The corridor curved again, and he paused to peer around the bend. At the far end, the lift shaft was visible, as was an enormous hole in the ceiling, at least twenty feet across. Ladders had been placed on either side of the entry chamber, and men were carrying loot out on their shoulders. Other men, heavily armed men, stood in a group, talking and pointing downward, toward the lower levels of the mine. Wondering if it was worth trying to go down there and loot further? Quiet fury filled Yanko at the thought of these people casually contemplating killing and looting this place. Even if the mines weren’t exactly a home to him, they were his family’s responsibility. For the first time, he felt that meant they were his responsibility too.
And they were Mishnal’s responsibility. The door to his quarters and office stood open ten feet ahead of Yanko. Unfortunately, it was in full view of those men. This portion of the tunnel lay clear, with no rubble piles to hide behind, so he could not advance without being spotted.
“We lost our posse,” Lakeo whispered in his ear.
The miners had disappeared. Probably up that hole. Yanko shrugged. He couldn’t have depended on them, anyway. He would have to sneak up to his uncle’s room on his own. He concentrated on the chamber around the invaders, trying to sense more than his eyes showed him, such as the way some of the crumbled earth around the edges above hung precariously. A tall cactus leaned toward the hole, its root system half destroyed.
Yanko pointed at his uncle’s door and made a get-ready gesture. Lakeo nodded.
With a silent apology to the cactus, he used his power to sever a few more of its roots. It toppled twenty feet, crashing to the ground a couple of meters from the men. They all spun toward it, several jumping in surprise. Knowing they would recover quickly, Yanko ran for his uncle’s door, careful not to make a noise.
He slipped inside before the men turned back around—and almost tripped over the supine figure on the floor. Uncle Mishnal. A pool of blood spread out from beneath his torso.
The emotions that Yanko had been holding back boiled over, and tears of outrage and loss sprang to his eyes. He dropped to his knees, his weapons falling from his hands. He almost forgot about the men, that they were close enough to hear a conversation—or the clink of weapons hitting the hard ground. But Lakeo had made it inside, too, and she eased the door shut.
Yanko knew he was too late, but he touched his uncle’s shoulder, hoping he might be wrong, that the injury was not fatal.
Mishnal’s eyelids fluttered, then opened. Such utter pain twisted his face that Yanko wished he hadn’t bothered his uncle, that he had simply let him die peacefully. But maybe this would be better, for Mishnal to know that someone was here for him in the end.
“Can you do anything?” Lakeo whispered.
Yanko shook his head. He was no healer. There wasn’t time for any man to learn every branch of the mental sciences, and warrior mages were encouraged to master destruction, not healing. Healing was considered a woman’s art. Much like the earth sciences. Yanko bitterly admitted that he could have healed a dying tree. But he didn’t know how to help a human being. Maybe he had failed in choosing his passions.
“Uncle,” he whispered.
“Yanko,” Mishnal rasped. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Yanko wiped it away. “Tell... tell your father.”
“I will. Do you know who these people are?”
“The prince... was right.” Mishnal drew in a shuddering breath, then coughed, blood spattered the ground next to his face.
Yanko did not try to stop the hot tears tracing his cheeks. “About what, Uncle? What should I tell my father?”
“Protect... the village. There... this is only... the beginning.”
“Of what? Who are these people? How can I help?”
“It’s dark,” Mishnal whispered. “Yanko? ...still there?”
Yanko glanced at the lamp still burning on his uncle’s desk and struggled to talk around the lump in his throat. He squeezed Mishnal’s shoulder. “I’m still here.”
“Be careful... out there.” Mishnal opened his mouth, but another round of coughs came out. Yanko wanted to tell him not to talk any more, not to stress himself further, but if there was any more information he could give, anything that could help... “Your father.”
“Yes?”
“He cares. But... he’s afraid.”
“Cares for what? Afraid of who?” This wasn’t the information Yanko needed, but how could he interrupt a dying man?
“You. Afraid you’ll... be like mother... leave him, leave family. She was... there was a reason he loved her. You have... her power. Power... changes people. Don’t let it... change you.”
Yanko wiped his palm across his eyes. “I won’t.”
Mishnal managed one more breath, but it was his last. His eyes froze in place, staring at the floor, empty of his spirit. His hand shaking, Yanko reached out and closed his lids.
He had thought himself alone after failing his test, but this was far worse.
Chapter 3
“Sorry to interrupt,” Lakeo said, “but we have a problem.”
Yanko stood up, the muscles in his legs weak and wobbly. He wanted to prepare his uncle’s body for a funeral, not leave him, but what could he do? They were in the middle of an invasion. “Someone’s coming?”
Lakeo had her ear pressed to the door. “Yes. I think I heard someone say this door was shut and it hadn’t been before.”
Yanko wiped his eyes again and picked up the swords. He could find some tree to cry under later, where he could fall apart and rail at the world. For now, he had a duty. He had to escape and report this atrocity to his father. The village was over a day’s walk away, and he couldn’t assume anyone else would take the news. His father would know what to do with the information and how to round up volunteers to defend the area until word could be sent to the regional chief and the military could be brought in.
The doorknob rattled.
“I locked it,” Lakeo said, then shrugged. It hardly mattered. The people outside would know someone had come in. “Maybe we should have run,” she whispered.
Yes, getting out now would be difficult. Even if they could somehow beat all six of those men—which Yanko doubted, since they had barely handled three—he sensed dozens more on the ground above the mine, as well as pack lizards strapped to carts full of loot. These people had deliberately come to steal the salt and supplies and run. It infuriated Yanko that they’d had to kill to do it. Why couldn’t they simply have taken prisoners?
“Kick it down,” a voice outside said.
“We’ve got a live one in here,” someone else in the tunnel yelled.
Lakeo cursed. “They’ll all be down here in a minute. Yanko?” It might have been the first time she had looked to him for help, for advice.
He was not in the mood to appreciate the moment. He was staring at his uncle and fuming, his knuckles white where he gripped the swords. All this death. It needn’t have happened. It was pointless.
He glared at the door, seeing the men in the hallway with his mind, seeing more running to join them, their weapons at the ready. He also saw the layers of salt above their heads, the way the ceiling had already been damaged by the explosives set near the lift. Cracks and fissures meandered through the salt, more than had ever been there before. It would not take much to shift the ground, create an earthquake.
One that might bury them too?
A foot slammed into the door, and it flew open. He had no more time to ponder.
Yanko lifted his hand and funneled all of his rage and power into moving a section of the earth. Lakeo flung her knife at the doorway, and the men who had been about to charge in ducked and scurried back for an instant. The ceiling groaned, then snaps sounded in the salt. Far away, probably outside of the mine, someone screamed a warning. It was too late for these men.
The roar of falling rock pummeled Yanko’s ears, and white dust flooded the room. Coughing, Lakeo staggered back. She grabbed his arm and lunge
d for the corner, pulling him with her. He might have dove under the desk instead, but chunks of salt were flying into the room like bullets, and he didn’t take the time to object. In the corner, he hunkered next to her. They hid their heads beneath their arms and prayed. Yanko had examined the faults as carefully as he could in the limited time he had, and he didn’t think their ceiling should fall, but he was not an expert at creating earthquakes.
Rock and dust continued to flood the room, until he couldn’t have seen anything even if he had unburied his face. Screams of pain and the sound of limbs and torsos being crushed rose over the din of falling rock. This time, he couldn’t manage any sympathy for the dead and dying. They had picked this fight, chosen to kill unnecessarily. Yanko just hoped that this act of defiance, of rage and vengeance, would not be the last action he ever took.
Lakeo coughed, her body shaking next to his. She might have been coughing all along, but this was the first time Yanko could hear it. The waterfall of dropping rocks had slowed to a trickle. The dust was settling in the room, though it still stung his eyes, the tiny salt crystals digging in. The ceiling above them remained intact, but so much of the ceiling in the tunnel had dropped that the doorway was nearly blocked. A tiny gap remained at the top, but Yanko did not know if they could squeeze through it, or what they would find when they exited. Dozens of men with bows waiting to shoot them?
He didn’t see the kyzar, but he picked up his sword—no, the sword he had taken from one of the invaders. His own gear was in the bunk room he shared with five other miners. Was there any way he could get to it? He didn’t know, but they could not stay here.
Lakeo coughed again and wiped her mouth and eyes. “I’m not putting salt on my food again for a long time.”
After giving up the search for the shorter sword, which had to be buried under the rubble that had flowed inside, Yanko climbed up the pile in the doorway. As he had anticipated, shouts came from above, cries to get help and unbury the men. Yanko didn’t check to see if anyone was alive under the salt slabs he was climbing up—he didn’t want to know. He peeked through the gap between the rock pile and the top of the doorway, having to turn his head sideways to do so, and gawked at the mess he had made. Not only had he brought down the ceiling in the tunnel, but he had doubled the size of the opening near the lift.
“Is it safe to go down?” someone above that opening asked.
“Yes, Gar Soon and Tintk are down there. Hurry, we have to haul them out.”
Yanko squeezed and contorted his body to pull himself through the gap. In seconds, there would be more people down here. Even as he pulled himself out, he had the thought that it was odd that the enemy was calling each other by first name, showing concern for fallen comrades. Shouldn’t the people who could mastermind this attack sound less... human?
“Hurry,” Lakeo whispered from behind him. “Move, move. We have to get out of here.”
Yanko needed no urging. Once he was through the gap, he crawled to the side so she could climb out—and so he could figure out where to go next. Someone had jumped or used a rope to climb down, and the ladders were being set up again. Going that way would only get them caught. Yanko crawled toward the back of the rock pile. The ceiling had collapsed for a good ten feet in that direction, but he thought they could reenter the tunnel they had originally come up, maybe reach that hole the miners had escaped through. If it was still there. He had tried to focus that quake in a small area, but it might have repercussions for meters, if not miles, in every direction.
“Made it,” Lakeo panted softly, crawling toward him. “Here’s a tip, Yanko. Never get boobs.”
Another time, he might have appreciated her attempt at humor, but all he could think of was his uncle’s death and that he had to warn his father of the invaders. He glanced up as he crawled through the remains of the tunnel, aware that someone might look down at them from above. So far, the invaders seemed to be staying near the lift, but he would make an easy target for an archer if that changed.
He reached the end of the area where the ceiling had collapsed, but the rubble pile rose so high, that he had to squeeze and squirm again to find his way back into the tunnel that still stood.
“Stoat’s teats,” Lakeo whispered, pausing while he worked his way under the ceiling. “I had no idea you could do something like this.”
“Earth science is more powerful than people think,” Yanko said, sliding head-first down the rock pile until he could stand on solid ground again.
Lakeo squeezed in after him, wincing as her chest and back scraped the confines of the rock above and below. She refrained from further comments about boobs. “Is that why you chose it?”
Once she reached the ground, Yanko jogged back down the tunnel, keeping his sword ready—some of the looters might well still be back here. “I chose it when I wanted to convince some bees to leave their hive so I could steal a taste of their honey. I was six.”
“I thought all six-year-old boys wanted to hurl fireballs.”
Yanko skirted a new rockfall, wondering again if the hole would still be there. “I was always comfortable in the forest.” He wouldn’t mind running and hiding in the woods now, as he had done as a boy whenever he was upset or in trouble. Somehow he doubted that would solve his problems this time.
“There it is.” Lakeo pointed over his shoulder.
The hole still gaped in the ceiling—if anything, it was wider now—with a big pile of rubble underneath it. Surprisingly, a rope dangled down.
“A trap?” Lakeo wondered. “Or were the invaders looting back here and going out that way?”
Yanko tugged at the rope, found it held his weight, and shrugged at her. “Maybe the miners left it for us.”
She snorted. “Optimistic. Maybe they dropped it down to help each other. That’s an ugly climb.”
Yes, they would have had to claw their way up fifteen feet before reaching the top of the hole. Yanko looked at his sword, wondered where he would put it since he didn’t have a scabbard or even a belt, and thought about trying to find a way to his room. But the sounds of men pushed aside rocks floated down the corridor after him.
“No time,” he muttered.
He could make this work until he reached home. Careful not to cut himself, he clenched the back of the blade between his teeth. He jumped off the rubble pile, grabbed the rope, and hauled himself up. The tip of the sword banged against the side of the hole, and he almost lost it—and his lip. Fortunately, the walls were uneven, and he found footholds to help him along.
By the time he reached the rim, his jaw ached, and he wanted to yank himself over the edge, to relieve the burden. Instead, he forced himself to ease only his eyes over the rim. A cactus, a bunch of boulders, and a stunted juniper were all he could see. He would have liked a better view, but this should mean nobody would see him climb out. He laid the sword on the dusty earth and rolled over the edge. After he waved for Lakeo to follow, he stood up, the weapon back in hand. He peered over the top of the boulder, and his mouth dropped so low, he nearly cracked his chin on the rock.
He had predicted dozens of raiders, but there had to be hundreds of men, lizards, and carts stretching along the road that led to the mine. Torches burned here and there, and people were setting up tents underneath the starlight. Guards patrolled the outskirts of the camp, bows, swords, and even Turgonian firearms in their hands. The group of people working at the mine entrance seemed to only be a subset of this group. Carts had been rolled up to the hole in the earth—as he had feared, the guard shack had been obliterated—and a few men waved and called advice down to those who were trying to unearth their comrades.
Yanko looked in the opposite direction, to the mountains where his village awaited. He hoped answers waited for him there and that his father would have a plan for dealing with these people, these invading thieves and murderers.
* * *
“I can’t believe I didn’t get my money out of my room,” Lakeo grumbled as she and Yanko climbed the
trail that led into the mountains where he had grown up. He had opted for this route instead of the road, afraid the invaders might be using it. They had sneaked out of the camp without being seen, but he didn’t know how long their luck could last—or if the rest of the countryside was safe. “And my bow. But mostly my money. I’ve been saving that up for months. How am I going to get to Kyatt now?”
“I can’t believe I didn’t get food and canteens,” Yanko said, finding that more pertinent. They had walked through the night, which hadn’t been bad, but the sun had climbed into the sky, its heat beating down on them, a reminder as to why so few settlements existed on this side of the mountains. Even in the fall, it could be intense this far south. Fortunately, they had started climbing before it had grown too hot, and now the junipers and pines provided some shade. A small relief. His head ached with every step, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep, or to find a healer, though he knew it was overexertion that made his brain hurt, not any injury. If Arayevo were there, she might know of some medicine from the forest that could make him feel better. Or she would touch his shoulder and smile at him, and that would make him feel better.
“At least you know how to find water sources. You’re handy to travel with.” She thumped him on the back.
Yanko was fairly certain she was trying to cheer him up rather than being obtuse about his need to mourn, but he would have preferred to walk in silence. To reflect on his uncle, on the fact that, in the few months Yanko had worked with him, Mishnal had become more of a father to him than the man who had caused him to be born into the world. Had his uncle’s words been true? That Yanko’s father feared he would leave? And turn into his mother? Yanko had often wondered if he might take after her, at least in looks. He already knew that he had her aptitude for magic, but he had a broader face than his father and his brother, and his eyes were a deep, dark brown while theirs were a few shades lighter. But he had never seen a picture of her, so he didn’t know. His father had removed everything from the house that was hers or that reminded him of her.
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