They don’t progress far down before a man comes over and they’re brought to a halt. He begins talking to them while others divide them up into different groups. To Miko’s relief, Black Tooth is taken away by one of the guards and led back up to the top. Five others are grouped with Miko and once the man stops talking, are led deeper into the mine.
“What are they mining?” he asks the guard in charge of them after passing a group of men working on the beginnings of another passage.
The guard replies, “Iron ore, as you soon will be as well.”
“You speak my language!” he exclaims.
“Of course,” the guard says. “There are many here from the north.”
As they continue deeper into the mines, the tunnel they’re in begins to narrow. The frequency of other branching tunnels diminishes the further they go. The guard begins talking again, alternating between the empire’s language and the north’s. “This is where you will spend the rest of your days. We have only three rules here but they are enforced strictly. First of all, if you try to escape, we will kill you.”
“Second, you will work hard when and where we tell you. If you fail to, you shall be punished,” he says. Pausing momentarily in his speech, he has them move over to the side of the tunnel as several slaves carry others past them. The ones being carried are bloody and a few are even unconscious, maybe even dead. Miko asks, “What happened to them?”
The guard looks at him and says, “Cave-in. It happens sometimes, that’s why we need new slaves occasionally.”
Once they’re past, the guard gets them moving again and they walk in silence until Miko asks, “What’s the third rule?”
“Don’t hurt or hinder other slaves,” he explains.
“That’s nice of you,” Miko replies.
The guard pauses and turns to look at Miko. “Nice?” he asks with a short laugh. “Hardly. Slaves are expensive and we have a quota of iron ore to mine each day. We’ll not have anyone messing with our schedule. Understand?”
Miko nods his head and continues to follow with his group further into the tunnel. It’s grown very dark now, with only occasional patches of light from a lone lantern illuminating slaves hard at work to mine the ore from the walls.
They come to a branching tunnel and the guard moves into it. He leads them down the tunnel until they reach a gang of slaves hard at work, chipping the ore from the walls.
One slave, who’s carrying a whip, comes over to them. “This is Essin,” their guard tells them. “He will be your overseer and you will do as he tells you.”
“New bunch, eh?” Essin asks the guard as they near.
“Just arrived today,” the guard replies.
“Good,” Essin tells him, “we’ve been falling behind in our quota and old Vorn has been complaining.”
“Not your fault though,” the guard says, “since that cave-in took out half your group.”
Essin nods and says, “I know, but try telling that to him.”
The guard laughs as he turns and returns back the way they came.
Turning to the new arrivals, Essin announces, “My name is Essin and welcome to the Mines of Sorna. Whether you live or die will be determined by me, understand?”
Six heads nod agreement.
“Alright,” he says as he hands each of them a pickaxe or a hammer, Miko gets a pickaxe. “Here we dig out the iron ore that the empire needs. We have a certain quota that must be achieved each day.” He glances around at the new arrivals and says, “We will meet it or you’ll wish to whatever gods you worship we had.”
One by one he takes the new arrivals and assigns them to work beside a slave who has been there for a while. “Each of you are to work alongside your partner, learn from them and any questions you have be sure to ask them,” he explains as he’s matching them up.
Miko is partnered with a man of about twenty with sandy hair. “Name’s Nate,” the man says to Miko as he extends his hand.
Taking the offered hand, he returns with, “Miko.”
“Here, let me show you what to do,” he says. “You take your pick and swing it at the wall as hard as you can,” he says as he demonstrates by striking the wall. “You want to strike near the veins of iron that run through the stone.” He shows Miko what the veins look like and watches as he takes a swing at one. “Sometimes it takes several hits before it will come loose. If the first hit doesn’t work, then strike in the same place again until some comes away.”
Miko raises the pickaxe and swings with all his might. The jolt of the pick hitting the stone causes his hands to sting. “Not bad,” Nate tells him. “You don’t want to stop though, try to find a rhythm and keep swinging. We have a lot to do before the day is over,” he explains as he takes up his own pickaxe and resumes chipping chunks from the wall.
Miko takes up the pickaxe again and strikes the wall, this time a sizeable chunk comes loose and falls to the ground. He looks to Nate who smiles and nods his head in approval. They continue chipping away until they have a sizeable pile at their feet. Then Nate has him pick up the chunks and carry them over to the waiting wagon where he drops them in.
They continue like that for a while, chip away the stone before carrying it over to the wagon. Miko’s arms begin to tire and his hands become sore, as blisters start to form.
Nate notices that he’s slowing down and says, “Keep up.” He nods over to where Essin is watching another pair, “You don’t want Essin to think you’re slacking.”
Doing the best he can, Miko continues to chip away with the pickaxe despite the sores on his hands. After a little while longer, his back and arms begin to ache and hurt.
Essin hollers, “Rest break!”
All the slaves give out a sigh of relief, especially the new arrivals, as they rest their pickaxes on the ground. They go over to where Essin is standing with another slave who is holding a bucket of water and a sack containing stale bread. The slave goes around the group, giving each a piece of bread and drink of water that he draws from the bucket with a ladle.
“We get three such breaks every day,” Nate informs him. “They’re not doing it to be nice, but so we can have the strength to continue removing the ore all day.”
“Oh,” says Miko as he takes his piece of bread and drinks from the ladle.
It seems like he just received his bread when Essin announces, “Back to work!”
With a groan, the new slaves return to the wall with their partners and resume the arduous work of removing the iron ore.
Shortly after the break, Miko turns as he hears Essin’s whip strike out and hit someone. “Who gave you permission to stop working?” he shouts at one of the new arrivals.
“But my hands are sore and bleeding,” the man wails as he holds his hands out, showing Essin.
“I don’t care if they fall off!” he shouts, knocking the hands away. “Grab your pickaxe and continue working!”
When the man hesitates, Essin lashes him twice more. The man grabs his pickaxe and starts chipping at the wall again.
“See,” Nate tells him, “you don’t want to be slacking. He got off easy because he’s new. If he’s caught again, he’ll be put to much worse jobs.”
“Worse?” ask Miko after striking the wall again.
“There’re always worse jobs,” he explains. “Don’t ever forget that. Certain sections of the mine cave-in more often than others, the trouble makers and slackers are the ones who get to work those areas. You understand?”
Miko just nods his head as he continues to wield his pickaxe. As bad as this is, he definitely doesn’t want to go where it’s ‘worse’.
After a couple more hours of mining, the sores on his hand begin to rub raw and every strike now causes him pain. His shoulders and back feel like they’re on fire, their strength beginning to fail.
Nate sees how he’s struggling to continue and says, “I’ll do this and you take the rocks over to the wagon, okay?”