“That’s fine, we’ll meet you up there,” Morgan agreed easily. “Peter and Best have put a plan together to start securing the main tunnel and try to reach the men. They’ll have to run it past the miners up there, but they both worked in the mine for years before they retired. They’ll walk you and the other salases through it once everyone’s up there.” Koradan had been making mental notes about who amongst the villagers was calling them salases and who was still referring to them as demons. They’d had plenty of people ask them to repeat their names, and several who were still struggling to pronounce the vreki’s names, but there was a clear difference between those who were willing to try and those who saw them as not worth the trouble.
“How’s Peter going to walk up the hill?” Koradan asked Morgan. His first impression of her last night had been of a meek and timid woman, but the more time he spent with her, the more he was starting to see a stubborn streak and a steely determination. Her long, brown hair was tied back in a braid this morning, whereas last night, it had been flying around loose.
“Oh, Peter’s not going,” Morgan said. “It’s been years since he was able to get up to the mine. But Best will take care of it.”
There didn’t seem much else to do, so Koradan waited while Morgan called out last minute instructions to the villagers, then a steady stream of people began filing out of the village along the road towards the mountain. Overhead, Koradan saw Lign and Bel soaring over the houses, heading to the north. Melowin had found a good spot in the forest that morning where plenty of lush bushes were growing, and there was a convenient spot on the cliff face not too far from there where the vreki could land.
“Ready to do some hard work?” he asked Rodgard, as they watched the villagers leave. The vreki were still waiting on the eastern side of the village, with Melowin set to fly on Ashd with Koradan, since Bnaa wouldn’t be able to make it up the mountain. But that didn’t mean the injured vreki didn’t have a role to play. Koradan and Rodgard had both removed their armour during lunch, leaving them both bare chested, and now it, along with all of their swords, lay in a neat pile beneath one of the trees in the paddock, with strict instructions to Bnaa to not let anyone else touch it.
“I’d be more ready if I hadn’t had to eat cakes of dust for lunch,” Rodgard said, lifting his lip in disgust. “Bread, they call that shit?”
“The hadathmet have a very similar food,” Koradan said, wishing Rodgard would keep his voice down a bit. They didn’t need to go insulting the humans’ food, giving them yet another reason to object to the ‘demons’. “It’s not all that strange. Just maybe a bit drier than the way the hadathmet cook it.”
“One of the many reasons why I’ve never been a fan of hadathmet food,” Rodgard said. “Give me a plate of meat over that swill any day.”
“We should head over to the vreki,” Koradan said, hoping to change the subject. Rodgard had been in a foul mood ever since they’d landed here and Koradan was still no closer to getting him to start giving the humans a chance.
“Good idea,” Rodgard said. “Anything to get your girlfriend to stop leering at you.”
“What?” Koradan looked up, and he was surprised to see Lynette standing not too far away, still checking her bag of medical supplies before she followed the rest of the crowd up the mountain. But it was clear her attention wasn’t entirely on her task. She looked up, seeing them watching, and scowled in a way that was becoming far too familiar. Her eyes wandered over Koradan’s chest, a frown line appearing between her eyebrows. Then she glanced at Rodgard and Melowin, both of them equally bare from the waist up.
Years ago, salases had worn shirts, like everyone else in Chalandros, but with the rising temperatures, they had abandoned the practice over the last five years or so. Now, in this world, with its lower temperatures and milder climate, it was entirely appropriate for them to start wearing shirts again. But given that they’d been here for less than twenty-four hours, the quest to acquire suitable clothing was going to have to wait a bit longer.
Lynette turned her attention back to her bag of herbs, but her gaze kept flickering up to Koradan’s chest again. He could well imagine what was going through her mind. The rest of his men bore red stripes across their shoulders and splotchy red marks down their chests. Sigmore, the lucky bastard, had a long, red streak that ran directly down the centre of his chest, all the way to his waist – a marking that made him an instant favourite with salas women. All four of his men were considered handsome by salas standards. Koradan, on the other hand, had not been favoured by the gods at his birth. He not only lacked the large lower canines that were typical of salas men, but his skin was jet black all over, not even a hint of a red streak anywhere on him. ‘Plain’, his mother had called him, trying to find a suitably polite word to describe his failings. ‘Ugly’ was what a lot of the women muttered behind his back, even as his prowess with a sword and his prestige as a vreki rider held the tatters of his reputation together. These days, he’d graduated to ‘talented but ugly’, a designation that would have been acceptable, except for the fact that it was most often followed up by the affronted question of ‘How the hell did he lose his horn?’
Koradan put Lynette’s pointed looks out of his mind. His men were loyal to him. His vreki was happily bound to him, heart and soul. He needed nothing more.
“We need to go,” he said to Rodgard, walking away without checking if he and Melowin were coming. He needn’t waste another moment worrying about what opinion a human might hold of him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Up on the mountain, Koradan led Rodgard and Melowin over to the waiting miners, pausing to given them time to adjust to their presence. Having three demons and two dragons in their midst might be too much even after they’d had hours to come to terms with the strange new arrangement.
But Mitch saw them coming and stood up, crossing the canyon to greet them.
“Thanks for the food,” he said warmly. “By the gods, a corned meat sandwich never tasted so good as when you’ve been trapped underground for twenty-four hours.” His gaze travelled hesitantly over Rodgard and Melowin. “Rodgard, was it?” he said, frowning as he tried to figure out which of them was the one he’d met earlier. It wasn’t the first time the humans had had trouble telling them apart. The salases were having no such difficulties, but then again, they’d been accustomed since birth to meeting peoples of all different species, with a range of skin colours and facial features.
“That’s right,” Rodgard said. “This is Melowin.”
“Good to meet you,” Melowin said.
“The rest of the village is on their way up,” Koradan told the miners. “The road’s clear. Lynette is coming with something to treat your arm,” he said to Vernon, who was looking paler and more tired than the rest of them. “Any news about the mine?”
Mitch shook his head. “We haven’t dared venture inside again. It grates badly to just be sitting here doing nothing, but there’s no point getting ourselves trapped again. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. Not sure if I believe it, to be honest. I’m certainly not sure I’d believe it if I was one of the ones still trapped inside.”
“Best is on his way up with a plan to get them out,” Koradan said. “We’ll get to work as soon as he’s here. We’re going to do everything we can to save them, I promise you.”
Mitch ran his eyes over Koradan, his gaze shrewd and assessing. “Not even twelve hours ago, I wouldn’t have believed the promise of a demon for all the gold in the world. Now it seems I owe you my life. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what to make of that.”
“Why do you believe we’re demons?”
Mitch opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. A deep frown settled on his face.
“That’s what everyone always told us,” Raul said, standing up and coming over. “You hear the same thing every day of your life and you don’t question it. Grass is green. Water’s wet. Demons are evil. We got a whole army standing in front of that damned gate trying to prove it every day. I suppose if someone stopped to ask exactly why that’s the case, then an awful lot of people would have to start questioning what the hell they’re doing with their lives.”
“Ho! Raul! Mitch!” A loud shout came from behind them, and they all turned to see the first of the villagers arriving. There was a long, messy reunion, with friends and family all crowding around, trying to hug the miners all at once. Koradan and his men stood back, letting them celebrate, but the joyful exclamations of love quickly turned to more serious talk. Best explained their ideas to reach the men in the main tunnel, and the rest of the miners offered suggestions for a few tweaks and adjustments, but soon enough, they had a solid plan in place.
“Right then. Let’s get to work,” Koradan said.
