Chapter 16 - Red Pinpricks of Eyes

  The bell rang once.

  Tova’s eyes fluttered open.

  Twice.

  He rolled onto his back and sprang up in a smooth, practiced motion, coming to rest on the balls of his feet. I wonder how Erhart will go about finding Elrin—

  Thrice.

  The sound cut cleanly through the thought. Tova’s eyes sharpened, the easy calm draining away as something colder slid into its place. He must really be pissed.

  ***

  The workers stood in the main chamber just before the tunnel split toward the smithing section. Nearly a hundred prisoners filled the floor, arranged methodically, shoulders bare and brands exposed. They were sorted first by section and duty, then broken down again by age as though they were inventory rather than people.

  Tova stood among the tunnel workers near the front, where the youngest were placed, two boys smaller than him occupying the space directly ahead. He remained still, eyes forward, his posture devoid of defiance, just another marked body among many.

  The guards ringed the assembly in a loose but inescapable perimeter, swords drawn and ready. Several of them paced slowly between the lines to ensure nothing went unseen.

  Nothing happened for a while.

  They waited. And then waited some more.

  Time stretched thin, measured only by their aching legs and the slow creep of exhaustion. It became clear that the overseers were in no hurry to end it. The stillness itself was part of the punishment.

  Hours later, boots finally echoed through the tunnels. Every guard snapped to attention at once, salutes rising in practiced unison.

  Erhart emerged first.

  His thin mustache still looked as though it had been drawn on with deliberate care, but his right eye was sealed shut now, three deep scars clawing down over it and carving their way across his cheek.

  Way to go, Lancelot, Tova thought, his expression remaining as rigid as stone.

  Erhart snapped to attention, boots striking together as he raised his hand in salute to the approaching figure.

  Aldwin stepped into the torchlight behind him, tall and broad. His armor caught the flames and threw them back in sharp, blinding flashes, and the massive slab of metal strapped across his back clung and shifted with each step. He rubbed the bridge of his nose briefly, then lowered his hand.

  Then he too snapped to attention, posture straightening as he raised a salute in perfect, reflexive precision.

  There was one more figure moving through the tunnel, still swallowed by darkness, its steps light, barely audible, yet the atmosphere shifted all the same, tightening as if the oxygen escaped the room. There was no thud of authority, no heavy announcement of power, only a hollow sound, brittle and wrong, like two sticks striking stone with every step.

  The figure stopped just short of the light, its long, thin silhouette barely visible where the torch glow began to falter, and two tiny red pinpricks of eyes stared out from the darkness. No one moved. No one spoke. Nobody questioned who that was.

  Gunwald, lord of the mine.

  And for the first time, Tova felt his composure fracture. His breath hitched for a fraction of a second, and his eyes widened—not with fear, but with a sudden, blazing fury. He caught himself at once and dropped his gaze, forcing it to the stone beneath his feet before anyone could notice.

  Calm yourself. He will fall to your blade soon enough. Do not hand him the advantage now. Confuse the enemy. Let him see nothing, he repeated in a practiced manner.

  Tova drew in several slow breaths, deliberately loosening his shoulders, smoothing his posture, letting the tension drain from his stance piece by piece. When he looked up again, the pair of red eyes were fixed on him with a quiet calmness. Something twisted hard in his stomach at the sight.

  A memory flashed unannounced across his mind—his mother sobbing while his father held her close, whispering comforts that never reached her. Between them sat a small box stained red, cradled like something precious and unbearable. Tova caught a glimpse inside.

  Teeth. loose and blood-slicked, clattering softly against one another each time the trembling hands holding them shifted.

  Tova snapped his attention back to reality. His face remained perfectly blank, unreadable, but his right hand trembled without restraint. He clasped it tightly with his other hand, forcing it still, his left fingers digging in hard enough that his nails bit deep into his forearm, grounding him in pain.

  Not now. Not now, he repeated to himself, over and over, until the words became rhythm, until they drowned out everything else.

  Erhart stepped forward.

  The guards shifted subtly, tightening the perimeter without a word.

  “Look at you,” Erhart said at last, his voice carrying easily through the chamber without effort. “So orderly and obedient. You should be proud.”

  A few heads lifted instinctively, then dropped again just as fast.

  “Yesterday,” Erhart continued, pacing slowly along the front line, “something unfortunate occurred within the mine.” He paused, taking his time to look at the faces before him. “A disruption. A lapse in discipline,” he continued.

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  “I dislike disorder,” he said. “Disorder wastes time, productive time. And wasted productivity…” His smile thinned. “…has consequences.”

  He stopped walking. “There is someone missing from your ranks.” A ripple moved through the prisoners despite their best efforts, a few heads looked around.

  “This individual,” Erhart went on, “is dangerous. Not because he is strong, but because he is undisciplined. And undisciplined tools break in unpredictable ways.”

  He glanced back toward Aldwin, then toward Gunwald still veiled in shadow, and inclined his head in a subtle bow.

  “Until this individual is found,” Erhart said, “work will proceed under revised conditions.” A guard stepped forward at the signal, unrolling a parchment.

  “Rations reduced,” Erhart said. “Rest periods suspended. Quotas increased.”

  A quiet sound rippled through the assembly.

  Erhart was about to speak again, his mouth already parting, when he abruptly turned toward the darkness where Gunwald stood. His head tilted as if to catch a sound no one else could hear. He listened with unnerving attention, then gave a few short nods, before facing the crowd again. When the torchlight struck him, sweat gleamed across his forehead.

  “If the missing boy is found,” Erhart went on, “these measures will be lifted immediately. Cooperation will be…remembered.”

  He leaned forward slightly, eyes scanning the youngest row.

  “If he is not,” Erhart said, “then we will assume assistance. And assistance is treason.”

  He straightened.

  “You will work. You will watch one another. You will report anything strange, unusual, or impressive.”

  His gaze lingered just a fraction too long where Tova stood.

  “And if you are tempted to be clever,” Erhart added, almost kindly, “remember this: hiding someone in my mine does not protect them. It simply ensures I take my time when I find them.”

  Silence crushed down hard and absolute.

  Erhart stepped back.

  “Return them to work.”

  ***

  Tova hauled carts back and forth between the Bloomery and the mines, the same path worn into his muscles by repetition. The end of the shift crept closer with each trip, and the thought stayed lodged at the back of his mind. Soon they would be called to the dining hall. Soon after that, he could slip away and return to Elrin.

  Around him, the prisoners still worked hard, hands moving out of habit and necessity. But their faces told the truth their bodies tried to hide. They flinched at the slightest noise, and their eyes kept snapping behind them, again and again.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  The sound of boots striking stone echoed down the tunnel, cutting through the clatter of labor. Every worker snapped their head up at once, dread crawling up spines as bodies went stiff with instinct.

  Erhart.

  He moved quickly, four guards fanning out behind him, his gaze snapping left and right as he took in every face that dared to look his way.

  He stopped in front of Gren, the Steiger of the mine—the one who directly manages the workers.

  “Him,” Erhart muttered, the word barely needing breath.

  Two guards broke from formation at once, seizing Gren by the arms and two others clamped shackles around his wrist before he could react. They dragged him away as he protested loudly, insisting he had done nothing wrong, his voice echoing uselessly through the tunnel as the rest of the workers stood frozen, eyes down, pretending not to see.

  All of them, that is, except Dravan, who looked straight at Tova, suspicion plain in his eyes.

  The remainder of the day passed without incident, smooth on the surface, though even Tova found himself glancing over his shoulder more often than he liked, the habit creeping in despite his discipline.

  When the bell rang twice to signal the end of the shift, he moved quickly, joining the flow toward the dining hall, eating with efficiency and little expression. Before leaving, he slipped a few pieces of bread beneath his tunic, hidden carefully against his side. Elrin would not like it, he knew that, but it was all he could steal without drawing notice, and necessity outweighed preference.

  He took his time through the tunnels afterward, looping wide and doubling back, his pace slow and unhurried, the casual stroll of someone with nowhere important to be. Only after several circuits, once he was certain no one trailed him, did he vanish on the next pass, slipping cleanly into the shadows and making his way toward the training room where Elrin waited.

  ***

  Elrin lay collapsed on the straw beneath him, breath coming in heavy, ragged pulls as his legs trembled uncontrollably from exhaustion. The entire day had been consumed by relentless stillness training, by the merciless grind of pain he had forced his body to endure without movement or release.

  And beneath it all, coiling back into place as if it had never truly left, the hunger in his chest began to rise again, slow and insistent.

  Suddenly, there came a faint sound of footsteps outside, so light Elrin might have missed them on any other day, swallowed by the ceaseless drip of water somewhere in the tunnel. But after hours alone in this room, the dripping had become part of the world, a constant pulse he no longer heard, and anything new cut through it at once, like a fly in milk.

  Elrin tensed. He drew a slow breath, braced himself, and clenched his fist, ready to strike first rather than grant whoever approached the advantage. The steps came closer, soft as dust, and then stopped just outside the entryway, lingering there as if listening.

  “It’s me, Tova,” a voice said from the dark. “Don’t attack.”

  Elrin’s shoulders eased immediately, relief loosening something tight in his chest, and in the same breath he felt a flicker of reluctant admiration. Tova had read him without seeing him.

  Then Tova stepped in.

  He looks…different.

  Not in any way Elrin could name at a glance, not in clothing or injury or posture, but in the thing that sat beneath all of that, the quiet current of his presence. It was agitated.

  “Let’s get to it,” Tova said, already moving, already impatient. “I don’t have much time.”

  Elrin knew at once that something had happened. “What’s going on out there?”

  “You’re going on,” Tova snapped, irritation sharp enough to sting. “You.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The miners are paying the price for your disappearance,” Tova said, and his gaze pinned Elrin in place. “So you had better start training fast.”

  Elrin could not swallow that and move on. “Paying the price? How? What’s happening to them?”

  “Interrogations,” Tova said. “By Erhart.” His eyes held Elrin’s without blinking. “I assume you know what that means.”

  Elrin’s jaw clenched until it hurt. “That’s not right. They have nothing to do with it!”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes it does,” argued Elrin.

  Tova’s expression did not shift, but his voice tightened. “What do you want to do, then? Go back and hand yourself over so no one else suffers?”

  Elrin said nothing, he looked away.

  “And then what?” Tova continued relentlessly. “They dispose of you, and Gunwald continues exactly as he always has. The best thing you can do for yourself, and for those prisoners, is to become strong enough to matter. Only if Gunwald falls does anything in this place change.”

  Elrin nodded once, slowly.

  “Now,” Tova muttered. “Show me what you accomplished all day.”

  Elrin hesitated, somewhere in the mine, someone else was paying for his failure.

  The ache in his body suddenly meant little next to what the prisoners were being forced to endure, especially with the quiet, relentless truth that it was happening because of him.

  He stood up and faced Tova, determination burning like a furnace in his eyes.

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