“Careful, Silent,” sang out Will, addressing him by the name the rest called him. A good enough name, since he had no memory of a name, only a hazy recollection of hot tears and shouted fury. “There’s a drop right ahead of you. Take a big step and brace yourself.”
From behind the rope pulled taut as Walker leaned back to brace him.
He swung his foot out and felt it fall, and fall, trusting to Will’s directions. The foot struck loose earth, crushed leaves, and the slick remains of charcoal, and he slipped sideways, flailing. The rope snapped tight on either side of him, and he righted himself and dug his toes into the dirt for purchase. There was a reek about this place that tickled his nostrils and made his head spin and his blind eyes ache. His lungs burned each time he took in a breath.
“Get on!” The master’s whip cracked so close that air snapped against his cheek, but he’d taken too many hurts and bruises to flinch.
Walker muttered a curse under his breath as Will tugged on the rope to guide him onward.
“We’re walking through leavings scattered from two old charcoal pits,” said Will, who often described the scenery for him. “They’ve burned down to the ground and been cleared off. There’s a pit—no, two—burning off to the west. I see smoke through the trees.”
“It’s a powerful bad stink,” said Walker. “The air is nigh black with the smoke. Some kind of demons live here, I’ve heard tell. They burn iron out of the earth and smelt it with the blood of humankind.”
“Nay, that’s not so. It’s men I see, cutting wood. What are we for, then, if not to labor in the ironworks?”
“They’ll kill us and pour our blood into molten spears and swords.”
“Work us to death, more like,” objected Will. “Hauling ore. Digging pits.”
“Cutting wood, like them? That’s work that makes a man strong enough to break his bonds and escape.”
“You think they’ll give us axes, to cut our ropes?” Will laughed curtly. “No, we’re for the quarries and the shafts. I do so hate the dark.”
“I hear there’s goblins who live in the ground around here. They eat the flesh of humankind when they can get it. When a prisoner’s too weak to work, the masters lower him down into the deepest shafts and leave him for the goblins, and they pile silver and lead in buckets in exchange. They do love human flesh! They’ll eat a man, bones and all! While he’s still alive!”
“Where do you hear these tales?” demanded Will. “I don’t believe you.”
“You’re a fool not to believe me. Haven’t you seen those demons shadowing us? They look like great black dogs, a pair of them, but they have red eyes and fangs, and they feast on dead flesh! I saw the guards shoot arrows at them one evening. Haven’t you heard them barking at night?”
“Many a starving dog roams the woods. Those who don’t know the woodlands may see any kind of creature in its shadows, but that doesn’t mean they’re really there.”
“Believe what you will. I’ve lived five winters in the forests. I’ve seen dark shades prowling. I’ve seen elfshot shivering in the wind. I’ve fought off wolves. I’ve kissed forest nymphs, but their breath stank of rotting waterweed. If you’d seen what I’d seen, you’d not doubt.”
“The wolves I believe,” said Will. “My aunt’s cousin’s son got et by wolves. Torn to pieces, and him walking home from mass, he was, at Dearc.”
“Wintertide,” agreed Walker. “That’s when wolves’re hungriest. They’ll eat anything. They like fat babies best, though.”
“Hush, you chattering crows!” snarled the man roped in back of Walker. He had a hard, nasty voice, one that stung when its sound hit you, and a particularly bad smell to him, all rotting sweet.
“Hush,” murmured Will, for the others were scared of that voice; their own voices betrayed them when they whispered among themselves at night or responded to the man’s retorts or gibes.
To understand the world around him, he had to listen. He had heard their whispered confessions; they often spoke around him as if he weren’t there. Will had stolen bread from a biscop’s table for his crippled parents; Walker had been caught with a band of starving brigands stealing a lady’s milk cow; the rest were no better, and no worse—many were hungry and the last two harvests had failed. But the one they called Robert never confessed his crime to the other prisoners, and it seemed likely to them that he was a foul murderer.
