At least half of the workmen hadn’t been visible over the last three days either.
Maybe that was what had emboldened Davey in the matter of snitching sparklies.
He slipped back to his seam before the brothers noticed that there wasn’t any tapping coming from his. And as he carefully pried stones out of the wall, he shivered and wondered.
Most of the time the kiddies were too tired to do anything but sleep when they piled into the sleep-hole. But that didn’t keep them from knowing stories about all kinds of horrible things. The Pieters boys had their own store of tales that they told out, pretending to tell them to each other, but really doing it to scare the kiddies working the seams. Most of the stories were about awful things down here in the mines. There were the ghosts of anyone that had died down here, and Mags knew of some few. These ghosts went about looking for someone who was the exact age they had been when they died—and when they found him, they would tear him apart trying to figure out a way into his body.
There were the Knockers, twisted-up little dwarfs no taller than your knee, but monstrous strong. They would wait until everyone was preoccupied and then just snatch a kiddie, grabbing him in his seam before he could utter a sound, bashing his head in with his own hammer, then dragging off the body to eat.
There were the Whisps, ghost-lights that would lead you into dangerous parts of the mine, then drop a rockfall on you. They’d do it by putting you to sleep, then getting you to walk in your sleep to where they were going to kill you.
There were the Horrors, that got into your head and made you crazy, like the night-shift cripples. When the Horrors got you, all you saw was black things coming at you, all claws and red eyes, and you’d drive your head against the wall of the shaft to try and get them out, or you’d make a cave-in yourself to try and stop them, or if they managed to bring you above the ground, you’d throw yourself down the well to be rid of them.
But every one of those was a monster in the mine. What about out of it? What was roaming about out there that was so scary the Pieters boys wouldn’t name it, wouldn’t describe it, and didn’t have any bragging ideas on how to get rid of it?
Suddenly, he didn’t want to leave at the end of the shift.
And it wasn’t just because the sluice water would be so cursed cold.
No, he was afraid that whatever it was, it would be up there, Some sort of devil. Mags didn’t believe in gods, but he believed, most fervently, in devils.
And if a devil had come here, there was likely only one person it had come for. Well, two, maybe, except the boys were saying that Cole Pieters was driving the thing off himself, so it hadn’t come for Master Cole.
All right, then. It had to be coming for Mags. Because Mags was Bad Blood. It would grab him and drink his blood to make itself stronger. And then it would carry him away to torment him forever.
No, he did not want to leave the mine now.
But of course, he had no choice.
Chapter 3
They heard the commotion before they emerged from the mine, but it didn’t sound like monsters were invading Master Cole’s property. It sounded more like the day some fool from the local highborn had come nosing about, or at least trying to. He’d brought an armsman with him, but it didn’t do him any good. There was two of them, and a half dozen of Cole Pieters’ sons, and if they didn’t know how to use swords, they didn’t need to, as anyone around would know they were damned good with their crossbows. Master Cole had run the man off then, and no mistaking it. He hadn’t come back either.
Cole had been hollering about his rights then, and he was doing so now. His voice echoed harshly down the mine shaft. “I know my rights! Ye can’t just swan in here and make off with whoever ye choose! These are my workers, homeless criminals every one, signed for and turned over to me to use as I need until their time runs out!”
Criminals? Now Mags knew that was a lie, and a big fat one, too. None of them were criminals, not even he. No one had been signed over by gaolers. Everyone here was here through no fault of their own ...
“Evidently,” drawled a new voice, sounding lazy, but with a hard edge of anger beneath the words that Mags doubted Master Cole was hearing. “Evidently you don’t know your rights as well as you think you do, Cole Pieters. I do have the right to ‘swan in here’ and take whomever I please. You are the one violating the law, denying a Companion access to his Chosen, and preventing a Herald from exercising his duty.”
Mags relaxed. He didn’t really know what a Herald or a Companion were, though the latter sounded dirty, and he really didn’t care. As long as it wasn’t monsters come to tear him to pieces, or devils to torment him, he didn’t care.
He emerged, blinking as usual, into the bright light of noon. And there was something of a standoff going on in the yard between the mine and the house and its outbuildings.
There was a man all in white, with two white horses, standing right at a barricade hastily thrown up across the lane leading to the yard. Behind the barricade were Cole Pieters and all of his sons, just like the time when that other fellow had come snooping. Only this time the crossbows weren’t trained on the stranger, much to Cole Pieters’ obvious fury, as he kept looking back at his sons.
“Pa,” said Endal Pieters, his voice flooded with uncertainty crossbow pointed at the ground and not even cocked. “Pa that’s a Herald. That’s a Herald, Pa!”
“I can see that!” Pieters snapped. “And the man’s daft, and so’s his horse! There’s nothing here for them to take! I ain letting go of any of you, no more your sisters, and there’s nothin’ in that trash—” he waved at the emerging mine crew “—that any of them should come calling for! This is just an excuse to come snooping where they ain’t wanted, and the can turn around and—”
“Pa, it’s a Herald—”
“I don’ care if it’s the King hisself! I know my rights!”
Pieters’ face was getting very red indeed. Mags wondered if he was finally going to have that apoplectic fit he’d been threatening to have for years now.
Well, Pieters might or might not know his rights, but the kiddies knew when to stay out of the way. The mining crew going in scuttled across the yard and down the shaft as quick as could be, while the outgoing crew scuttled toward the eating shed as fast as they could. It didn’t do to fall under Master Cole’s eye when he was like this because if he saw you, then you would be the next thing he took out his anger on when things settled down. It was especially true if he saw you looking at him.
So they all kept their heads down and got across the yard as quick as they could, heading for the colorless daughter waiting in the shed for them, and the equally colorless cook nervously ladling out bowls of soup. And it was a sign of how bad things were that there was no one to take the little sacks from them, the sacks that held their sparklies.
Mags caught Davey looking sly then, and he knew that Davey was thinking up some deviltry to be sure. And right enough, Davey was just about to snatch Burd’s little sack from him, when up came Jarrik and took it from him, then took Davey’s with a dirty look. Mags was quick to hand his over before Jarrik could even put his hand out for it.
He couldn’t be rid of it soon enough. Then he headed off across the yard as Jarrik headed for his brothers and the standoff at the gate.