3
Asha and Priya followed the man into the brown haze as the workers streamed past them covered in dirt and blood, coughing and limping and clinging to one another.
“What happened?” demanded the man in green. He grabbed one of the workers. “What happened in there?”
“The tunnel collapsed.” The worker coughed. “More than half of it.”
“Why?” The man in green shook him. “Why?”
“A vein.” The worker coughed again. “A vein of silver, I think.”
The man in green shoved the worker aside.
“I can treat the injured,” Asha said. She pointed to a cleared space on the south side of the railroad tracks. “Bring the injured men to me over there.”
The man in green nodded. “Fine. What do I call you, healer?”
“I am Asha of Kathmandu. And this is Priya of Kolkata. And you?”
The man frowned at her. “I am Master Sebek.”
Asha led Priya through the crowd of men and the cloud of dust, calling out that all the injured men should follow her. A small knot of limping and bloody workers began moving toward her, and soon she had them sitting or lying in rows while she assessed their injuries. Sprains. Broken arms. Broken legs. Concussions. Cracked ribs.
When she reached the last man in the last row, Asha turned to survey the crowd. “I thought there would be more. Many more.”
“If there are,” Priya said, “then they must still be in the tunnel.”
For two hours, Asha tore sheets into bandages and smashed tent poles into splints. Several young men volunteered to help hold the injured men still while Asha wrenched their bones back into place, and so for two hours the air was filled with sharp cries and screams as bodies were slowly put back together.
When she was finished, Asha left Priya to administer what meager pain killers she had brought in her bag and went in search of the man in green. She found Master Sebek near the mouth of the tunnel interrogating two of his foremen, two squinting men covered in dust and scrapes. She stopped a dozen paces away to wait for him.
“You’re certain it was gold?” Sebek asked.
The men nodded.
“How long? How long did you know about it? A minute? An hour?”
“Only a few minutes,” the thin foreman said. “A man ran up to me with the rock in his hand. I was trying to look at it by torch light when the first timber snapped.”
“The timber snapped.” Sebek turned the tall foreman. “The timber snapped, and now my tunnel is only half a tunnel, the gold is buried, and the railroad is falling behind schedule. Because the timber snapped.”
The tall foreman swallowed. “Yes sir.”
Master Sebek drew his short sword and pressed the tip against the tall foreman’s shirt. The cloth blackened and began to smoke, and the man shuddered, his face pouring with sweat.
Asha squinted at the distant sword. It was shining with a bright golden light. She glanced up at the sun, only to see it hidden at that moment behind a thick white cloud. And yet the sword shone brightly.
The tall foreman began to babble in Eranian so quickly that Asha could not tell what he was saying. She started forward again, and was about to call out to the men when Sebek’s hand leapt, the shining sword darting into and out of the tall foreman’s belly in the briefest instant. A trail of black smoke followed the foreman as he fell to the ground. Sebek sheathed his sword and the empty space between him and the thin foreman instantly dimmed into shadow.
Asha froze. She had seen how shallow the thrust had been, and even a deep cut to the stomach could sometimes take hours to kill a man, and yet… the man on the ground was not moving. He was not even breathing.
“How long?” Sebek asked. “How long to recover the tunnel and reach the gold again?”
“Five days,” the foreman said calmly.
“Get it done. And place the timbers closer together this time.”
“Yes sir.”
The man in green turned back toward his wooden houses but stopped when he saw Asha standing in the middle of the dusty field. “How are the men?”
“They’ll live,” she said softly, her eyes straying to the dead foreman. “Most will be able to work again in a few days or weeks.”
Sebek nodded.
“What about the other men? The ones still in the tunnel?”
Sebek shrugged. “They’re dead.”
“Are you certain?”
“If they aren’t dead now, they will be by the time we unearth them. Don’t concern yourself with them. Worry about the living. I want every man on his feet as soon as possible. If you succeed, you’ll be well paid.” He began to walk away.
“I don’t need money. I just want to reach the next town to the west.”
He paused. “Fair enough. You can ride the train back to Herat when it goes back for supplies in two days’ time.”
“Thank you.” Asha nodded, her eyes once again returning to the dead foreman. “But two days is not much time. What if I cannot return any of the men to work?”
He followed her gaze to the body on the ground. “Then you and they will be free to continue on your way through the barren mountains. On foot.”
“Is Herat very far from here?”
“Seventy leagues, at least.” And he left.
Asha waited for him to disappear inside one of the wooden houses before she went over and knelt by the dead foreman. Touching his shirt, she found the fabric around the cut brittle and charred. Lifting the cloth, she saw the seared skin around the very small wound. There was no blood on his skin, or his clothes, or the ground.
She left the body as she found it and returned to the side of the railroad tracks where her new patients were resting in the midday sun, which offered some meager warmth and relief from the cold winds whipping down the mountainsides.
There were thirty-seven men sitting or lying in three long rows before her, and she counted their injuries carefully. The first third of them could probably leave within the hour. The second third of them would be able to work by the end of the week. But the last third would need more time. Much more.
“Did you learn anything?” Priya asked.
Asha blinked. “We need to heal these men. All of them. And quickly.”
4
The next morning, Asha dismissed fifteen of her patients. Their scrapes were minor, their cuts clean, and their bruises superficial. All day long, Asha divided her time between inspecting the bandages and splints of the remaining men and searching the surrounding hillsides for native herbs and insects. When she was far enough from the camp where no one could see her, she swept her long black hair away from her right ear to listen.
Here in the cold highlands, her right ear had begun to ache a bit more than usual. The dragon’s venom stung from the fatty earlobe right into the firm cartilage, and out to the hardened skin that resembled the shining gold scales of the beast that had bitten her so long ago.
She closed her eyes. Her left ear heard only the mournful sighing of the wind, but her right ear heard the deep-throated chorus of souls moaning in unison in the valley below, a chorus of human souls, very male, very tired, and very unhappy. There were the nervous trills of horse-souls and the gleeful yipping of dog-souls. And echoing across the pale autumn sky came the proud shrieks of hawk-souls.
But where there should have been the demure hums and tinkling of trees and shrubs and grasses, there was
