The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) (2 page)

He put that thought out of his mind and held the lantern higher trying to make out what was beyond the dust, and then held up his hand to halt the column of men behind him. As he glanced back he could see Dravin grinning, his white teeth shining in his dark face and his eyes reflecting the lamp light. His armsbrother always grinned when things were at their most dangerous. Perhaps that’s why he liked him so much and had chosen him as his brotherhand, his second in command of his armsbrothers.

Leaving the lantern where it was, he tied his burnoose around his nose and mouth before setting off again, alone. There was more sand and dust beneath his hands now and larger stones too. Some were as large as a fist with sharp edges, whilst some were just the size of his thumb nail. He wondered if he took one back with him and polished it, he would be a wealthy man. It was a trivial thought and beneath him; every gem that was found belonged to the people, kept safe by Tallison against the day his people would need such wealth.

If that time wasn’t now then he didn’t know when it would be, but what did he know? He was just a brotherlord and not one of Tallison’s chosen men. It was an unworthy thought which could get him killed if it was said out loud so he thought of other things until he touched something which didn’t feel like sand or stone. He stopped and carefully moved the debris from around it. It was a hand, cold but still pliable. Carefully he traced it back from the wrist and up the forearm before the fall of stones and splintered wood prevented him from following it further.

He gave a tug on the rope which was attached to his waist and waited for Dravin to move up next to him. The other man came too, squeezing in between Dravin and the wall and looking as grim as a man could be. It wasn’t surprising, his two sons were down here somewhere, which was probably why he had begged for their help and had volunteered to accompany them. He pointed at the sagging beam above their heads and made a ‘T’ shape with his hands. Dravin nodded in understanding and shuffled back to the waiting armsbrothers. Moments later Bradge, a big brute of a man, crawled forward with a thick wooden prop under his arm and together they eased it under the sagging beam until its groaning complaint was reduced to an occasional creak. Then they began digging.

Tozaman had done his share of digging in his time, even a brotherlord was expected to bury their own waste when they were on patrol, but this kind of digging required heavy muscle, so he moved to the side and left the toil to his armsbrothers. He watched as the first body was recovered and passed down the long line of men which stretched back to the mine’s entrance. This one had died without a mark upon him, held in place by the beam which had fallen across his legs and suffocated by the falling sand which had filled his mouth and nose. They cleared the space, propped up the fallen beam and carried on.

The next man they found had been more fortunate. He had died instantly when a falling beam had crushed his skull. The man next to him had been equally fortunate when the end of a splintered beam had pierced his chest, but the one behind must have taken longer to die, his entrails spread in a line behind him where he had pulled himself forward in an effort to escape. Their bodies too were passed back down the line.

Five other bodies were found before they came to the main collapse. He didn’t have to be a miner to see what had happened; it had been obvious for some time. The deeper they went into the mine the thinner the side props and ceiling beams had become. Perhaps the mine was becoming less productive and the overseer couldn’t afford good wood, although it was much more likely that the thickness of the wood was being cut to fill his own pockets. Tozaman hoped that he was one of those still buried in this cursed pit. He crawled forward with the old miner to study the roof fall.

The roof beams had snapped in the middle bringing not only the roof down but dragging the side beams with it, so that a symmetrical pattern of triangles, filled with the rubble, had been formed. Cautiously the old miner tugged at some of the rubble near to the top where one of the triangles had been formed and when it came away in his hand without disturbing the beams he gave a grim smile. Tozaman started at the other side carefully picking out rocks and passing them back. This was going to take patience and care but it was just possible that the way the beams had fallen would have prevented the collapse continuing all the way to the end of the tunnel. He could see hope in the miner’s eyes, and that was enough for him to keep digging. Pickmen were waved forward and he fell back, waiting for them to finish their work.

He must have dozed off as it was the sound of voices which brought him rapidly from his rest. At the very beginning he had given orders for silence, not only so they could hear if any of the trapped miners were calling for help, but to prevent the noise bringing the ceiling down upon them. As he crawled forward, easing past the pickmen and the piles of rubble which were still being passed down the line, he realised that it wasn’t his brothers who were defying his orders but the miner and in the distance other low voices.

When he reached the opening they had made he could see movement on the other side, but he could also see the problem they faced. The trapped miners had been digging their way out but at this end of the roof fall, the beams had not fallen in an even pattern. That meant that the way through to safety was narrow and twisted and so precarious in places that the slightest misstep would dislodge the supporting beams. To make matters worse the miners had been down here for nearly two days and were likely to be weak and unsteady on their feet. They were going to need some help. He looked back at Dravin, who wasn’t smiling now, and held up three fingers. Dravin nodded and moved back to select three volunteers.

Tozaman picked up a spare water skin and stepped over the inverted apex of the first triangle but that was the easy part. After that it was a matter of weaving in and out between the leaning posts, trying to make each foot fall as steady as possible before moving onto the next. It reminded him of a game he used to play with his sister when they were both young, and brothers and sisters were allowed to live side by side. They had been happy innocent days when parents laughed at their children’s games and prayed to the Goddess that they would grow strong and beautiful. He wondered if his sister did the same for her own children, but he doubted it.

Hands tugging on his arm and helping him passed the last of the fallen beams brought him out of his disturbed thoughts, and he stepped into an open area made by a natural cavern where he could stand upright and assess the situation. The cavern held around thirty men, some standing, most sitting and all looking exhausted and worn. He handed over the water skin and tried to estimate who would be able to walk and which ones would have to be carried. Most of the miners were injured in some way or another, but only two had their legs splinted with what looked to be the shaft of a pick or shovel. It was going to be hard on them as their broken legs would have to be unbound to pass them through the narrow, twisted openings. There were four others in a line with cloths over their faces; they were going nowhere.

He looked back at the opening they had dug and saw that Dravin was in place, and behind him were three others with lanterns ready to help the miners through. Satisfied that this was about the best they were going to achieve, he climbed back up onto the rubble and offered his hand to the first of the trapped miners. Around half the men had been passed through to safety when the first roof fall happened. One of the miners with a broken arm stumbled on a loose stone and instead of rolling with his fall he put a hand out to steady himself and protect his damaged limb. The beam which took his sudden weight slipped and the side prop it was supporting moved sideways allowing the sagging ceiling to collapse.

The miner and the armsbrother who had been helping him were buried under a mound of rubble, planking and sand. Tozaman made his way carefully to where men were already starting to pick at the fallen debris but shook his head and stopped their efforts. The beam that had slipped was precariously balanced and to move the roof fall would only bring more of it down upon them. Apart from that, large, jagged lumps of rock had been torn from the roof overhead and it was unlikely that anyone would survive under a fall of that size. He sent the diggers back to the comparative safety of the waiting line and Dravin and Bradge to the cavern end whilst he stayed where the tunnel was the least stable.

The second rock fall was less serious; just a sudden sagging of the roof and a shower of stones and sand which caught an armsbrother a glancing blow and knocked him to his knees. It took only a short time to pull the man free and clear the passage way again, allowing the next miner through. This was one of the two with a broken leg which had been freed from its splints and dragged uselessly behind the man as he was hauled around the twisted beams. His face was white with pain and he was gritting his teeth so hard that blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Tozaman could see why; the bone on his shin was sticking through his flesh and every movement exposed more of its jagged tip. He wondered at the man’s silence, if it had been him he would have been screaming his head off.

He guided the man around the unstable beam doing his best to restrict the movement of the broken leg and waited whilst his armsbrother took the man’s hands and hauled him through to be passed down the line to safety. To his counting that left just the one miner to bring through; the one with both legs broken and a broken arm. He waited for signs of movement at the cavern end of the passage way and listened to the sound of the mine.

The sounds had changed or perhaps he had become more sensitive to the noises the mine made. The hissing of sand as it filled empty spaces was still there but there was another sound; an ominous groaning as if the mine was in pain and behind that a grinding noise which turned his blood cold. He looked urgently towards the cavern wondering what was keeping Dravin from passing the last man through. A sudden fall of sand an arm’s length from his shoulder and a loud creak helped to make his mind up. He indicated for an armsbrother to take his place and made his way back to the cavern.

Neither Dravin nor Bradge were where they should have been and when he stepped out into the cavern expecting to see them assisting the injured miner they were nowhere in sight. He scowled in irritation, angry that he would have to go and search for them and then realised what he was looking at. The walls of the cavern sparkled. In the feeble lantern light the crystals buried in the walls shimmered and reflected back small beams of coloured light so bright and pure that if the light from the lantern had been brighter it would have dazzled his eyes.

This wasn’t just a cavern, it was a gem cave. He had heard about them of course, they were the source of Sandstrone’s wealth, but they were incredibly rare and he had never thought to see one. Its beauty astounded him and for a moment he forgot about everything. Then the reality of the situation came back to him and he turned his attention back to the injured miner.

He walked across to where the man laid, his chest still and his eyes blank. The fact that he was dead didn’t surprise Tozaman, his injuries had been serious; what did disturb him was the wound on the man’s head which looked fresh and he didn’t recall seeing before. Dravin was his friend and he had known him all his life; he was reckless and thoughtless but was he capable of taking a man’s life for his own gain? The answer was clearly yes and that was going to cause Tozaman some real problems. His father had always told him never to make friends with those you command and now he wished that he had listened.

As he looked up the sound of running footsteps attracted his attention and he turned as Dravin ran into view and skidded to a halt, the other missing armsbrother two steps behind. They both glanced quickly at the dead miner and then back at their brotherlord. “We were just checking that there was nobody trapped further back.” whispered Dravin breathlessly. It was the first words that had been uttered since they had entered the mine and they were full of lies.

Tozaman glared at them both and turned away in disgust without responding. He led the way to the entrance of the narrow passage way through the rock fall and then hesitated for a moment. Dravin was his friend but he was also a murderer and a thief; did he really want to turn his back on him and Bradge as they crawled through the low tunnel? He decided the answer was no and stepped back to let them go in front of him. Dravin gave him a nervous smile but Bradge kept his eyes fixed to the floor as they set off through the precarious twisting passageway.

Now that they were the only ones left to pick their way around the fallen beams and side props he could hear the sounds coming from deep within the roof above him even more clearly. The hissing sound of running sand had stopped as if all the spare spaces had now been filled and the grinding of shifting stone was no more than a distant murmur. What really worried him was the groaning which was now so loud that it could be heard above the noise they made as they squirmed their way forward. His heartbeat increased and sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes. He wished they would go faster and as if they had read his thoughts the two men in front of him increased their speed and pulled away.

They reached the difficult turning where the first roof fall had happened when Bradge hesitated for a moment and then levered himself forward using the unstable beam to pull on. Tozaman froze, unable to believe what the man had just done and waited for the inevitable. It came with a shriek of tortured wood and a deafening crash as beams splintered and the roof caved in. He just had time to curl into a tight ball and put his hands over his head when the mine fell on him.

It wasn’t the noise of splintering beams and moving rock which terrified him or even the pounding of rocks and stones as they collapsed on top of his back. It was the silence afterwards and the total darkness. He breathed in and then coughed violently as the dust-laden air filled his lungs. Despite his coughing nothing around him moved. Somehow his head had escaped the pounding rock fall and a small pocket of air had been created saving him from suffocation. He could breathe but not see or hear anything and he couldn’t move.