“Did you have breakfast?” Melowin asked him.
“No. I left before Lynette was awake. I had a feeling she was going to offer me more bread, but without the stew this time.”
“Well here, catch,” Melowin said, tossing him an apple. “Mitch had a whole crate of them stored up from last autumn. He said I could take as many as I liked.”
“I hope you didn’t take advantage of his hospitality,” Koradan cautioned him. For Mitch to say such a thing could just be a show of politeness, with no intention that his guest actually follow through.
“Don’t panic, I only took three. I figured that was enough to prove I was grateful, but not too many to leave his family short.”
“Oh, blazing spirits, it’s all so bloody complicated, isn’t it?” Rodgard complained. “We can’t just eat some food and be done with it. It all has to be wrapped up in what the humans are going to think and who we’re likely to offend and who owes whom how much.”
“A couple more days and it should all get simpler,” Koradan consoled him. “But for now, it looks like the village is waking up.” The sun was only just above the horizon in the east, but everyone knew they were going to have a long day. “We’d better get moving. Start clearing some more of that rubble, then see if there’s anything to be done about that lower chamber. Let me just tell Peter where we’re going.”
Less than ten minutes later, Koradan was climbing off Ashd’s back, high up on the mountain road. They met Charrice and Best near the mine entrance.
“Any dramas overnight?”
“Nothing,” Charrice told them. “The mine’s been quiet as a mouse. No tremors, no rock slides. We haven’t been inside, but there’s been no sign of anything going wrong.”
“Good to hear. We’re going to make a start on clearing some more of the rubble. The rest of the village should be up here soon. They were preparing their supplies as we were leaving.”
The next hour or so settled into a routine of sorts, as rocks were pried out of the tunnel and passed back until they were lugged out of the mine and piled into a trolley for one of the vreki to drag away. Muttered conversations discussed the best way to proceed or whether an extra support was needed here or there, and by the time the villagers arrived, they were back to where they’d been yesterday, before the ceiling had collapsed.
“We’ve cleared a lot of the loose rocks from around the blockage trapping the men,” Koradan told Mitch. Best, Raul and a few of the other miners were standing around listening. “And the men on the other side have cleared as much of the rubble as they can. The problem now is that there’s a large slab blocking the tunnel. There’s a gap about half a foot wide on the left side, but it needs to be at least twice that width if we’re going to get anyone out through it. Maybe even wider.”
“Can we break the slab up?” Best asked. “Chip away at one side until it’s wide enough?”
“Possible, but it would take time,” Mitch said. “But the top of the slab isn’t touching the roof.” He’d been inside the mine a few minutes ago to check on the progress. “Could we drag it out of the way instead?”
“A vreki would be strong enough to pull it, but we’d never fit one of them inside the mine. And it’s too far to attach via ropes.”
“I don’t think we’d even get a rope around it,” Rodgard said. “There’s no access on the right side.”
“What if we could get the men on the other side to drill some pins into it?” Mitch suggested. “Then we’d have an anchor point to give it a good heave.”
“And who the hell is going to walk up to a six foot high slab of rock and just give it a good tug?” Raul asked. “You’ve heard what the demons said. The vreki can’t get in there.”
“They’re salases, not demons,” Mitch said, perfectly calmly. “And I don’t know, but at least I’m trying to find a solution instead of standing around complaining about everything.” Suitably chastened, Raul fell silent.
But on the back of Mitch’s idea, Koradan looked around at his men. The five of them were used to working as a team. They were fit and strong. And each one of them could pull at least twice what a human man could. “What do you say?” he asked, looking at each of them in turn. “Attach some pins and give it a good tug?”
“The five of us together?” Sigmore asked. “That’s got to be worth about as much as a vreki, doesn’t it?”
In the back of his mind, Koradan felt Ashd stir with a combination of humour and concern – humour that scrawny, weak salases could think they were capable of a feat of strength anything like what a vreki could achieve, and concern that once again, Koradan was going into the hole in the ground and doing things that could trap him inside.
You want me to just leave the humans in there to die?Koradan asked him. From the looks on their faces and the low rumbles of discontent, the other vreki were having similar conversations with their respective partners.
He felt Ashd’s uncertainty, relieved that the vreki understood the importance of helping the humans, but understanding his reluctance to let Koradan put himself in danger again. In the end, Ashd gave him no clear reply.I’m not going to die, he told the vreki.I’ve been through worse situations in the past, and I’m still here, right by your side.
Stay that way, Ashd said.Miss you.
“I think we could make it work,” Melowin said.
“Bel thinks we can do it,” Sigmore said, grinning at his vreki.
“Of course Bel bloody thinks we can do it,” Rodgard grumbled. “Your damn vreki haszeroaversion to any kind of risk.”
“I think it’s worth a shot,” Koradan said. “Rigolard?”
