Other miners were shouting, some singing, running like children across the snow-dusted ground. He heard the word freedom and listened to laughter that would make a sane man cringe. But Wareth looked to the prison guards for the truth of this day. They still ringed the vast pit that housed the mining camp’s compound. Many of them now ebon-skinned, they leaned on their spears and made grim silhouettes against the skyline on all sides. At the south edge, at the end of the ramp that climbed to a barricaded gatehouse and barracks, the iron gates remained shut.
He was not alone in remaining silent, and watchful. He was not alone in his growing scepticism.
No one freed prisoners, unless indeed the civil war had seen an overthrow of all authority; or, with a new ruler upon the Throne of Darkness, an amnesty had been announced. But the cries of freedom lacked specific details. ‘We are to be freed! On this day! Prisoners no longer!’
‘There will be justice at last!’
That last proclamation was absurd. Every miner in this camp belonged here. They had committed crimes, terrible crimes. They had, in the words of the magistrate, abrogated their compact with civil society. In more common diction, they were one and all murderers, or worse.
The guards remained. Society, it seemed, was not yet ready to welcome them. The hysteria of the moment was fast fading, as others at last took notice of the guards in their usual positions, and the barred gate with its barbed fangs. Elation collapsed. Voices growled, and then cursed.
Wareth looked over to the women’s camp. The night-shifters were stumbling from their cells, dishevelled and drawing together in knots. No guards stood between them and the men. He could sense their burgeoning fear.
All the animals loose in the corral. Even this cold air cannot stifle a beast’s passions. Trouble is moments away.
Regretting leaving his pick behind, he looked round, and saw a shovel on the ground beside an ore cart, a breach of rules more shocking than anything else this day. He walked over and collected it, and then, as if unable to stop what he had begun, he slowly made his way towards the women.
Wareth was tall, and his nine years in the shafts as lead rock-biter had broadened his shoulders and thickened his neck. His body now bore unnatural proportions, his arms and torso too large for his hips and legs. The curl and pull of overworked muscles had spread wide his shoulder blades while drawing him inward at his upper chest, giving him a hunched-over appearance. The bones of his legs had bowed, but not as much as he could see in many other miners. At shift’s end, after his meal, he took to his cot, where he had bound belts to the iron frame, and these he fastened about himself, forcing his legs straight. And the one man he trusted, Rebble, would come to him then and tighten the straps across his chest and shoulders, forcing them flat. The agony of these efforts lived with him every night, yet exhaustion proved its master, and he slept despite the pain.
With something cold gripping his insides, he wended his way through the crowd, pushing aside those who had not seen him approaching. Others simply stepped back to clear his path. Faces frowned at him, uncomprehending, eyes narrowing as they saw the shovel in his hands.
He was through most of the press when a man ahead suddenly laughed and shouted, ‘The kittens are awake, my friends! See the way unopposed – I think this is the freedom we’ve won!’
Wareth reached the man even as he began moving towards the women.
With all his strength, he swung the shovel into the man’s head, crushing one side of the skull and snapping the neck. The sound it made was a shock that silenced those nearby. The body fell, twitched, blood and something like water leaking out around its broken head. Wareth stared down at the corpse, filled with the usual revulsion and fascination. The shovel was almost weightless in his hands.
Then something pulled him away, made him continue on, to take his place in the gap between the men and the women. As he turned to face his brothers of the pit, resting the shovel on one shoulder, he saw Rebble emerging, carrying a bulker’s pick. The third man to appear, also armed with a shovel, was Listar. Quiet and shy, his crime was a lifelong abuse of his wife that ended in her strangulation. But questions remained whether the cord had been in his hands. Questions, too, on that charge of abuse. But Listar would say nothing, not even to plead innocence. Wareth could never be sure of the man, yet here he was, ready to give his life in defence of unarmed women.
Rebble was tall and wiry. He had not cut the hair on his head and face since arriving at the mine, seven years past. His dark eyes glittered amidst a black, snarled nest, showing everyone that his temper was close. Once unleashed, the man knew not how to stop that rage. He had killed four men, one of whom had possibly insulted him. The other three had tried to intervene.
No others joined Wareth, and he saw men finding their own picks and shovels, and then making their way forward. One of them pointed a shovel at Wareth. ‘Ganz never even saw you coming. The coward strikes again. Rebble, Listar, look to this man who holds your centre, and when I go to him, watch him run!’
Wareth said nothing, but even he could feel how their moment of bold chivalry was fast fading. Neither Rebble nor Listar could count on him, and they had just realized it. He turned to Rebble and spoke under his breath. ‘Break open the women’s shed. Let them arm themselves.’
Rebble’s smile was hard and cold. ‘And you’ll do what, Wareth? Hold them here?’
‘He may not, but I will,’ said Listar. ‘This is a day of justice. Let me face it and be done with.’ He glanced over at Wareth. ‘I know you hated Ganz. His mouth always got him in trouble. But this stand here, Wareth? It’s not like you.’
Listar spoke the truth, and Wareth had no answer to give.
Ganz’s friend was edging closer, with his companions drawing up behind him.
Wareth had hoped that some old feuds would erupt among the men. Explosions of violence to distract them – acts of vengeance such as his attack on Ganz. Instead, he had caught their collective attention. A mistake, and one likely to see him killed. A pick between my shoulder blades.
As I run.
With a curious glance at Listar, Rebble moved off.
Ganz’s friend laughed. ‘The bold line collapses!’
The heat was building in Wareth despite the chill, an old familiar fire. It pooled and dissolved his insides. He could feel it burning his face and knew that for shame. His heart pounded fast and a weakness took his legs.
A loud crack startled everyone, and then the squeal of the shed door sounded behind Wareth.
‘Shit,’ someone swore. ‘We’re too fucking late now. Wareth, you’ll pay for this. Cut him down, Merrec. The chase will make it a fine game, hey?’
Men laughed.
Wareth turned to Listar. ‘Not today, then, your justice.’
Listar shrugged, stepping back. ‘Then another. So, best you start running.’
Merrec advanced on Wareth. ‘You’ve killed enough people from behind. All these years. Stand still now, rabbit.’ He raised the shovel.
Wareth tensed, terror rising up from his stomach to grip his throat. He prepared to throw the shovel, before bolting.
There was a solid thud and Merrec halted suddenly, looked down at the arrow buried deep in his chest.
Someone shouted.
Merrec sank to the ground, disbelief giving way to agony on his face.
The guards were now descending from the rim of the bowl, and on the gatehouse ramp there stood a dozen soldiers, and from them came a thin moaning sound.
Wareth knew that sound. He knew it well. He flinched back, dropping his shovel.
* * *
‘That was dishonourable,’ said Seltin Ryggandas, glaring at Galar Baras. ‘By this craven murder, with a hunter’s arrow at that, we are to see the rebirth of Hust Legion?’
Dishonour. Now there’s a word. Dry as tinder, needing only the hint of a spark to flare up, burn bright, rage incandescent. Dishonour. The stake pinning us all to the ground, and see us now. You, Hunn Raal, with your poisoned wine
, and me, here, both of us writhing in place. Galar Baras drew off his gauntlets and carefully folded them, before tucking them behind his sword-belt. ‘Quartermaster, even honour must, on occasion, surrender to timing.’
Seltin’s expression of disgust was unchanged. ‘Timing? You waited too long to intervene.’
Ignoring the Legion’s quartermaster, Galar Baras glanced skyward. The chill winter blue was unbroken by cloud, making the vault seem all the more remote. As we see the heavens constrained, by all that we do here. No matter – these are smaller dramas than they feel. He turned to the pit’s overseer. ‘Sir, tell me about those three.’
The elderly man shook his head. ‘If you sought to single them out in the name of decency, your desire was misplaced. No, it was doomed from the start, as I could have told you, captain. Not one down there is worthy of Lord Henarald’s largesse. They ended up here for a reason, every one of them.’
Galar Baras sighed. He had weathered the same complaints, the same bleak observations, from the overseers of the last two prison mines. ‘Indulge me then, and speak of the three men who chose to defend the women.’
The overseer was long in replying, warring with something like reluctance, as if in the details he would offer, hope would die many deaths. Galar felt a moment of sympathy for the man, but insufficient to dissuade him from his task here. He was about to set iron in the command when the overseer finally spoke. ‘The lanky one, who showed the wit to break open the shed and so give leave to the women to arm themselves, he is named Rebble.’
‘Go on.’
‘Brave enough, I suppose. But captain, Rebble is slave to a mad rage. He skirts a pit, and is known to leap into it at the slightest hint of disrespect.’
Dishonour, again. It is the only language left us, it seems, here in Kurald Galain. ‘Rebble, then. The next man?’
‘Listar, upon the other side, was a bully to the weak, and down there the weak are all long dead. His stand surprised me, I admit. He was accused following charges laid by the family of his murdered wife. Accused, tried, and then sentenced. None refuted the evidence, least of all Listar.’
‘He confessed his guilt?’
‘He said nothing at all, and upon that matter remains silent to this day.’ The overseer hesitated, and then added, ‘Guilt binds his tongue, I should think. Captain, do not imagine some secret virtue in Listar’s silence. Do not look for anything worthy of redemption – not here, not among those men and women below.’
‘Now, the big-shouldered one.’
‘The worst of the lot,’ the overseer said, frowning at Galar. He paused, and then added, ‘A Legion soldier, but witnessed to be a coward in battle.’
‘Legion?’ Galar Baras asked. ‘Which legion?’
The overseer scowled. ‘You do not recognize him? I thought you but played with me. That is Wareth, once of the Hust.’
Galar Baras looked back down in the pit. For a moment, he could not see Wareth. Then he caught sight of him, sitting on the side of an ox-trough, forearms resting on his thighs as he looked out on the compound, where the guards were forcing the men to one side and the women to the other. For all the comfort of picks and shovels in the hands of the prisoners, none was foolish enough to face armoured guards wielding spears. ‘He has changed,’ the captain said.
‘No,’ the overseer replied. ‘He hasn’t.’
Redemption – ah, but overseer, what else can I offer? What other currency, beyond vile freedom, for these fools who so ruined their lives? That word should not taste so bitter. That desire should not make such grisly paths, bridging what was and what is to come.
The notion hovered in his mind, as if a standard raised high, to face an enemy upon the other side of the valley. Yet dishonour has its own banner, its stained flag of recrimination. Are they even enemies? But look at any civil war, and see two foes marching in parallel, stubborn on their chosen tracks to their chosen future. To clash upon battle’s field, they must first clash in their respective minds. Arguments of righteousness will lead us all, in the end, to the anguished need for redemption.
All for day’s end. And yet, for these prisoners, these criminals, I can only offer them a walk back along the path they each left behind, an uncurling of deeds, an unravelling of fates.
This purpose, here, made for solitary thoughts. But not a single doubt could be exercised, he knew. The time was not now. The company was all wrong. ‘Sergeant Bavras, take two with you and go down and collect Listar, Rebble and Wareth.’
‘Wareth, sir?’
‘Wareth,’ Galar Baras said. ‘Overseer, if you’d be so kind, I would make use of your office in the gatehouse.’
The man shrugged. ‘My office. Both title and place are dead to me now. Or so I now understand. At my age, captain, the future narrows to a single road, fading into the unseen. One walks, eyeing the closing mists, but no mortal power of will, or desire, can halt these plodding steps.’
‘Lord Henarald will not abandon you, sir.’
‘Shall I, too, don a dead soldier’s weeping armour? Take up a howling sword? Not my road, captain.’
‘I’m sure that you will be free to choose from a number of appointments, overseer.’
‘They would kill me, you know,’ the man said, nodding down at the prisoners. ‘A thousand times over. For so long, I have been the face of their guilt, which they will despise until death takes them.’
‘I imagine so. I am not so foolish as to think otherwise. But sir, there is more to being a soldier of the Hust than just the weapons and armour.’
‘They’ll not fight for the realm.’
‘To that, I must agree,’ said Seltin Ryggandas, crossing his arms.
‘If you two are correct,’ Galar said, ‘then, overseer, you will soon be back here. And so will those men and women below. And you, quartermaster, can return to your storerooms of materiel, with none to claim it.’
Seltin’s laugh was low and only mildly harsh. ‘You describe a clerk’s paradise, captain.’
After a moment, the overseer snorted. ‘There is such joy in this appointment.’
Galar Baras managed a smile, and he settled a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘For what is to come, which would you prefer, your task or mine?’
The overseer shook his head. ‘Captain, I yield my office.’
* * *
Wareth stood as the three Hust soldiers approached. He saw that they had already rounded up Listar and Rebble, and neither man looked pleased. Proof to the rumours, the Hust soldiers now wore banded armour of the same black-smeared iron as the weapons in their scabbards, and as they drew nearer the moaning sounds shifted into a kind of chatter, as if a crowd was gathering. Wareth thought he heard laughter.
‘Come with us,’ the sergeant said.
‘I prefer the shafts below,’ Wareth said. ‘Ask your captain to make this day like any other. For me. There is still ore to be won from the rock.’
The sergeant was working hard at keeping the disgust from his expression. He was young, but not too young for contempt. ‘This pit is now closed. Save your words for the captain.’ He gestured and then set off. The two soldiers moved to push Wareth forward. He fell in alongside Rebble and Listar.
‘What manner of game is this?’ Rebble asked. ‘If they were coming for you, that I can see. It’s a wonder they didn’t execute you in the field. But what do they want with us?’
Wareth had his ideas about that. If those ideas circled the truth, he surely did not belong in the company of these two prisoners. ‘My sword defied them,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘On the field,’ Wareth said. ‘When they sought to disarm me, before executing me. My sword tried to kill them all.’
‘Then it’s true,’ said Listar. ‘The weapons live.’
‘In the end,’ Wareth said, ‘I agreed to surrender it. By then, the commander had arrived, and I was sent to her tent in chains. She was drunk … with victory,’ he added.
‘She deemed the mines a mercy?’ Rebble a
sked, in astonishment.
‘No. Perhaps. I could not guess her mind.’
He knew the soldiers were listening to this conversation, but none offered a comment.
They reached the ramp and began the ascent. The captain had left the small company of Hust soldiers positioned there, and the overseer stood to one side, like a man forgotten. Wareth met his eyes and the overseer shook his head.
Am I to be executed then? We three are collected up, but for two purposes. Theirs, I think I understand. Mine? Well, nine years is a long reprieve, by any sane standards.
He could feel his terror returning, familiar as a treacherous friend. It muttered its belated warnings, fuelling his imagination. It mocked his stupidity.
I should have ignored the unarmed women. I should have let this damned Hust captain see what we all really were. But Ganz used to spit down from the top of the shaft, aiming for me beside the water station. I don’t forget such things.
They passed through the gate. On one side of the gatehouse, beyond the razor-studded bars, was a door that had been left open. The sergeant halted the group just outside the doorway. ‘The captain wishes to speak to each of you, but one at a time.’ The man pointed at Listar. ‘You first.’
‘Any reason for that?’ Rebble asked in a growl.
‘No,’ the sergeant replied, before escorting Listar into the corridor beyond the door.
The remaining pair of soldiers moved off to one side, and began a muted conversation that was marked, on occasion, by a glance back at Wareth. Now he took note that one of them – the woman – had a hunter’s bow strapped to her back. Merrec’s last kiss.
‘You’ve too many friends,’ Rebble muttered, pulling at the joints of his fingers, making each one pop. He did this in a particular order, the part of the habit that defied Wareth’s attempts at making sense of it, and once again he bit back on his curiosity. For all he knew, it was the secret code of his friend’s forbearance, and a fragile one at that.
‘Before you,’ he now replied, ‘I had but one.’
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