“What are we going to do when they break through?”
“Capture the miners,” Tain said. “We have the advantage, knowing they’re coming. We need to talk to the army, and this is the best way I can think of to force someone to listen. We can finally find out what started this, who’s controlling it. We can talk and hopefully have them listen and then send them back out to talk to their leaders.”
A trumpet sounded.
We looked at each other, confused, as it sounded out, mournful and carrying, blaring out from somewhere up ahead, but unaccompanied by the warning bells from the towers to give us a better sense of the direction of the attack. The trumpet sounded again as we picked up our pace.
“It has to be the tunnels,” Tain said. “They must have broken through early.…”
“So much for surprising them,” I muttered, though with a pang of relief that Kalina had not attempted to come with us.
As we entered the district we ran into a line of men and women moving in rough formation toward the sound of the trumpet, clutching swords and spears and led by a shouting Order Guard. We fell in with them. Anxiety twisted inside me. Had the rebels shifted a force in through the tunnel and attacked already? It should have been a small mining team, easy to capture, and we should have been able to do it quickly and quietly.
We made our way up to the Order Guard. “What’s going on?” Tain asked.
“Some sort of attack within the city,” she reported, checking the column of people over her shoulder as she answered. “I don’t know anything else, Honored Chancellor. I heard the summoning horn and came at once.”
Tain pushed ahead and I followed, wincing at the effort the dodging and twisting cost my battered body. My insides felt cold and tight. This isn’t right.
We reached the house containing the tunnel entrance, and found a boy standing at its entrance, shifting the horn between his hands, back and forth. When he saw us he almost dropped the great thing.
“Honored Chancellor,” he stammered. “Quickly, below. They sent me up, but they’re fighting down there.”
We raced inside the house, already hearing the muffled sounds of conflict below.
“I didn’t want this,” Tain said to me, his voice tight.
Someone had left a lamp in the cellar, but as we scrambled down into the tunnel we didn’t need it. Lights surged ahead of us, flickering and bouncing, shadows rushing between them like live things. Metallic clashes and human cries and grunts echoed around. We burst into a thicket of it, finding our own men, packed in too close in the narrow space. The inconsistent light made it impossible to see clearly and no one seemed to recognize Tain as we pushed through, trying to get to the front of the line. I took a rough count: a dozen, twenty …
“Space yourselves out,” Tain told them as we passed. “You’re too close, get some space around you.”
But they only shuffled back and forth, wide-eyed in the flickering light of primitive open torches.
We found the battle itself, such as it was, near where we’d left the Order Guard and messenger. The wall had crumpled away, forming a ragged hole like a monster’s mouth, and through it shadowy figures, tall and broad, held the entrance. Metal rang on metal, and when one figure raised his arms to block a downward strike from one of our men, I saw they defended themselves with shovels, not weapons. In a flash of torchlight their faces showed: grim, dirty, and terrified, holding together, trapped in the space. Not part of the army moving in as a surprise attack, just the miners we had wanted to capture.
“They’re miners,” I said to Tain, having to yell to make myself heard. “Tain, they’re just the miners!”
“Fall back!” Tain shouted, pushing our men back away from us with rough shoves to their shoulders as he moved. “Fall back, stop fighting!” But the weapons kept swinging, and we were jostled around in the half light. Ahead, I saw the Order Guard’s head, clad in a decent metal helmet, sitting higher than the others around him, and his sword chopping down. The space reeked of dirt and sweat and fear. With a scream like a dying animal, one of the miners dropped; I couldn’t see what had felled him, but at the sudden break in their tightly packed defense our attack surged, the crush of men pouring forward into the tunnel entrance.
“Stop!” I yelled, adding my cries to Tain’s, but even as the surrounding men recognized us and fell back, the faces of the miners ahead dropped out of sight. More screams and cries pierced the air as the last miners fell. By the time we reached the front row of the swarm, the miners lay crumpled in the piles of dirt, their shovels fallen around them like careless litter. Tain snatched one of the torches and swung it about, spitting out an impressive string of profanities.
“Get back,” he warned the Order Guard, his face twisted into a snarl, brandishing the torch like a weapon. “All of you, get back.” He knelt next to the closest miner’s body and I dropped down beside him, checking for signs of life.
“Someone get a physic down here, now,” Tain said. “Now!”
I was grateful for the darkness as still-warm blood slipped over my hands and arms while I checked for pulses and breathing. Tain swore, a steady stream under his breath, which grew louder and angrier as he moved from man to man, finding the same as me: dead and dying.
“Hold on,” I heard him tell one man, but when I looked over, hopeful, a horrible dark mass glinted in the torchlight where the man’s stomach should have been, and I looked away again.
“Hey!” someone cried, and behind the clumsy pile of fallen men, a shadow detached itself from the ground in the corner: one of the miners, darting away down the tunnel. I was the closest; I scrambled to my feet and chased after him. Although he’d had a head start, he ran half doubled over, staggering in a zigzag as he ran. I caught him with a wild tackle and he crumpled under my weight, dropping us both in a tangle. He struggled feebly as I wrapped him up from the back, pinning him to the ground with one forearm around his neck.
“Hold still! I’m not trying to hurt you,” I told him, but he twisted his head around to glare at me from the corner of his eye, and spat at me. Tain and the Order Guard skidded to a halt beside us. They helped us stand, me still holding my captive from behind. “We’re going to let you walk on your own,” Tain said. “But please don’t try to run or attack anyone.”
The man stared at Tain. Finally he nodded and I released him at Tain’s signal. Tain addressed the Order Guard as we returned up the passage. “What happened?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you send for us? This is exactly what I ordered you not to do. I wanted to talk to them, not kill them.”
The Order Guard avoided looking anywhere near Tain. He took off his helmet and cradled it in front of his stomach. He spoke down into it. “I called for reinforcements when they started up again, and by the time the backup got here they’d broken through.” The Guard glanced at our prisoner, his tone accusing. “They had weapons, and they attacked us when they saw us waiting on the other side.”
I felt my prisoner stiffen, but he stayed silent.
Tain reached down beside one of the bodies. “They had shovels,” he said bitterly, straightening and brandishing one.
The Guard ducked his head further. “Shovels can kill you as easily as swords, Honored Chancellor,” he mumbled.