Dragon Weather (7 page)

Arlian had begun to wonder, some time back, whether Dinian had ever really existed, or whether the tale had been started by Bloody Hand himself, long ago, to cow the workers into obedience. He had asked one of the older surviving miners at the time—Hathet and Wrinkles were dead by then, but Olneor was still around—whether he had actually
seen
the infamous flogging.

“By the dead gods, boy, I did!” Olneor had told him. “'Twas the very first day that red-handed, black-hearted bastard set foot down here. He hadn't yet troubled to tell us his name, just set to ordering us about, and didn't know the first thing about what he was doing. Dinian tried to tell him how the cart rotation works, and Bloody Hand wouldn't hear a word—he ordered Dinian to shut up and do as he was told, and when Dinian wouldn't he said he'd flog him if he didn't get down the tunnel where he belonged.”

“And Dinian didn't?”

“Of course not! He didn't have a cart to fill, and he knew he wouldn't get supper if he didn't, so he tried to argue—and Bloody Hand lashed him across the face. That bastard was so mad he was trembling with rage, and Dinian hadn't done anything wrong!”

“Then what happened?” Arlian had asked.

“Then Dinian tried to grab the whip, and Bloody Hand hit him again, and again, and around the third or fourth blow Dinian realized he'd better give up. He went down on all fours and covered his head and tried to wait it out, but Bloody Hand just wouldn't stop—he flogged Dinian's tunic to rags, and then flogged his back to tatters as well, and didn't stop until there was blood everywhere and Dinian was just a heap on the stone.”

Arlian had shuddered, and had stayed well clear of Bloody Hand for weeks after that—but with time he had begun to wonder again.

Maybe Hand had been more frightened than angry, alone down here with a score of men who had reason to hate him. Maybe he had misjudged. Maybe he had been too scared to try to do anything for Dinian.

The others all said Hand was a cruel, vicious creature who took delight in the suffering of others, that he'd beaten Dinian to death for fun—but Arlian had never seen Bloody Hand hit
anyone,
despite frequent threats. If he enjoyed tormenting the miners, why had he held off so completely for all these years?

Hathet used to say that there were usually two explanations for everything, the obvious one and the true one; Arlian suspected that this applied to Bloody Hand.

But sometimes the obvious explanation was the only one. For example, whatever Bloody Hand's motives might be, Lampspiller enjoyed hurting people, and made no attempt to hide the fact. His name came from a little game he had invented, not long after the day he had first turned up instead of the Gaffer for the second shift, where he would secretly pour the oil out of a miner's lamp, and then send the man alone down one of the tunnels on some invented errand. The light would go out, and the miner would find himself in utter darkness, unable to find his way back. He would call for help, and Lampspiller would forbid anyone to respond until he heard a satisfactory note of genuine terror and desperation in the victim's cries.

More often than not, it was Lampspiller's laughter that guided the lost miner back.

Several of the miners had felt Lampspiller's whip; he had never flogged anyone to death, but he often used a little sting of the lash to hurry men along. Most of the miners were only too glad to curse both overseers, and to bemoan the day the Gaffer had retired—if he had; no one knew for certain what had happened to the old man. One day Lampspiller had come down the pit instead of the Gaffer, and none of the slaves had ever seen the Gaffer again.

Arguing who was worse, Bloody Hand or Lampspiller, was a popular pastime.

In Arlian's opinion, Lampspiller won easily—but he knew that Dinian's ghost might well think otherwise.

The final ore cart tipped up, and the gray stone spilled into the hopper—or began to, at any rate; the hopper was now full enough that Arlian had to hang on the rope for two or three minutes, holding the heavy cart up, while Wark raked out the ore.

At last it was done, though. Arlian unhooked the cart and pulled it clear; he and Wark stepped back.

“Go on,” Hand said, waving them back. He didn't need to explain what he wanted; they knew the rules. No slave was allowed in the pit while the hopper was being raised up and the ore transferred to the waiting wagons.

Wark and Arlian retreated toward the mouth of their home tunnel and watched as Hand signaled to the teamsters on the upper level.

“Hyaah!” someone shouted, unseen, and the two young men heard the crack of a whip, followed by the rattle of chains and the creaking of ropes and wood as the mules began hauling. The hopper shifted, ore clattering and ropes twanging, and began to lift.

Arlian watched as it rose. They didn't have to wait here; it would be a good half-hour before the ore had been transferred and the hopper lowered again with tonight's supper in it. There were empty carts available, and the two of them could easily have returned to work at the rock face in Tunnel #45 and perhaps filled half a cart before returning for their ration. Still, Arlian preferred to watch.

For one thing, if he ever intended to get out of the mine he would probably need to get up that shaft to the entry tunnel. Virtually the only alternative would be to tunnel up to sunlight somewhere without being spotted by the overseers, and Arlian remembered how far down he had come when he was first brought here, and that the entry had been at the foot of a cliff. He was deep inside the earth—he didn't know how far, but he knew it was deep.

The possibility that someday they might tunnel into a natural cave or cavern had occurred to him, but it seemed unlikely—and if it did happen, everyone knew that dragons lived in deep caverns. Much as he wanted to destroy those dragons, he didn't care to face them barefoot and armed only with a pickax.

Up the shaft—that was the only sane way out.

So he watched the lifting operations with intense interest, trying to devise some way that he might get up to that entrance tunnel. The hopper was always carefully stored up at the top, with all the ropes pulled up out of reach; the stone walls were angled inward as they rose and polished smooth, making a climb impossible. The pile of rags used as a buffer for the hopper, and also as a stockpile for the miners' clothing, was too low to be of any real help.

The hopper was almost invisible now, above the area lit by the mine's lamps and not yet into the glow of the torches and lamps used by the wagon crews. Arlian leaned out of the tunnel mouth to peer upward.

He saw the jerk an instant before he heard the snap; one corner of the hopper dropped abruptly, then caught a few inches lower.

Then a second snap sounded, and the entire end of the hopper dropped, swinging down; two of the four cables had broken.

The top layer of ore spilled from the hopper with a thunderous roar that echoed deafeningly from the limestone walls; a hundred jagged head-sized chunks of heavy gray stone poured in a torrent.

And Bloody Hand, who had stepped forward to watch the hauling better, was standing directly underneath.

He raised his arms to shield his head and tried to dodge, but not in time—a stone struck him squarely on the temple, and he crumpled sideways, landing on the rag heap.

Arlian started out of the tunnel, then caught himself.

This was
Bloody Hand,
the overseer, the man who had flogged Dinian to death. And the hopper was still mostly full and swinging about wildly as the teamsters at the top tried to regain control; at any moment the rest of the ore might spill out. Only a tiny fraction had fallen as yet. The remainder was hanging by a thread.

A single chunk of stone the size of a man's chest had killed Fist instantly, and that dancing hopper held several
tons
of ore.

But Bloody Hand was still a fellow human being. Dinian aside, the rumors and stories aside, Arlian had never seen him deliberately harm anyone.

And Arlian had seen too many men die in the mines. He had no desire to see another death, not even Hand's.

He ran forward and grabbed the dazed Hand under both arms, hauling him free of the little heap of scattered stone. Arlian pulled him toward the nearest tunnel mouth, walking backward and dragging Hand along as quickly as he could. He was halfway to the safety of the tunnel's mouth when he heard a twang, and another snap, and saw an avalanche of gray stone pouring down out of the darkness.

6

The Price of Mercy

Arlian was coughing, choking on the clouds of rock dust, as he staggered backward; he had dropped Bloody Hand, but the dust in his eyes was so thick he couldn't see where. All he wanted for the moment was to get clear himself, so he could wipe his eyes and see what was happening.

“Ari!”

Arlian recognized Wark's voice. “Here!” he shouted in return.

Other voices were shouting somewhere; Arlian paid no attention to them as he stumbled into a tunnel mouth and cleared his vision.

A few seconds later Wark was there beside him, wiping away dust; Arlian turned and peered out into the pitshaft.

The lamps on one side had gone out, so that great black shadows reared up—and some were moving, dancing, as the now-empty hopper, dangling from one line, swung crazily. A great heap of gray ore covered the rag pile, half obscured by slowly settling black dust. Miners stood in all the tunnels, staring out into the opening, but none had ventured out. Most of the shouting was coming from above.

And then a rope was flung down, and a man came sliding down it, hand over hand—a man wearing thick leather, with a sword on his belt. He jumped free and immediately drew his blade. The sword was shorter and broader than Arlian remembered a sword being, and he had to stop and think where he had ever seen a sword before.

On Lord Dragon's belt, he realized. This was only the second sword he had even glimpsed, and the first he had seen out of its sheath. It gleamed in the dim orange light, and Arlian stared at it, fascinated, studying the way the stranger held it.

“All right, stand back!” the swordsman bellowed. “Where's the overseer?”

Half a dozen voices answered, and several fingers pointed. The man turned and spotted Bloody Hand, lying half covered in dust and rubble.

“What about our dinner?” someone called.

“You'll get your food,” the swordsman snapped, as he strode over to Bloody Hand. He knelt, but kept the sword ready and didn't look down as he felt the downed overseer's throat, but instead kept a watchful eye on the slaves in the tunnels.

“He's breathing,” the swordsman shouted up the shaft. “I don't see much blood. I think he's all right.”

“Can he hold a rope?” a voice called from above.

“Not a chance,” the swordsman replied. “Send someone down!”

Arlian watched silently and saw that Bloody Hand was blinking, and trying to raise his right hand free of the rocks. By the time another man had clambered down the rope from the ledge above the swordsman was helping Bloody Hand to sit up.

Arlian and Wark watched as the new arrival helped the overseer to the dangling rope. The swordsman stood guard as the others clung to the rope while it was hauled up; then the rope was flung down again, and the swordsman sheathed his blade and ascended.

Then the rope was pulled up.

For a moment nothing more happened, though Arlian could hear voices. Then the hopper, still dangling by its one corner, was lowered.

“Where's our supper?” someone shouted, and several other voices joined in protest at seeing the hopper descend without the customary contents.

“Wait a moment, will you?” the swordsman's voice called down.

A chorus of angry voices replied incoherently, and at last the miners spilled out of the tunnels into the pitshaft. Arlian saw Swamp shaking an angry fist at the invisible figures in the upper tunnels.

Then a heavy burlap sack came sailing down the shaft, to land with a thump atop the heap of spilled ore. Swamp and the others ran to open it.

Arlian stepped out into the pitshaft, Wark at his heels. The two of them made their way up the mound of ore to where Swamp and Bitter were distributing the usual food from the sack—coarse bread, tasteless dried-out cheese, some dried fruit to prevent scurvy.

Arlian held out his hand, and Swamp started to pass him a slab of bread, when Stain spoke up.

“Not him! He's the one who saved Bloody Hand's life! You don't want to feed
him!
”

Swamp hesitated, and looked at Rat.

Rat, a small man known for his quick wits, looked at Arlian. “
You're
the one pulled him out from underneath, Arlian? Or was it Wark?”

“It was Arlian,” Wark said.

“I did it,” Arlian admitted.

“Trying to get on the bosses' good side, are you?” Rat snarled. “Couldn't leave well enough alone?”

“You know the rules, Rat,” Arlian said—he wasn't exactly slow himself, and had no intention of admitting he had acted out of genuine concern for a fellow human being. “If we don't deliver a live overseer at the end of each shift, we don't get fed.”

“You risked your life over one meal, boy?” Rat sneered. “It'd be worth skipping a meal to see Bloody Hand's brains bashed out, if you ask me!”

“Hey, where's Lampspiller?” someone asked before Arlian could reply. “He didn't come down!”

That created a stir of concern—the miners
did
know the rules. Each overseer stayed for a single shift—probably twelve hours each—then was replaced by the other. Bloody Hand had been hauled up, but Lampspiller had not come down for his shift.

And if there were no overseer, there would be no food at the next shift change.

Arlian's saving of Bloody Hand's life was forgotten for the moment as the miners argued and shouted. Arlian ignored the debate and took the bread from Swamp's hand; Swamp didn't resist, but simply shrugged, handed Arlian a wedge of cheese, and went back to distributing food.