Shadows of Moth (27 page)

Indeed, a hundred
Magerian troops stood atop the canyon, staring down at the Elorians
who worked below as if watching a show. They drank from wine skins,
ate salted meat and bread, and laughed as they watched the prisoners
work.

"Faster!"
shouted Overseer Nafar. The whip that sprouted from his arm swung,
hitting a young boy. "Dig, nightcrawler." The whip swung
again, splattering blood across the child's back.

Koyee raced
forward, chains rattling. "Stop it! He's only a boy."

The one-eyed,
one-handed Magerian laughed. "I told you to dig, nightcrawler.
Now I will have to kill another one."

The whip flew again
and again, slamming into the screaming child. Koyee screamed too. She
couldn't resist the rage anymore. She leaped toward the overseer, but
two other Magerians caught her arms and tugged her back. She watched,
shouting, as Nafar beat the child, cutting the frail boy over and
over.

"Please!"
Koyee begged. "Stop!"

Nafar turned toward
her, cheeks red, grinning. "Return to digging like a good
nightcrawler, and I will stab the boy's heart." The overseer
laughed. "Keep screaming like a pig, and I'll keep whipping. It
can take him hours to die this way."

Too weak to fight,
famished and wounded and feverish, Koyee still tried to lunge
forward, to attack. But the Magerians held her back, and she only
lowered her head and nodded. She returned to the canyon wall, and she
dug again. She heard the child's last gasp, and she smelled the
blood.

Be
at peace now,
she thought, tears in her eyes.
The
rest of us will soon envy you, child.

The prisoners kept
swinging their pickaxes, digging out clumps of iron ore. Deeper in
the canyon, great smelters sat upon fires, melting the rocks to
extract the iron. Molten metal bubbled in cauldrons, and smiths
forged fresh blades, helmets, and arrowheads.

With
our blood and tears,
Koyee thought,
we're building the weapons of our enemies.

After what seemed
like turns of digging, the overseer finally blew a horn, and the
Elorians shuffled in their chains toward a chamber cut into the
canyon wall. They entered the crude cave, a shelter for a few hours
of rest.

Koyee huddled among
the others. The cave was so small they all pressed together; they
barely had room to lie down. Cold wind shrieked through the entrance,
and the prisoners shivered. Yet cold as the wind was, Koyee felt hot;
when she touched her forehead, it felt on fire, and her limbs would
not stop trembling. Around her, she saw sweat bead upon brows.
Prisoners coughed blood. She wondered what would kill them first: the
whip, the cold, the hunger, or the fever.

She closed her
eyes, remembering a time many years ago when she had been but a
youth, no older than Madori was now. She had worked in the Hospice of
Pahmey, wearing the uniform of the Sisterhood—a heavy leather cloak,
thick gloves, and a mask with a beak full of herbs. That outfit had
protected her from the diseases that Timandrians carried, illnesses
they were immune to but which ravaged so many Elorians. Now she was
exposed. Now, instead of a healing, she was dying.

Does
my life end here?
she wondered, coughing and huddling with the others in the darkness.
After
all my battles, all my victories, all my pain and joy, do I—Koyee of
Qaelin, the Girl in the Black Dress—fade away in darkness?

"I miss you,
Torin," she whispered and tasted her tears. "I miss you,
Madori. Remember me as I was, a warrior in armor, a brave woman, her
white hair streaming in the wind." She was almost grateful her
family could not see her now, the creature she had become.

"Please,
Madori," she whispered. "If you're alive, run from here.
Run as far as you can. Run and hide."

The Elorians around
her wept, prayed, and shivered, and Koyee closed her eyes, hugged her
knees, and struggled to take breath by breath.

* * * * *

Pahmey's prisoners
entered the mine with screams, the cracks of whips, and the smell of
blood. Madori stared in silence.

Serrated steel
fences surrounded the camp, tipped with blades, and many Magerian
guards patrolled them, clad in dark steel and armed with longswords
and crossbows. Large dogs barked between them, tugging at their
chains, their fangs bared; they seemed desperate to rip into Elorian
flesh. An archway broke these walls of steel, and above it hung a
sign in both the languages of Mageria and Qaelin: "Labor Brings
Light"

Gora, the squat
captain who had led the march here, shouted, "Nightcrawlers,
enter your new home! Move, worms!"

The survivors of
Pahmey, coughing and trembling, hobbled under the archway and into
the camp. Chains jangled between their ankles and wrists, and dust
and blood caked their skin. Madori blinked, barely able to drag her
feet forward. Every last inch of her was bruised, cut, or swelling.
She coughed and tasted blood.

"The journey
is over," she whispered. "Finally over."

She trembled as she
walked. Even in the shrieking cold wind of Eloria's winter, her skin
burned and sweat dripped down her brow. How long had she been
marching? She did not know; it felt like many turns. She vaguely
remembered many Elorians leaving Pahmey, two thousand or more. When
she blinked, looking ahead at the others, she saw only several
hundred. The rest still lay in the wilderness, a long road of death,
fallen to the march. Their bones would perhaps forever mark the path
of Eloria's fall.

And
hundreds of thousands vanished into the sinkhole that was Pahmey,
she thought, shuffling forward with the others.
And
perhaps millions of nightcrawlers now lie dead across the rest of the
night.

She blinked and
clenched her fists.

No!
We are Elorians. Not nightcrawlers. I must never let them reduce me
to a worm. I am Elorian, as pure as any other now. We are a proud
people, even as we bleed, even as we shuffle through the dust. We
will never be the creatures they want us to become.

Gora rode his horse
beside her. "Be a good mongrel." He drank deeply from a
wineskin. Crimson liquid dripped down his chin. "Your little
pleasure walk is ending. Here you will find no mercy."

The prisoners filed
into the camp. Madori, walking at the back, entered last. Here, at
the end of her journey, every step was a battle of will, requiring
all her strength. Every step blazed like a thousand whips. She forced
herself to keep walking. If she fell, she would die. If she fell, she
would never see her mother again. And so she forced herself to keep
going, past the archway, into the camp.

She blinked,
looking around at the swaying world. Several long black tents rose
here, their walls painted with Radian eclipses. Magerian troops moved
among them, armed with swords and crossbows. Iron braziers crackled,
full of red flames; while Elorians could see by moonlight alone,
these soldiers of Timandra needed the light of fire.

Farther back rose a
fine tent of lush, black fabric rich with golden embroidery. Guards
surrounded it, armed with pikes. This was no simple military tent but
a place of wealth. Madori stared at it, her belly knotting.

Serin
must be in there,
she thought.
Maybe
Lari too.

She wanted to race
across the camp, to challenge the pair, to slay them with magic or
with tooth and nail. But she could barely even walk, and a hundred
soldiers separated her from the emperor.

Not
yet, Madori,
she told herself.
First
learn the lay of the land. First find Mother. First regain some
strength. Then fight.

She looked away
from the tent. To her left gaped a shadowy canyon; with the braziers
filling the camp with smoke, she hadn't seen it until now. This was
no natural chasm, she realized, but an iron mine. Cauldrons belched
out fumes below, full of molten metal. Pickaxes rested in a pile, and
Madori shuddered to see bloodstains on the stones. She couldn't see
any miners.

"Line up,
nightcrawlers!" Gora rode his horse around the Elorian
prisoners. "Line up for inspection. Gather here! Line up."

With whips and
spears, Gora and his men herded the Elorians into a fenced courtyard.
Torches crackled and blood stained the stony ground. A butcher's
block rose ahead by a smoking brazier.

"Line up!"

With a few cracks
of the whip, the Elorians entered the courtyard and lined up before
the stone block. Madori swayed on her feet. She wanted to do
something—to flee, to fight, to scream for her mother. Yet she could
barely stay standing, and when once she swayed, Gora's whip bit her
shoulder, lapping at her blood. It was all she could do not to fall.
One Elorian, a young man who stood before her in line, did fall, dead
before he hit the ground. Two Magerian soldiers guffawed and dragged
the corpse away.

Stay
alive, Madori. Just stay alive for now.

"One by one,
to the block!" Gora shouted. "Go on, nightcrawlers, to the
block! You first." He pointed at a pale Elorian man with sunken
eyes. "To the block."

Madori
winced.
That's
a butcher's block.
Her eyes stung.
They
marched us all the way here to behead us.

The man made a
half-hearted attempt to flee. Gora kicked, driving his steel-tipped
boot into the small of the man's back. The Elorian gasped with pain,
and Gora manhandled him forward. The man was too weak to resist,
famished after long turns on the road, broken and bleeding.
Chortling, Gora shoved the man's head down onto the block and drew a
curved, ugly knife.

Madori
grimaced.
Oh
Idar . . . oh stars of Eloria . . .

Licking his chops,
Gora brought the blade down close to the Elorian's face.

Madori closed her
eyes.

She heard the
Elorian grunt, heard the prisoners gasp, heard Gora laugh. She peeked
through narrowed eyelids, expecting to see a rolling head . . . but
Gora had not beheaded his prisoner. Instead, he was using the blade
to shear the man's hair. The brute chuckled as he worked, tugging the
strands violently, cutting the scalp as often as the hair.

"We'll keep
you scum alive for now," he said when the man was finally bald.
His grin widening, Gora grabbed an iron poker from the brazier,
hefted it lovingly, and brought a red-hot brand down onto the
Elorian's shoulder.

The prisoner
screamed. His flesh sizzled. When Gora finally pulled the brand back,
an ugly Radian eclipse smoldered upon the Elorian's shoulder.

"Next
prisoner!" Gora shouted.

Some Elorians tried
to escape, others to fight. Blades quickly thrust into their throats,
and Magerians dragged the corpses away. Most of the prisoners
shuffled forward, too weak to resist, to suffer having their hair
sheared and their shoulders branded.

I
won't scream,
Madori thought as Gora shaved her head, scraping his dulled blade
against her scalp. Blood dripped down her forehead and neck.
I
won't—

When the brand
pressed against her shoulder, she gritted her teeth, and she thought
of the Desolation, of Master Lan Tao, of the dear eyes of Grayhem who
was lost to her. Even as he held the brand against her for agonizing
moments, laughing above her, she did not scream.

Magerians shoved
her back toward the others. The prisoners huddled together, beaten,
chained, famished, and now bald and branded.

They
truly turned us into worms,
Madori thought.
They
preached that we're not human, so they made us less than human.

Suddenly the
Magerian soldiers, who had spent turns laughing and spitting and
singing rude songs, stood at attention. They slammed their fists
against their chests.

"Radian
rises!" shouted Gora, standing stiff, chin raised. "Blessed
be Emperor Serin!"

A trumpet blasted.
Hooves thundered. With a flourish of golden banners, a pair of white
horses entered the courtyard. Upon them sat two riders—two
resplendent deities. Their armor was bright and worked with silver
filigree. Cloaks of samite hung across their backs, fastened with
golden pins. Strings of jewels hung around their necks and gleamed
upon the pommels and scabbards of their swords. The two riders gazed
down at the prisoners with haughty blue eyes, and smiles played upon
their lips.

A beaten waif, only
half-alive, Madori stared up at them and her innards burned.

Serin
and Lari.

The emperor and his
daughter stared at the hundreds of Elorian prisoners. Lari held an
embroidered handkerchief to her nose.

"These ones
stink even worse than the first batch," the princess said.
"Disgusting creatures."

Madori glared up at
the pair, fists clenched. Her father was Serin's cousin—the two
men's mothers had been sisters—and Madori shared their blood, but
she felt as different from these two as a dog from toads. They didn't
recognize her. How could they? If Madori saw herself in a mirror, she
doubted she would recognize herself. She no longer looked like a
fiery mongrel with strange hair; she was now only a starving,
bleeding imitation of a woman, just another branded prisoner, one
among all the rest. Lari had perhaps recognized Madori when first
staring into the locket, but as Madori now stood among the others,
bald and beaten and caked with blood and dust, she blended in—just
another nightcrawler.

Emperor Serin
cleared his throat. He spoke in a deep voice, addressing the
prisoners. "Welcome to your new home! Welcome to Iron Mine
Number One, the first of many that will dot the night. Here you will
aid the war effort. Here you will dig for iron, melt the metal, and
forge new blades and arrowheads and spearheads. With the weapons you
make, we will slay your brothers and sisters. With the weapons you
bleed for, we will crush the rest of the night. For your service,
you'll be allowed to live a few months longer. But be sure, dear
nightcrawlers, you will not live forever. And you will be grateful
for it."