by Vance Moore
One of the active towers sent a large hook into the pit, and Haddad could hear shouting, then the application of power. There was a sound of suction being overcome and then the load eased. Slowly a large corpse rose out of the ground. It was several times the size of an ox. Mud dripped and water fell from the carcass as it finished rising out of the ground. The cable stopped rising, and there was a sound of gears and levers being thrown. Haddad lowered his eyes and saw men working inside the base of the crane. The cluster of machinery was obviously some sort of transmission that transferred the power of the wheel to the different cables and gears. Haddad could hear the gears engage, and the crane began to turn, swinging the animal slowly over to a giant stoneboat with very wide skids.
"That's part of the reason work has been slowed. The bog has sucked down creatures of every size for uncounted millennia. Some of them weigh tons. They have never decayed. We've run into hundreds during our digging."
"Dig somewhere else, on firmer ground," Latulla ordered.
"Doesn't anyone receive the reports I send?" Lord Urit was exasperated and reigned in his temper with difficulty. "The ground is too unstable for another place to be better. This bog alters ground consistency almost daily. What is firm today may run like water tomorrow. In fact, I requested additional lumber to lay out walkways at this site because of unpredictable ground consistency. This was the best place to dig, the artificers themselves said this was the closest point to the Heroes' Blood." Lord Urit started picking his way to the pit. Latulla and Haddad followed.
The pit was actually walled with heavy planks. The instability of the soil forced the Keldons to shore up the sides as they dug down. The interior of the pit had several spars crisscrossing the interior as it sank. Hoses and hauling belts worked to keep water and mud flowing out. Haddad could see the corpses of many dead animals, entombed centuries ago and now exposed to the air, looking almost alive though covered in filth. A huge hog was almost completely exposed, and slaves called down a crane hook to lift it out. Haddad winced as the crane cable began to scream under a load. Latulla suddenly pointed off to the side of the pit.
"What are they doing there?" she demanded in an angry voice. She was pointing to a small group of slaves and a Keldon overseer that were an island of calm in the thrashing, chaotic floor of the giant pit. The group seemed centered on a young girl, still splotched with mud but almost pristine in comparison to everyone else working. She was blonde and pale. She raised up her arms, her voice cutting through the pandemonium of the working slaves. Latulla tensed as she did when working magic, and Haddad wondered what spell she was readying.
"The pit witch is conducting a ceremony to stabilize the soil in the pit and the surrounding ground, Artificer. Even with her spells, we still have to pump out water and reinforce the walls," Lord Urit replied. "If you are worried about her abusing her power, we have her family held at a remote location as a surety of her cooperation."
"I don't care if you have a knife at her back twentyfour hours a day. She's flaring like a bonfire, and it's bound to attract something. She's uncontrolled." Latulla spoke, as a professional criticizing the technique of an amateur.
"It's true whenever she conducts a ceremony we get more insects and animals coming into the area, but it is a small price to pay to keep the digging going," Lord Urit spoke flatly. "Unless you can replace her, we need her magic."
"You know we can't send you artificers or magicians. They are too rare to spend on a project even this important." Latulla was pensive as she considered how overextended Keldon capabilities were on the continent. "Perhaps when you reach the tufa detected in the bowels of this swamp we will be able to shift real spell users here instead of slave trash." She paused, and Haddad saw the end of the ceremony. The ground everywhere in the work site seemed to quiver slightly, and on the pit floor, workers no longer fought suction as they moved soil and animal bodies to pallets to be lifted out. The soil being turned and moved could have been from rich farmland instead of a near swamp.
"It's temporary, of course," Lord Urit said as even more frantic activity began on the pit floor. More workers were moving down ladders bolted to the wooden support walls. All the cranes were lifting out soil, and gangs of men at the rim moved wooden support sections to be lowered into the pit. "In less than an hour the ground will start turning into mud, and the pumps will be losing ground. It keeps getting worse the deeper we go, and we still don't know where the bottom is."
"It is that fact which will keep this a low priority operation, Urit," Latulla replied. "I will report home you are doing your best, but success is unlikely. For now, conquest of the western mines is a surer supply of tufa than your diggings here."
Urit bridled at the statement that what he was doing was not very important, but remembering Latulla's power and position, he merely looked to the side. The inspection was over, and the artificer turned and walked quickly to her vehicle.
Haddad ran ahead to ready the crew. Knowing the importance of this place, he continued to look around, memorizing the layout for the debriefing he would receive if he ever managed to escape. It was his eye that spotted movement outside the camp first. He stopped just as he reached the craft. Cradow was overseeing maintenance and followed Haddad's eyes as the slave skidded to a halt.
"Darba!" Cradow cried in a voice that resounded over the entire camp. The Keldon shouted with such force that when he tried to order the crew, he could only gape like a fish for a few moments.
Haddad saw a creature related to the parea-a giant carnivorous bird, but as it came closer, he gasped at its size. The monsters of the plains were flocks of chickens in comparison to this beast. It was at least twenty-five feet tall. Its feathers were green and brown, decent camouflage, perhaps, when it was a chick, but silly on a bird that could snatch up an ox. It moved toward the mound of dead animals hauled out of the pit. The huge muddy pile was obviously awaiting transport to a distant dumping site, but the bird had homed in on this pile of carrion rather than the huge mound of corpses that must exist somewhere else.
"Ready for battle!" Cradow croaked and scooped up Haddad, throwing him into the barge as the crew scrambled among the gear. A large ballista was yanked from a crate and set on a stand bolted to the floor of the vehicle. Keldons from around the camp were converging on the vehicles and yanking out weapons and armor, but all the other barges were secured to cranes supplying power or attached to trailers piled high with debris. Only Cradow's craft was ready for quick action. Haddad had no idea what to do, so he helped another slave move a heavy spear and put it into brackets set into the floor. The craft sprouted lethal quills as Cradow called for action. Haddad gripped the deck as the barge began to turn, and he could see Lord Urit at the base of a crane trying to get a barge unhooked. Latulla retreated to the edge of the pit.
"Hurry securing that bow!" Cradow directed the slaves. "Find the bolts and ready for a run." The two men he was pointing at stumbled to the gear and began digging for the bolts buried under Latulla's baggage. They tore loose the restraints, and the containers spilled throughout the interior as Cradow increased speed.
"Throw that crap over the side," he commanded Haddad and another man. Haddad was throwing out Latulla's cases before he realized it. Perhaps he would die and the artificer would be unable to punish him.
They completed their turn and were aimed at the carrion collection. The bird was pecking at the mound of flesh. Haddad was surprised to see the bird's wings holding the carcass of a great hippo. The wings were canted forward unnaturally, and Haddad noticed what appeared to be arms at this angle. The bird cut another chunk off and then fully extended its neck, regurgitating what it had eaten in a spray across the pile of meat. The corpses had not aged to the bird's taste while entombed in the mud.
The movement of slaves caught its attention, and it turned and stepped quickly to the pit. Those still standing dived into the excavation. The fortunate were climbing down the walls or sliding down cables-the screams of the unfortunate cut off as t
hey reached the bottom ahead of the rest. The Keldons were roaring defiance, and a group under Lord Urit charged, the rush accelerating until it reached the creature. The beast's head dipped down, and it snared a pair of warriors. One was crushed to death, and the other looked like a doll caught by its arm as the darba's head rose out of the crowd. The victim's screams and the warrior's desperate attacks against its beak irritated the bird, and its forelimbs stabbed talons into the body, stilling it as the bird gulped down fresh meat.
"Get out of the way!" Cradow boomed as he directed the barge after the bird. The predator stalked through the heart of the camp, its head diving to snare a victim and cut the man to pieces. It killed without eating, leaving a trail of body parts. The camp slaves who fled from its attack were blocking Cradow's path. "Fire the bow, you cowards!"
The ballista was finally mounted and discharged. The darba's call of pain drowned out the rest of the camp as the bolt punched through the muscles of its leg. "Aim for the body, you idiots," Cradow ordered.
"We're too close, ash face!" a slave screamed back, the moment overwhelming healthy survival instincts. The ballista was powerful enough to kill, but the angle was too steep to hit the vital organs of the bird while the barge was so near. Cradow's response was to ram the great bird.
The barge came to a near halt as it hit the monster's leg. The multiple legs of the barge pushed up hummocks of dirt as the vehicle tried to trample the darba. The bird slammed down on the barge's overhead shell. The wooden canopy above Haddad's head proved stronger than the League technician had feared, withstanding the weight of the giant monster. Unfortunately, the weight was too much for many of the barge's legs. Haddad heard seals exploding under the sudden spike in pressure. The bird rolled off the top of the vehicle to the ground. Haddad could smell leaking Heroes' Blood as the bird struggled upright.
"Get some distance before we lose all power!" Haddad shouted. If the barge stopped dead, the bird would dig out the crew like the meat from a nut. They needed more time and distance for a ballista shot. The slaves manning the weapon were dazed and scrambled to load another bolt.
"Maybe the artificer can kill it," someone said, and Cradow sent the machine in a curving run along the edge of the pit. The collapsed legs gave the barge a rolling gait, the crew stumbling as the deck pitched beneath them. Haddad could see Latulla with her staff raised for a blow and wondered if her usual method of chastisement could work on a creature weighing tons. As the Keldon's stick fell, a wave of fire built and raced toward the creature. Unfortunately, the barge's malfunctioning controls took it into the spell's path. The men working on the ballista flamed into charred husks, and their bodies broke into pieces as they fell. Haddad looked out the other side of the barge, following the fire line as it converged with the darba, but the fire slowed and subsided as it reached the creature, the flames seeming to sink into the ground. When it hit the bird, it was far smaller and slower than Latulla had planned.
The spell covered the bird in fire, and Haddad believed the battle over. Then the flames died and left the monster standing. The feathers that covered the bulk of the bird's body were carbonized, and as it took a few breaths, most of its feathers fell like melting snow off a roof line. Its flesh was red and burned, and its cry squealed through the air. The line of fire had crossed through the barge, and when the beast's head dropped down, Haddad knew who it blamed.
"Try to get a bolt loaded," Cradow said almost calmly as he took the barge out of the camp at the highest speed he could manage. Haddad looked helplessly at the charred and twisted weapon as the sound of the bird's charge echoed across the site behind them. All the slaves readied personal weapons. They would be useless, but that was all they had.
Haddad's stomach seemed to fall, and he was stunned as the barge did likewise. They had run into a sudden mud hole that had appeared in their path, and the barge's limbs beat futilely as they dug the craft deeper into the mud.
"Come on!" Haddad screamed to the man beside him and flung a small trunk as hard as he could off the side of the barge. He jumped out after it and landed on his belly, forcing out his breath. The mud seemed very hard as he eeled forward without air. He reached the crate he had flung with such hysterical strength and hauled himself on top of it, out of the mud. He sat with his head down between his legs, trying desperately to breathe, ignoring the world around him.
When his head came up, the barge showed only the peak of the upper shell. Men and a few Keldons were throwing themselves through the mud in a mad attempt to escape from the darba. The monster had chased the barge and become mired as well, but it still struck at the men unfortunate enough to be too close. Slaves and Keldon warriors rushed from the work site and threw ropes to those stuck in the mud. Barge crew were pulled out of the mud and dragged yards over the surface. The pain on the faces of those rescued as their bodies were torn out of the mud stilled Haddad's urge to call for help. Hopefully, after things calmed down, more care would be used in rescuing people.
The pit witch was standing and chanting, directing her attention to the ground around the still struggling darba. Haddad now realized why the ground had suddenly given way beneath the barge and the giant bird. He was feeling grateful to be alive when he saw Latulla force her way through the crowd to the edge of the new mud hole. She was almost white with rage at her failure to kill the bird. Haddad saw her swing her staff high and bring it down. Knowing his mistress, he curled his limbs on top of the crate and closed his ears. The explosion of steam and mud blotted out all other sounds, and he swore as the effects of Latulla's angry strike washed over him.
*****
Haddad came to on the floor of a land barge. Outside he could hear Latulla and Urit talking, and he slowly sat up to observe the conversation. He winced in pain and wondered at the numbness of his hands and face. His arms were smothered in some medicinal salve, and he knew it must be numbing extreme pain.
The entire encampment was getting into wagons and sleds hooked up to land barges. The site was closing down for the night and the workers were getting ready to move to the firmer ground of the housing camp.
"We must have more barges and war manikins," Urit was saying. "The losses would have been much smaller with decent heavy weapons. This is the first time a darba has gotten into the site, but we have seen them before. Send more material." He was emphatic, but his lowered eyes spelled out his inferior status before the artificer.
"Keld cannot afford to reinforce failure. You will have to succeed with what you have before we can move more equipment to you." Latulla looked over the site one last time, "Dismount all the barges supplying power, and go back to using slaves in the wheels. The barges' weapons can kill the birds if you use them properly and at a distance."
"But that means more slaves will die, and we'll have to implement harsher discipline to keep them at work," Lord Urit replied. "It is more cost effective to use machines if possible."
"We can always find more slaves," Latulla said derisively. "We expect to have more prisoners coming in soon. Until then, make the mud witch work harder. You must succeed in producing tufa from the depths of the swamp. I or another artificer will be out here in a month to see that you do."
Chapter 6
The Keldon fleet was coming in. The ships in port were not the fast sailors that Haddad expected to see, considering the distance that they had supposedly come. Perhaps the more seaworthy craft were keeping out to sea, patrolling for League vessels. The ones that had pulled into the port were tubs. Wallowing in the water, they were nothing like the rakish raiders that Haddad heard stories about. As the crowd grew on the docks, Haddad drifted to a higher vantage point. He climbed to the veranda of a house and was surprised to hear his name called from the crowd. He looked down into a wide black smile.
"Fumash!" Haddad exclaimed. "Why aren't you outside Druik's tent? You didn't have a problem with the general, did you?" Haddad was expansive with this stolen moment of freedom and even a poor joke seemed humorous.
"He'll
be here later," the clerk replied. "A hand up wouldn't be refused."
Haddad bent down, and Fumash seemed to fly up as Haddad pulled.
"Look's like a lot of activity out there. More gear coming in," Haddad said as stevedores unloaded one ship. The Keldon warriors and sailors began to disembark, kicking aside the slaves trying to unload the ship. "I despise them, I think." Such sentiments were dangerous to say aloud where someone might hear, but Haddad felt he could trust Fumash, though he realized he was taking a chance with someone he barely knew.
"We all despise them," Fumash replied. "Only a fool loves slavery. I serve a master who is comparatively kind because I provide clerical skills not commonly found in the camp. Yet his kindness is due to his lack of interest in overseeing me, not any innate goodness. As long as sleep and drinking with old cronies engages him, I am safe. But he has severely injured slaves when drunk or angry. Perhaps in Keld their servants love them, but not here." Even as Fumash spoke his bitter words, he smiled and nodded to the crowd, not wanting to appear furtive. "Look attentive, Haddad. We are looking for our masters from this high point. Remember?" He even pretended to point, then shake his head as if he was mistaken. The habits of deception were deeply engrained by now.
"Fumash, we both hate being here. If we don't like it, perhaps we should leave." Haddad kept looking over the crowd and speaking in an even tone, but surely Fumash knew he wasn't talking about the balcony.
"Why haven't you left before now? If you are looking for something, you should have spotted it by now and been on your way," Fumash said. Now he was swinging his wallet around and drew papers out of it. He held them up to the sunlight as if reading them, but his eyes were focused inside rather than on the paper.
"I am ready to go but need aid in finding the way." Haddad thought of all he could relate to League forces and moved his head closer to Fumash's to confer more privately.
