We carried on another few paces before Snorri commented again. “But these tracks would be washed away in a few years if they weren’t used.”
“There’s a small operation, working around the entrance chambers.” I lifted my head and pointed. “There, look!” The rise revealed a scattering of shacks, storage sheds, stables and several carts, all clustered around a black and yawning hole in the base of a rock-face where the valley became suddenly steep.
We picked up the pace and jogged up the dusty road, burdened by exhaustion. Falling behind, I turned and saw, emerging from the dry gullies on the far side of the valley, the foremost of the hounds, tiny in the distance but fearsome even so.
I’d moved from last to first by the time we stumbled gasping into the clearing ringed by the buildings before the mine entrance. I stood there, hands on knees, hauling in a dry breath, my shirt sticking to my ribs. I heard rather than saw Snorri unlimber his axe behind me. A moment later the ringing of an alarm went up, someone spinning a stick against the inside of one of those iron bars bent into a triangle that they use to call men to sup.
“E-easy.” I straightened up, reaching out to lay a hand on the thickness of Snorri’s arm. He didn’t look up to a battle in any case, dark lines beneath his eyes, sweat on his face, still bent around the agony of the salt-edged slash in his side. Miners from the night shift began to stumble out of one of the dormitory huts, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, yawns cracking their jaws. A couple more awake than the rest took hold of long-handled hammers from a stack beside the door.
Kara stepped forward. “We just need to visit Kelem. There’s no need for trouble.”
The miners stared at her as if she were some strange creature unearthed from the salt. The men might be paler than typical Florentines, labouring all day deep in the salt caves, but Kara’s skin was like snow, preserved from the sun by one of the witch’s unguents.
The foreman among them found his wits at last, just as I was about to chivvy him along. It could only be a matter of minutes before the hounds caught up and barks turned into bites. “Can’t do that ma’am. Kelem’s got his own ways. No one goes down less he sends his servant for them.” He watched us with eyes narrowed against the brightness, a shrewd look on his gaunt face, tight-fleshed as though the salt had sucked all but the last drops of moisture from him.
“We could pay.” Kara glanced my way, over-tired and leaning on her spear.
“Ain’t enough in your pocket, ma’am, no matter how deep it is.” He shook his grizzled head. “Kelem’s rules aren’t to be broken. Play by them and he’s fair. Break them and you’ll think the Inquisition kind.”
“And you’re going to stop us?” Snorri frowned. I knew it would be reluctance to hurt them that worried him, not their numbers.
The miners stiffened at the challenge in his tone, straightening up, awake now, some taking up crowbars, the last few emerging from the long hut to bring their strength up to fifteen. Their numbers worried me plenty, and Snorri looked done in.
“Wait! Wait. .” I raised a hand above my head and threw what princely authority I could into my voice. “By the rules you say?” I reached into my jacket and riffled through the papers still packed into the inner pockets, the deeds and titles of various acquisitions so minor I hadn’t had either time nor inclination to cash in when amassing the gold that Ta-Nam had taken from me. Of late they had served as nothing more than insulation from the night chill in the dungeons. I found the one I wanted and carefully unwadded it from the others. Thankfully it looked as though the ink hadn’t run too badly after my dip in the Umber. “Here!” I drew it forth with a flourish. “Notarized by House Gold.” I ran my finger along the scrolled title and wax seal. “I own thirteen twenty-fourth shares in Crptipa Mining Corporation. A grand name for this godforsaken collection of shacks and the trickle of salt you fellows manage to send to the city. So whilst. .” I searched the document. “Antonio Garraro. . is your paymaster and manages the running of this operation from his desk in the city, it’s actually me, Prince Jalan Kendeth, heir decimal to the throne of Red March and her protectorates, who owns the controlling interest in this hole in the ground.” I paused to let that sink in. “So, I’d like to take a tour of my holdings, and I can’t think that such an action would break any rules set by Kelem. Rules which, after all, allow my employees to do exactly that, seven days a week.”
The foreman came over, keeping a wary eye on the axe in Snorri’s hand. He glanced at the faded and water-blotched ink work on the parchment and reached out to tap a nail against the wax seal. He let his gaze fall to the dirty rags adhering to my body. “You don’t look like you own a mine, Prince. .”
“Prince Jalan Kendeth, heir to the Red Queen, and don’t try to pretend you’ve not heard of her.” I raised my voice to the near-shout that works best when commanding menials. “And I look like exactly the sort of man who would own a played-out, worthless hole like Crptipa, which hasn’t made a profit in six years.”
The foreman paused, teeth against his wizened lower lip. I watched him weighing up various odds behind his eyes, the sums evident in the furrowing of his brow.
“Right you are, yer majesty. I’ll take you down presently. The night shift will be up within the hour and then-”
“We’ll go now, no guide required.” I started walking toward the cavern mouth. The others joined me. The distant baying had started to grow rapidly louder.
“But. . but you’ll get lost!” the foreman called at my back.
“I doubt it! It’s my mine after all, a man should know the way around his own mine!” A guide would only try to keep us in the company-controlled areas and wouldn’t know how to navigate Kelem’s caverns any more than we did.
“You’re not even taking lanterns?”
“I. .” Swallowing your pride is always difficult, especially if it’s as indigestible as mine, but fear of the dark won over, and executing a sharp about turn I marched back to collect three glass-cowled lanterns from the hooks beneath the hut’s eaves. I stalked across to the others, my dignity demanding I take my time. A dog’s howl, the kind they give when sighting prey, chased away all traces of dignity and I sprinted toward the mine entrance, lanterns clattering together in my hands.
Rickety wooden ladders, lashed together with salt-crusted rope, vanished down the rocky gullet that opened in the cavern floor fifty yards back from the entrance. Directly above the shaft an ancient hole of similar diameter pierced the roof, a blue and dazzling circle. I shoved a lantern at Snorri, another at Kara. “No time to light them! Down!” And fear of the hounds had me leading the way, pulling Hennan along behind. Not even the ominous creaking of the ladder beneath my weight gave me pause. I climbed down in a fever and let the darkness rise to swallow me. Up above I caught the sound of snarls, of claws on stone, and Snorri’s roar, as fearsome as any beast’s. Something plummeted past me. A dog I hoped. I felt the wind of its passage. A touch closer and it would have plucked me from the rungs.
An age later, hands raw and unbearably parched from the salty rungs, I jolted down onto solid ground.
“Are you coming?” My words lost in the void overhead, its darkness pierced by a single patch of sky impossibly high above me.
“Yes.” Hennan, high above me.
“Yes.” Kara’s voice. Closer to hand. “Do you have the orichalcum?”
I backed from the ladder to give her space and fished for the metal cone. I stepped into foul smelling mud, slippery under foot, and almost lost my balance. The orichalcum eluded me and I became convinced I’d lost it in the river, until my fingers brushed against the metal sparking such a response I half blinded myself. The pulsing illumination revealed several facts: firstly, the curves of Kara’s behind as she descended the last few rungs, secondly, the splattered remains of a large dark-furred hound, and thirdly, that what I’d taken to be mud was actually the innards of the aforementioned dog, the beast having burst on impact. The fourth and least welcome fact proved to be that this wasn’t the end of our climb, rather a narrow ledge from which a new set of ladders descended, the whole thing being less than six square yards and mostly coated in mushed dog. My heels rested perhaps an inch from the dark and endless fall behind me, and the shock of realizing it set me slipping once again. Both feet shot out from under me and skittered over the edge. The orichalcum flew from my grip. My chest hit the stone with a rib-crunching thud, arms reached out, driven by their own instinct, fingers scrabbled for grip and for a trouser-wetting moment I hung, with the corner of the ledge under my armpits, body tight to the cliff, feet seeking any hold on offer.