CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

In which the situation becomes (even more) dire.


It was the end of January when I won my chance. Half the workers were confined to the bunk-sheds, shamming sick—some so effectively that they had given up and died. Those of us who kept on our feet felt rough, but it was worth the extra effort since there were more rations available if you did. Eating the stuff was hideous, but it helped fight off the cold.

There had been a light snowfall, with much uncertainty whether the week's transports should be sent out. The weather cleared, so it seemed as though the really bitter grip of winter had yet to descend. A last-minute consignment was dispatched with a scratch crew. Even the wagon master was a substitute. I ended up in the last cart but one. Nothing was said, but I knew what it meant.

We paraded at the fort. A desultory sergeant with swollen, marsh fever eyes came out and stamped our manifest. We set off.

It was so cold they had issued us rough felt cloaks with pointed hoods; we even had mittens so our numb hands could keep hold of the reins. On the uplands, the wind swooped at us from a low, sodden sky, tearing our clothes, so bitter we screwed our eyes into slits and bared our teeth, squealing with misery. The dark line of carts crept along that lonely road, at one point plunging into a dip where the mules skidded through slush and we had to dismount to lead them, heaving back up a sheer slope into the wild scream of the wind. Then we wound across more gray landscape where the low round burial mounds of forgotten kings loomed and were lost again in a fine, teasing mist.

When we halted to have the manifest forged, we were all so badly chilled that for once overseers and slaves seemed one in their agony. The corrupt clerk had trouble: too dark indoors, too windy when he tried coming to the door of his shack. We stood about for what seemed ages, hunched up in the lee of the carts, wretchedly crouching in the slightest shelter from that wind. It had taken twice as long as normal to come this far, and the sky was developing a dismal yellow-gray cast that boded snow.

At last, we were ready for the road again. Two miles to the turn-off at the frontier. The wagon master gave me a wink. The line lurched forward. Starting off with such a weight was always a struggle for the mules, and today with the road in such a bad state, they resented it more than usual. Mine skidded in their iron shoes on the slush that was turning to ice almost as we looked. They plunged wildly; one of the cart's axles stuck—iced up. The jammed rear wheels slithered sideways, the axle cracked, a wheel gave way, a corner of the cart suddenly dipped, the mules screamed and reared, I stood up—then the next minute I pitched into the road, my load jiggered down a ditch, the wrecked cart sagged to one side. One mule had hurt itself so badly we had to cut its throat, and the other had broken its traces and galloped away.

For some reason, everyone else blamed me.

#

There was a long debate about my disrupted load.

Taking it to the riverport meant amending the manifest again, apart from having to haul the extra ingots five to a cart. Besides, mine were four special bars: stolen ingots to be sold to strangers, stolen ingots that still contained their mithril. Not for the riverport! The other cart designated to go south could never carry eight. After much irrelevant argument of the type you get from men who are unused to solving problems at all, let alone while standing on a dark day in the bitter cold, it was decided to leave my load here and smuggle it back to the settlement at Daeroth on the return trip.

I volunteered to stay with the load.

After the rest of the train left, it grew horribly quiet. The few huts along the track were used by local herdsmen in summer, deserted now. I had shelter, but as the weather hardened I realized that if it snowed badly, my companions might be held up. I could be trapped here without food for a long while. Over the uplands came a veil of rain, so fine it neither settled nor fell, but clung to my face and clothes when I peered outside. For the first time in three months I found myself completely alone.

"Hello, Súldil," I said, as if greeting a friend.

I stood and thought. This would have been the moment to escape, but the only reason I had been left there alone was that in the depths of winter, the uplands were too isolated. Anyone who tried to run off would be found dead with the frozen cattle and drowned sheep in the spring. I might make it to the gorges, but there was nothing there for me.

I still wanted to know how the stolen ingots were shipped.

The rain stopped; it grew colder. I decided to act. Bent double, I clutched the ingots one at a time and staggered as far as I could across the ditch and away from the road. I then scraped a hiding place in the sodden earth. That was when I noticed only one of the bars carried the four stamps we used to denote that its mithril still remained. Dunsig was cheating the conspirators: they were trying to bribe the Guards of the Citadel with pure lead! I sat back on my heels. If we told the Guards that, the conspirators would find themselves in trouble, and Elessar would be safe.

I buried all four ingots and marked the spot with a cairn of stones. Then I set out to walk back to Daeroth.

It was nearly twelve miles. Plenty of time to convince myself I was a fool. To keep my feet marching, I had a long talk with Camdaer, my brother. Not that it helped—Camdaer thought I was a fool too.

Talking to a dead hero sounds strange, yet Camdaer was the type of magic character whose conversation made you feel light-headed even when he was alive. Out here, under a bloated sky, a frozen dot trudging over a dark plateau back into painful drudgery of my own free will, talking to Camdaer smacked of greater reality than my own wild world.

Half a day later, on the final stretch, I plunged off the road to take a shortcut across a bend. Modern-built roads go straight unless there is a reason, and there was a reason for the great curve here: avoiding the gullies and pits of a worked-out mine. As I stumbled through chest-high spears of dead bracken, the ground disappeared. My feet slipped on the fine frosted turf, and I shot forwards on my back, crashing down into one of the pits. One heel caught awkwardly as I slid. Nothing hurt at first. When I started to climb out, lancing pain told me at once that I had broken a bone in my leg. Camdaer told me that it could only happen to me in a tone of brotherly exasperation.

I lay on my back, staring at the frozen gray sky, and told my heroic brother a few home truths.

#

It began to snow. Dense silence settled. If I remained in the pit, I would die. If I died, I might atone for what happened to Tinweriel, but apart from the report I'd smuggled out to Calaer—assuming Iorthon found him and managed to make it intelligible—I had achieved nothing else. To die without telling my story would make nonsense of all I had endured.

Snow, cruelly tranquil, continued to fall. I had walked myself into a semblance of warmth, but I could feel the head leaving my body even as I lay. I spoke, but no one answered me now.

Better to make the effort, even if the effort fails. I contrived a splint, as well as I could. I found an old stake and tied it on with the goat hair string I had been using as a belt. It was a poor job, but it kept me upright, just.

I began to lurch on. Back to the Daeroth Mine. I would be useless there, but I had nowhere else to go.

Someone—a woman I know—asked me once, afterwards, why did I not claim sanctuary with the soldiers at the garrison. There were two reasons—or three. One: I still hoped to find out where the stolen ingots were sent. Two: a crazy, skeletal wraith coming off the moor and whining that he was a royal official's personal representative on business affecting the king could only expect a thrashing. Three: not all private informants are perfect; I never thought of it.

I was numb. Exhausted, windblown inside and out. My brain was wrenched about with disappointment and pain. I homed in on the mines. Limping into the current diggings, I stumbled before the foreman Oerndir. When I told him I had left four stolen ingots unattended, he let out a roar and seized one of the pit props we sometimes used to support an overhang. I opened my mouth to say that I had buried the ingots safely. Then, before I could speak, through the snow gluing my eyelashes together, I dimly saw Oerndir swinging the post toward me. It caught me in the midriff, cracking several ribs. My leg gave way, the splint collapsed, and I fainted as I fell.

When they flung me in a cell, I came around just enough to hear Oerndir shout, "Let him rot!"

"What if the bounty hunter comes back?"

"Nobody wants this sniveler back." Oerndir let out his rasping laugh. "If anyone asks, say he's dead—he will be soon enough."

That was when I really knew that I was never going home.