The furnace made the workshop impossibly hot and drenched the wizard in sweat. His eyes, pale blue under the sun, shone as he worked, and his scarred skin glistened as the iron began to drip from the rocks and pool beneath them. It was not terrible work, he had to admit. Playing with the fire pleased him.
Grallik did not leave his workshop until the horn was blown for the evening meal, his empty stomach convincing him that it was finally time to eat. The light had gone out of his eyes, giving his angular face a forlorn cast, an expression that told the others in the crude hall to give him a wide berth. He was exhausted, but not physically in the way the knights who also sat at the tables were. His muscles didn’t ache from pounding rocks as theirs did, though his chest ached from his coughing bouts. Still, he was fatigued to the point of collapse. Fire magic drained him. Grallik demanded too much of himself and the magic. It was a point of pride with him that he nurtured the flames until he could scarcely stand or breathe.
He sat at the end of a long table, two lengths of his arm separating him from the nearest knight. He caught the glance of a young man, the tavern owner’s son, who desired to be a squire to the Dark Knights and who often worked the hall. The boy immediately filled a plate for him, bringing it while it still steamed. A half-filled mug of water, which was rationed even for officers, quickly followed. Dinner was some sort of meat pie, served in an appealing golden-brown crust. Grallik savored the smell of it before cutting it open. He suspected the recipe had been intended for venison or beef, but there were no deer in that part of the country, and the Dark Knights did not keep cattle at the camp. So mutton had been used instead, and not liberally.
The pie was mostly made of chopped prunes and dates, with raisins lining the bottom. The fruits were readily available at Steel Town, as knights coming in for rotations brought wagons of supplies with them. There was a small side of a spinach pudding, and though it was reasonably tasty, Grallik thought the cook had used too much fennel. Dessert consisted of pears poached in wine and covered with a sweet syrup. All of it was passable, he decided. For the knights, the food was not bad at Steel Town.
When he was sated, he returned to the ore and went back to work until he nearly passed out, emerging before midnight in search of a bit of welcome coolness. But there was none. Despite the lateness, it was still uncomfortably hot.
It was darker than he expected, as the clouds had grown thick since dinner and stretched in all directions as if they were sealing Steel Town and the mine away from the stars. Lightning flickered through the thunderheads, and Grallik could see curtains fluttering in open windows. He heard the pine trees shaking-no doubt shedding their needles.
He was irritable for a reason he couldn’t define and blamed his foul mood on the starless sky. He lifted his head until he was staring straight up, feeling dizzy as he continued to watch the lightning fingers. Grallik breathed deep, hoping to find the scent of water in the clouds, something to cut the heat and override the odors of the knights and the stable and nearest livestock pen-and the worse stench that wafted from the slave pens.
Grallik faintly smelled the pine trees, and wood smoke coming from the chimney of the tavern, even the iron nuggets in his workshop. He could always detect the smell of iron. The air that stirred the scents around him seemed trapped under the clouds, however, and made the world feel suffocating and cloying.
The thunderheads continued to pulse with lightning, and faint booms chased each other. The ground shuddered slightly under Grallik’s feet, but not a single drop of rain fell. His scarred flesh tingled with anger and anticipation.
There must be a storm, Grallik prayed. Something to relieve the hell of Steel Town, to drown out the stench that swelled under the cloud dome, to turn the damnable dust into damnable mud, to clear the air, however briefly, so he could breathe easier and stop coughing.
If he had the right magic, he’d try something to coax the clouds into giving up the rain. But he didn’t, and his magic was all but spent that night anyway.
He heard the crack of thick lightning and the rumble that followed it. He heard the guttural conversation of goblin and hobgoblin slaves, the whinny of horses, the laughter of someone in the tavern, the clink of mugs, the growl of the massive hatori-the huge digging beast kept near the base of the southern mine. He wished to hear the drumming of rain.
Water might be at a premium, but the proprietor across the way had wine and ale and liquor aplenty. He dropped his gaze to the warm glow that spilled from the tavern window. He would buy something strong with the coins in his pocket, and he would sit in a corner by himself.
3
The rising sun colored the mountains the shade of ripening plums and the flat expanses between the peaks a deep rose. Clouds scudded across the sky, too high to cool the ground, however, and cruelly scenting the air with the possibility of rain. There’d been no rain for too long. The Dark Knights’ crops had withered, and the pines that grew in the fertile earth at the base of volcanoes had started to drop their needles.
The camp’s well had dried up four days earlier and crews were working to dig another one. The Skull Knights cast spells to create water, but there were not enough of them to supply what the population of Steel Town needed. The knights drank first, then the hired laborers and the horses. If there was any water left, the slaves and livestock shared it. Sometimes the slaves were allowed one sip, and so they sought places in the mine where the walls were wet from hidden streams.
Mudwort had not had a swallow of water in more than a day. She should have looked forward to her stint in the mine, where she could lick at the rivulets running from cracks in the ceiling. But that day, though she was terribly thirsty, she didn’t care to be anywhere in the deep tunnels and chambers.
More than five hundred goblins, toting thick canvas bags, picks, and shovels, wended their way up a narrow trail lined with jagged black rocks toward a gaping hole in the mountainside. Already three times that many were at work in other areas of the mines, and one thousand more were either just returning from shifts or sleeping in the pens, waiting to be woken up for their next turn in the mines. Always, there were goblins working, working.
Only Mudwort knew for certain that disaster would touch that day.
She angled her face to the sun then glanced down the mountain to take in a sweeping view of all Steel Town. That was not the camp’s true name, but it was what the Dark Knights and the laborers had come to call it. The camp sat in the shadow of three volcanoes, which were usually glowing, the smallest making a grander show than the others. The volcanoes were an impressive sight, especially at night, and sometimes ribbons of lava would twist down their sides. But the lava never reached the camp, and the steam that rose from the domes never did more than tinge the air with sulfur.
Originally, the camp was called Iverton, after Rudger Leth-Iver, a little-known commander with scant military ability, but who had-three decades past-discovered rich deposits of magnetite and hematite southwest of Jelek in the foothills of the Khalkists. The ores, rich with iron, were superior grade, and Leth-Iver named the camp in his own honor.
In Iverton’s first years, only knights worked the mine. But as time passed, laborers were hired from various towns in Neraka; then goblin and hobgoblin slaves were brought in. Finally, slaves, aided by priestly magic and by great beasts such as the hatori, which were chained in places below the earth, dug the tunnels. Only a handful of knights had to venture into the mines with each shift under their charge.