Scorio stepped up alongside her. “What? Not to join Manticore?”
“No.” Naomi drew the hammer back. “That training on Coal would ruin us.” And she swung the hammer up and around to bring its heavy head crashing down on the face of a boulder.
The hammer bounced off with a few chips of stone.
Scorio hung his head. Jadon had made the point of the exercise clear: they were to labor until they could labor no more. From henceforth they were forbidden to Ignite, as that would reverse the process of desaturating their bodies. Sure they’d top off with Copper or Iron, but that wouldn’t help with all the Coal they’d absorbed.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “But if it’s what we have to do, it’s what we have to do.”
And he got to work.
It was brutal. At first, he felt a mild sense of confidence. The jarring impact of each hammer blow resonated up his arms and into his shoulders, but as he warmed up he found a rhythm, learned not to smash as hard as he could, and slowly worked on a crack he opened in a boulder the size of a full-grown sow.
But after twenty minutes he was heavy for breath, his arms leaden, his body soaked in sweat.
Naomi suffered even more. She was slight and lacked his natural strength. For all her athletic grace and agility this was an exercise in brute force. Soon she was grunting with each swing, her thick hair tied back in a tail, face mottled with effort.
By the end of the miniature Plain’s day cycle, Scorio felt nauseous, his arms loose as ropes, his chest burning.
And still, he raised the hammer.
They labored through the night cycle, pausing only when it got pitch dark. Then they sat, gasping, backs against the same boulder, unable to sit still. Scorio couldn’t catch his breath. His moderate pace had been too intense after all. His palms burned and the light calluses had begun to tear off.
All too soon it began to lighten.
Scorio didn’t want to be caught sitting, so he struggled up, forced himself to slow his breathing, then helped Naomi rise.
“We need to slow it down,” he rasped. “I think they mean for us to do this all day.”
“This is asinine.” Naomi glared at the rock she’d been working on. All her effort had resulted in the dirt patina being beaten off and a few chunks knocked loose. “Tantamount to torture.”
“What choice do we have?” Scorio straightened painfully, his lower back a snarl of pain, and hefted the hammer. “Coal served its purpose when we needed it. Now it needs to go.”
He returned to work.
Slower, a swing every ten breaths, so slow he was sure he’d be reprimanded by the smirking Manticore members who passed to and fro on their own business. But other than Sam calling out mock encouragement, nobody commented.
The world shrank to the one boulder, his hammer, his burning body. Sweat ran into his eyes. The labor stopped being about trying to crack the rock and simply about trying to swing the hammer each time. How much damage it did was immaterial.
Finally, he caused a chunk the size of his head to calve off the main boulder. With a gasp of victory he staggered back, nearly tripped, then threw down his hammer. “Look!” He gestured at the broken chunk. “Did it!”
Naomi gave him a murderous glare and returned to her work.
Originally Scorio had envisioned stacking piles of rocks onto the sled before hauling it, but now he was glad for any excuse to cease swinging the hammer. Wheezing, lightheaded, he crouched and hefted the chunk of rock up and over onto the sturdy wooden sled.
“There. Now.” He paused, out of breath. His mouth was full of strangely thick spit. He hacked and spat. “Time to… time to haul.”
For the first time, he really studied the sled. There were two upright poles at the back. They could ostensibly be used to shove the whole contraption. At the front, there was a raised bar he could stand behind and push. No wheels. Just two narrow runners.
Scorio wiped the sweat from his eyes again and studied the path he’d have to take. His heart sank.
It wasn’t even a path. Just the direction that led to the chasm. He’d have to haul the sled out of the settlement and a good twenty yards over rock, gulches, and mounds before he reached the edge.
He walked the distance, kicking at the mounds, considering the best route. A straight path would be torturous, but winding back and forth would be worse.
“Naomi! Bring your hammer. We have to clear a way.”
Naomi was only too glad to obey. Together they charted the best approach, then set to shattering rocks, pulling the chunks out, and dropping them into hollows. It was slow, awful work. Scorio’s fingertips and palms were quickly blooded, and he never seemed able to catch his breath.
And it was all made worse by knowing he could Ignite at a moment’s notice and accomplish the task in seconds. The memory of that sweet strength became its own torment. It felt like being a man wandering through the desert, dying of thirst yet refusing to drink from the carafe of iced water he carried in his hands.
Night fell again.
They slowed, then rested. Had it only been two miniature cycles? It felt like they’d been working for days.
They were still working when the others finally emerged from the Chasm. Scorio had stripped to his pants, and his hands were mangled, his body streaked in sweat and dirt. He was kneeling before a stone trapped in the earth by a root, staring numbly at it, trying to decide whether he was allowed to ask for a shovel, when the winch started up, Valt striding within the great wheel.
Scorio sat back on his heels. Watched, and soon enough the elevator hove into view, crowded with his excited friends.
Their robes looked so clean, their faces fresh, their eyes gleaming.
They radiated the mana they’d saturated.
Leonis was telling a joke and had Zala and Lianshi laughing weakly, Dameon grinning, but they all froze at the sight of Naomi and Scorio.
They stepped off the platform, eyes wide.
“Go inside and refresh yourselves,” said Dameon. “Go on, now.”
The others pulled away with obvious reluctance, leaving the Dread Blaze to approach.
“Clearing away the approach.” He dropped into an easy crouch and tore off a blade of long grass. “Smart.”
Scorio hadn’t labored this hard without Igniting in… forever. His heart raced even as he knelt, thrumming against his sternum, his chest rising and falling, his shoulders, the very joints, his fingers, his biceps, his back, all of it burning as if liquefied into Fiery Shoals lava.
“It’s hard work.” Dameon grimaced. “And I know it’s not glamorous. But if you don’t purge now you’ll make Flame Vault in a couple of years and probably never reach Dread Blaze. Think of this like lancing a blister. You need to get that Coal out.”
Naomi’s shoulders rose and fell. She’d attacked the dirt and rocks and furrows as if they were her personal enemies, not holding back, not giving herself any respite and clemency for her lack of strength. She glared at Dameon through her sweat-matted hair.
“Well. Enough for today.” Dameon tossed the blade of grass away and stood. “Time for your next exercise.”
“Thank the Imperators,” gasped Scorio, wiping his bare forearm over his brow. “What’s… what’s it to be?”
“Combat training. Of sorts.” Dameon’s eyes gleamed. “Basic wrestling. The rules still apply. You can’t Ignite your Hearts. Even doing so once will erase all the benefits of today. Clear?”
“Clear,” said Naomi rising to her feet. “Wrestling? Not fighting?”
“Wrestling. Remember. We’re still grinding you down. The goal is to exhaust your body, burn out the fumes. This won’t be… fun. Stow your hammers and come.”
They dropped the hammers off in the storage shed and followed Dameon behind the hall. From within they could hear the sound of voices, laughter. Scorio’s throat was parched. The thought of joining them was wickedly tempting.