Silk And Steel: The Skeleton King Part 22

Kath leaned forward, trying to shatter the wall of silence. "Battle is simple, kill or be killed. The Mordant's soldiers would have taken our heads. You waste your grief on them."

"No." The word was little more than a moan.

Kath held her breath, hoping for more.

"You don't understand." Danya raised her head, her face streaked with tears. "It's not the soldiers...but the horses."

Kath rocked backwards, struck with understanding.

Danya sat up, her gaze haunted, her voice a harsh whisper. "I tortured those horses."

Kath scrambled for a reply. "You commanded them to attack. You saved our lives."

"I did far worse than that." Tears spilled down her face. "I know wolves." Her voice dropped to a guilty whisper. "I put wolves in their minds."

The terrible carnage finally made sense, horses screaming, stomping their riders into puddles of gore. Kath shook her head, dispelling the horror. Somehow she had to save Danya from an abyss of guilt. She gripped the wolf-girls hands, conviction in her voice. "We need you, Danya." The girl tried to pull away but Kath held tight. "Some larger destiny is at work here. We all have a role to play. Can't you feel it?"

"What I did was unforgivable! And you want me to do more? Use my G.o.d-cursed magic to torture more animals?" Her voice flooded with scorn. "Animals feel too. They love life. They know pain and death." Danya pulled away, her face full of outrage. Ripping her shirtsleeve, she revealed the silver cuff. "This thing is a curse...yet I cannot bring myself to be rid of it!"

"Not a curse." Kath shook her head, there had to be a way to use the magic and still walk in the Light. "Perhaps there is another way."

"What do you mean?"

Kath stared at Bryx, struggling to put her thoughts into words. "The wolf helps...he's a true companion, one of us."

"So?"

"So...instead of commanding, ask."

Danya shook her head. "I don't understand."

"You've seen what the Mordant does to horses, riding them till they drop, leaving them for dead without even removing the saddle."

Danya nodded, her face pale.

"And the gore hounds, a twisted abomination of man and animal."

The wolf bared his teeth, a menacing growl.

"The Mordant has no compa.s.sion for men or animals, an ancient evil that must be stopped.

"Yes."

"Then show the animals what we fight against and ask them for help. Ask them to fight on our side."

"Ask?" Danya hugged the wolf. "And if they say no?"

Kath hesitated, but no matter the risks, there could be only one reply. "Then the answer is no." She saw the hesitation in the other girl's eyes. "I swear by my sword."

Danya hugged the wolf, her face thoughtful. "It might work." She wiped her eyes, a look of reason replacing her grief. "I could ask."

Relief washed through Kath. She gripped Danya's arm. "We truly need you."

The wolf-girl blushed and looked away.

"Come, you must be hungry." She pulled the other girl to her feet, refusing to let her pine alone in the cave. "Let's see if there's any supper left in the cook pots."

The wolf chuffed.

"I'll wager a gold, it's lamb again."

Danya ruffled the wolf's fur. "Bryx likes lamb."

Kath turned, shocked to find a woman standing in the shadows of the entranceway.

"May I enter?"

Kath nodded, wondering how much she'd overheard.

Thera stepped from the shadows, the tattooed raven staring from her face like a dark omen. The healer smiled, dispelling the grim illusion. "I bring word of your companion. The fever has broken, the old man will live."

Kath sighed in relief. "Thank Valin."

"I bring other news as well. The Ancestor will meet with you in three days time. She's called for a conclave in the Great Hall." A raven peered from the healer's face, keen eyes surrounded by dark feathers. "At conclave we will learn the fate of the man who walked among the lions, the man who died in Castlegard." Her dark gaze drilled into Kath. "You'll tell his tale and then much will be decided." She turned, her back stiff with silence. "Come, I will take you to your companion."

A conclave...the words had the ring of a trial, or a judgment. Kath followed the healer, needing to speak to Zith. Perhaps the monk knew the key to the painted people...or perhaps the answer lay in Castlegard, with a tattooed man two years dead. Either way, she still had a riddle to solve...the sands of time were running out.

27.

Duncan Duncan waited with the others for a turn at the ladder. Bruce went first, scrambling up the rungs as if death tugged at his heels. One at a time, they scaled the mineshaft, white-knuckles grasping the rungs, refusing to look down. Duncan waited till last. He was accustomed to heights, having climbed the great trees as a child, but this was different. The climb seemed to stretch to forever, testing muscles already weary with strain. Relief washed through him when he finally reached the top.

Grack waited at the door to the sleeping chamber, thumbing a string of knots as each prisoner pa.s.sed. Duncan wondered if the big Taal even knew how to count, but he kept his thoughts to himself. A boy accepted his torch, snuffing it in a bucket of sand. Duncan followed the others into the cell. The men shuffled forward, keeping their backs to the rough-hewn walls. Hungry and parched, their stares fixed on the two buckets waiting beneath the trapdoor. One held a slop of brown-colored stew, while the other brimmed with murky water, their second meal of a long hard day. Duncan breathed deep, hoping to catch the stew's scent, but the combined reek of sweat and p.i.s.s overpowered the stale air. Anger thrummed through him, how he hated the mine.

The iron door clanged shut.

The men kept their heads lowered.

Grack strode into the torchlight, his sheer bulk enforcing a brooding menace. "One's missing." His voice was a low growl, his stare full of suspicion. He poked a thick finger at Brock. "You, explain."

"A cave-in." Brock kept his head bowed. "Trell died in a cave-in."

"One less maggot to tend." Grack prowled the chamber. "One less maggot to feed," his spiked mace whistled though the air, "one less maggot to work." The mace swung close to Martin's head, but the skinny man knew to keep still. Grack scowled, "One less man to work but the quota stays the same." The big Taal came to a stop next to the bucket of stew, his booted foot poised to kick.

The men gasped, a strangled sound.

Grack laughed. "Meet the quota or go hungry." He kicked the bucket, just a light tap, but the stew slopped over the side, forming a small puddle.

A few men, the skinniest ones, whined and trembled, leaning toward the spill...but discipline held.

Grack scowled, disappointment in his voice. "All right, feed the maggots."

The boys leaped to obey, circling the chamber with the two buckets.

Grack pulled Clovis from the line. "You get to eat the spill. Nothing's ever wasted in the Pit." The Taal laughed like crush of boulder. "On your knees, maggot. I want to see you use your tongue."

Clovis knelt. Keeping his gaze on Grack, be bent forward, lapping the spilled stew from the floor. Duncan glowered, hating to see his friend debased, but there was nothing he could do.

The boys made the rounds, doling one bowl of stew and one cup of water to each man. Clovis finished the spill, scrambling to his feet in time to get the last serving. Grack scowled but said nothing. Ravenous, the men ate standing, slurping down their supper. Duncan got lucky, two greasy lumps floating in his stew. Tough and stringy, the meaty lumps tasted like salted pork. Duncan ate them, despite his suspicions. He licked the bowl clean and then gulped his one cup of water, thirsty for more.

Empty cups and bowls clattered into the leather sack. With the meal over, the three boys scampered back up the ladder. Grack prowled the chamber, swinging his mace in a deadly arc. "Sleep well, maggots, for tomorrow's another day in h.e.l.l." Laughing, he hooked the mace on his belt and then struggled one-handed up the ladder.

The ladder disappeared, yanked from above. A heavy metal grate clanged shut. A key turned in the lock and the shadow of the big Taal moved away. Lantern light bled through the grate, casting a checkered pattern on the rock floor, the only light in the chamber.

Three men lunged forward, fighting to lick the floor where the stew had spilt, desperate for anything Clovis might have missed.

Duncan looked away.

The rest of the men claimed their lumps of straw for the night. The choicest spots were farthest from the p.i.s.s-buckets. Duncan sat halfway along one wall, staring up at the grate, watching for shadows. A few men talked in quiet murmurs, but most succ.u.mbed to exhaustion, snoring on their pallets.

Brock rose from his pallet and stood over Duncan. "Seth, take my place."

Seth grunted. "What's a matter? You don't like yer own lice?" A few men sn.i.g.g.e.red, but Seth moved to Brock's pallet at the far end of the chamber.

Brock settled to the floor, sitting with his back against the wall. "You had something to say, cat-man?"

Duncan kept his voice a low whisper. "Fifty-seven against one."

Brock shook his head. "Yeah, but that one's a vicious-mother of a Taal."

"A one-handed Taal."

Brock just stared.

"We could take a one-handed Taal." Duncan lowered his voice. "Wouldn't you like to see him dead?"

Brock grunted, his fists clenched.

"We take him when he's halfway up the ladder."

"And then what?"

"We release the other prisoners, take the mine and then the pit."

"Just like that?" Brock shook his head. "You're a crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"You'd rather die in the mines?" When Brock did not reply, Duncan pressed his argument. "From what I saw of the pit, I figure we have the numbers all the way...but only if we work together. It'll take all of us to succeed."

"It will never work."

"If we don't try, then we all die."

Brock shook his head. "We'd have a better chance of finding a t.i.t on a bull."

"But it's a chance, no matter how slim. I'll take a chance over certain death any day."

Brock grinned. "I like you, cat-man. I like the way you think." He nudged the man next to him. "Wake the others, pa.s.s the word." Men snorted awake, nudged by their neighbors. Brock got to his feet, his voice a command. "Hal and Feldon, check the grate."

Hal grumbled and complained, but he knelt below the grate while Feldon climbed on top. The giant stood with the skinny man perched on his shoulders. Feldon grasped the grate and peered through the bars. "No one above."

"Good, keep watch." Brock raised his voice, claiming the men's attention. "The cat-man has something to say."

Duncan rose and stood in the checkered torchlight, letting the men see his face. He turned slowly, surveying each man, and then he stopped and spoke, putting steel in his voice. "Fifty-seven against one."

A few men swore. Some looked away while others grumbled. "Not a chance."

"Certain death."

"No chance in h.e.l.l."

Duncan spoke over them. "And when Grack kicks the bucket so there's no food for any of us...what then?"

Anger rippled through the men.

"This morning there were fifty-eight of us. Now we're fifty-seven." Duncan's stare circled the chamber. "Death stalks us all." Raising his left forearm, he pointed at the hated brand. "We're like cattle marked for slaughter. Death brands our skin. If we don't fight, the mine will slay us all." His voice hardened. "How will you die?" He turned and pointed at Bredan. "Crushed in a rock fall?" He pointed at Seth, "A fall from the ladder? Bashed by Grack's mace? Death by hunger?" Someone coughed and his finger pointed in their direction, "Death by rocklung." Duncan turned and pointed at Bruce, "Or buried alive."

A harsh silence settled over the chamber.

"We can wait for death to claim us...or we can fight and take a chance at life."

Most swore and muttered "no", but a few said, "How? Tell us how?"

"It starts after the evening meal. We swarm Grack when he tries to climb the ladder. Grab the mace from his belt and give the b.a.s.t.a.r.d a taste of his own weapon."

A few men grinned. "The b.l.o.o.d.y Taal deserves it. Shove his head in the b.l.o.o.d.y p.i.s.s bucket and let him choke on it."

Duncan hissed. "Listen to me!"

An uneasy silence held sway.

He met their stares. "This isn't about revenge, it's about escape!" More than a few nodded. "We kill the Taal and then climb the ladder and release the others. Rumors say there are five other cells, as many as three hundred prisoners." He let the numbers sink in. "Three hundred is an army. Enough to take the mine."

"Yeah, but then what?"