Chapter 20 – The Mines (4458)

Chapter 20 – The Mines (4458)

In the following days, they did their best to stay out of sight, keeping to their rooms. It didn’t last long though, all of them were too curious about the city, its people, its food and its buildings to stay indoors for long. The war too, continued in the south of the city, and the druids went down to heal the injured behind the lines, using all their magic and only returning when they were spent, tired but satisfied they had at least saved some lives.

While the war went on the dragon’s hold on the people of the city loosened a little and the slaves and servants began to rebel against the gendarmes. The streets were growing chaotic, the dole carts were constantly being raided, which seemed odd to them as the food and drink was given away free anyway, and gangs of runways lurked in the side streets, looking for trouble.

‘The word on the street is that there was a rebellion in a southern quarter, the Stovologard dragons killed a hundred of their own people,’ said Meggelaine when they returned from some afternoon food shopping.

‘We should go down their again,’ said Roztov although he did not relish the thought. There was always more suffering than the three of them could handle.

‘Let’s eat first,’ said Meggelaine. ‘We’ll need our strength.’

‘Is there anything we can do to help?’ asked Arrin. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit useless these last couple of days.’ Tankle nodded her agreement.

‘I might have a job for you two later,’ said Meggelaine, who always like to have a secret.

‘Oh well, good then. It’s just that it’s so unjust. Broddor would have sorted them out,’ said Arrin with an angry tremor in his voice. ‘He’d soon sort out those dragons killing those people.’

They all knew Broddor was Arrin’s hero, so no one cast any doubt on his statement.

‘He was fearless, right enough,’ agreed Roztov.

‘And that armour, and his sword...’ continued Arrin with the enthusiasm of a teenager. ‘I only saw him fight Mordran that one time, but what a battle. I wish I had been there to see him fight that rune-keeper dragon. What a battle that must have been. And that time, when me and Salveri were fighting those manhunters with him in the forest, he was holding off all their spears, none of them could land a blow on him. Salveri... Well, they are both dead now...’

Roztov could see tears in Arrin’s eyes, glistening in the gloomy light from the cracked windows.

‘There will be some great tales told about Broddor, when we get back. That’s what he would have wanted. I’ll never forget how all this started, that dragon attacking the ship out of the mist, and Broddor thundering past me, across the deck and right along the bowsprit. He must have leapt ten feet in the air off that thing. Probably gave that dragon the scare of its life.’

Arrin laughed and wiped his nose. Roztov knew he was changing the tale, in truth Broddor had got no more than three steps along the bowsprit before falling, but what did that matter? He had still been attacking a dragon and in a dwarfish tale about the honoured dead it was the essence of the story, not the details, which mattered.

Roztov noticed that Meggelaine was weeping now too. ‘Broddor and Ophess, and Sal and all the others. Oh Roz... I’m going to boil the kettle.’

As Meggelaine went over to the fireplace Tankle tried to distract her little friend a little.

‘What was that language he spoke? He often said things like “Conusmig”,’ she asked. ‘It was like no dwarfish I ever heard.’

‘Oh it was dwarfish,’ laughed Meggelaine even as tears wetted her cheeks. ‘Or rather, dwarfish with a very strong Stykian accent. There have been fortress in the Vales for generations, I suppose their dialect has changed over the years. If he ever said anything in Stykian dwarfish, believe me, it isn’t repeatable.’

Meggelaine boiled the kettle and made tea for everyone, calming her emotions with this simple ritual.

When they had time, Roztov and Ghene would turn into rock lizards and skulk around in the building to eavesdrop on the residents. It appeared they were in no current danger of discovery, the conversations of the locals was primarily about the war, the street gangs and the availability of food. The people in their street all worked at the harbour. They sailors, stevedores, fishermen and the like, thin, but hardy, used to a tough life. Most of them were Sunda, but there were some Bullays and Yats,  and quite a few mixed-race people.  It seemed that they were safe enough, certainly while the gendarmes were struggling to keep control of the population.

‘They don’t seem to understand the concept of men living anywhere other than Tanud,’ remarked Roztov after one of their visits.

‘They are simple folk, by and large these city people,’ said Ghene. ‘Maybe out in the towns and villages the people are a bit less ignorant. Honni realised we were outlanders after all.’

 ‘Aye, he must have got it from somewhere,’ agreed Roztov. ‘In the city though, some people can rise higher than a mere servant certainly. Lady Fiewa for one, admittedly she’s a Spire spy, but she had my card marked straight away.’

‘True, she’s not the only one too, I’ll wager,’ mused Ghene.

‘I’ll have a wee sniff about for them, next time I’m there,’ said Roztov. ‘Delivering messages is a great way to get into people’s houses.’

 ‘I'm amazed you are still getting away with it,’ Meggelaine remarked from her place by the fire. ‘Right under their noses. What about those Rune-Keepers? Presumably if one gets close to you, they'll see a rock lizard transform into a man or elf?’

‘It’s fine,’ Roztov assured her. ‘We know what we’re doing.’

In truth though they had already had already some very close calls.

Roztov and Ghene went to the tower the next day and left to her own devices Meggelaine took Arrin and Tankle down to the harbour to look at the ships. It was not the first time.

‘So, what have we got today?’ she asked the sailors.

‘Little fishing boats as always,’ replied Arrin as they walked along the harbour wall in the fog. ‘There are colliers over there, but they are little better than lighters. I can see some sloops moored over there.’

‘Are they any use to us?’

‘No, it’s the same as last time, there is nothing oceangoing here.’

‘Drat it,’ said Meggelaine, snapping her fingers in irritation. ‘Look though.’

They were at the harbour mouth now, as far out as the wall went and lost in the fog. Sea spray occasionally lashed up from below and splattered their cloaks and faces. They could no longer see the city, they couldn’t even see the other side of the harbour mouth, but they could see an empty collier going out into the sea, a dark silhouette moving slowly through the fog.

‘It’s going somewhere, right enough,’ admitted Arrin.

‘And they come back laden with coal and hematite. I’m not a miner, but I know you don’t catch iron ore in fishing nets,’ said Tankle.

‘There must be another island,’ speculated Meggelaine. ‘Beyond the fog barrier. We should come back with Tup later and go out on one.’

As they walked back Arrin was deep in thought. ‘I saw something that looked a bit like a scow the other day. We should go out on one of them.’

‘Why?’

‘They will be going out further than the lighters. I mean, probably.’

It did not take Floran long, with a gold coin pressed into the captain’s hand, to arrange them passage on a large scow out beyond the harbour wall. There were only three sailors crewing the boat, but a further ten people, men and women, onboard who were presumably miners.

After an hour of sailing they left the fog barrier behind and all four of them felt a huge weight lift off their shoulders.

‘My word,’ exclaimed Floran. ‘When was the last time I saw the sky free of fog and smoke?’

Meggelaine closed her eyes and held her face up to the sun. ‘It’s glorious.’

‘Look yonder!’ cried Arrin pointing out over the clear blue sea.

Ahead of them were dozens of tall towers, sticking straight out of the sea, each bigger than a tenement block.

‘What are they?’ gasped Tankle.

Floran asked the captain, and then translated the reply. ‘They are the mines. They are offshore mines, apparently.’

As they got closer, they began to appreciate the scale of the things. They were broad and tall, with flat tops and wooden ladders that led up to doorways usually one or two stories up. There were cranes too, further up that were used to load the colliers. The captains sailed the scow past the first of the towers, evidently going to one further out. They watched the towers go past, seeing them close up they could see they were made from dark red bricks, patched and repairs with yellow mortar.

When the scow arrived at its destination, they all climbed up a ladder and into what appeared to be an administration room.

‘This man is wondering why we are here,’ said Floran, gesturing to a confused looking old man. ‘I think he is the foreman of this tower.’

‘Just give him a gold coin,’ said Meggelaine as she looked up. There was a central well that coal was being drawn up in baskets. She could hear a capstan being turned somewhere and could smell oxen or something, but couldn’t see any.

‘Ask him how they turn the capstan, Tup,’ she said. ‘They can’t be using vegetains, they are too lazy.’

Floran asked the question, and the recently bribed foreman, smiled, bowed and led them up a series of ladders to a room full of gears and pulleys with a large capstan in the middle of it.

Meggelaine gasped in horror as she saw that the huge wooden wheel was being pulled by two chained dragons. They had no claws or wings and their jaws were bound shut with irons. They looked weak and emaciated, and whenever one faltered, a man with a whip struck them on the back.

Floran was equally dismayed at such a sight, but translated what the foreman told him. ‘These are chasm dragons, captured in previous wars. They are sent here as punishment. They have their claws and wings removed to stop them escaping and their mouths bound shut to stop them breathing fire.’

‘How do they feed them?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Floran once he had received the answer from the foreman who was gesturing at the side of the dragons’ heads. ‘They have cut a hole in the side of their cheeks and they feed them slops through it.’

‘This is horrible. Please let’s go,’ said Meggelaine. ‘Can he take us to the top?’

Using ladders they moved up the tower, sometimes moving through areas that were used as sleeping quarters. ‘Apparently they live out here for years at a time,’ explained Floran.

The top of the tower was flat covered in wooden beams covered in tar. A few miners, presumably on a break, were also here, enjoying the fresh air. In the distance a dragon wheeled around, high in the sky away from the island. Floran spoke to the foreman then reported to the others.

‘He’s no idea what that dragon is doing, maybe hunting for dolphins. He seems to think we are auditors sent from the city. I wonder why the chasm dragons don’t attack these towers, they look like easy targets to me. This old man has no idea about that either. Still, what a view.’

‘It’s incredible,’ admitted Meggelaine as she wandered around the edge of the tower, taking in the panorama. ‘Dozens of towers just like this one. How many bricks I wonder? Oh look over there.’

She pointed to where a tower had collapsed, some way off, and around it were dozens of ship wrecks, piled up against the rubble.

‘What’s all that lot, Tup?’

Floran asked the foreman then explained, ‘It is as it appears. That tower collapsed a long time ago, a hundred years ago he says. Now it is used as a ship’s graveyard. They pillage it for spares when required.’

Both Tankle and Arrin were shielding their eyes and squinting at the wrecks and continued to do so when Meggelaine and Floran wandered off to the other side of the tower.

‘Notice how she acts when Roztov and Ghene are not around,’ remarked Tankle. ‘She acts like a child when in their company, but now look at her, ordering the men about.’

Arrin laughed. ‘Yes, she’s a character. Do you see anything interesting in that lot?’

‘Piles of junk. I think I see the masts of a caravel on the other side of the tower. It must be an antique.’

‘Even so, an oceangoing vessel. I wonder how it got here.’

When they reported this to Meggelaine she ordered the captain of their collier to detour around the collapsed tower on the way back.

‘He says it’s not safe,’ said Floran.

She looked at Arrin. ‘It’s safe enough,’ he said, ‘if he keeps wide of the wrecks. We are laden down with coal, but the wind is with us.’

‘Give him another gold, Tup and tell him to get on with it,’ she said testily.

The captain made some token objections, but the gold was a convincing argument and besides, he didn’t like the look in the eyes of the little girl that was giving out all the orders.

As they passed the far side of the graveyard, Arrin and Tankle were able to get a good look at the wrecked caravel.

‘It would have been a fine enough ship in its day,’ remarked Tankle. ‘It’s like an Elbonian trader, but from a hundred years ago.’

‘Shame about the big hole in her hull though,’ said Arrin with a sigh.

‘It was oceangoing though?’ asked Meggelaine. ‘We could get away in it?’

‘Well, there are no sails. One of the masts is broken and there is that big hole...’ said Arrin.

‘Yes, yes, but if all that was fixed?’

‘She’d get us home for sure,’ said Arrin with certainty. Tankle nodded in agreement.

‘Don’t worry about the hole and the mast. Druid magic can fix that. The sails are more of a problem though. Oh, and a crew I suppose. How many would we need?’

‘Twenty, maybe twenty-five,’ answered Arrin.

Meggelaine then went over to the other side of the ship to talk to the captain, using Floran to interpret her questions.

‘Do you think she’s trying to hire a crew?’ asked Tankle. ‘I don’t see how.’

‘I’ve no idea. Maybe Roztov could summon some... um... monkeys or something.’

Tankle made a ‘pff’ noise with her lips.

‘Yes,’ agreed Arrin. ‘We’d need proper sailors, I’m not sure about these fellows, they seem sturdy enough, but these scows and lighters will have never been sailed beyond the mines.’

‘We’re the last of the Red Maiden. We’ll get of this island somehow,’ said Tankle with determination. Arrin, thinking about it just now, realised he had never doubted it until the death of Broddor. Now he wasn’t so sure.

At the harbour, they disembarked from the collier and went to get a drink at one of the quayside taverns. They sat in the late afternoon sun, a stiff sea breeze blowing the smoke from the tower out over their heads.

Floran went to do some shopping and left Meggelaine with the sailors to continue talking over nautical matters. After a short while Tankle, who was sat facing the other two, noticed a commotion down at where the collier had been moored.

‘Here comes trouble.’

The collier captain was leading a group of gendarmes towards them. He pointed to where they were sat and with animated hand gestures bid the armed men follow him.

‘Typical,’ said Meggelaine. ‘Just when Floran’s not here to translate. Let’s just see what they do. If it all kicks off, I’ll do... something.’

One of the gendarmes addressed himself to Arrin, ignoring the two women. Arrin had picked up a few words of draconic from being on Tanud. ‘Me, village man, run dragons,’ he said, gesturing towards the unseen mountains, trying to imply they were refugees.

The gendarme pointed at Tankle and Meggelaine and told them to pull back their hoods.

‘Wife,’ said Arrin nervously. ‘Daughter.’

The gendarme, a man in his forties smiled and tickled Meggelaine under the chin. She faked a childish laugh.

‘Wait,’ said the gendarme. They waited ten minutes, then a large black dragon bearing a blue stone around its neck landed and waddled towards them. All three of them were terrified by this huge dark beast, but stood as still as they could as it shone its stone on them and when nothing happened it snarled and took off again. The gendarme turned to the collier captain and cuffed him hard around the back of the head and then walked off, gesturing his men to follow him.

The captain gave them a dazed look then ran back to where his ship was moored.

‘What did they expect? We were a bunch of dragons in disguise? What a nerve after all that gold we gave him. Call the watch on us, eh?’ growled Meggelaine. ‘I’m going to teach that fellow a lesson he won’t forget.’

She hopped down from her chair, adjusted her belt and stormed after the captain.

‘In the name of Blimaron,’ gasped Tankle. ‘What do we do?’

‘We’d better follow her.’

‘Should we do something?’

Arrin gave a couple of notes of script to the waiter, settling the bill and set off after the torm. ‘If the captain goes for her, you grab her and run for it. I’ll punch him on the nose.’

Meggelaine, walking quickly, had reached the moored collier and was facing down the captain. Arrin and Tankle arrived behind her, but stood a few steps back. They respected Meggelaine too much incur her wrath by stopping her giving the captain a piece of her mind.

‘Give me the gold back, you hooligan!’ demanded Meggelaine, waving her finger at him. She then pointed at the palm of her hand. ‘Gold? See? You idiot. Stop smiling at me.’

The captain laughed, but then stopped when he realised he was beginning to draw a crowd. Meggelaine continued to scold him in a language he didn’t understand and not wanting to seem a laughing stock in front of his fellow sailors he decided to do something very foolish and pushed Meggelaine to the cobblestones. Meggelaine squealed, and then raised her right hand. A blast of magical wind knocked the captain from his feet and he too landed on the cobbles. Meggelaine stood up and as some of the ship’s crew rushed at her, she blasted them away with a magical wind too, sending them rolling back, tumbling head over heels, half of them falling off the quayside and landing in the sea, yelling and screaming.

‘I’ll show you,’ snarled Meggelaine, raising both hands. ‘You dirty rotter!’

She lunged at the captain, making him clamber backwards on his rear end. Meggelaine then went over to the collier and with a sweep of her hands, magically caused a large dip in the water that the ship rolled into, spilling the cargo that had not been taken off it yet to spill into the sea. With gurgling groans the ship sunk, pulling its rope off the mooring post with a twang.

With a sweep of her hand, a strong wind blew the captain off the quayside and out into the harbour where it deposited him a hundred yards away. When near the sea, a druid’s ability to control the wind was strong.

‘I hope he can swim,’ gasped Arrin.

Tankle found her mouth was hanging open as Meggelaine turned to them and said, ‘let’s go.’

Meggelaine summoned up a thick mist to hide their retreat from the harbour, with hood up and heads down they returned to their apartment.

Once she’d had a nice cup of tea and her anger had subsided, Meggelaine was remorseful.

‘What have I done? Maybe he genuinely thought we were chasm dragons in disguise. That ship would have been his livelihood. What if his family starves now?’

‘Meg, what are you talking about? You kicked arse back there, it was amazing!’ gushed Tankle.

‘Aye, don’t worry about that old tosspot,’ agreed Arrin. ‘The boats all belong to the dragons anyway, remember? This isn’t like back home. Even back home, generally the captain doesn’t own the ship. Well, our captain owned the Red Maiden, but that’s not always the case.’

‘Oh, well...’ sighed Meggelaine, warming her hands on the tea cup.

‘That was amazing Meg,’ said Tankle who still could not get over how the small torm had thrown back all those men then sunk a ship.

‘Yes,’ agreed Arrin. ‘Hey, who do you think would win in a fight? A druid or a wizard?’

‘Oh well, even so,’ said Tankle with an apologetic bow to Meggelaine, ‘I think a wizard.’

‘You’re just saying that because you’re in love with Tuppence!’ joked Arrin.

Meggelaine snorted with laughter at Arrin’s remark. Floran and Tankle were not making any effort to hide their relationship anymore though as they spent each night downstairs in the big double bed.

‘A wizard would kill a druid instantly with a fireball,’ Tankle argued.

‘A druid would change into a bear, or a dragon, shrug off the fireball and rip the wizard’s head off.’

Arrin made wild gestures with his hands in an attempt to illustrate his point.

‘Only Roztov can be a dragon,’ said Tankle.

 Meggelaine finished her tea and started preparing the evening meal. The friendly argument continued until Floran returned, and not long after him, Roztov and Ghene.

‘Well, actually, me and Floran did fight once,’ said Roztov, having overheard some of it.

Tankle and Arrin gasped simultaneously.

‘We’d been captured by Nog pirates, north of Fiarka, on our return from Joppa. They thought it amusing to make their captives fight each other.’

‘Who won?’ asked Tankle.

‘Well, I think I won,’ said Roztov with a smile towards Floran, ‘I tied him down with roots then beset him with a swarm of stinging insects.’

‘Bah,’ grunted Floran. ‘I remember that. I was holding back though.’

‘Hardly,’ said Roztov holding up his hands. ‘You set fire to me!’

 ‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Meggelaine. ‘I’ve heard this pissing contest discussed quite a few times before, it never leads anywhere good.’

‘But how did you escape the pirates?’ asked Arrin.

‘Yes, how did we escape?’ wondered Roztov, pulling on his beard. ‘I think it involved Broddor doing something stupid. That was probably it.’

As they ate together they went on to tell each other how their days had been. Roztov and Ghene agreed that the caravel out at the mines sounded interesting.

‘If Floran can translate for me, I think I can find sails and a crew. You pair of fools finish up your tower nonsense and we can be on our way.’

‘Not long now, Em,’ said Roztov. ‘In truth, part of me will be sad to leave. There is so much to learn here. We know more about dragons now than anyone back in Nillamandor I’ll warrant. Here, the dragons are aggressive by nature, more so than men, but they do not universally mistreat their human thralls and servants. Just as a man may be kind to his horses and hounds, another man may be cruel. So it is with dragons. Even a kind man, when he has no use for an old horse, will most likely kill it.’

‘Men are not animals,’ Floran commented.

‘Of course yes, but that is what we are to them. The people of the Stovologard have no more rights than the rock lizards.’

Once the dinner things had been cleared away they brought out the cards and Roztov, Floran, Ghene and Meggelaine played a few hands of the four player game they had learned while living in the city.

‘I think I’ve worked out why the tenements are half empty,’ said Roztov. ‘They don’t write down human history here, but the dragons are long lived and I hear them talk. Stovologard was once much more populated than it was, but two hundred years ago there was a very big war and half the population were killed.’

‘There must be some racial memories about it though,’ said Floran. ‘The top floors of tenements are considered bad luck to live in. As are the bottom floors. The middle floors are considered the best bet.  This may be because they are safest from dragon attack.’

‘I have heard stories of population purges too,’ put in Ghene. ‘The dragons keep down the human population the same as men do with rabbits.’

‘Oh don’t,’ shuddered Meggelaine. ‘I don’t want to hear about it. Stop finding out about miserable things. Has anyone found out where the chocolate comes from?’

Roztov gave her a smile and tried to ruffle her hair, but she ducked out of the way with a growl.

‘I’m going back to see Lorkuvan in a couple of days,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask her about it then.’

Roztov did indeed return to speak to Lorkuvan on the day she had told him to come to her.

‘There will be a diet,’ she told him. ‘Blavius will meet Primus. There will be a delegation from the Spire. I will be there as a diplomat to the Chasm. You can be there as my advisor.’

‘Can I bring a friend?’

‘If you must. They apparently want to talk about the terms of a cease fire. It is usual sort of thing. It will hold for a few months, a year or two maybe, then it will all flare up again.’

‘When is it?’

‘Come again in three days. Then stay here, it will be on the third day, or the day after.’

At lunch, in the long, gloomy servants hall Roztov and Ghene went over their plans, sat as far away from the other men as they could.

‘It’s probably best to lie low from now until this diet. We have enough food back at the apartment. We should just shut the door and keep our heads down.’

Roztov was already getting nervous and fidgety about it. 'It will kick off, I just know it. Something really big and bad is going to happen and we'll be right in the middle of it.'