He sat himself with his back against the bars, trying to think. What did he have on him? He didn't have his pack, of course, but even his pockets had been emptied. Except...
A smooth, round ball slightly bigger than his thumbnail sat at the bottom of his pocket, forgotten. He reached in, pulling out the glass marble from Suriel. A single blue candle-flame flickered in the center, pointing straight up no matter how he turned the outside.
The marble had no use, unless he could throw it like a pebble to distract a guard, but it was a comfort. A concrete reminder that the heavens hadn't given up on him.
He rolled it between his fingers as he took further stock.
He was in reasonably good physical condition, and he'd recovered most of the energy in his cores that he'd spent earlier that night. Not that either of those things would help him against the Sandvipers.
Other than the marble, he had nothing but his clothes and the familiar presence of wood against his chest. So they'd left him his Unsouled badge. How considerate.
The badge itself was tied to a ribbon of blue shadesilk, which was bright as day in direct light and absolutely black in the slightest shadow. The interesting reflective properties of shadesilk had allowed Sacred Valley to keep trading with the outside world, but now Lindon found himself considering more about the fabric's strength. Could he strangle someone with it?
Not anyone who mattered, not with a Copper's strength. Maybe he could take a toddler hostage, assuming a toddler passed within arm's length of this cage in a prison camp, but that would be as cowardly of an act as he could imagine.
But if he stayed, he'd face the Ruins.
The sky began to lighten before he'd come to any conclusion on a strategy, and in the distance, he saw an enormous block sink back into the wall of the Ruins. A small army filed out, the Sandvipers in the front carrying weapons, and the collection of people in the middle carrying iron barrels speckled on the bottom with crystal chalices.
They passed close enough for Lindon to make out the wounds on the prisoners—missing limbs, fingers, chunks of flesh. The procession turned to a building that looked like a big, painted wagon...
And Lindon gained his first truly interesting piece of information. The back of the wagon lifted open, and the first prisoner—prodded by a knife—dumped his barrel into the back.
Scales clattered out. They fell into a box specially prepared for the purpose, and then the second miner stepped up, also emptying her barrel. It took twenty or thirty people before the box was filled up and pushed to the back.
To join dozens of boxes just like it.
Lindon's eyes were glued to the stack of boxes, the blue-lit marble spinning in his fingers. Fisher Gesha had said that scales could be used for advancement, but doing so was like watering down your madra. Well, his madra was essentially all water.
How many scales would it take to break through to Iron? Twenty? A hundred? However many he needed, they were right there.
He pushed himself against the bars, eyes stuck on the boxes.
When the prisoners had finished delivery, the door on the wagon slammed shut. Something like an angry trumpet blast sounded, and the wagon actually rumbled forward, sliding out from between a pair of cages.
So the fortune didn't stick around. That was a disappointment, but it was a good policy not to leave their treasures sitting among a group of disgruntled prisoners.
A Sandviper woman walked up, and Lindon backed away from the bars just in time to avoid her slapping her sword against the cage. It rang like a hideous bell, hurting his ears, but not as much as her voice. She propelled her words with the full force of her Gold spirit and Iron body, causing him to clap hands over his ears and his cellmates to scramble to their feet.
“Wake up, wake up. Feed time, and then it's day shift.”
So there was a day shift. Meaning the wagon would show up at sunrise and sunset, for the two mining shifts to deliver their haul.
She pulled the squealing door open, stepping back, and Lindon eyed the gap uncertainly. Was she really trying to fight six people on her own? He couldn't contribute much, but the others were Gold. Even wounded, they should be on her like a pack of wolves.
That was when he noticed the collars, iron and scripted just like the bars.
He touched his neck, in case he'd somehow missed being collared in metal, but his fingers met only skin. He wondered if they'd put one on him later, but he found it unlikely.
He probably just wasn't worth collaring.
Four of the five prisoners shuffled forward at the Sandviper's prodding, but the woman with the missing eye had curled back against the bars. She shook as though weeping, but made no sound.
The Sandviper woman looked bored as she stepped past the other inmates and into the cage, holding her sword in one hand.
Before she could reach the crouching woman, Lindon bent over and grabbed the prisoner by the shoulder. “Stand up. I don't know what's happening, but I know you'd better stand up. Come on.”
He shook her harder, but she didn't respond. The Sandviper pushed him away and raised her sword.
Unlike his imagination, she didn't decapitate the miner in one stroke. Instead, she slapped the edge of her sword against the shaking woman's head with such force that each stroke sounded like a lumberjack axe against a tree.
Lindon winced and took another step back. You probably had to do this much to get through an Iron body, but a single one of those blows would have caved his head in.
A familiar voice came from behind him, sharp and venomous. “There are no pieces of him missing? Hm? This is good for you.”
Lindon spun to see Fisher Gesha, goldsteel hook on her back, standing on top of her mechanical spider legs. She looked the same as always—bun tight on her head, expression disapproving—but there was something about her that made him shiver.
The Sandviper guard stopped beating the prisoner and turned to Gesha, leaning her sword on her shoulder. “What do you think our sect is, that you can come in and order us around? Do you think everyone works for you?”
A gentle, invisible force tugged Lindon out the open door so that he stumbled forward until he was standing next to Gesha.
“You need Copper miners that badly, do you?” the Fisher asked dryly. “Tell your young chief his message was received, but I am taking back my property. Can you remember that, hm?”
Green light spidered up the edge of the Sandviper's blade like veins in a leaf. She glared at Gesha and raised her voice. “Fisher—”
Whatever she was going to say next was cut off when Gesha moved like a flickering snake. She suddenly stood next to the Sandviper woman, one arm behind her back, the other holding her goldsteel hook extended. The sharp inside of the blade's crescent was pressed against the younger woman's throat.
“Silly girl. When I was weak as you, did I disrespect my betters? No, I kept my head on my work. And you have a miner to catch.”
She nodded down the row, where the one-eyed woman was hobbling away, casting fearful glances behind her.
As Gesha removed the hook, the Sandviper guard tore her gaze between the escaping prisoner and her enemy, muttered something under her breath, and bolted off after the miner. It was probably a jog for a Gold, but her movements blurred to Lindon's eyes.
He turned back to Gesha as the guard seized the miner by the hair and started dragging her back.
“Can we take them with us?” he asked, voice low. They probably heard him anyway, considering their hearing, but he had to ask.
She gave him a look of almost comical surprise. “There are worse things than this in the world, Wei Shi Lindon. These are enemies, captured in battle.”