Juliet McKenna - The Gambler's Fortune

“Give me that.” He took an axe helve from a nearby hand, thumping it on the planks at his feet. Three times, three more and three again, the ringing blows echoed above the heads of the milling crowd and the terrified motion slowed, faces upturned, bewildered.

“Everyone who can fight must find a weapon. Those who cannot must take to the upper levels of the rekin.” Jeirran struck the wooden balustrade at his side. “Cut this away and pack the lower level with turf and timber, ready to set slow fire in case we lose the walls. Ropes will get the defenders inside if we have to hold the rekin alone.”

The crowd exchanged uncertain glances.

“We can hold this place against thrice this number of lowlanders,” Jeirran declared with bravado. “Or does Misaen no longer make Anyatimm strong, Maewelin make them wise?” A few faint smiles greeted this sally. “To work!” Jeirran urged them and slowly the people began to move, a sense of purpose soon replacing the earlier aimless fear.

Jeirran jumped down from the wooden stair and, taking up an axe, began reducing it to ragged ruins. Slow fire in the ground level, the barriers of smoke and heat had saved more than one rekin in the past when walls and all seemed lost. It could do so again. If not, well, then he would find oil, spirits, whatever it took to raise fast fire and set the whole rekin alight as a beacon to kindle hatred of the lowlanders in every Mountain heart.

There are no chimes to sound inside mountains but by the time I judged we were Poldrion’s side of midnight I was feeling far less cheerful. I leaned forward to peer at Aritane; her breath was coming in harsh jolts jerked by ’Gren’s increasing pace, but I couldn’t believe anyone could lie that limply, so uncomfortably, and be faking. Lifting my lantern to check the color of her skin, I nearly burned her pale wrist on the hot metal as ’Gren halted.

Sorgrad had reached a junction in the workings. “The main seam should be straight ahead. This way.” Water dripped on my head and I felt a cold downdraft, suggesting some kind of ventilation shaft. The tunnel roof grew lower and more irregular, ragged diggings branching off, broken rock underfoot, stretches shored up with timber.

“Shouldn’t there be more of these props?” I wondered uneasily how much mountainside was hanging over my head.

“No need in this rock. That’s one reason Teyvafess has always been so rich,” ’Gren said over his shoulder. “Until their copper lode ran out, that is.”

I felt our direction changing from time to time but with no reference points beyond the ever-changing yet monotonous patterns of the walls, I soon lost my bearings. When a larger space finally opened out, I lifted my lantern to reveal a lofty cavern, though I couldn’t have said if it were natural or dug by hand. Sorgrad was looking for exits, the yellow candlelight throwing his features into sharp relief, the walls behind him melting into darkness.

“Which way?” ’Gren moved Aritane to his other shoulder. “This one’s not getting any lighter.”

Sorgrad looked at me. “All these seem to lead deeper into the mountain, not down the valley.”

I shrugged. “We won’t find out standing here. Better keep moving and hope to pick up some kind of crosswise tunnel.”

We opted for the widest digging and I walked beside ’Gren as Sorgrad scouted ahead. “I went down to the lowlands because I never fancied being a mole,” ’Gren muttered.

“Not because you were scared of the wyrms coming out of the deeps to eat you?” I teased.

“I’d throw them this one.” He hefted Aritane to a more secure hold. “She’d choke a litter of wyrms and leave something over for their dam.”

“She’s not that big,” I objected.

“Do you want to try carrying her?” ’Gren threatened to hand over the unconscious enchantress and he wasn’t joking.

“I’ve got the lantern.” I waved it hurriedly. “Anyway, I bet she’s lighter than a sack of ore.”

Sorgrad cursed something in the Mountain tongue that had ’Gren miss a step.

“What’s the matter?” I called out to him.

“This is just an adit to get to a series of seams.” He came toward us, shaking his head in disgust. A sudden radiance flared on the metal side of his lantern and Sorgrad dropped it with an oath.

A familiar voice sounded above the clatter of dented tin. “Just look into the spell, Sorgrad!”

He picked up the lantern. The candle was dead and guttered but the warm amber light of magic shone in its stead. Usara’s face smiled at us from a swirl of sorcery.

“Hello,” I said stupidly before Sorgrad turned the spell toward himself.

“You’re using the tunnels to get past the fighting?” Usara didn’t waste time on pleasantries.

“Have you been scrying us?” Sorgrad asked suspiciously.

“Snatching the odd glimpse. You’ll have to work right down to the bridge; the whole of the lower valley is a battleground.”

“How do you know that?”

“Who’s attacked?”

“There’s no way these diggings go that close to the ford.” Sorgrad’s firm statement overruled questions from me and ’Gren.

“Don’t worry about that,” Usara said. “You take the second off-hand tunnel.”

“What about the enchanters?” I ran a hand over my face and grimaced at the feel of encrusted muck.

Usara’s face was reflected in the blackened tin of the lantern, overlaid with a yellow sheen, curious faces of Forest warriors indistinct behind him. “I’ve got the boys keeping up a concealment charm. Anyway, given the present chaos, I don’t see the Sheltya checking for unexpected wizardry.”

We hurried to the digging Usara had indicated. The spell cast a hard-edged light compared to the softer fluttering of my candle, calling lumpy, distorted shadows to chase us down the tunnel. The roof sank lower and lower until we found ourselves dead-ended in a litter of shattered rock and broken wood.

“Come on, wizard, impress us,” demanded ’Gren.

The glow on the lantern faded to leave only the feeble light of my candle.

“Let me take her.” Sorgrad lifted Aritane off his brother’s shoulder. As he cradled her in his arms, I held a hand in front of her nose, feeling for the reassurance of her breath, when a sudden gust snuffed my candle and left us in utter darkness.

“Saedrin’s stones.” I groped awkwardly for flint and steel but a new light was already breaking the blackness. It came from deep within the rocks in front of us, dim at first as if unimaginably distant. A faint crazing like the crackle on a pot’s glaze grew brighter and brighter, light pulsing steadily, glowing ever more intense with each beat. Soon it was as bright as a festival fire, magic interlaced across the surface of the rock and riven deep into it, rippling and moving like a living thing. We felt warmth coming from it, the pattern extending from the face of the rock, weaving itself into the empty air. Rapid vibration ran through the floor, up through the soles of my boots, to set the nerves in my belly fluttering in sympathy. Sudden cracking sounds sent us a pace backward in one accord. The smell reminded me of an empty cook pot set over a fire, forgotten till someone burns a hand on it.

The rock began to splinter, shards flaking away at first, larger chunks falling free as the stresses of the magic split stone like a child hammering a pan of toffee. ’Gren began to drag rubble aside with his pry-bar, looking up warily to make sure nothing was about to fall on his head. I raked the debris further back down the tunnel, trying to avoid the razor-sharp fragments snapping into the walls.

“That wizard could make himself a fortune if he found a soke willing to mine with magic.” Sweat glistened on ’Gren’s forehead. “He could do ten men’s work in a day.”