Again, there was a pause, then…Tap, tap, tap, tap.
“Someone’s alive down there,” Koradan said, feeling a rush of fear and excitement.
“Yeah, but how the fuck are we going to get past this shitshow,” Rodgard said, slapping the nearby rock with his hand. The gap that had been created by dragging the piece of slab out of the way was too narrow for either of them to get through.
“Can we move any more of these rocks?”
“I’d say we can, but only from the other side.”
“Think we can just push them through a bit further?”
They tried, using planks and steel poles for leverage, and they succeeded in making the gap an inch or two wider, but still too narrow for a salas to fit through.
“We’ll need a human to get through there,” Koradan concluded eventually.
“I doubt even a human would fit,” Rodgard said. “There’s got to be some other way.”
“What about a particularly small human?”
Rodgard rolled his eyes. “You can’t send one of the children through. First of all, their parents would kill us, and secondly, they’re not going to be strong enough to move the rocks.”
“What about Paul?”
Rodgard paused, then he gave a low growl. It was not a sound of aggression, but one of frustration. “Based on what you said about the way Lynette reacted to you taking him flying, she’s not going to be any more happy about you dragging that boy’s ass into a mine that could collapse at any moment.”
“True. But the question is, how much weight does Lynette’s opinion carry, when compared to the benefit of saving more lives for the rest of the village?”
“That’s a fine line to walk,” Rodgard cautioned him. “Let’s take the worst case scenario. If we get Paul killed, and in exchange for his bravery, we manage to save exactly one more miner, have we actually gained anything? Would the family of the rescued man give us enough gratitude to outweigh the cost of Lynette losing her only child?”
Koradan sighed. “The gods know I don’t want that boy harmed. But on a purely pragmatic basis, it would be an easier decision to make if we knew how many men were still alive down there.”
“That’s a question we can’t answer right now.”
“Fuck. So what options do we have?”
“We can send Paul down the tunnel,” Rodgard said. “Or we can try moving more of this slab and hope that the ceiling doesn’t cave in. Or we can give up and tell the villagers that their men, though they’re alive right now, are going to die a slow and painful death trapped down a collapsed mine.”
“You can be a real cheerful bastard at times, you know that,” Koradan griped.
“You asked me what the options were. So I told you,” Rodgard said unapologetically. “You want to know my opinion on which one’s most likely to succeed?”
“We send Paul down,” Koradan said, not needing to hear Rodgard’s opinion.
“Exactly. I think we should certainly give him the choice. I’m not suggesting we just hog-tie him and shove him through the gap. But a fifteen year old boy with a taste for adventure? He’s not going to say no.”
“And when he says yes, his mother is going to throw a fit.”
“At least Bnaa’s wing has been stitched now,” Rodgard said. “If it heals well, he’ll have a good chance of being able to fly.”
“Are you actually that selfish, or are you just playing devil’s advocate?”
“Honestly, a bit of both,” Rodgard admitted. “But let’s cut the crap, Koradan. Right here, our situation sucks. We’ve been asked to undertake a near impossible task, and if we manage to execute it absolutely flawlessly, there’s averysmall chance thatsomeof the humans in this village will decide that we are not evil incarnate and shouldn’t be killed on sight. Where does that leave us? I think it’s a fairly easy choice when we’ve got nothing to lose. If Paul dies, that’s a tragedy, and we’ll be run out of town, but if we do nothing, we’re going to end up with the same result. So I say we take a risk and see if we can wring a better outcome out of it.”
Koradan felt his heart squeeze in his chest. Paul, or his dreams of an alliance between the humans and the Chalandrians. What a fucking choice.
“Fine. Let’s go get Paul.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
