Page 15 of The Fire Apprentice (Sylvania #5)
J ane paced carefully along the shadowy trail toward the mine camp. Even if Rowan hadn’t mentioned the suspicious quiet of the location, she wouldn’t have known what to expect. Did the miners dig holes to find iron ore or chip it off a rocky cliffside? Master Smith might know.
A group of people lived and worked at the mine from the spring thaw through the summer and into the autumn. When the snows came, they retreated to the villages at the base of the mountains—many to Woods Rest. Maryanne had had a fling with a lanky miner named Roy one winter. Finding Roy in his undershorts in the kitchen had been a bit embarrassing, but he’d been pleasant enough. And less of a slob than Wells. But he’d headed off to Nor Bay, so he wouldn’t be at the mine camp tonight. Maybe she would recognize other miners from around the village last winter.
She kept her steps light and her breathing quiet. The carpet of pine needles aided her stealthy approach. If anything moved ahead, she could step off the trail into the trees and crouch in the darkness to stay hidden until she saw who, or what, it was. But nothing would move—at this hour, everyone would be asleep.
The night had been quiet before, but now not even a hint of wind stirred the trees. Even the night animals had gone silent as if they’d given up on hunting as midnight passed. The chill air seeped through her clothing. She held the straps of the pack in her fists. Gradually she made out shapes ahead—only more trees, but they had a yellow glow about them. The trail opened into a cleared space and moonlight slanted down on a small wooden structure with a bright lantern hanging on the corner, shining onto the surrounding trees. The shack would shelter a few people and not much else. She paused but no sounds came.
As she crept forward, misgivings stirred in her chest. No one would intentionally leave a flame burning unattended in the middle of forest like this. Had the lantern been left by accident? The small window revealed only an empty space. She came level with the shack and peered into the open doorway on the side. A stool stood in the center of the single room. A shelf edged along one wall and a ledger lay face down on the floor. Jane reached in the doorway to lift the book, releasing a musty smell. Its pages had creased badly while it lay sprawled open. Tallies of numbers with dates covered the pages, ending halfway down the right side. They ended with a date a few quarter-moons ago. She flattened the parchment, closed the book, and placed it on the stool.
Beyond the shack, rows of wheelbarrows waited in the shadows. They were filled with rocks, with piles of rocks on the ground behind them. The rocks glittered in the moonlight. This must be the iron ore on its way from the mine to the trail. Was this the ore Master Smith was waiting for?
A few of the rock piles had long, lumpy sacks draped over them, and more sacks littered the ground. Rowan had said the miners used mules to bring the ore down to where the trail widened into the wagon road. They must load it on the mules in these sacks, then move it off the mules into wagons like the abandoned one they’d passed on the way up. The wagons took the ore down to the ironworks. Or maybe the mules helped the wagons cart the ore down.
A door hinge creaked in the darkness out beyond the wheelbarrows.
Jane darted into the shack and crouched inside. Opposite the window facing the way she had come, a second glassless window faced out toward the camp. She crawled into the shadows at the far end of the shack, held on to the window frame, and lifted herself up to peek out.
A second light shone out in the darkness, moving her way. Beyond the throng of wheelbarrows and nestled among saplings she could now see a larger wooden building, faintly illuminated. Dark woods towered on the left side of the other building. To its right lay more open space, and a sheen of moonlight suggested a broad roof of yet another building slightly downhill from the first. Footsteps crunched on gravelly dirt. Someone carrying a lantern moved into view up the slope. They neared the closer building and moved out of sight. Yellow light brightened. Voices sounded momentarily—aggressive, deep voices. It went dark as a door banged shut.
Nothing else moved. Jane took a slow breath and let it out. She squinted as she scanned across the other building. Was lamplight glowing on the trees at the left side? It was, as if the building had a window there.
Before she could consider what would happen if they spotted her, she darted from the shack and past the wheelbarrows of iron ore into the shadow of the building the person had entered. She skirted along the wall to the back and climbed into the undergrowth. Light did indeed shine out a window on this back side facing the forest.
She crawled under the window. Glass blocked the sounds from inside but muffled voices were speaking. The glass was grimy and smudged with dirt. Hooking her fingers onto the wood below the glass, she raised herself up slowly to peek in.
A handful of people formed a ring in a bare room. They stood facing in, one holding up a lantern, and one person sat in a chair right in the middle with his back to her and with all eyes on him. They were all men and they were all scowling.
Panic filled her as she clung to the window ledge. A rumpled coat lay on the floor. As the lantern moved, its light glinted off an object sticking out of the pocket—the handle of a dagger. And a pile of something orange lay scattered alongside. She swallowed with difficulty. The pile of something orange... it was fire mushrooms. And the dagger—it had tumbled out of Rowan’s pack two days ago and startled her. She’d forgotten all about it.
The man in the middle—his hands were bound behind him. His coat was off. She couldn’t tell his height but his shoulders were broad and his hair was dark. It was Rowan they all watched.
Had they caught him escaping down the mountain? Why would they stop him and restrain him? Or had they been at Sunshine’s peak? That made more sense. Someone had been there and destroyed all the fire mushrooms. And Sunshine had flown away when they came. But why would they take Rowan captive?
She had to hear what they were saying. They might see her if she pressed closer to the glass, but they had only the two lanterns in the center of the room. The edges of the room were dim. And the men all seemed focused on Rowan. As long as she didn’t draw their attention, they shouldn’t regard the dirty back window.
She stood to the side of the window and carefully cupped her hand against the glass, pressing on it to avoid rattling it. Once her hand was firmly in place, she added her other hand and rested her ear between them.
“...nothing there...”
The voices were fuzzy but words came through.
“...go back. Might find something in the light.”
“You think we missed seeing a dragon?”
“He said she fled when he arrived.”
“Why should we listen to him?”
“She might return. We’d be waiting.”
“There’s no gold even if she comes back. We searched.”
“But we could harvest her scales.”
“There’s no magic in dragon scales.” Jane tensed. Rowan’s clear voice rolled through her and tears pricked her eyes.
“You’d hardly tell us if there was,” a man said. “Why were you up there waiting for her?”
“I told you,” Rowan replied. “I’m a visitor from the south. I’m interested in the medicinal properties of fire mushrooms.”
“You’re traveling in the mountains without any supplies?”
“Sounds like a load of dung.”
Jane’s head spun. The men were after Sunshine. They wanted to harvest her scales—exactly what Rowan had worried about. Humans fantasized about dragons with hoards of gold and magical scales. Did they not understand how dangerous Sunshine was?
Somehow the miners had learned about Sunshine. They’d found her location. Jane closed her eyes, cursing as she remembered with dismay her bag at the base of the cliff. She’d given away Sunshine’s location.
These men must’ve climbed up using Rowan’s ropes. Maybe they’d even started climbing the same day that she and Rowan reached the top. Maybe their own arrival had distracted Sunshine and prevented her from noticing the intruders. And these men had been coming closer and closer as she and Rowan made love under the stars. She shuddered.
Sunshine had been asleep when Jane and Rowan returned to the courtyard to lie in the hammock. But her wings had beaten in the night—she’d heard them approaching and taken Elle to safety. Jane warmed in gratitude, in spite of the fact that Sunshine had abandoned her and Rowan.
And Rowan had gotten up and never come back. He must have heard Sunshine leave—he must have gone to investigate. He would have wondered why the dragon was leaving in the middle of the night. Jane should have wondered too, but she’d been tired and Rowan had told her to sleep. And if he encountered this group of men invading Sunshine’s den, what would he do? Would he fight? She couldn’t imagine Rowan pushing someone off the cliff’s edge without giving them a chance, but once the men surrounded him, he wouldn’t have been able to fight them all—how many had been up there?
She’d imagined Rowan abandoning her, stealing Elle, using Jane for vengeance against Larch, even working together with Larch. How could she have thought those things? He hadn’t betrayed her. He’d protected her. He’d kept the men away from the hidden entrance to the courtyard, so they would leave without finding her. And they’d taken him with them.
A chair scuffled as a man in back stood. He stepped toward Rowan and punched his jaw, and Jane winced as the man yelled something about Rowan not telling them everything. Rowan’s head hung to the side, his long hair hiding his face from view as he slumped in the chair.
Rowan would never betray a dragon. But even if he did crack and tell them the truth, Sunshine was gone and she wouldn’t return while any threat remained. Sunshine had escaped and surely she’d taken Elle with her—wherever they were, they’d be safe.
But nothing Rowan could say would appease the miners, not when they wanted gold and dragon scales. Were they even miners? The one in the center was older than the others with graying hair and a lined face, and the rest were men about her age. They could be miners but none of them looked familiar.
She had to rescue Rowan and get them both out of here.
Jane sank to the ground. With all those men she’d have to wait. She pressed her forehead into her knees and willed the men to leave. It was the middle of the night. They must have been climbing and walking all last night and into the daytime. They’d have to sleep. How long had Rowan been tied here? What else had they done to him?
The door on the far side of the building banged again. Jane froze and listened.
“...been dragging this out. He knows something.”
“We’ll make him talk.”
“That climb was harrowing, sir. The men need a rest.”
“Fine. Rest till morning and then I want answers.”
The footsteps faded. Jane stood and peeked inside. Rowan remained in the middle of the room with two of the men. One leaned on the doorframe, picking his fingernails clean with a knife. His head was shaved and his shoulders filled the doorway. The other sat slumped on the floor, carving something into the floorboards. He was shorter and wiry, but he kept stabbing at the floorboards as if he liked hurting things. Only two of them, but she couldn’t fight those men, especially not when they were armed. She had to get Rowan out, but how?
The mine had a crew of dozens. She’d met whole families who spent the season here, with children and grandparents. They couldn’t all be in on a plot to steal riches from a dragon, or to hold Rowan captive until he helped them do it. Where was the rest of the mining crew—sleeping? Did they not know their comrades were holding Rowan prisoner?
Maybe she could find someone to help her.
Jane left Rowan’s pack tucked behind the building and crept around the far side. The waning moon was high overhead and lit the way brightly. The road leading farther into the mine camp was empty and no voices sounded from the men who had left.
She stole out and through the trees until the wide track bent, and the guard in the doorway was out of her sight. She moved toward the track but kept to the shadowy edge under the trees and continuously scanned for movement. The roof she’d glimpsed earlier was on a large, flat building, probably the bunkhouse given its size. A light inside went dark. The next building down with its large chimney and a few wooden tables under a covered porch must be the mess hall. Other structures loomed in the shadows of the trees surrounding the camp. At the bottom of the hill she passed a building padlocked with a heavy chain through the handles of the doors.
The road split. From the shelter of the trees, Jane studied each direction. To the right, the night sky gleamed on cleared ground and the land dropped off with no buildings. Empty wheelbarrows leaned on a fence by an open gate halfway down the path. Maybe that direction was the pit where the workers dug out the ore.
To the left were more structures, so she crept in that direction. The trees opened into a moonlit yard. A large stone structure with a chimney towered over one side, iron tools leaning or hanging on hooks at the side of a hearth-like opening. It had a roof built over it with the chimney poking through. The hearth had only cold ashes in it, but a row of cast iron pots and kettles lined the shelf at the base of the chimney above it. Wooden boxes were stacked under a lean-to beside the chimney structure, and opposite the chimney the ground rose in a strange domed shape. The chimney was similar to the furnace at the ironworks. Perhaps the miners could process ore here at the mine instead of sending it down the mountain. Maybe they had extracted the iron right here at one time and cast items like the pots decorating the chimney.
She circled the clearing, creeping behind the structures, but the forest enclosed it with no roads or trails leading out. The clearing was a dead end.
Movement flickered behind the chimney and she stopped dead. She peered into the shadows. Something had definitely moved. It happened again and an animal snuffled. Beyond the clearing, a ramshackle rail fence lined the trees and a large animal stood behind it, watching her. It had tall ears. It must be one of the mules the miners used.
She slowly let out her breath. When she had calmed, she walked back to the split of the road. The night was eerily silent. No crickets or birds called, and the wind remained absent.
Should she check out the mine pit? The continuous fence blocking the way suggested she should keep out—she didn’t want to slip off the edge of any more scarps. But she hadn’t missed anything on—
A voice murmured somewhere nearby. Jane strained to hear. Where had it come from? It hadn’t been at all like the men’s voices from earlier. She was too far from the bunkhouse to hear anyone there.
Someone sniffled and the voice murmured again. Jane turned to the sound. The building with the chain on the door was behind her. It had no windows, only solid plank walls over a stone foundation, with a stone chimney built into the wall. She tiptoed toward the building, pausing every few steps to listen. The voice kept speaking in soothing tones, like someone calming a frightened child. Jane started around the building and the voice faded. She turned the other direction, and the voice returned as she neared the chimney.
The chimney had a grate in the side for sweeping out the ashes. She knelt beside it and listened.
“It’ll be okay.” A woman’s voice. And someone sniffled again.
This building had people inside. And the chain on the door made it clear they were trapped. Who were they? Given what she’d seen of the people on the outside, helping the people trapped inside seemed a safe step.
“Hello?” she called quietly.
The voices stopped.
“Hello?” Jane called again.
“Who’s there?”
“I’m, uh, my name is Jane. Can I help you?”
The woman hissed a few names and boards creaked with movement. “Jane,” she said clearly. “We’re locked in. Can you get the door open?”
“It’s chained shut. I don’t know where the key is.”
“Could you break the lock?”
“I don’t think so. The chain is massive. And I’m... not.”
“Jane.” A man’s voice this time. “Down the path behind you is the furnace. It has a tall chimney. Can you see it?”
“I saw it.”
“There are tools beside it. Iron tools with long handles. If you slipped one through the chain on the door, you’d gain leverage to help you break it.”
She doubted she’d have enough leverage. But Rowan’s words from days ago came back to her: It doesn’t take much strength if you know how to hold the hammer.
“I’ll try,” Jane said.
She ran three steps back toward the furnace yard but caught herself and slowed, moving into the shadows. She couldn’t get careless. The two men guarding Rowan were awake and not far off, and others might be awake. She circled the clearing and came under the roof of the furnace.
All the tools were iron—tongs and shovels and other, mysterious implements. One bar leaning in a cluster was the longest. She gently lifted it, wincing at the pressure on her hurt wrist. But the bar was so heavy it didn’t budge. She heaved with more force and the bar came up. It grated against the other tools and caught, and all the tools slid sideways with a loud grating noise. Jane grabbed the whole bundle in her arms and cut off the noise with one final clank. Her heart hammered as she nudged the tools upright and held them in place as she maneuvered the one with the extra-long handle out of the bunch. Skies it weighed more than a sack of grain. She worked it sideways until it leaned alone on the side of the furnace and she could stabilize the other tools and let them go.
The bar was solid iron, three fingers thick and as tall as she was. One end flattened and curved ninety degrees into a sideways bar—maybe to pull ashes from the furnace?—while the other end tapered. She hefted it up in both hands and lugged it back to the locked door.
The chain through the door handles was pulled tight. She hoisted the bar over her head and fit the tapered end in between the lengths of chain. The fit was too tight, but by wiggling back and forth she shifted the chain enough to allow the end in. She shoved it down. It made a horrible scraping noise that echoed through the camp. Jane froze, staring in horror over her shoulder and up the hill, but nothing happened. She slid the bar in farther, little by little so the noise of it was only small squeaks, wedging it down until about half the bar was on the lower side of the chain.
Jane closed her eyes. She could do this. She had to free these people and ask them to help her save Rowan.
She pulled the bent end of the tool toward her, straining against the chain. The bar moved out and stopped at a narrow angle with the door. She increased her force, pulling with everything she had and the bar gave a little. It was working! She checked the chain and frowned. The chain was as tight as ever. The bar had moved because the bottom end had dug into the wood of the door.
Could she split the door in two instead of breaking the chain?
Probably not. She braced herself with a foot against the door and jerked on the tool as hard as she could, pulling and pulling. It moved farther into the old wood and stopped, and the chain groaned and bent a smidge. Two links had warped slightly. Jane let off the pressure.
Her strength wasn’t enough and now the tool was lodged farther in the wood. It might get completely stuck. She needed something hard and flat to protect the old door and brace the iron bar against.
What if she flipped the tool around so the wide implement pressed against the door? That would spread out the force instead of concentrating it the way the tapered end did. She hadn’t been able to fit the wide end through the chain before but the chain had loosened a little. She carefully withdrew the tool, little by little until it was free, and rotated it halfway around. It took work to slide the bent end through the chain, but she got it through and repositioned the tool.
She set the tool in place, braced with her foot again, took a deep breath, and pulled. Something cracked. She screwed her face up and focused on the bar and kept pulling. The bar jerked forward and stopped.
A link of the chain was cracked on one side.
It had worked! She leaned the tool on the door and grabbed the broken link with shaking hands. It held the chain together but by turning it she slipped it loose from one side. She carefully unthreaded the chain from the door handles and lowered it quietly to the grass before moving the tool aside and opening the latch on the door. The door swung open.
People inside clustered in the dark, vague shapes in the bare light from the doorway. Anticipation ruffled through them as voices murmured. A man with a deep voice—perhaps the one who had encouraged her—came out first and whispered at those behind him to be silent, and the murmurs died. They squinted as they came out, people of all ages, in a stumbling stream.
The first man turned to Jane. He had shaggy hair and an uneven beard. He towered over her, leaning close, and his face was serious but not threatening. “Who are you?” he asked quietly. “You’re in danger here.”
“I know,” Jane whispered. “My... friend and I were on the mountain, and the miners captured him. They think he knows where to find gold but he doesn’t. They’ve beaten him and tied him up, and I need to help him.”
The last of the people exited the building. They stayed together near the door. They numbered twenty or so, and the moonlight showed their bedraggled state. A mine must be a dirty place, but the people themselves were dirty, with unkempt hair and bags under their eyes. All the men had beards as if no one had shaved in a moon. A few children hung on adults and one man lay unconscious on the ground with another tending him.
“What happened here?” Jane asked.
“A mutiny. Some of the miners got ahold of weapons and poisoned the crew chief. They locked the rest of us in.”
“Why would they do that?”
“They were criminals. They were sent here as their punishment to work. They staged an uprising in Cliffside last moon.”
“I heard about that.” Kitty had been in Cliffside when it happened.
“Do you know where they are?” the man asked.
Jane scanned the mine camp. “Two of them are guarding Rowan in the small building at the top of the hill. The rest went to sleep, I think. I saw a light on over there.” She pointed to the bunkhouse. “They said they’d be back for Rowan in the morning. Please, can you help me free him?”
“Yes. Did you see any guns?”
“Only daggers.”
The man scanned the crowd, gesturing a few times, and a handful of people moved forward. He glanced down at her. “I’m Os, by the way. And you’re Jane, right?” Without waiting for an answer he addressed those who’d gathered around him. “There were at least three guns in camp they might have found. And they have daggers. If we can surprise them all at once, we might stop them without anyone being hurt.”
He began assigning tasks. A burly couple headed to the furnace to retrieve iron tools to carry as weapons, and a woman moved through the crowd with her chin up, consulting on who would volunteer to fight, while another woman gathered the youngsters and some of the adults—maybe the non-fighters, given how timid some of them looked.
“Myra,” Os whispered loudly, “take the—”
“Take the others to safety,” said the woman, whose hair was tied up in a kerchief. Turning, she let out an exasperated sigh. Even in the faint light, Jane could tell she had the deeper brown skin of a far northerner.
Os looked down and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes.”
Myra waited.
“Please,” Os added, and his lips pressed tight.
Myra smirked in his direction before turning back to the people around her and motioning them to follow her. They moved into the shadows of the forest, carrying the injured man.
As they moved away, Os lifted his chin. Ten people remained, all of them muscular with determined frowns on their faces and all focused on him.
“I’ll go to the bunkhouse with six of you,” Os said, “and you three follow Jane to the meeting room.” He pointed and three people separated off, including the burly couple who had gone for weapons. They both had longish hair, with the woman’s braided into pigtails that fell over her bulging arms. Everyone remaining carried an iron tool. “Warin, you stay out here and keep watch in case anything goes amiss.”
Os turned to Jane and her three companions. “We’ll listen for you and move in as soon as you do,” he said. “But try to subdue them quietly in any case.”
“No war cries,” the burly man said, brandishing the iron bar Jane had used to break the lock open, and he grinned.
Os grinned back. “Right. No war cries, Derek. Go on now.”
The three fighters assigned to Jane turned to her. “Would you like a weapon?” Derek asked.
“I don’t think I’d know what to do with it.”
“Here,” said the woman with pigtails, and she handed over a narrow iron rod with bristles fastened to the end to make a broom. “Take this. We’ll take care of the fighting, but if you need to defend yourself, you’ll have something to whack with.”
Jane gripped her broom and followed the three into the shadows and up the hillside. She pointed them through the woods the way she had come and whispered a description of what she had seen through the window. She clenched her trembling hands as they neared. Thank the skies the miners could handle a fight. She clutched the iron broom handle as they took the lead.
They emerged along the side of the building, and Jane hung back as the others moved in with no hesitation. All together they rounded the corner and leapt out of Jane’s sight as the guard shouted. Jane darted after them.
Two of the miners had the first guard in their arms already. They twisted his wrist and his dagger clattered to the ground as the guard from inside appeared in the doorway. The third miner held up the iron bar and grinned as the guard scowled and held up his dagger. The guard moved forward out of the doorway to meet the miner. The fight would be over in a heartbeat but the moment the doorway cleared, Jane charged toward it. She had to free Rowan.
She reached the doorframe but faltered at the sight of Rowan. They’d gagged him since she’d watched through the window. Both his eyes were blackened and blood stained his lip and chin below the gag. His eyes were brown. They widened and he struggled against the ropes binding him.
A hand grabbed her hair and dragged her backward. A knife came at her face.
Jane thrust the iron broom handle up and the knife skidded off it. She kept the handle in front of her face as the knife danced back and forth. The grip on her hair yanked and shook her. She grabbed the arm holding the knife, pulled it toward her, and bit it as hard as she could.
Her attacker jerked and loosened his grip on her hair, and she dropped to her knees as someone behind him pulled him backward. She crawled to Rowan.
His ankles were bound to the legs of the chair. She dropped the broom and knelt before him to work the gag from between his cracked lips.
“My dagger,” he rasped.
Jane scurried to the items strewn on the floor beside him and snatched the blade from his coat pocket. It was tiny compared to the daggers the guards carried. The doorway had cleared and shouts sounded outside. She crawled behind Rowan’s chair.
The rope around his wrists was stiff. She slid the blade between his arms and down and sawed at the top rope. Once it was embedded in the rope, the dagger couldn’t slip sideways and cut him so she worked it faster. Little by little the first rope gave until it snapped free. More people were shouting. She loosened the remaining coils of rope as Rowan wriggled his hands free.
“Give me the dagger.” He used one swift stroke to free each of his legs. He stood and swayed a moment. Jane clambered to her feet and caught him in her arms, and together they stumbled to the door.
The two men who’d guarded Rowan lay unmoving on the ground. The three miners who’d helped her stood out in the road and watched down the hill. Jane and Rowan staggered out and stopped beside them.
Outside the bunkhouse, two groups faced off in the moonlight. Os and his team of seven faced uphill and opposite them were four men—pointing guns.
“We can come from behind,” Derek whispered, panting.
“Wait,” Rowan said in a hoarse voice.
All three turned to him.
“Wait a moment. No one needs to risk anything.”
A shadow flickered across the moonlit ground, running along the path and over the two groups of fighters before veering off over the bunkhouse. Jane looked up. The treetops stirred in the wake. Wings beat in the air and everyone turned, even those at gunpoint. The shadow reappeared below the people, larger and growing as something swooped down onto them. Flames burst into life and people shrieked. Some scrambled out of the way, but the four men with the guns were silhouetted against the brilliant fire. Jane ducked her head against Rowan’s shoulder so she wouldn’t see what happened.
Derek cursed and footsteps pounded away from them. Rowan’s arm came behind her waist. He tucked her head under his chin before closing his other arm around her shoulders. “Hang on,” he said and his arms clenched her like the climbing belt, like he was buckling himself around her, clasping her tightly.
Claws closed around them and with a sickening lurch, her feet jerked off the ground as a dragon carried them up into the night.