The Northern Trantine Hills, Winter 2405-6
After stripping the ruinous town of Scorcio of every scrap and splinter of timber they could scavenge, Lord Cralk’s ratmen horde had marched into the Trantine hills. There, upon the Grey Seer’s command, they had halted atop a hillock. Cralk lay himself down upon a pallet and entered a most strange trance, in which he seemed to slumber, yet his eyes remained wide open, and indeed darted around as if he were watching dancing motes in the air above. When he finally moved again, his leap up surprised all those about him, and then he strode in a straight line from the hill’s summit down, then up, then down again …
… travelling more than 250 chebels until finally he descended into a flat, valley-bottom, his direct course having not altered at any point despite the rocks and thorns in his path.
There he stopped and seemed, for a moment, as if in ecstasy, his mouth open wide, his arms splayed, his tail a-quivering, and he let loose a piercing squeal something akin to that of a rat-ogre pup, but louder and containing indecipherable words as if he were casting some arcane spell. Those about him quailed in fear, as the ethereal force of their master’s mystical rapture pressed against them, sapping the air from their lungs. The moment passed as suddenly as it had begun, and Lord Cralk thrust his staff into the ground.
“Here and now! In this very spot,” he cried. “Dig down, deep and deeper! No less than a quarter chebel wide, and do not stop-cease until I myself order-command you. Make use of the shard to burn-volatilize the stone. Work fast-quick and quicker, and rest not. Spare-save no slaves but employ all necessary-required, regardless of pain and death. Use the timber-beams brought hither to butress-bolster the shaft, and use the the rest to fortify the camp. Now and immediately, work-toil. Make all preparations, in all haste.”
As the army moved to occupy the valley, a mine-head was begun, and (with the demise of several-many slaves) the radiant shard was removed from its lead-lined chest to be mounted at the tip of a brass and cast iron, spear-like device, wound about with pipes and reeds, which the army’s engineer had fashioned in Scorcio while the town was being stripped of wood. This was hung cunningly with ropes and chains so that it might be thrust down into the already begun pit, there to burn the rock with a heat so intense that it was transformed into vapours.
Meanwhile, the rest of the slaves, of which there were a great many, both ratmen and manthings, used the remainder of the timber, of which there was an abundance, the carrying of which had pierced splinters into nearly all of them, to fashion a circuit of palisades and towers, large and small, as well as long wooden huts, with the mine-head at the hub.
After which, as the mineshaft grew ever deeper, guards were set at close, regular intervals, along the perimeter …
… and patrols sent out into the hills to circumnavigate the camp day and night, ensuring that none could approach unseen. One such scouting party spied a company of small manthings …
… riding fat-bellied ponies and garbed in bright yellow and blue, as if they had not a care to hide from anyone. These seemed unafraid, and even laughed, loosing an arrow or two, before they turned and trotted away.
While two days later the whole camp spied several great hawks high in the air, circling as if riding the heat that broiled from the mine-head. The keenest eyed among the guards spied riders atop the beasts, and knew them to be elves, perhaps the very same that they had twice driven from the field of battle, when the magically-stirred storm had forced their winged mounts to crawl upon the ground like giant, feathered slugs.
The taller, fixed towers were garrisoned by jezzailers …
… who had been ordered to loose a shot should they spy anything that might be an enemy, regardless of range, as a warning to the entire camp. Several of the smaller towers were crewed by weapons teams carrying ratling guns.
Most of these suffered considerable frustration at being ordered not to loose salvos until any enemy were close, and indeed there were occasional, short, explosive bursts, invariably explained away as a means to ensure their weapons were still in good working order, and the camp soon came to understand that it would be a single, loud shot that warned of an approach, not the occasional stuttering blasts from the smaller towers.
As well as supervising the mine work, the sedulous engineer had fashioned ingenious rotating towers to mount the warplightning cannons …
… at the rear of which were large windlasses which could be employed to turn the towers, thus allowing the cannons to shift their aim without having to be moved themselves.
As columns of clanrat warriors trudged around the camp, from duty to duty, post to post …
… as well as drilling and exercising …
… and while sentries scanned the proximate surroundings …
… two ratmen stood at the minehead itself.
One, Gurffrick, leaned upon the shoring planks’ rim, looking over at the other, Quorsatch, who stood upon the suspended timber platform which could be lowered down the shaft to carry supplies and labourers to the workings deep below.
“How goes the work-toil, friend Quorsatch? How far deep and down have you cut-carved?” enquired Gurffrik.
“Deep and deeper, but not yet far enough. Many and more slaves will perish-die before this work is completed,” answered Quorsatch, with a kind of manic glee in his voice.
“Is it fast? Speedy?”
“Fast enough to kill and maim by the hour. The sky-stone burns hotter than hell-fire, more than scalding, more than shattering, more even than melting. It reduces stone to naught but smoke-steam, in burst-blasts. Each time its fury is release-channeled, a new cavern-cavity is made, beneath the last, hollow after hollow, so that the shaft burst-bulges its way, one monstrous mouthful at a time, ever further down.”
“Quorsatch, tell-reveal,” said Gurffrick. “Do you know for what and why you dig? I serve-obey willingly, always and ever, but to know why gives better purpose, and would certain-surely make my efforts more useful, more fit for suitable.”
“These things, these secrets, are not for the likes of you and I, friend Gurffrick. Ours is to fear-obey, to labour as command-directed. Not to question. Not to pry.”
“I am no sneak nor spy,” complained Gurffrik. “I want-wish not to pry, but to serve, and serve well.”
“You would do well and better to serve silently,” advised Quorsatch. “Such is best.”
“There are no enemies here,” said Gurffrick, gesturing all around the camp. “All serve, whether they be willing or unwilling, on pain of death. None desire anything other than to be useful-ready, to do that which must be done, and to do it quick and well, whether to gain reward or avoid cruel punishment. Besides,” he added, a conspiratorial note in his voice, “none can hear if we speak-talk quietly. And, most pertinent-clear, you can say what you think-believe. You can say what you suspect. For that is no secret, simply your own thought-notions. Nothing more than that which any and all might conceive, should they have seen-witnessed what you have.”
Quorsatch shuddered, for he had wanted to give vent his thoughts, and he enjoyed imparting knowledge others did not possess. Besides, Gurffrick was right – what harm was there in revealing his own thoughts? He knew not the truth of matter, and could only guess.
For a moment, both he and Gurffrick were distracted, as the smell of hot pottage wafted over – a sickly sweet odour of herbage turned soft and sour, and the tang of fleshmeat scorched by the sky-stone’s etheric heat.
Quorsatch’s belly gurgled, for it had been more than a day since he ate. Few in the camp, who were not slaves, had gone hungry, for the fields about Scorcio had been stripped of every root, berry and fruit, whatever their condition, and there was a daily supply of flesh from the dead slaves forced to work in the shaft and upon the defences – although there were more of the former than the latter, thus the metallic scent as their tainted skin was boiled. He put his hunger from his mind, and spoke,
“Whatever is deep and deeper down, it must be of great worth-value, for the shard we employ simply to dig is certain sure one of the most perfect-pure and piercing-powerful ever known. The underpasses were made by such things, but they were lesser in perfection, for after their burnings, rubble had to be cleared, sand and gravel scratched and scraped from the shattered voids. This most pure shard transmutes rock-stone into vapours. I have never before seen such, nor heard of its kind. The shaft we dig plunges deeper and faster than any ever sunk, at the loss only of slaves’ lives. Many and more slaves. Whatever we seek, it must surely be greater even than the shard we employ to reach it.”
Gurffrick pondered this, then just as he began to speak, Quorsatch hushed him, and gestured over towards the source of a creaking sound – the grinding of a barrow’s axle, as its pusher struggled across the soft, burnt earth aside the minehead.
Gurffrick scowled, but waited, then, as the barrow began it’s descent, he turned back to Quorsatch.
“Friend of mine, tell me, could it not be an even greater shard of sky-stone?”
Quorsatch laughed. “Ha! Impossible! How could it be so? Even to approach near to such would mean death. That which we have takes all our skills to subdue, all the mathematical-magic we possess. Release-channelling its power is an art, arcane and cunning, most finely balanced and momentary, and yet slaves die each and every time. That which was greater still could not be approached, nor handled, nor mounted, nor controlled. To seek such a thing would be foolish-insanity and certain death.”
Gurffrick’s red eyes narrowed, as if, perhaps, he did not believe what was being told to him.
“This is certain-truth, nothing less!” demanded Quorsatch. “Even that which we have we cannot contain fully. It’s power spill-leaks despite all our precaution-cares. Look, see, there!”
He gestured at the three ratmen manning the winch.
“Look upon the last of them. See the bony horns bursting from his spine? He had no such things, not ever, until a week ago. And why so now? Because he crawl-slithered beneath the shard, while it slept, even while our warding spells held it in their embrace, and for but for the merest of moments he was within an arm’s reach of it.
“Its power is contained as best we can, and yet still its tainting caress causes such malform-mutations. He has but weeks, perhaps only days, to live-linger. His doom is writ plain-clear. Anything greater in power would scorch all and everyone who came within a quarter of a chebel, peel-burning their fur-flesh even as they walked, blinding them through smoked glass, boiling their eye-jelly. Its power would burn away even the most powerful magic, like the howling wind whips away even the most piercing of screams. Whatever is down there, if it is mightier than the shard, then none and no-one could approach safely. If it cannot be enspelled nor forspoken by the most learned-cunning warlock, then it would be otherwise a force impossible to subdue-restrain, a power that could never be enclose-contained.”
Gurffrick glanced down at the platform, at the gap between it’s edges and the timber lined walls of the shaft, and could not hide the look of terror on his face.
“Fear not, friend Gurffrick. The shaft is already deep – not beyond measure but beyond that which I have ever known. This is no well, nor borehole. This plunges far further than all such things have done before. We might even reach one of the several hells upon the far side of the world! But whatever is found, it will be far and further from us, and there will be sufficient and plenty enough for Cralk to decide-choose how best to use-employ it – if such can be done. And if it is beyond even his control or ken, then we can collapse the shaft and bury it almost as deep as it began.”
BigSmallWorlds 