Orlok’s voice rose to a fierce shriek, startling the surviving children and eliciting fresh cries of distress.
“The longer we stay here fretting over what has been done, the longer the elves will have to mobilise. You can’t throw away our mission because of collateral damage.”
“You call children ‘collateral damage’? Is that really what you think?”
There was a tense silence as the dwarves glowered at one another.
“I knew that this would turn out to be a stupid idea,” Greta finally said. This was met with a collective sharp intake of breath, but though Orlok’s face turned a deeper crimson, he made no move towards the woman.
“I want Mummy and Daddy,” Zac wailed.
Orlok looked at the small boy, the threat of tears glistening in his own eyes. His face hardening, he drew his axe. The double-headed blade caught the light of the cavern and made Zac blink.
“Oh don’t you worry, little man,” Orlok said. “We’re going to find your parents and then we’re going to bring this whole place crashing down around those elven bastards!
“Soldiers!” There was the rattle of metal as a hundred men and women stood to attention. “Move out!”
Katya’s fingers were bleeding. For the last six hours or so she had been standing in the blazing sun, sorting through tray after tray of rocks, picking out the stones with even the faintest glimmer of green mineral before discarding the rest. Although she was aware that she had been assigned one of the most tedious tasks as punishment for her attack on the elf guard, she would much rather be doing this than toiling in the tunnels far beneath their feet.
The mine was located several miles from the city, in a deep valley bordered by precipitous granite cliffs on one side and a thickly-forested ridge on the other. Soot-stained chimneys rose from the valley floor, belching noxious fumes which rose to gather into a dark cloud, turning day to dusk. Beyond the smoke stacks sat the head of the main shaft, crowned with a creaking wooden frame. The frame supported a vast oak axle, on which two iron wheels turned, lowering and raising the huge cage that carried workers into and out of the depths. From the great lengths of rope that played through the metal wheels, Katya assumed that the mineral seams must lie many feet beneath them. She could only imagine the hellish conditions down there; the men and women who emerged from the shaft often appeared to be on the verge of collapse, their bloodshot eyes staring out blankly from faces black with soot.
Two days ago she had seen Illiun, Shalim, Rosalind and their compatriots enter the cage. Before it had descended, Rosalind had reached out to Katya.
“If you see Hannah, tell her that Mummy and Daddy are okay.”
But Katya hadn’t seen their daughter, and when Illiun and Shalim had come back up, Rosalind was no longer with them. Katya had tried to talk to Shalim, asking him what had happened to his wife, but he wouldn’t speak. Katya had been alarmed to see blood on his lips, and had appealed to one of the elves for help, but she had been roundly ignored. Workers, it would seem, were eminently expendable.
Katya flinched as a shadow fell over her, afraid, for a moment, that it was one of the guards come to berate her for some presumed slight. But when she looked up, it was Dunsany, carrying another tray of rocks for her to sort through.
“Have you had any further thoughts on making our escape?” she said.
“Beyond how impossible it would be, you mean?”
“Well, we can’t stay here for much longer. Have you seen Shalim? If he’s sent down again, he won’t come back up.”
“You talk as though this is a temporary situation, Katya. As if there’s any hope at all.”
For a moment Katya didn’t know what to say. Here was a man who had been full of a lust for adventure, who had never hesitated to throw himself into the most perilous of situations; and now he had been reduced by slavery to little more than a shell.
“I don’t know about escape, Katya, but I’d do anything to have Kelos back.”
When Dunsany’s shoulders began to hitch, she took the tray of rocks from him before he could drop it on his feet. She held him and was shocked by how frail he felt, as though he had aged decades in just a matter of days.
“I’m sure that wherever Kelos is, he’s thinking the same thing,” Katya said. “Trust me, we’ll get out of this. You’ve got to have faith.”
“Like Ignacio and his friends, you mean?”
Katya looked over to where their former crewmate was breaking rocks. The crew he sweated with all wore a scrap of rag tied to their upper right arm, upon which was painted the crossed circle: the symbol of the Final Faith. It hadn’t taken Ignacio long to start preaching to his fellow slaves and, with Bestion’s help, he had soon amassed a regular congregation. The elves didn’t seem at all alarmed by this burgeoning faith. Katya supposed that with their minds on Kerberos and the rewards He would give to them in the hereafter, the members of this new cult were less likely to foment rebellion. Indeed, gauging from the way the elves allowed them to gather in prayer every time they broke for lunch, they were actively encouraging the belief.
“I think that what we’re witness to here,” Dunsany said, “is the beginnings of the Final Faith itself; the earliest church.”
“Who’d have thought that Ignacio would become a vital part of church history? If only his brother could see him now.”
“You two!” One of the elves had noticed their conversation and was heading their way. Katya saw the diamond-studded tips of the flail at his belt, and her back flinched at the memory of their touch. She fell to her task after warning Dunsany, with a glare, to go back to his.
“We’ve already had enough trouble from you.” Katya didn’t look up. “What were you discussing with your friend?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing…?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“You may be more evolved than your fellow humans, but you all bleed the same.”
“No, please.”
The elf uncoiled the flail, the barbs catching the light. From the corner of her eye, Katya could see Dunsany running towards them, a rock in his raised fist.
Before he or the elf could strike, the ground trembled and a smoke stack exploded, showering the workers with hot brick shrapnel and sending a plume of black smoke high into the air. The wheels at the head of the pit began to spin wildly as the cage that had been about to descend suddenly dropped. Katya saw an elf pulling on the emergency brake, but it broke off in his hands; above him, the iron wheels screeched in protest, sparks showering from them as they spun out of control. Even when there was no more rope to play out they continuing spinning, and from somewhere far beneath their feet came a deep hollow thump as the cage hit bottom. Katya closed her eyes, but the image of broken bodies pulverised among sharp rocks and iron wreckage would not fade.
The elves looked about them, seemingly searching for someone to blame. To the man with the flail, it appeared to be all too clear who was the perpetrator of this chaos.
Before she knew what she had done, Katya had taken a rock from the tray in front of her and thrown it with all her strength. The elf dropped, his eyes rolling back in his head. A thin trickle of blood snaked from his nose and his heels kicked against the dirt.
Katya had never intended to be the instigator of a rebellion — had never even thought herself capable of taking another person’s life — but her one act of violence ignited the spark of hatred that had simmered for so long within the slaves, and soon rocks were being hefted and pick-axes raised.
Before the battle for human liberty could be joined, however, the granite cliff that loomed over the mine exploded, and the dwarven horde poured forth from the rift.
C HAPTER T WENTY
“Fascinating, ” Keldren said, as Silus swam through the waters of the flooded room. “And it is Chadassa
