole, his blade ready, had the fastest heart rate of all, and anxiety as well as determination cloaked him. It wasn’t important, but Yanko would remember that later, that his brother wasn’t as fearless as he always seemed. It was understandable. What military training could prepare
a man for mauled bodies in a mine?

  Yanko pushed his senses farther afield. He didn’t want to cast too wide a net, or he would feel the hundreds of workers laboring in the levels above, and any foreign creatures might be lost amongst the forest of men, but he had to venture beyond the hole, for nothing waited on the other side. He tried to narrow his focus, to send it in that direction.

  Darkness wrapped around him, the darkness of some subterranean cave that had existed long before his people’s tunnels. His mind couldn’t smell or hear—at least it shouldn’t be able to—but he imagined a staleness to the air inside, and something ticked at the earth. Pickaxe scrapes from the level above? No, he didn’t think so. This wasn’t so heavy or so regular. Finally he sensed the auras he had sought, the proof of something else living and breathing down here. A lot of somethings.

  Yanko tried to draw closer, but he was at the edge of his range. His head, that thing attached to his body back in the tunnel, had started to ache, and it was distracting him. He pushed farther anyway, twisting through a hole and around some bend to draw closer to the auras. Two rushed past—through—his non-corporeal form. A strange sensation for him; the beings did not notice. He couldn’t get a feel for their physical forms—neither size nor appearance—only for their auras. Workers, drones. Carrying something. Salt? For what? They reminded him of bees as they scurried away toward…

  He tried to stretch further, but he had pushed too far. His awareness returned to his body with the unpleasantness of a rubber band snapping into one’s eyes. He grunted and staggered. Someone caught him.

  “Yanko?”

  The voice sounded far away, and it took him a moment to remember where he was and to recognize the concerned call as his brother’s.

  “Yes,” Yanko rasped.

  “Are you… ah, did you see anything or… irk anything?”

  Irk? Yanko doubted the creatures had been aware of him. Everything in the animal kingdom possessed auras and awareness, but few had the intelligence to comprehend the happenings outside of their bodies.

  “They were busy working on…” Yanko groped for words to explain what he had sensed. That last moment had fled so quickly that he hadn’t had an opportunity to study the beings. “They were carrying salt, so it’s important to them too. It reminded me of bees taking pollen back to their hive. To their queen.”