Sorry.
I know. Sardelle blinked, fighting back tears again. This wasn’t the time. She would find a place to cry for her lost friends—her lost everything—later.
She was on the verge of stepping out of the tunnel, when the guards stopped talking, one halting in the middle of the sentence. They stared down one of the passages, not Sardelle’s. There were men gathering behind a bend down there, but she didn’t think the guards could see them from their position. Were the miners up to something? She thought about warning the guards—maybe that would buy her some appreciation from them—but she was too late.
A boom came, not from the tunnel with the men, but from one to the left of the cage. The ground shivered beneath Sardelle’s feet. Black smoke poured from the passage, while the men who had been gathering down the other tunnel charged from around the bend.
Sardelle opened her mouth to shout a warning, but the guards were already reacting. They stepped back into the mouth of the tram shaft for cover, then, each man facing toward one threat, dropped to one knee, their rifles coming up to aim. Nothing came out of the smoky passage, but the guard facing the advancing men started firing. Sardelle, sensing the bursts of pain as the bullets found targets, had a chilling demonstration of the rapid-fire capabilities of the weapons. Even so, three of the charging men reached the guards, and the skirmish switched to hand-to-hand combat. The brawny miners wielded their pickaxes and shovels with fury and power, but it soon became clear that the soldiers were well trained. They kept the tram cage at their backs, so their attackers couldn’t maneuver behind them, and they swung the maces with precise, compact strokes, deflecting the picks and shovels, then smashing the studded metal heads into ribcages and jaws. The three miners soon lay unmoving on the ground.
Other people had crept toward the chamber from the other tunnels, though nobody had come as close to it as Sardelle had. They seemed curious and hopeful rather than antagonistic. Harmlessly watching the show in case something happened in the miners’ favor? A warning twanged her senses. They weren’t all harmless.
“Look out,” Sardelle called to alert them to a new assailant back in the direction of the smoke, the one who had originally lit the explosive.
A long cylinder with flame dancing at the end of a fuse sailed out of the tunnel, landing in front of the tram. One soldier fired at the man who had thrown it while the other stamped out the spitting fuse, as calmly as if he were grinding out a cigar stub.
All right, so they probably hadn’t needed her warning.
One of the soldiers knelt to check the throats of the unconscious men. The other stared at her—she didn’t try to hide, there being no point since she had given away her position, but she didn’t step fully around the corner yet either. She wanted to see what their reaction to her was first.
“What are you doing down here, woman?”
Not exactly a thank you.
Sardelle was about to respond, but the second guard had taken out a knife and, without so much as a hesitation for a prayer or apology to whatever gods the miners worshipped, slit one of the unconscious men’s throats.
“What are you doing?” Sardelle blurted, even as the soldier shifted to dispatch a second miner. “They’re no threat now. Why kill them?”
The guard wielding the bloody dagger barely glanced at her. The other soldier strode toward her. “You people made your choice when you picked lives of crime, and these idiots made their final choice just now. There’s no leniency here. We’d have to deal with that kind of thing every day if we were lenient.” He jerked a thumb toward the men—toward the bodies, their life’s blood flowing out onto the dark stone. Unlike Tace and his buddy, these miners were thin—too thin—with gaunt faces and hollowed cheekbones. They wouldn’t have been a match for the soldiers under any circumstances.
Belatedly, his words sank in. You people. He thought she was one of them, one of the miners. Sardelle braced herself against the corner, ready to defend herself again if she had to. Would he try to slit her throat, as he had the others?
The soldier hung his mace on his belt and carried the rifle at his side rather than aiming at her, so she let him approach without reacting. She didn’t sense kindly thoughts from him, but she didn’t get the feeling that he meant to hurt her either.
“Come on, woman. You’re not supposed to be down here. You know that.” He gripped her arm and pulled her into the chamber, then frowned at her dress and sandals. “Or don’t you? Did you come in with the prisoners yesterday? Didn’t you get the orientation?”
Orientation, as if this were some educational campus where people were directed how to find their classes and the dormitories. But if it could explain her presence down here, she would go with it. “No. No orientation.”
The second soldier stalked down one of the tunnels, his dagger still in his grip as he went to check on the people they had already shot.
The man gripping her arm shook his head. “This way. Randask, I’m taking this one up to the women’s area. I’ll report this mess to the captain, who can report it to the general, who can sit in his office and drink his vodka and not care a yak’s butt, like usual. You going to be all right down here?”
“Yeah.” The man walked back into the chamber, his dagger awash in blood. Sardelle had a hard time tearing her eyes from it. He walked into the opposite tunnel, though she could sense that the man who had thrown the explosive was dead. “The peepers have gone back to work.”
Yes, the watchers Sardelle had noticed earlier had drifted back down their tunnels. Clangs started up again in the distance. There wouldn’t be another attack for a while. She wondered what had prompted this one.
Desperation, Jaxi suggested. Misery. They have nothing to lose.
Do we?
I can’t speak for you, but I live in hope that my situation will improve. At the very least, perhaps some new books will be dropped off in the prison library.
“This way.” The guard ushered Sardelle into the cage, then shut and latched the door. He hadn’t let go of her arm yet, as if she would run off and return to those awful tunnels. She suffered the grip, though couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that yesterday—no, three hundred years ago—few men or women would have presumed to touch her without invitation, even some of the military commanders she had worked with for years. It wasn’t so much that she was aloof or in the habit of reprimanding people who did so, but the ungifted had always regarded the gifted with respect—or, in some cases, perhaps more than she had realized, fear and wariness.
The second soldier walked over to the machine and pulled a lever. Clanks sounded, and the cage started moving, being pulled up the rails into darkness. Sardelle twisted her head to squint up the track. A distant light waited, little more than a pinprick. As the cage rose, she could feel herself being pulled farther and farther from Jaxi. Their link was strong enough that they could communicate across a lot of miles—since being joined with the soulblade, she had never been far enough away to truly test their range—but the symbolism made the problem feel more dramatic than it was. Nothing was truly changing, and yet… she felt like she was abandoning her only friend left in the world.
Don’t worry, came the dry response. You wouldn’t be going far.
Right, Jaxi had said this was a prison. Walking out the front door or gate or whatever they had up there wouldn’t be an option. She trusted that she could evade whatever security they had and escape though.
Not unless you’ve learned to fly. The Ice Blades are as high as they ever were, and the road over the pass was destroyed when these people’s ancestors took down half the mountain. Also, the first snows of winter have come.
Oh. But the guard had mentioned new prisoners arriving. How do these people get in and out?
Weather permitting, they fly.
They fly? Sardelle was glad for the darkness, so the soldier wouldn’t see the way her mouth had dropped open.
They have ships that sail the airways, held up by giant balloons, and the
y also have small, maneuverable mechanical craft designed after the dragons of eld. As I’ve been telling you, the world has changed.
“How’d you get down here, anyway?” the soldier asked, disturbing the images she had been trying to form.
Sardelle shrugged. “Just came down.”
“Huh.”
She caught a hint of irritation in that single syllable. A point of pride? Since she had implied she had somehow gotten past him, or perhaps one of his fellow guards? They did seem a competent bunch; she could see where a suggestion of laxness would rankle. So long as he didn’t start thinking of magical reasons she might have slipped past.
The tram seemed to be making decent speed, with a hint of cold fresh air whispering into the cage, but they had only made it halfway up. Sardelle wondered how deep into the mountain their tunnels reached. Maybe there was some way she could convince them to angle toward Jaxi’s resting place. With pickaxes and shovels, it would probably take ages, but she had to try.
“You mentioned taking me to a women’s area,” Sardelle said, “but I actually need to see the person in charge.” She hoped that wasn’t the vodka-swilling general he had mentioned. “Can you take me to him or her?”
The soldier snorted. “The general doesn’t see prisoners.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
2
Sardelle stepped out of the cage and stopped so quickly the soldier nearly tripped over her. Icy wind buffeted her, whipping at her dress and raising gooseflesh on her arms. She gaped at the black stone fortress around her, around the tiny valley where merchants had once sold cheese and crops in the summer and where a wide road and bridge had led over the river and to the back gate leading into Galmok Mountain. The Goat Peak River was still there, half iced over as it meandered through the large courtyard within the fortress walls, but there was nothing inviting about it or the valley anymore. The crenellations and cannon-like weapons on the walls were as forbidding as the Ice Blades themselves, the snow covered peaks rising in all four directions around the valley, scraping the sky as they towered another five thousand feet above the already lofty valley. Most of the peaks hadn’t changed, but Galmok… She stared in horror. It looked like a volcano rather than the majestic mountain it had once been, its upper walls slumped inward with a misshapen bowl where the peak had once been.
The soldier shoved her. “Get going, girl.”
Sardelle wrenched her gaze from the view and stumbled down a path that hadn’t been there the last time she had been outside. Just yesterday, her mind wanted to add, though she had accepted by now that it had not been yesterday. Aside from the three centuries that had passed, it had been summer when she had entered Galmok and warm enough for her dress. Now she wrapped her arms around herself as she picked her route, the trail following the tramline down toward the center of the fortress. There were other holes in the mountain, other tram tracks plunging into the darkness. What were they mining for? Crystal? Hadn’t one of her attackers said that? She couldn’t imagine what sort of crystal they had found in there, though she did recall gold and silver veins in the area. A smelter set up on the far side of the fortress seemed to suggest the likelihood of precious metal mining.
Another push nearly made her stumble. “You act like you haven’t seen this all before. I’ve got a report to put together. Walk faster.” He pointed at a large stone building with laundry hanging on a line, whipping in the breeze as it dried in the meager sun.
“That’s where we’re going?” Even as Sardelle asked, a pair of women strode out of another building and headed for the one with the laundry lines. They wore heavy wool dresses and socks, scarves, hats, and fur jackets as they carried baskets of linens.
“Yes,” the soldier said, drawing out the syllable as if he were talking to an imbecile.
Sardelle sighed and headed in the indicated direction. At least there were women here. She ought to be able to get information from them, one way or another. Maybe, given time, she could figure out a way to arrange a meeting with that general.
She walked over a bridge, but paused at the top, realizing her unfriendly guide had fallen behind. He had stopped to stare into the western sky. A strange flying craft was banking around Bandit Mountain and angling toward the fortress. Flying. She hadn’t quite believed it when Jaxi had mentioned it, but the bronze metallic craft clearly wasn’t a bird. With wings outstretched and something on the tips that resembled talons, it did vaguely resemble a dragon, at least the ones Sardelle had seen illustrated in books, the creatures having been extinct for a thousand years or more now. Some sort of rotating fan buzzed, keeping the contraption aloft.
A propeller, Jaxi said dryly.
Hush, just because you’ve been reading books these past centuries, doesn’t mean I have. What’s powering it?
The soldier muttering to himself distracted Sardelle, and she didn’t hear the answer.
“What’s this about?” the man asked. “Supplies and prisoners came in yesterday. Shouldn’t be anything due for two weeks.”
Whatever it is, it could be an escape chance for you.
I’m not leaving without you, Jaxi.
I’m not going to suffocate or die here. You can come back when you can.
The fortress didn’t look like it would be any easier to sneak into than it would be to sneak out of. Besides, where would she go? This was—had been—home.
There is that. A mental sigh accompanied Jaxi’s comment.
The flying contraption banked again. It was circling the valley like an osprey searching for a fish to snatch out of a lake. None of the soldiers on the ramparts were racing for the cannons, so Sardelle assumed it was a friendly aircraft, though everyone was watching it draw closer with curiosity. It angled for the wide, flat roof of the biggest building in the fortress, a two-story structure backing up to one of the walls. A flat roof was a strange choice for mountains that received many feet of snow every year—the other buildings had steeply pitched tops, as one would expect—but as the craft lowered, she realized that particular spot must have been designed for landing, though she couldn’t imagine how it might be done. An osprey might be able to fold its wings in and alight on a perch, but a manmade craft wouldn’t have that ability, surely. It seemed to be designed for going straight ahead, needing those wide banking turns to switch direction. But some sort of thrusters rotated down from the wings, allowing the bronze contraption to slow down without falling out of the sky. Soon it was hovering over the building, and then it lowered, the bottom half disappearing from her sight.
And I thought the rifles were impressive.
Jaxi didn’t respond. Maybe she was investigating the craft.
A few soldiers jogged out of the second story of that big building and headed up the stairs to the roof. Their presence seemed to remind her guard of his duty, for he joined her on the bridge, pointing to the laundry building again.
“Let’s go. We’ll find out soon enough who’s visiting.”
Though curious about the flying machine, Sardelle couldn’t imagine that a visitor would change anything for her, so she walked off without arguing. Maybe the pilot would stay overnight and she might have a chance to examine the craft. It wasn’t her priority though.
A woman walked out of the laundry building as Sardelle and the soldier were walking up. The scent of soap and starch drifted through the doorway. The woman’s figure was almost stout and brawny enough to be a man. She had a basket balanced on a broad hip and started to walk off the path around the pair, but the soldier stopped her with a hand.
“One-forty-three, isn’t it?” he asked.
Sardelle blinked. What?
The number meant something to the woman, for she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Looks like you lost someone.” The soldier pushed Sardelle toward the woman.
“Never seen her before.”
“I think she came in yesterday.”
“Then why wasn’t she here an hour before dawn to report for work, like
everyone else?”
“No idea,” the soldier said. “Found her down on the bottom level of the mine.”
The woman gave an exasperated huff and looked Sardelle up and down like she might be a lost toddler. A particularly dumb lost toddler. “Seven gods, girl, you trying to get yourself killed? Or worse?”
What was worse than being killed? Sardelle thought of Tace and his crony and answered her own question.
“What is this?” The woman plucked at Sardelle’s sleeve. “Where are your work clothes? You’ve got to be freezing. What’s your number?”
Feeling lost and bewildered, Sardelle broke her oath as a sorceress and skimmed the surface of the woman’s thoughts. Numbers. People were called by numbers rather than names. She didn’t have to dig deep to find a memory of this woman—Dhasi before she had become One-forty-three—stepping off a supply ship with two other women and two-dozen men and being assigned her number.
“They told me, but I forgot,” Sardelle said. She could have made one up, but what happened if someone already had it? She hugged herself, thinking of sticking her hands under her armpits. What were the odds this conversation could be moved indoors? Her toes were freezing, and the rest of her wasn’t much warmer.
“You forgot.” One-forty-three—Sardelle hated to think of her as a number, but didn’t want to get in trouble for one day calling her by a name that had never been shared—threw up her hands, dropped the basket, and turned for the door. “Wait here. I’ll get the roster and try to figure out where she’s supposed to be.” She stomped back inside. Heat as well as soap odors drifted out, and Sardelle wouldn’t have minded following her.
She glanced at the soldier, wondering if he had been irked by the woman, who was presumably a prisoner, the same as the miners below, giving him an order. The soldier was busy though, eyeing Sardelle’s chest. She grimaced. Unfortunately, the sunlight showed off the sleek if dusty dress and the curves beneath it all too well, far more effectively than the lanterns in the mines. She had never thought herself a great beauty, but if the beefy laundry lady was representative of the women here, and if the men had as little contact with the outside world as she suspected, she supposed she could see the interest. See it, but not condone it. She watched the soldier through slitted eyes, wondering if another rash breakout would be in order.
Beginnings: Five Heroic Fantasy Adventure Novels Page 85
