The Swordsheath Scroll Read online

  With little interest, the man watched the dwarves passing him. Derkin was almost to him when he saw the human’s face turn away, distracted momentarily. And in that instant, the Hylar heaved his stone—not at the guard, but in a high arc toward one of the hods ahead. The stone hit the laden hod, and tools rattled from it as it tipped. The guard stepped away from the wall, peering ahead to see what had happened, and Derkin set his own hod aside, flung his ankle chain against the man’s ankles, and jerked.

  It was very sudden. The man toppled over the ledge, screamed, and disappeared. Derkin retrieved his hod, skipped past several dwarves who had turned toward the scream, and eased past the spilled hod where a dwarf was crouched, trying to retrieve his load.

  Only seconds had passed. By the time other humans reacted to the guard’s fall, Derkin was far along the line, just one of many dwarven slaves looking back at the commotion behind.

  Still, he had been seen by Tap. The Neidar had witnessed everything, and so, apparently, had others. Would they tell? So far, it seemed, they had not.

  “Friends?” he muttered to himself now, shaking his head. “I need no friends.”

  When all was quiet in the big cell, he retrieved the chisel hidden in a fold of his kilt and went to work on his shackles. It was the reason for it all—for the death of the human guard, for the fresh welts on his back and the backs of others. And it was worth it. Once before he had tried to steal a chisel, but it had been tricky. All tools were counted and accounted for.

  But not this time. It was unlikely that anyone would ever know that a chisel had disappeared, among all the commotion of a spilled hod and a dead guard.

  Far back in the shadows of the cell, other slaves squinted in the murk, and one—a young dwarf with the large, contemplative eyes and foxlike features of Daergar ancestry—grinned. “So that’s what it was all about,” he muttered.

  Beside him, Tap squinted. “What is?” he whispered. “What do you see, Vin?”

  “A chisel,” Vin said. “The Hylar has a chisel. He’s working on his shackles.”

  “Ah,” Tap mused. “From the spilled hod. He’s a lucky one, isn’t he?”

  “You think that was luck?” The Daergar face creased in a sly, sideways glance of reproach. “Luck had nothing to do with that. He planned that out and executed the maneuver as skillfully as a captain in the field. I think we should get to know this Hylar, Tap. I like the way he thinks.”

  Tap glanced around as a shadow moved nearby. “Hush,” he whispered, then squinted and shrugged. It was only the old one-arm who carried the slops.

  Tap returned his attention to the Daergar. “It won’t be easy, getting close to that Hylar,” he said. “He’s a cold one. No one has ever gotten close to him that I know of. Just now, I as much as invited him to join us. I’d have gotten as much response from a wall.”

  “Join us? In what? We have no plan.”

  “But maybe he has one. He’s Hylar. From Thorbardin. As I hear it, those people have no shortage of plans.”

  Vin scratched his whiskers thoughtfully. “Then maybe we should join him, whether he likes it or not. He has a chisel, but he has no hammer.”

  “Neither do we,” Tap reminded him.

  The Daergar gazed at him with ironic eyes. “No, but if that Hylar can get a chisel, I can get a hammer. Or a prybar or maul. Let’s spread the word, Tap. Tell those with us that we wait for a signal from the Hylar. He is readying an escape.”

  “How do we know he’s planning an escape?” Tap frowned. “Maybe he’s just easing his cuffs.”

  The Daergar gazed at him thoughtfully, his large eyes seeming—as Daergar eyes usually did—to see right through him. “Call it a hunch,” he muttered. “I know, half the dwarves here have tried to escape at one time or another. But that Hylar is the only one of us who may yet succeed. It’s why he wears that heavy chain.”

  If Derkin was aware of their watchful eyes upon him, across the great, crowded cell, he gave no evidence of it. The chisel in his hand made almost no sound as he began the tedious cutting of rivets, driving the cutting edge of the tool methodically against the softer metal of the binds, using his free fist as a hammer.

  It would take time, but he was in no hurry. In his two previous escape attempts, he had learned much of the pattern of the shafts and the terrain beyond the mines. And he had listened to the talk in the shafts. In a few weeks, they said, the next grand tour of inspection would begin.

  Through the rest period he worked, pausing only to swill down a wooden bowl of slops when the old, one-armed pail tender came by. When the horns sounded, he buried his chisel in a chink in the stone floor, rubbed soot on the spots of bright metal where he had worn down the rivets, and lined up with others on his shift to file out of the cell for another day’s grueling labor under the eyes of armed human guards. Each step of the way, as always, his loop of heavy chain dragged and clinked behind him. The chain was nearly eight feet long, with heavy iron links an inch and a half in diameter. It weighed almost forty pounds. Most of the slaves in the mines—certainly all of those young enough or strong enough to ever pose a threat to the human taskmasters—wore ankle cuffs and chains. But most of the bonds were smaller and lighter than Derkin’s. The big, heavy chain dragging behind him was his “reward” for his second attempt to escape.

  Most slaves in the mines dreamed of escape. Some, particularly among the stubborn, surly dwarves, had even tried to escape at one time or another. But rarely, if ever, did anyone try it more than once. The punishment was more severe and painful each time. Derkin’s second lashing had been with a special flail, its thongs tipped with balls of lead. Such a beating would have broken the ribs of a human or an elf. It was after that beating that he had been fitted with the heavy chain.

  At the end of the day’s labors, after another bowl of slops, he retrieved his chisel and went back to work. Today, and tomorrow, and for as many tomorrows as it took, he would prepare for his departure from bondage.

  He knew the way now, and he knew the time. He had seen the fortifications at the north end of Tharkas Pass. The time to make an escape, and possibly succeed, would be when the human delegation from Daltigoth arrived, when the masters and guards of the mine complex were preoccupied with welcoming their visiting dignitaries.

  Part I:

  Master of the Pits

  Klanath

  Century of Rain

  Decade of Cherry

  Summer, Year of Copper

  1

  The Mines of Ergoth

  The mines of Klanath, under the direction of three successive emperors of western Ergoth, had become a huge, sprawling complex of pits, shafts, and digs extending for miles along the vertiginous slopes of the peaks that rose like a wall of ranked monoliths above the deep forests to the north and west. Named for the first true emperor of the human realm of Ergoth, Klanath the Conqueror, the mines—and the entire region they commanded—had become a sizable outpost of the empire’s center in far-off Daltigoth. Even before the recent discovery of rich new lodes of metallic ore in the wild mountains south of Tharkas Pass, the Klanath mines had supplied more than half of Ergoth’s treasured iron, nickel, and coke, as well as copper and tin in smaller quantities. But since the discovery of the Tharkas lodes, the complex of mines had nearly doubled in size.

  Sakar Kane himself had led the human forces that thronged through the pass to attack and defeat the dwarven miners at their village of Tharkas. He had claimed all of the lands south of the pass for the empire. Now the dwarves who had survived, along with thousands of others captured by slavers raiding through the mountain lands, were Lord Kane’s slaves. They worked in the shafts and tunnels, the caverns and sumps, the pits and the slag heaps, the slopes and the scours.

  Among the slaves were other races as well—humans, goblins, mightily bound ogres, and even a few elves. But the most numerous of the slaves, and the most prized by their masters, were dwarves. Stubborn and unrelentingly hostile, often as ready to fight among themselves as agains
t others, the thousands of dwarves imprisoned here were a constant nuisance to the overseers. But when it came to working in mines, every dwarf was worth five of any other race. Adept at tunneling, climbing, delving, and the shaping or breaking of stone, the dwarves were natural miners.

  The mountains south of Tharkas Pass were full of dwarves. Legend held that there had once been a mighty nation of dwarves there, protected by the huge, subterranean fortress called Thorbardin. But Thorbardin no longer exercised power over the mountain lands. Village after village, mine after mine, and valley after valley, the raiders had swept down in massive attacks until most of the dwarves north of the wilderness ranges were now dead or enslaved, or had simply vanished into the wilderness.

  With the growth of the mines of Klanath, so had grown the population of humans there. What had been a scattering of overseers’ villages and headquarters shacks had become a fair-sized city, sprawling across the flats at the north end of Tharkas Pass, and it was here that much of the empire’s wealth was assembled.

  Thus it was not unusual for various high personages from the emperor’s court to accompany the annual visits of inspection by the Grand Master of Mines. Many of the great court had visited Klanath in the past, though usually only once. Rich they might be, but the sprawling warrens of Klanath were unsightly and reeking, lacking any of the civilities and trappings of Daltigoth, the opulent city they served.

  In recent years, though, there had been changes. The changes had come with the repeated visits of Sakar Kane, the tall, brooding man who was better known as Lord Kane. Three times in as many years, Kane—a cousin of the emperor, some said—had passed through Klanath on his way to and from the conquered mining regions south of Tharkas Pass.

  Since his second visit, hordes of craftsmen and slaves had worked to construct a new fortification in the midst of the spreading encampments. Now the compound of Lord Kane, dominating the north approach to Tharkas Pass, was the most formidable structure in the region. The rumors had circulated through Klanath—and even among the slaves—that Lord Kane’s next visit would be permanent. It was said that he had been given command of the region—even to include authority over the Grand Master of Mines—and that Klanath would be his base.

  It was whispered that the emperor intended to extend his realm eastward, maybe even as far as the elven lands of the Silvanesti. It was said that Lord Kane’s authority was part of a grander plan, and that Lord Kane’s fortress would serve as more than just headquarters for the empire’s mines.

  It was suspected that Klanath would be a stronghold for the assaults to the east, a link in a chain of conquest that would take in all of southern Ansalon.

  Shalit Mileen had heard all of the rumors and had savored them. As chief of pits, Shalit Mileen was one of a dozen deputies of old Renus Sabad, the Master of Mines. One of a dozen, but in his own mind not like the others who were his peers. Most of them seemed perfectly content with their lot, each having a bit of authority in one area of Klanath, and each ready to clean the boots of old Renus, to sing his praises or fetch his tankard, to secure their positions in his favor.

  Most of the operation of the mines rested with these deputies. Just as Shalit Mileen ran the soft-ore pits, giving commands and keeping records, driving his overseers to drive their slaves to increase production each year, so did each of the other deputies run an operation. Yet each season, when the high-borns came from Daltigoth, arriving in splendid entourage to inspect the emperor’s resources, it was not the deputies who received them and had the honor of reporting the latest successes. No, when the inspectors came, the deputy mine masters were sent deep into their respective works. It was the Master of Mines, old Renus, who each year met with the dignitaries and humbly took full credit for all of the fine works that had been done.

  Only when things went poorly did any deputy stand before the dignitaries. That was because, as Shalit Mileen had noted, when things went well it was the Master of Mines who received the credit, while if something went wrong, it was always one of the deputies who took the blame. Shalit Mileen had seen four of his peers so used in past years. Three of them now were slaves, though not in the same mines they had once ruled—a master become slave would last no time at all among the slaves who knew him. The fourth had been blamed for a cave-in that so displeased the high-borns that the man had been executed where he stood.

  Rarely did the various deputies ever meet in a group, but Shalit Mileen had heard their individual comments from time to time and shaken his head in disbelief. Each deputy was, like himself, a strong, brutal man. But unlike him, the others were no better than sheep. They lacked the ambition to scheme for better positions for themselves, or the courage to make such schemes work.

  All of which suited Shalit Mileen very well. He had no such lack. He had heard that there would be a new ruler in Klanath, and he intended that new ruler’s favor to fall on him. One way or another, he intended to make himself look good to Lord Kane, and to make old Renus look like a fool.

  If he had his way, Shalit Mileen would soon be Master of Mines and have deputies of his own.

  He kept his plans to himself, trusting no one, but as the season of inspection approached he governed his pits carefully, preparing. The best ores he withheld, hoarding them in unworked shafts, waiting for the time when he could “discover” rich new lodes. He guarded the energies of his slaves, plied his overseers with the best of food and drink, bribed the captain of the guard company assigned to his pits, and stockpiled the best tools. When the inspection came, the inspectors would hear from Renus a report of hardly better than average production in the soft-ore pits. They would hear that the pits were producing, but only at quota. Then they would see a far different thing. They would see riches rising from Shalit’s mines, far beyond what Renus had reported.

  Renus would be shamed, maybe even suspected of stealing metals for his private use. And Shalit would make his move then. He would make his own report to the new ruler, Lord Kane.

  Days passed, and Shalit busied himself at the ore pits. In this area there were four deep, wide pits, a rectangle of great scars on the slopes below Tharkas. They had begun as scour mines, where armies of slaves had worked with sledges and skids to haul away the soil overburden from the stone below, exposing veins of ore that were then mined with spike and drill. But the pits had expanded in recent months. As the veins were followed, deep tunnels had been delved downward and outward from the bottoms of the pits. Now there was a vast network of shafts deep in the mountain’s underbelly, and the “pits” were only the staging areas for deeper mine operations.

  The layout was well suited to slave mines. The four pits were interconnected by large tunnels, where guards and overseers went to and fro. Each pit had its own slave contingent of about two thousand, and each had a single, delved “cell” large enough to contain all of that pit’s slaves. But there was only one access to the entire complex—a steep, narrow ramp that was always heavily guarded. For the slaves brought to the pits, the world lay beneath the surface. They spent their lives there and escaped only in death, when their bodies were hoisted out for disposal.

  Now Shalit Mileen stalked the floors of the pits, reading his charts, checking his calculations, readying his plans. He spoke only to his overseers, but their words carried to the throngs of slaves coming and going among the shafts and were passed along in whispers.

  “The pit boss is misdirecting his digs,” a broad-shouldered dwarf laden with ore buckets told another. “In that seventh shaft, and in the ninth, he’s hoarding the best ores from all the shafts. The sappers say there’s a fortune in fine, rich ore just waiting there.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know what’s there,” the second dwarf surmised. “Or maybe the sappers lie. Maybe they’re just making trouble.”

  “Not them,” the ore carrier frowned. “Those deep-delvers are all Daergar. They might lie about what day it is, or who got what bowl at slops, but they don’t lie about ore. Where mining is concerned, the Daergar are all fanatic
s.”

  “Then the pit boss is up to something,” another dwarf whispered. “Maybe he wants to save the good stuff for himself.”

  The ore carrier shrugged and went his way, but the rumors spread, as rumors do, and at the midday break for feeding, Vin edged close to Tap. “You heard?” he whispered. “The pit boss is hoarding the best ores.”

  “I heard.” Tap nodded. “What does it mean?”

  “I think it means the inspection is coming soon.” The large-eyed dark-seer squinted as he spoke. “I think the humans are plotting against one another.”

  “Means nothing to us,” Tap said. “I’m more interested in what that Hylar is doing. I’ve been watching him. He’s been busy with his chisel, but for the past two days he hasn’t touched it. I think those rivets are gone, and he’s ready to make his move.”

  “Ah.” The dark-seer nodded. “Good timing. He’s planning to break when the inspectors are here. In the confusion, he just might make it. The humans will be diverted then.”

  “He might succeed,” Tap agreed. “One dwarf alone might slip away. But what of the rest of us?”

  Vin stood silent for a moment, thinking. “With enough of a diversion, we might escape, too. Of course, such a thing could spoil all of the Hylar’s plans, if he is planning a break as we believe.”

  “To rust with his plans.” Tap frowned. “I tried to get him to include us. He refused. It would serve him right if we let him be our diversion.”

  To one side, an old, gray-bearded dwarf paused, set down the slops pail he was carrying, and wiped sweat from his brow with his only hand. Old, crippled, and slow, Calan Silvertoe no longer wore chains. He had been a mine slave as long as most there could remember, and had become as much a part of the pits as the stones themselves. He went about doing trivial jobs such as dishing the slops for the mine slaves’ meals, and hardly anyone ever noticed him. Where his left arm had once been, now was only a short stump, and the weathered features of his face, where not hidden by his whiskers, were as dark and creased as old leather.