It was easy to get lost in the tunnels, there being so many of them and all of them having a similar appearance-dark, narrow, braced by timbers that never appeared thick enough to be safe support. There wasn’t a day when some goblin miners did not make it out at the end of their shift and were found by slaves in the next rotation. But Mudwort prided herself on the fact that she had never gotten lost.
“Saying what?” Again Mudwort put her ear to the wall. The ore sounded as if it were purring, and she imagined that it was trying to speak to her-her and her alone because only she would listen. “Stone is saying, saying what?” After several frustrating moments, she stepped away from the wall, head hung in defeat. “Saying nothing. Mind sour and broken.”
She fixed her gaze on the spot still wet from her tongue. Wielding her pick, she struck at that place again and again until chunks started dropping to the floor. “Saying nothing. Saying nothing.” Mudwort forced away thoughts about the nervous rocks and focused on striking the stone, knocking loose only the darkest, smoothest pieces of hematite. She knew the heaviest deposits of ore were in the darkest rocks.
Sometimes slaves were rewarded with food or water when they brought out sacks with prime ore. Mudwort was very thirsty, so she kept hammering at the wall, striking harder and faster as if she were angry at it. Perhaps the knights would give her water if she found some very fine ore.
Perhaps they would give her more than a sip.
She should have taken a sip the day before or that morning. She should have stood in line for it.
She’d already made four trips to the mine entrance where other slaves waited to take the mined ore down to the camp. Each time she received another empty sack to fill. There’d been talk for months that the knights would start using carts to take the ore down to the camp to ease the slaves’ workload. But so far that rumor had not materialized. Mudwort had to drag her sack to the entrance each time because she’d filled it so full.
On the fourth trip to the entrance, she noticed the first significant vibration. Suddenly the stone rumbled softly against the bottoms of her feet. Mudwort shivered and tried taking her full ore sack down the mountainside herself so she could get away from the mine and the something she believed was coming soon. But that was not her assigned task that morning, carrying ore down the mountain, so the knight stationed at the entrance pointed her back inside.
She was making her seventh trip to the entrance, again with a full sack, when the vibrations grew stronger and the mountain gave a jump beneath her. She grabbed the support beams at the mouth of the mine before she could be sent careening down the side of the mountain. The notion of death didn’t scare her. That would be a welcome end to slavery. But she didn’t want to bounce on rocks all the way down. She detested pain.
She lurched outside the mine entrance, holding her breath, knees bent to help keep her balance, sack of ore at her feet. There were plenty of sacks nearby, some that she and other slaves had brought out that had not yet been hauled down the trail. The Dark Knight taskmaster at the edge of the trail looked down at Steel Town with a worried expression.
Curious-Mudwort was always curious-she crept forward to see what he was watching, sucking in a deep breath and stopping when a crack appeared between her feet and splintered, looking like a stony spiderweb spreading forward to the trail and behind her to the beams at the mine entrance. It might not be terribly painful to be swallowed by the mountain, she thought, certainly not as painful as bouncing down the rocky slope. Being swallowed would be a fast death. The crack grew wider, and Mudwort scampered forward to stand directly next to the taskmaster, ready to grab his leg for support. He didn’t notice her. He was intent on keeping his own balance and watching the camp below.
Mudwort followed his gaze.
People were scurrying like insects roused from a nest. They rushed from building to building, some grabbing the young ones and holding them tight. She imagined the knights were shouting to each other, the laborers and their wives and children screaming in fear. But she couldn’t hear them over the rising rumbling sound of the mountain and, she realized, the worse rumbling of the ground far below the mountain. All the land within Mudwort’s line of sight shook. Perhaps the flat expanse between the volcanoes, where Steel Town rested, was faring even worse than the mine.
As she watched, a barracks collapsed in on itself, the roof caving in first then the walls buckling. Puffs of dirt rose up, obscuring the jumble of stones and wood. She hoped that Dark Knights were caught inside and killed, but she suspected they would survive because the roof had not been made of material heavy enough to break their skulls.
Across from the ruined barracks was the stone and wood tavern, which she’d many times dreamed of visiting. It had been years and years since Mudwort had a decent meal and something strong to drink. The tavern seemed to bounce up in the air, the stones spat out of its walls, and the wood planks splintered and broke. The thatch roof burst apart, some of it dropping inside, the rest blowing in clumps across the camp in a hot wind that had suddenly picked up. A man ran out a side door, dragging a goblin-sized boy behind him. The doorframe collapsed, and what was left of the walls heaved inward. The man and boy dropped a few feet from the ruins, hugging each other.
More people were on the ground as the world bucked like a wild beast intent on throwing off its rider. Despite Mudwort’s keen vision, it was difficult to pick out everything that was happening. She was too far away, and the quake was sending up clouds of dirt and dust that were blocking her sight. She suspected the dirt clouds were choking the people and hoped all the Dark Knights choked and died.
Everything became a jarring blur. Mudwort watched many horses bolt out of the stables and jump the fence, scattering and losing themselves in the dust clouds and the foothills. The other animals moved like a wave from one side of the pens to the other. Goats and sheep made sounds shrill enough that the ruckus carried up to Mudwort. Chickens flew from the big coop that had been ripped apart by the shuddering land.
The ground buckled in the center of the camp. Even from her mountain perch, Mudwort felt the throbbing pulse. The ground lifted walls and men, pitching them over. Geysers of sand erupted, stretching eighty or more feet high. Above them, clouds of screeching birds flew in all directions.
Sulfur clouds appeared, their stench spreading over the camp and up the side of the mountain. In the distance, through the dusty, gassy haze, Mudwort spotted flashing lights emitted by rocks being squeezed and smashed together.
Blessed chaos, she thought, a smile playing across her leathery, flat face. The Dark Knights’ precious mining camp was collapsing into a ruin before her watering eyes. Not a building stood wholly intact as the quake intensified. A fissure yawned, starting between the abandoned well and the trading post and racing to what was left of the stables, widening and deepening as it moved and sucked in Dark Knights and laborers and any animals in its path. Bodies disappeared in the roiling ground, a few hands scrambling for a hold along the edges of the fissure then disappearing. One Dark Knight held on for a moment, and Mudwort feared he might save himself. But then the edge of the fissure crumbled, and his gloved hands dropped out of sight.
The forms were tiny, so far below her, and the dirt and dust continued to billow. Still, one figure managed to distinguish itself from the others, and Mudwort knew that it was Marshal Montrill. The feared and despised commander shouted orders that only the closest Dark Knights could hear.