Siegestone: Book 1 of the Gemstones and Giants Trilogy

by E. S. Maya

  “You underestimate me,” Wulf said, followed by a dry chuckle. “I’ve watched that stone-brained fool fight a dozen times over. He’s about as clumsy as a fat city guard.”

  “And you’re long out of practice,” Stiv retorted. “We haven’t seen you fight once in Camp.”

  “I don’t like this,” Jabbar said. “There’s bravery and then there’s recklessness. The fight isn’t worth the risk.”

  “We can bet the fifth-years for more than a pair of glasses,” Wulf said.

  Safi folded her arms and shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. We’ll pool our pay money together, buy Goggles a new pair. There’s got to be folks who would help us.”

  “Then what?” Wulf said. “Hope that Noth’ll leave us alone till the end of the work year? You and I both know that won’t happen.”

  Goggles lowered himself to the floor, back against the drift wall. He pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in his arms, sobbing. “I-I’m sorry, guys,” he stuttered. “R-really s-sorry.”

  Safi sat curled up next to him. She rested her cheek on his shoulder and reached to pat his knee. “There, there. It’s not your fault. It’ll be okay.”

  “Get up, Gogs,” Wulf said sternly.

  Safi shot Wulf a dark look.

  Goggles obeyed their team captain, brushing Safi aside as he climbed to his feet. He moved as slow as an elder man, rising from a chair in which he’d been sitting for far too long.

  “You too, Saf,” Wulf said.

  Safi got up, glaring at boy, but standing all the same. Wulf was the most trustworthy friend she had. If she couldn’t rely on him, then who?

  Perhaps not even herself.

  The five of them gathered, Wulf started for his pickaxe against the wall but stopped short. Safi wiped her shirtsleeve over her forehead. There the pickaxe would stay.

  Wulf nodded to his team. “Let’s go have a talk with the recruit foreman.”

  They came striding side by side beneath the adit’s open space. Minecarts screeched to a halt, and boys pointed and looked, as the team of first-years miners marched their way into the Pit.

  Safi straightened her suspenders as the broad, wood-braced archway passed over their heads. Inside the Pit, more than a dozen boys stood in queue behind their final yields of the day. Noth stood at the center of the chamber, high on his wooden platform. He set his sharp yellow eyes on Team Wulf.

  Safi watched the Serk boy closely, finding not a hint of surprise on his stolid face. Her hand reflexively reached for her pickaxe, finding an empty, dusty shoulder.

  Beside her, Stiv stretched his arms in the air and yawned, then laced his fingers behind his head. “It’s almost like he planned this.”

  “He did,” said Wulf with a grin, “but only because he thinks he can beat me in the sword ring.”

  “I like this side of you, Wulf,” Jabbar said. “We Abed having a saying; the dullest of swords dwells within its sheath. For a man in battle, there is honor in both victory and defeat.”

  Safi scrunched her nose at the thought, but Wulf merely laughed. “Then I agree with the Abed,” he said, “but let’s aim for victory.”

  The boy first in queue hauled his full minecart backwards to allow Team Wulf passage. Looking back, Safi counted more than two dozen miners now, gathering in the torch-lit chamber. More than enough to spread word throughout the Fivers’ Camp.

  “So the dog of the first-years pays me a visit,” Noth announced to the chamber. “And he’s brought the rest of the kennel with him.”

  Safi watched Wulf out the corner of her eye. Today the boy of Andera wore no masks, no disguises, no controlled expressions. Here was a face of true confidence, thank the Titans.

  “That doesn’t mean much,” Wulf shot back, “coming from the lapdog of Blackpoint himself.”

  Team Wulf approached the ramp to the platform, but a pair of enormous fifth-years, each of them armed with a well-worn pickaxe, moved to stand in their path. Noth’s mining team, Safi realized. Wulf was right. They were expecting him.

  Wulf held up a fist to pause his teammates’ march. The fifth-years stepped aside when he approached the platform alone, but kept a close eye on Safi and her friends.

  “You know why I’m here,” Wulf said, walking up the ramp.

  “Humor me,” Noth said.

  Wulf settled his boots on the platform, shoulder-width apart. “If you wish so badly to fight me in the sword ring, say so now, or I’ll take my mining team and return to work, and you won’t get this chance again.”

  Chuckling, the recruit foreman paced to the edge of the platform and leaned out over the dumping shaft, staring into its darkness. His bootsteps clapped wood as he strode back to Wulf. Their chests came inches from touching, and Safi sucked air through her nose. Their difference in stature was striking. The Serk’s chest alone dwarfed Wulf’s back and shoulders. She found herself walking forward, hands closed into fists, to go and support her friend.

  She felt Stiv’s hand pressing her shoulder, Jabbar’s holding tight to her wrist.

  “Don’t interfere,” Jabbar whispered.

  “Wulf knows what he’s doing,” Stiv assured her.

  The recruit foreman removed his gloves and began cracking each of his knuckles. “Name your terms, pup.”

  “Very well,” said Wulf. “We face one another two Blessing Days from now. If I win—when I win—you return what you stole from my teammate, and the first-years eat chow before the fifths for the rest of the work year.” Wulf’s jaw began to tremble as a grin came over his face. “And you hand over a purse of two thousand Blackpoint sovereigns, split five ways amongst my team.”

  Safi heard the miners in the chamber chattering behind their tubs. Rarely was such a personal bet made on a sword fight. Never one so large.

  Noth tossed back his head and laughed. “Interesting! Now here are my terms. Since you don’t have the purse to match two-thousand sovereigns, I garnish the monthly wages of the four miners on your team.”

  “My team has five miners.”

  “I wasn’t finished, pup. The second term is that the Southerling girl leaves her position as a miner—” now it was Noth’s turn to grin “—and becomes the personal cleaner of the fifth-year boys for the rest of the work year.”

  “What?” shouted Safi. She checked Stiv and Jabbar for a reaction, expecting laughter or derision. Instead they looked surprised, and gravely serious.

  “Do we have a wager or not?” Noth asked Wulf.

  Swallowing, Safi watched as Wulf lowered his head. When the boy gave no response, she spun towards Goggles and said, “Do you think Wulf can win?”

  For the first time, the big-eared boy looked Safi straight in the eye. “I don’t know,” he said, “but I trust Wulf.”

  Safi faced the platform. Wulf would never agree to such terms without her approval. But if she lost her job as a miner, she was unlikely to get it back.

  Still, if Wulf believed in himself, and she believed in him, that was more than convincing enough.

  She charged towards the ramp, shouldering aside the fifth-year boys, who stared at the girl in disbelief. She glared up at Noth and said, “I accept the terms!”

  Her voice bounced from stone to stone, echoing throughout the Pit. Conversation flooded the chamber at once. She could hear the news on their lips, spreading faster than the springtime wind.

  Wulf ’s raised his eyes to meet his opponent. “Then I accept, too.”

  Noth pushed past Wulf, standing at the top of the ramp to address the recruits. “You heard him! The first-year Wulf has accepted my challenge! Let it be known!” His voice quivered with excitement. “Then get back to work!”

  46

  Pillow Talk

  Safi sat in bed, running her calloused fingers over the surface of her Titan figurine. When Jabbar had first gifted it to her, she thought it crude and unfinished. But after months of seeing Cronus’s broken body, she wondered if the statuette was more accurate than she’d first thought.

>   “Titan’s ass,” Raven said, laying on her back across Safi’s legs. “You didn’t have to bet yourself.”

  “I didn’t bet myself,” Safi corrected her. “The boys bet me and I agreed to it.” She set down her figurine on the wooden beam beside her head. “Besides, if Wulf wins, what does it matter?”

  “That’s even worse,” Raven said, pinching the inside of Safi’s thigh. “Fought over like a trophy by a couple of stone-brained fools.”

  Safi swatted Raven’s hand away. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said, tracing her thumb over the pickaxe and sword tattooed on her left wrist. “With all those boys watching, I could hardly say no.”

  Or, at least that’s how it felt at the time.

  “Well, there’s no sense in worrying now,” said Rebecca, who sat beside Pearl, long legs crossed, knitting a blue woolen scarf for the coming winter. Safi wondered if it would prove cold enough to wear such garments, but said nothing to slow Rebecca’s busy fingers.

  Pearl’s bespectacled face peeked out from beneath her covers. “I hope you stay a miner, Safi. Rebecca worked all night on your special uniforms.”

  Rebecca’s nostrils flared, and her chestnut eyes went wide.

  “Sorry, sorry…” Pearl whispered, retreating under her covers.

  Rebecca gave the covered lump a smack across the bottom.

  “The wager is set in stone,” Safi agreed, more to reassure herself than the others. “All I can do is work and wait.” She stared down at her empty palms, nodding to herself. “My fate is in God’s hands now.”

  Raven grinned. “If you need any practice cleaning, Blondie, my undergarments could always use a good scrubbing.”

  Scowling, Safi kicked up her legs. Raven tumbled off the bed and landed hard on the floor. “Oof.”

  When Raven remained on her back, Safi leaned over the side of her bed. “Do you think Wulf will win?”

  “No,” Raven answered.

  “Raven!” Safi grabbed a fistful of pillow and tossed it at Raven’s head. The Anderan mounted no defense. It struck her square in her face. “You’re a real scoundrel, sometimes.”

  Chuckling, Raven tucked the pillow between her head and the cold wooden floor. “Just ‘cause you ask a stupid question don’t mean I’ll give a stupid answer.”

  Pearl slunk out from under her bed sheets. “I think Wulf can win, Safi.”

  Smiling, Rebecca patted the girl on the head.

  “Could you beat Noth?” Safi asked Raven, to which Rebecca made a sour face.

  Raven snorted. “Have you seen the arms on that kid?” She hopped to her feet and then perched herself on the edge of Safi’s bed, pillow over her knees. “For serious, the boy’s seventeen years old. Lots of changes in a boy, between thirteen and seventeen. Plus the sword ring ain’t a fight, it’s a sport. Means you’ve gotta fight like equals. Not like in the city, where you can escape down alleyways and fit into spots the grown men can’t follow.”

  Safi planted her face in her hands and groaned. “What should I do?”

  “Hey, hey,” Raven said, reaching for Safi’s knee. “That don’t mean Wulf can’t win. Them Serk boys are tough as iron, but we Anderans, we know how to fight.”

  Rebecca set down her needles and yarn, stretching her long fingers. “Then Safi will have to believe in him,” she said. “Along with the rest of us.”

  Safi opened the hands on her face, revealing a toothy smile. “Rebecca’s right!”

  Raven looked back and forth between the blonde and the redhead, folding her arms with a pout.

  Giggling, Safi reached over to pinch at Raven’s scarred left cheek. “Just teasing, little one.”

  47

  Tooth and Claw

  Wulf braced a single hand against the minecart’s wooden handle. He leaned into its bulk, bringing the full load squealing through the last bend towards the adit.

  His pickaxe lay atop the Titan rubble, shivering back and forth with every bump of the ride. Countless hours of work had brightened the wood of its handle, running the grain smooth. The end of its crescent head still held a sharp pick end, though.

  He was grateful to have not needed it thus far.

  For the foreman had worked the Pit all shift, and he was the sort of man Wulf took a liking to. Well-mannered and well-respected, and more importantly, well-humored, too. It wasn’t difficult to keep on Adams’ good side, so long as you stayed out of trouble and did your fair share of work. And boy, did Wulf do heaps of both.

  He was certain, however, that the Blackpoint officer kept a few dark secrets under all those brightly bearded grins. A former soldier, perhaps. Often had he seen him with the same vacant expression as the older city guardsmen back home. All smiles aside, the foreman wore the same red cape as the enforcers, tattered as it may be. Wulf wasn’t so quick to forget that.

  The squealing tapered off as the first-year tunnel straightened itself, opening to the wide, high-ceilinged chamber of the adit. The braziers lining the walls burned low and hot, though its open mouth of an entranceway kept the space half-filled with sunlight.

  Pushing on, Wulf reached to straighten his pickaxe away from the rim of his minecart. It was routine for the recruit foreman to fill in the tail end of Pit work. With their sword fight but two weeks away, some precautions were necessary. No one in the Foot would question the digging tool. Everyone knew how attached recruits could grow to their pickaxes. Time in the Titan mines did strange things to a boy’s mind.

  And, he supposed with a smile, to the occasional girl, too.

  Oh, Saf. The girl was a burden on Wulf’s mind, and in more ways than one. He had grown up around plenty of Abed—Anderan cities were practically filthy with them—but none like Safiyas. The girl was a Titan-worshipping fool, and a God-worshipping fool at that, but there was something about her that forced his hand. That spurred him into action. Into mistakes.

  Sighing into his neckerchief, Wulf lowered his goggles and guided his tub through the broad, wood-braced archway to the Pit. A line of full minecarts snaked across the chamber. As he’d suspected, Noth stood atop the platform beside the dumping shaft. A boy was kneeling before him, fastening his minecart into place.

  Wulf paused to pull on a lever, then sent his minecart gliding down the rail to the rear of the queue. Ahead, recruits took turns pushing their full tubs up to the platform. With every turn of the crank, the minecarts leapt through the air and emptied their contents. They came back down with a bang.

  Stifling a groan, Wulf leaned his chest on the edge of the minecart and lowered a fist to his belly. A war was brewing inside him, one fought by shaken nerves and years of stone-faced appearances. He wasn’t sure which side was winning.

  Then he grew furious, not towards Noth, but his own unforgivable weakness. He wrenched the neckerchief from his lips and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. Then, both hands on the minecart handle, he forced himself to watch the recruit foreman work, all the while squeezing his fear into a hard and tiny lump. He could almost feel it now, small as a pebble, tucked away in that dark place inside him, where fear belonged.

  A few empty minecarts later, Wulf was back in control. Back to being the village boy who’d learned to survive on the city streets. He’d made it there, when Father couldn’t afford to bring bread home. He’d make it here, too. For his sake and his friends.

  But he had to wonder, where had everything gone so wrong? For months he’d offered Noth the same indifference that appeased every authority figure in his life thus far, from common street toughs to city guardsmen. To Blackpoint enforcers. He had assumed the same strategy would work in the Titan Mines as well.

  The line lurched on, and Wulf realized his mistake with the leader of the fifth-year boys. A cold indifference worked on men who wished to rid him from sight and mind. It was different when you worked together. Different still, when one was to lead and the other to follow. Such roles brought about expectations that Wulf wasn’t familiar with. He certainly hadn’t lived up to them.

  Near
ing the front of the queue, the boy ahead of Wulf heaved his minecart onto the platform and dropped to one knee. Wheels locked in place, Noth spun the crank in its tall iron mechanism. The machine began to shake violently. Its thick iron arms raised the tub through the air like an offering. The minecart tilted sideways, and a waterfall of rubble and dust spilled into the shadows.

  The minecart landed with a shudder.

  When the platform was clear, Wulf set his arms against his minecart and eased it up the ramp. He leaned backwards to bring the load to a full stop. He took a knee, hooking each of its wheels to the platform’s iron clamps, feeling hotly aware of the fifth-year staring down at him.

  Wulf rose to his feet and looked the Serk in his yellow eyes. “First-year, Team Wulf. Sixth daily yield.”

  Standing a full head taller, Noth looked down at his slab of slate and nodded, jotting with a piece of chalk between two gloved fingers. Wulf couldn’t help but grin. The recruit foreman wore his indifference like a mask, and Wulf was all too familiar. Noth’s guise, however, was rendered unconvincing by his bright yellow eyes. The color alone came off as threatening. Inhuman.

  Wulf may have been named after an animal, but at least he didn’t look the part, much less act like it.

  Noth gestured for Wulf to remove his pickaxe. Then he reached for the crank. It made a clicking sound as he turned it in circles. The minecart jerked upwards and tipped through the air, spilling hours of work down the dumping shaft.

  When it came dropping back down, not a Titan stone remained inside.

  “Next!” boomed the recruit foreman.

  Grinning still, Wulf made a show of tossing his pickaxe into the empty minecart. Iron struck wood with a crack—a sharp and hollow sound that was louder than he had anticipated. The boys behind him in queue sounded out in surprise as he eased his minecart down the exit ramp, holding tight to the handle to keep it from running away from him. How queer that Noth offered neither taunt nor threat. Faerana’s red tit, he hardly even gave me a look.