The Gathering, page 25
part #1 of The Hundred Series
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The path that they had been following led from the village through the fields beyond, and on into the forest, giant trees rising high above them. As they rode among the trees, Yvonne noticed that the forest on either side of the ill-defined path had been allowed to run wild for some time. Forest edges around villages usually had some kind of cultivation. Lower branches taken for firewood, fallen branches cleared for kindling and firewood, paths cleared to allow livestock to roam, patches of earth turned over for some plants and to make mushroom foraging easier. The tangle of undergrowth here suggested that nobody had been far into the forest for quite some time.
The proclamation, declaring the village the property of Coll Castle, had been undated, the preservation spell a piece of low-level magic that could last quite some time. This village could have been empty for months.
There was an itch between her shoulder blades again as they rode on. The path was not natural, too clear a space among the wildness around them. More magic had been done here. She wondered how much the circle mage had been paid for his services, if indeed he was still alive.
They paused under the trees after a few hours’ riding, when the path took them close to a stream that the horses could drink from, then continued riding at the steady pace Lothar had set, the others keeping pace behind him. Yvonne heard the occasional snort from one of the other horses, doubtless knowing they could go faster. No one offered to take the lead, though.
A while later, when they were all settled into the steady rhythm of travel, Lothar snorted, tossed his head, and danced sideways in springy strides that belonged to a much younger creature before coming to a halt, the tension in his body clear even through the saddle.
“Easy,” Yvonne said, stroking his neck, peering ahead to try and work out what had spooked him. The other horses had stopped, too, and she could see the whites of several pairs of eyes.
Warhorses were trained to go forward through fear, and although he threw up his head again, haunches gathering, he moved forward at her request so she could see what had startled him.
The wagon trail ended a few paces ahead, running directly onto an extraordinary sight, in this dense forest. There was a wide, well-maintained road cut through the forest. As smooth and wide as any King’s Highway, although the forest grew right up to the road’s edge, with some of the larger trees overhanging the road’s surface, providing leafy shade from the spring sunshine. Branches had been cut to give clearance enough to allow wagons to pass underneath.
It looked perfectly innocent. Except that it was nowhere a road should be. And none of the horses wanted to go near it.
“This is new,” Guise commented. “A year, perhaps a little more.”
“Around the time of the earliest reports of children disappearing,” Sillman said, voice heavy.
Yvonne remembered the map, the earliest reports scattered across the lands, across the black lines of the borders. The slavers had been careful, to start with, travelling distances to avoid detection.
“More magic,” Yvonne noted. Her skin was prickling with the residue of it. No wonder Lothar was standing stock-still under her, all his muscles tense.
“Bloody mages,” Suanna said, lips tightening as a few of her fellow Hunar sent her looks of surprise. “What? They are despicable. Selling their work to the highest bidder.”
Yvonne winced, thinking of the few occasions she had accepted work from Guise, knowing that the pay would be good, and not questioning the task at hand too closely.
“Everyone needs to eat,” Pieris said, voice mild. “We don’t all have your resources.”
Yvonne’s curiosity spiked. There had been hints, over the years, that Suanna came from a very privileged, wealthy, background, more than enough to support whatever she wanted to do. It was to her credit she worked so hard as a Hunar, Elinor had said more than once. But no one had ever said anything more, which Yvonne found equally frustrating and admirable. They all had their secrets, Elinor had told Yvonne. And that had been the end of the matter.
Suanna sniffed, clearly not convinced.
Mica slid off his horse, going towards the road, hand held out, murmuring the words to a spell, his voice too low for Yvonne to hear which one. Moments later the surface of the road shivered, shadows writhing along its length. Some kind of reveal spell.
“Death,” Sillman said, voice heavy. “Too many dead.”
“The road is built from the dead?” Guise asked, frowning. “Bone dust?”
The words echoed oddly in her head. She remembered him asking someone else about bone dust, but could not quite remember the conversations.
“No,” Dundac answered, cutting through her frustration. “A lot of people died building it, though. That’s why the horses are so worked up.”
“We’ll need to bind their hooves to move on,” Idal said, sliding off his horse.
Guise looked confused, but dismounted with everyone else, watching with interest as Idal drew a set of leather boots out of one of his saddlebags, then raising a brow at Yvonne.
“Our horses are sensitive to magic, and to death,” she explained. “It’s part of working with a Hunar. Where we can help it, we do not ask them to walk on graves.” She scratched Lothar behind his ear, and he turned and shoved his nose into her chest, demanding a scratch at the other ear, too. She almost smiled, giving him an extra scratch, the familiarity settling her.
At length all the horses had their boots fitted, apart from Guise’s goblin-bred mount, which danced sideways, throwing up its head as Guise rode onto the road. A few more sideways steps and the horse settled.
“I suppose goblin horses must get used to dealing with death,” Suanna commented. Her tone was quite matter-of-fact, as though stating something obvious.
“It depends on the horse,” Guise answered, seemingly amused.
“And the rider,” Pieris added, expression slightly unfocused again for a moment.
“Shall we go?” Annabelle suggested, acid in her tone. “Our horses aren’t the only ones who don’t like death.”
“Keep following the road ahead,” Yvonne told them.
With a clear, smooth road ahead she was not surprised when Sillman took the lead, his horse moving at a fractionally faster pace than Lothar. She was happy to move to the back, letting Lothar find his own pace, drifting a little bit behind the others. It had been another long, hard day’s riding and she judged he was twice the age, or more, of all the other horses. Guilt twisted in her stomach. She was asking too much of him.
She put her hand on his dark neck, tangling her fingers in his mane for a moment. He had taught her more than she thought possible, and given years of faithful service. Overdue for retirement. Grazing in the fields around the house. The occasional, steady, journey into town. She would need to find a companion animal for him, as he hated to be alone.
A soft sound of discovery ahead snapped her out of her plans, and she looked up to find that the forest was thinning ahead, and the others were turning off the road, spreading out through the forest, looking ahead.
Sillman was off his horse when she reached the others. “We need to go ahead on foot,” he said, face and voice grim.
Curiosity piqued, Yvonne left Lothar with the other horses and crept forward. All of them were skilled in moving quietly when they had to, and the whole group made barely a sound as they made their way to the edge of the forest. For a while, all she could see was that the forest came to an abrupt end a short distance ahead, suggesting that there was some kind of settlement.
~
They were spread out in a line so they reached the edge of the trees more or less at the same time, and took a sharp, collective, intake of breath that would have given their position away to anyone on watch.
For a long moment, her eyes refused to make sense of what she saw.
The forest gave way to an open swathe of what looked like dry grass, undulating ground that at length rose to mountain peaks, the tops shrouded in cloud. Between the edge of the forest, and the mountain slopes, the ground had been destroyed. The smooth lines of the grassland broke, gave way to an enormous crater in the world, a great, circular wound that led down into the earth. From where they were standing, they could not see easily into it, just enough to see some of the sloping sides.
It was no natural phenomena. Even as they watched, she could see things moving at the sides of the wound and realised that they were people, tiny specks against the sheer size of the thing. She looked back to the road and saw that it led to the edge of the wound. Following it, she realised that there was a roadway leading from what had been the natural surface, working its way slowly down in a giant spiral, around the edge of the circle, disappearing from view as it went deeper into the great hole. Even as she watched, she saw a wagon, drawn by a pair of oxen, moving slowly up the roadway, along the gentle slope that it formed up the other side of the wound.
“What is it?” Annabelle asked, voice soft.
“It is an open mine,” Guise told her, voice equally soft. His face was grim. “There should not be anything here. There’s nothing on the maps.”
“What could they be mining here?” Yvonne asked, her stomach twisting. A mine that should not be there, with a road leading up to it that was clearly designed to carry heavy traffic.
An odd quality of the silence around her made her turn. The rest of the Hundred were looking at Sillman, and he was glaring, in apparent fury, at the mine ahead of them.
“Sillman?” she asked.
“They should not be here. No one should be here,” Sillman said. He was not really speaking to her. Or to anyone. He seemed lost in some realisation. Not a pleasant one. He was pale, fists clenched by his sides.
“It’s just a mountain,” Idal pointed out.
Just a mountain. A remote place, days’ travel from any major settlements. Outside Coll Castle territory. Great peaks rising up, providing an effective barrier most of the way around the mine, the deep swathe of ancient forest providing another barrier. So easy to get lost in a forest, Yvonne knew.
She exchanged a few glances with her fellow Hunar, apart from Sillman who was staring ahead, face drawn.
They had received the same training she had. There was no such thing as just a mountain, or just a village, or just a road, or just a stream, or just anything else. Everything had a purpose, and meaning, and a place, even if it was not clear.
Yvonne looked back at the scene ahead of them, at the wagon slowly descending the spiral road. At the tiny figures moving. There were ladders up the sides of the mine, she saw, and a few figures moving up and down.
On the other side of the mine’s vast, open mouth were buildings. They looked like hastily put together, single-storey buildings. The kind that might be put together as temporary shelter. She looked from the buildings back to the mine and thought there seemed nothing temporary about it.
“We should search the buildings,” she said, before she really knew what she was saying. “We need more information.”
“Good idea. We’ll go,” Guise said. He looked about, taking stock of the surroundings. “We can follow the trees most of the way if we go in this direction.” He pointed.
He was right. As usual. When it came to sneaking around, and making illicit entry to property, she did not know anyone better than Guise. He would have made an excellent thief. If he had not been too busy collecting secrets, that was.
“We’ll go the other way,” Annabelle suggested, glancing around the rest of the Hundred. “See what we can find.”
To Yvonne’s surprise, there was no protest from Sillman at the plan to split up. He still seemed lost in whatever realisation had gripped him. She found herself looking over her shoulder as she and Guise left the group, uneasy. It was not like Sillman to let someone else take charge. Or to keep matters to himself when information could help them.
~
Guise led the way and she attempted to stay close behind him, following his footfalls. They were far enough away from the lip of the mine that she did not think they would be heard. But there was no telling what else was in the forest, or even if the miners had set guards. Guards would be logical. The only things she knew of that came from mines were precious stones, and precious metal. Definitely things worth stealing.
“This has been here for a while,” Guise commented, stepping to one side to they could walk together for a moment. “To get to this size, mined by hand.”
“There is no magic residue that I can sense,” Yvonne told him. The high mountains, where Joel and Mariah’s horses came from, were renowned for their sturdy people that spent a considerable part of their lives carving into the unforgiving mountain rock, in search of the precious gems and metals that were so prized, and brought them what was rumoured to be fabulous wealth. She had never seen the mines, and had nothing to compare the great open space before her to, taking Guise’s word for it. His education, and his travel, had been quite different to hers.
They continued in silence for a while until they were at the very edge of the trees. Whatever grass had been on the ground was long gone, along with whatever other plants there had been, and the space in front of them was simply packed earth. On a dry day, like now, it was sandy, but she could see the ruts from wagon tracks and thought that in winter it would probably be sticky and heavy to walk through.
“That looks like clay soil,” she commented.
Guise made a low sound of agreement, eyes intent ahead of him. Figures were coming up from the lip of the mine, moving slowly with what looked like sheer exhaustion, shoulders bowed as they reached the top of the ladder and scrambled to their feet, and steady for a moment, before they moved forward, towards the buildings that they had seen.
Yvonne’s breath caught in her throat. Not just people. Youngsters.
“Sturdy and strong,” Guise murmured, hints of fury in his voice. He was remembering the descriptions that they had been given in Three Falls. The slavers who had not wanted the pretty children, but had wanted strong ones. Brought here, it seemed, by the wagon load.
Closer to the mine, they could not see quite as far into it, but she could see a dozen or more figures making their way up or down ladders that were strapped to the sides. They were all moving with the slow pace of exhaustion.
Captured, gathered up, sold, then forced into labour.
Even as she thought that, a familiar and unwelcome scent crossed her nose. Decay. Something, or more likely someone, had died and been left to rot nearby. And if she could smell it, then the children who were shuffling, shoulders bowed and heads lowered, would also be able to smell it as a constant backdrop when they were at ground level.
One of the youngsters stumbled in their slow walk away from the ladders. A few glanced over. Apart from that, no one reacted. She could not make out expressions at this distance, just see the subtle shift in their bodies. No one wanted to be near the one who had stumbled. No one reached out to help, or asked if he was alright. He stumbled again, paused, straightened his spine, and walked on even more slowly, but carefully upright, body tense with absolute focus on the ground ahead of him. Heading for what Yvonne assumed was a dormitory building. The curve of his shoulders and back suggested he was far too thin, exhaustion clear. A chill spread under her breastbone. He would not survive the night.
Not just sold into labour, then, but worked to death.
She clamped her jaw shut against a torrent of words, and cry of outrage. The symbol at her shoulder brightened. The outline of the Firebird, the first Hunar’s mythical companion. The bringer of justice, whose fury would scorch the earth clean before her. Yvonne wished, more than ever, that the Firebird was real. Some of her vengeance would be useful just now.
“They’re dying,” she said to Guise, her voice tight with emotion. “This needs to stop.”
“We will stop it, mristrian,” he promised, the weight of that promise ringing through her. Somehow she knew that he was as angry as she was. “First, we need to find out what they are doing here.” There was a paler shade around his mouth and hints of red sparks in his eyes. He despised slavery. They had that in common.
“Miners are often well paid,” she said slowly, her mind turning over that puzzle. Well paid, and subject to severe punishment if they were caught stealing. A skilled miner, or a crew of skilled miners, would surely be more use than wagon loads of unskilled and terrified youngsters.
“Quite so,” Guise said.
Yvonne turned that over in her mind for a moment, nausea rising. Miners needed to be paid. Slaves didn’t. She remembered those ledgers with the entries. She had no idea what a miner’s pay was, but she suspected it was more than the cost of one of these children.
She said as much to Guise and saw the red flicker in his eyes, a low sound of anger in his throat before he turned his attention back to the buildings.
“I can draw some shadow around us,” she told her. It was not a spell she used often, and had its drawbacks. “It will not hide any sounds we make, or our footprints, but it will encourage people to look away from us. We should be able to get to the buildings.”
“Good. I think those two buildings are offices,” he said, and pointed. Most of the buildings looked like they were barely standing, hastily constructed and poorly made. She guessed those were the dormitories for the slaves. The two buildings that Guise had pointed out were far more solidly constructed, and had actual windows in front of them, facing the mine itself. The doors were also facing the mine, though, and were both firmly closed.
“There may be a way in the back,” Guise suggested.
She nodded and spent a moment mentally reviewing the requirements of the spell before speaking the necessary words, drawing a slight shimmer over them both, feeling the pull of energy from her as the spell rose.
