“There’s been an accident?” Zist asked, catching Kindan’s expression of open-mouthed horror, the look in his wide, shocked eyes.
Just then someone started cranking the mine alarm and abruptly, as if spilled out, people turned out of their houses and made for the entrance to the mine.
Kindan sat down hard on the edge of his desk.
“Are your father and brothers on this shift, Kindan?” Master Zist asked. Kindan shook his head, not as a negative but as a way to throw off the paralysis that had momentarily overtaken him.
“Yes, they are, Master. Dad is a shift leader and he has Dask with him today,” Kindan managed to say. “We all have to go and help,” he added after a moment. “There is a lot we can do, even if it’s only carrying baskets to open a cave-in.”
He stood up, and joined the older children as they began to file out, heading toward the shaft opening. Even as Master Zist tried to prioritize what he should do now, he saw Natalon, shoving his arms in his jacket, coming out of his house to take charge of the situation. Men and women were bringing equipment of all sorts—picks, shovels, baskets, stretchers—to the mine entrance. The thin soot that had first tinted the sky had grown to clouds of black coal dust.
Kindan’s progress toward the mine was at first slow, but then the boy started to run. Master Zist looked around his classroom, now emptied of the older children, those who could be helpful in the emergency. Jofri had not informed him what his duties would be in the event of a problem, but keeping the younger children occupied seemed a good idea, so Zist hastily called his class to order. Through the window, he saw a group of miners, with torches as well as glowbaskets, entering the shaft.
“My dad’s on this shift, Master Zist. May I go, too?”
The girl was barely eight and slight, as well, so Zist could not think what emergency task she’d be useful for.
“Do you have an assigned task?” he asked kindly.
“She’s not old enough yet,” one of the boys said authoritatively. “Nor am I. You have to be eight to be allowed to help. And bigger than Sula is.”
“I could help. My mom has taught me ever so much,” Sula replied with great dignity. “Sis taught her and I watched.”
Zist knew that Sula’s mother was one of the Camp’s healers. He went to the child and pushed her gently back into her seat. “I’m sure you’ll be a great help, once they discover what has happened. Until then, you must stay here.” He gave her thin shoulders a little reassuring squeeze before he went to the head of the schoolroom and decided to teach this part of his class one of the new ballads he had brought with him. At a time like this, music could be a great comfort. Seeing him pick up his guitar caused the children to stop chatting and sit up attentively, though some of them continued to look over their shoulders toward the mine.
Master Zist could see Natalon and Tarik arguing, even as Natalon was urgently gesturing men to enter the shaft. The miners were carrying tools or pushing the wheeled carts that brought the ore out of the mine.
He wondered if that meant there had been a cave-in. But hadn’t Kindan said that Dask was with his father? Watch-whers were supposed to have an excellent sense of smell which allowed them to detect bad air long before a person could.
When miners talked of “bad air” they were referring to either explosive gases or gases which could suffocate—either was deadly.
Strumming the opening chords to the new song, he began to sing, trying to look and sound as cheerful as he could, in order to distract the children.
He had barely succeeded in claiming the children’s rapt attention when the mine’s alarm let off three loud, sustained hoots, and everyone rushed to the window again.
The first thing that Kindan saw as he approached the mine entrance was Dask. His heart fell. Dask would never leave Danil unless ordered—or cut off by the cave-in.
“Where’s Danil, Dask? Where is he?” Kindan asked as he approached. The watch-wher’s flanks were gouged, deep wounds oozing the ichor that was a watch-wher’s blood. He blinked his eyes painfully in the morning light and turned back to the mine entrance. Kindan followed.
“What happened?” Kindan asked, following the watch-wher.
Dask turned his head to look at Kindan and gave him the sound for “bad air.”
“Why didn’t you warn them?” Kindan asked.
Dask made an annoyed bleek and then the sound for “fast.”
“It happened too fast?” Kindan repeated. The watch-wher nodded.
Inside the mine, Kindan could smell gas, sharp and bitter in his throat. It made him cough. The cave-in must have been caused by an explosion of trapped gas, he guessed. It must have been sudden, or Dask would have warned the miners in time.
The watch-wher trotted ahead in the tunnel, leading the rescue party to the jumbled mass of the cave-in. Before the rest of the party could reach him, he had already started clawing at the barrier, using his head to batter at the loose bits. Men stepped out of the way of the debris that his claws were throwing back. One of the men positioned a wheelbarrow so that it caught the flying rocks and dirt, clearing the ground as other men began to dig next to the watch-wher.
Now that the miners knew where to work, Kindan tried to get the wounded watch-wher to stop and save his energy. But Dask ignored him, burrowing on despite the ichor that was oozing from his various wounds.
Hours passed, all the while with Dask digging and the miners carting away the fallen rock. Painfully, they excavated their way through the cave-in.
“Natalon?” Kindan said, grabbing the miner’s arm. “Let me take Dask back. He’s bleeding.”
Natalon looked over at the watch-wher. “We need him here now, especially as he seems to know where our men are.”
“But ... he could bleed to death,” Kindan cried, tugging at Natalon’s sleeve.
“Do what you can for him but don’t stop him, lad,” Natalon said. “Your father’s on the other side.”
Kindan ran all the way back out to where the injury station had been set up. He was surprised to see that the sun was past noon.
“Please, let me have some bandage rolls, Margit,” he said to the woman who was setting out the supplies.
“Have they found anyone alive?” she asked, and he had to disappoint her with a negative shake of his head. He knew that her spouse was in his father’s shift.
“Why would you want bandages then, Kindan?” she asked.
“Dask was hurt bringing out those he rescued,” he said, gesturing toward the three men being cared for by the camp’s healers.
“You want my good bandages for the watch-wher?” she demanded, affronted.
“If he bleeds to death before he finds your mate, it’ll be your fault!”
“Why, you impertinent little scut!” Margit responded, swiping at him with the towel she had in one hand. He neatly sidestepped and, in doing so, scooped two rolls off the table and raced back to the mine entrance, avoiding the two men who were pushing laden barrels out to be emptied.
Kindan was panting with exertion when he reached the cave-in site. Splotches of greenish watch-wher ichor were visible in the light from the glows, but Dask continued to claw at the barrier. Kindan pushed in beside Dask, hearing the laboring gasp of the watch-wher’s breath. When a sudden movement caused more dirt and stone to shower the creature, Kindan pushed up beside him and tried to bandage the deep neck wound that was pumping ichor out at much too fast a rate.
Muttering reassurances, he tried to get the watch-wher to slow down. Dask turned his head slightly, his eyes gleaming with irritation, and hissed at Kindan. Then he turned back to his task with renewed vigor. Ichor dripped faster.
“He has to stop, Natalon, or he’ll bleed to death!”
Just then, they heard shouts from beyond the cave-in, urging them on. Frantically, Dask dug harder, with less control, showering the anxious Kindan with stones and mud. He shouldered deeper into the tunnel he was digging and renewed his efforts. There was a loud cry as his heavy claws broke through the last of the obstacle; the encouraging shouts from the freed miners were clearly audible.