The Scavenger's Gift Read online

  The Scavenger’s Gift

  A Merchant and Empire Short-Story

  Alma T.C. Boykin

  Copyright © 2018 by Alma T.C. Boykin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  1

  The loose grey rock slid a little under his boots, and Osbert Maans'hillda planted his staff more firmly in the ground beside the way as he waited for the great-haulers and their wagon to pass down the slope. Downhill always took the right-of-way. No one cared to be in front of a wagon if the birds could no longer hold the load back.

  Beside him, Jens Saxkar frowned and ran a hand over his short beard, then kicked the loose stone with one well-shod foot. "Tailings have shifted with the heavy rains last week. Need to see to that." He pointed up the steep hill with the tip of his own walking staff. "Bad enough for small miners dumping without care, but we know better. The Dark One doesn't appreciate such things." After a pause he added quickly, "Neither does Korvall of the Fields."

  Osbert wanted to fuss at the oversight and hasty addition, but stayed quiet, watching the large birds strain to keep the wagon from sliding over them, even with brakes set and a drag-log in place. He was nearing the Dark One's territory, and correcting the miner might not be wise if he wanted to see the mine. Why Osbert wanted to see the workings, he still couldn't say himself.

  Osbert had met Jens at a miners' tavern. Garmouth lacked a true merchants' quarter, and so Osbert's confraternity rented a floor of one of the larger inns. The sister-lady had recommended not eating there because of a leak in the kitchen roof that had cracked the top of the oven. Instead, he'd gone to The Sign of the Ore Cart. The confraternity had an account there, and the dour sister-lady warned, "Don't eat the fish. They leave it in the grease too long. I'd avoid the white wines as well, too dry by half, but have it as you're minded, sir." That had sounded like every inland guild tavern that Osbert had ever set foot in, and as he walked to the Ore Cart, he'd wondered why inlanders insisted on soaking fish in grease when they fried it.

  The serving man had pointed Osbert to a table near the fire. A group of men sat at bench-tables along the far wall, watching the rest of the room. They drank from custom-made metal and clay tankards, and Osbert nodded to them. He knew the regulars' bench when he saw it. The oldest man had nodded back, acknowledging the salute, and the miners returned to their games of dice and conversations. "We've roast, fish fried, and dark beer as well as smallbeer, ale, and wine, as well as apple spirits," the serving man advised Osbert.

  "Dark beer and roast is good." The bland but filling roasted vegetables and marinated meat—great hauler haunch? A wise man did not inquire—had filled his belly, while the good, heavy bread and the excellent dark beer eased his mind. The Ore Cart had smelled of smoke and food and beer, a little of working men, and had a remarkably clean floor. Osbert approved.

  As he savored the last of his second beer and contemplated sampling the local spirits of apple, a dark man had come in. "Jens, your wife know you're out and about?" the innkeeper had called from behind his table near the fire. Several men had chuckled.

  "She threw me out. Said if I wasn't working I'd better go drinking or she'd start to wonder if a zwurge had stolen my spirit and left one of theirs in its place." One of the men made the horns and spat through them, but the others laughed. "Truth, the shift master told us to break early and take eighth-day so that the maintainers could replace the leathers on the pump closest to our section. The fire-workers will come in at the usual time."

  Zwurge? Eighth-day? Osbert held his peace and decided against the apple spirits. He was no longer so young as he once was, and his head didn't clear as fast as before. After some conversation with the regulars, Jens had crossed the common room and had sat down facing Osbert at the table, accepted a tankard of ale, and raised it, "To good trade and prosperity."

  "To good trade and prosperity," Osbert had echoed, making Radmaar's sign as he did. Just enough remained in his mug to drink the toast.

  "What brings you to the Ore Cart, stranger?"

  "A leaky roof in the kitchen at another inn," Osbert replied. Truth, and not a business question. It wasn't wise to talk business among strangers, especially strangers who supplied the people you were buying from. "I prefer my food and drink without straw, sawdust, and bird-dung."

  "Then don't get bread from the Golden Loaf!" a harsh voice called, and then was shushed with mutters and a firm thump. "I speak truth, Gember as my witness," the man protested.

  Jens shook his head and called back, "That was ten years back, and a different baking master. Which everyone knows, or should."

  Talk about food shifted to talk of other things, and after Osbert bought a second beer for Jens, the dark man had tipped his head to the side, eyes narrowing. "You are here from the north, on trade."

  "Aye," Osbert had replied after a sip of a smallbeer. It tasted sour but fresh, not musty-sour, and cleared his tongue and head admirably.

  "Have you ever seen where your metals come from?"

  The merchant blinked. Was it a simple question, a threat, or something else? Wariness warred with curiosity. "Not yet, unless you mean a smithy." All men had seen those, well, all men aside from the eastern forest barbarians.

  Jens' eyes had narrowed a little farther, then opened again, as if he had weighed Osbert and found him true. "I'm going to the shallow mine in three days. I can bring a guest, provided he follows the rules of the mine."

  "Those are?"

  "You carry a load in and out. No whistling or singing, no magic working before I say, and no bringing silver, gold, or copper into the workings. The Dark One doesn't approve of such at this mine."

  The Dark One? Osbert hid a shudder with a long swallow of smallbeer. No man with any sense crossed the Scavenger. He was almost as long of memory as Donwah, the Lady of the Waters. Osbert knew well what happened to those who offended the gods. Did he dare? He'd never seen a mine, probably never would again, and to say that he knew where the metals that he traded came from...

  "Three days from today, sir?" Osbert said.

  "Aye. Meet me, Jens Saxkar, at the chapel by the western gate as the sun reaches the edge of the city wall."

  Walking back to his own inn, Osbert had wondered what he'd agreed to. Nothing, really, and if he didn't want to go, he wouldn't. He'd dodged a mound of fresh dung and frowned. Well, the night-men would pick that up before dawn so that they could be out to the farms as soon as the gates opened.

  Three days later, Osbert had waited, staff in hand, at a small chapel built into the wall beside the western gate. A stone rat perched on a short pillar beside the door, telling all that passed by just who claimed the chapel. Not long after he'd arrived, the white-painted wooden door had opened and Jens emerged, followed by one of the Scavenger's priests. All Osbert could see of the second man were his eyes. The hood on his cloak covered all else, and the merchant had bowed. "Well met!" Jens exclaimed. "Out and up. We're only three miles from the mine." Jens had not mentioned that the last mile climbed a steep, tree-stripped mountain slope, and that wagons might be coming down as well as trudging up. Now Osbert waited for the wagon to pass and wondered if he'd made the right decision.

  Once the load of rough-processed ore had passed, Jens started walking uphill again. Osbert followed, looking at the ground below and ahead of them. Grey and yellow rocks covered the hillside almost all the way to the stream far below. He saw some tree-roots sticking out of the stony mess, and trunks at odd angles, as if a flood of st
one had carried them down the mountain. Very little grew on the rock jumble.

  "The Scavenger opened the mine for us," Jens began, tipping his head to the right to indicate the downslope debris. "Six days of rain, and then in the night came a rumbling roar that echoed louder than the storms did. My father's oldest brother was on the other side of the ridge," the dark head tipped upslope. "T'was next afternoon before anyone dared look, and they found this. The Scavenger's hand had swept the over layers of the mountain away from the end of a vein. Covered three farms, twenty-seven people, but farms don't belong on the slopes." Jens spat. "Korval and Gember gave flat ground for farms. Hills for wood and metal and stone."

  Osbert wondered what Jens would say about the bog iron men gathered near the Five Free Cities. He'd not seen any land as flat so the tidal marshes and sea-touched miles around Rhonari, Maans'hill and the others, but held his peace. He'd done a great deal of that on this visit so far. Miners and metal sellers... He leaned into the trail, feeling the slope in his legs. Miners were different. He preferred smiths and mages, but only a fool didn't visit his suppliers on occasion, and the higher quality and trade-contracts made up for the locals' eccentricity and tight-fisted dealings.

  He'd been impressed by how they used the mine water, though, he had to admit. What the miners pumped out of the mountain flowed down to Garmouth, drove mills, and then poured into ocher pits where the iron and other bits of metal and clay sank from the stilled waters. The townsfolk used the sludge to paint buildings, or dried it and sold it by the barrel to other cities. Osbert admired the thrift and marveled at the work and the hundreds of vlaats of silver required to guide the water out of the mine, under a smaller hill, and into the city. They'd probably paid several gold kooge by the time all the tunnels were dug, sluices made, and water-gates strengthened.

  "Can you see the vein of ore from here?" Osbert asked as they trudged onto a flat area. Did it glitter and shine like pure metal did? Some ores did, and gold lumps certainly did, based on the two that he'd seen in his years of metal trading. He glanced around but didn't observe anything shining in the late-morning sun. Orange-brown wooden buildings perched on the mountain, clinging to the steep surface. A few trees remained above them, and brush, but not much else. It really did look as if someone had made a mound of dirt and then swept his hand down the side, like a baker taking sifted flour off a pile to measure.

  "Neh. Father said that men could at first, but the Scavenger expects us to work for His largess. We go into the mountain now, five levels down is the newest and lowest. The Scavenger-born ore-sniffers know how to trace the veins, but I don't, not that way. The priests have a map of the richest areas, so I've been told." Jens made a complicated gesture with one hand, as if he were enclosing something and then casting it down. "I mine. That's enough. Leave your staff here," Jens set his in a small bucket.

  Osbert started to protest, then changed his mind. He was leaving Maarsdam's world and entering that of the Scavenger. No one wanted to attract that god's attention or interest, and carrying Maarsdam's symbol so boldly... No. He set his wood and iron staff in the bucket as well and followed Jens over to where a burley man stood beside a hole in the mountain's face.

  The big miner studied Osbert, squinting as he took in the northerner's clothes, or so Osbert guessed. He wasn't dressed on ship-clothes, but close, with a much shorter coat and heavier trousers than usual. The miners wore no coat, instead favoring long vests to just above the knee and heavy shoes or boots, with snug-fitting shirts. Patches of different colors, mostly dark blue, dark brown, and black, protected their elbows and shoulders, and leather over-breeches covered some of the men to just below the knee. They wore hats stiffened with something, or perhaps hard-felted with thin wooden pieces between the layers, like some of the far eastern barbarians used. "You are?"

  "Osbert Maans'hillda, metal trader." Using his title of mastery felt unwise, for some reason.

  "Far from home."

  "Yes."

  The big man gestured with one enormous, strong arm, revealing three missing fingers on a crushed hand. "You may enter. Take an ore basket in. No one comes or goes empty-handed, so the Dark One demands. Work no magic, unless the miners' guild mages approved you, and then only set-spell activation. Will you abide?"

  He didn't really see much choice if he wanted to visit the mine. "I will abide," Osbert answered. He wasn't a mage, didn't even have any in the family unless a very distant cousin-in-law in Marshburt counted.

  Jens pointed to one of the strange willow, wood, and leather contraptions stacked beside the hole in the mountain, and picked one up himself. "Since you are tall, you'll want to carry it on your chest going in. Once you get used to the passages, carrying on the back is easier." The black-haired, wiry man put his arms through the straps, so that the cone-shaped basket hung in front of him the way a sale tray hung. "These have torches and lamp oil in them. We keep a supply down in the galleries. No mage-lights until we reach the main galleries."

  A dozen questions bubbled up, and Osbert asked none of them. Jens tended to explain as he went, Osbert had already learned, but not to answer direct inquiries. Neither did any of the miners Osbert had met this far. He pulled on the basket-like thing, and Jens checked to be certain that the straps on the basket's flat lid remained snug.

  The big man stopped them. "A priest may be coming to bless a new work face. Andru and his team believe they've found a new lead vein, but are not truly sure yet."

  "We'll stay out of his way if he comes," Jens assured the gate keeper. Osbert nodded his agreement. He had no desire to meet a priest of the Scavenger on the god's own ground.

  Jens lit a torch from the pile beside the doorway and beckoned with it. Osbert ducked under the low opening, started to stand, and stopped just as his head connected with rock. "You might find the passages and galleries a little low," Jens said. "Keep my torch in sight, if you can."

  The merchant kept his head ducked down. As they walked down-hill a little, he sniffed. The air smelled damp and cold. It felt cold, but also... What? Not still, because the torch flared and faded with moving air even when Jens stood to the side of the narrow tunnel to let others pass. Empty, that's what Osbert felt. He heard no birds or animals, nor wind in the trees or grass. The only light came from what men brought into the mountain. The orange of the torch shone back here and there. "Water seeps. This is a wet mine, but the rock's very solid. We don't lose many to rock rot or miasmas, Dark One be praised."

  Miasmas Osbert understood. Rock rot? Better not to think about it.

  Jens stopped. "We'll go down four shafts, three or four ladders per shaft, to get to the lower galleries. Grip the sides of the ladder, not the rungs, and plant your feet well on the rungs. It's a hard stop at the bottom if you fall."

  What did he mean? Osbert watched as Jens put one foot on the top of the ladder, then stepped down, using one hand to hold the torch and the other to steady himself on the wooden way. With a gulp and growing fear, the merchant followed. He smelled resin and fat from the torch's smoke, and kept a tight grip on the ladder. When he reached the bottom, he followed as Jens inched along a narrow rim of stone to his left, then stepped onto another ladder. Why were they offset? Maybe it was so that if a basket broke, fewer people would be pelted with whatever was in it. That made sense. Or maybe it was just tradition. The shaft wasn't that large, perhaps two men's thickness across? Osbert couldn't tell.

  As they followed the gallery below the first, highest, level, Jens warned, "It is closer from here in. We only remove what we have to, because the stone requires so much effort to break out and carry up to the smelters and crushers." That made perfect sense to Osbert. Why pay more for labor if you didn't need to? That's what apprentices and offspring were for.

  He sensed the change and ducked just in time, bowing at the waist and keeping his knees bent as well. He could hear the tunnel close in around them. "This is the first in my days I've felt tall," Osbert squeaked, trying to breathe while almost doubled over aro
und the basket. Having it in front made sense now.

  Jens chuckled. "Aye. Rock miners tend to be small and lean. Strong backs and legs are a blessing, but a man can have too much of a good thing. There are stories from the Mine of the Winds of someone who got stuck in a narrow new passage and had to be removed one piece at a time, but those are stories." Osbert didn't like the tone in his guide's voice, as if Jens believed that tale. "Shaft ahead."

  How long they walked, ducked, and climbed down ladders Osbert couldn't tell. The sun's passage and moving stars determined day and night, unless a man or town had one of those expensive water clocks or even a gear clock. The lack of time and sound chilled him even more than the cold of the stone did. When they stopped, he held his breath and listened. He heard trickling water, and a creaking sort of something, or did he? The flickering light threw strange shapes on the stone close around them, pressing in, heavy, too heavy. Osbert breathed again and wondered how the miners stood it? Given how much they earned, perhaps they learned to tolerate the closed-in darkness. Jens studied the remaining length of torch and nodded, moving again. After five steps, the light disappeared.

  Osbert ducked, feeling something brush the top of his cap. The torch ahead of him flared, then rose, disappearing as Jens raised his arm. They were getting close to the working face. Osbert tried to breathe more quietly. A faint sound and vibration reached him, felt through the damp stone as much as heard. They were close to the working face. Osbert thanked the Scavenger for scraping so much of the earth away from the metal veins as he straightened up and blinked. He almost whistled but caught himself in time. "Not bad," he said instead.

  "No," Jens agreed. Osbert set down the basket, untied the lid, and handed the unlit, fresh torches to Jens. The miner added them to a stack. "We found this two years after the Dark One revealed the first veins to us. His priest allowed us to remove half the salt, leaving the rest for the Dark One's glory." Jens led his guest to a heavy pillar that glittered in the red-orange fire light. "Past here we may use mage-lights, but not before. And even here one man keeps a torch. If it changes color, it means leave the face immediately."