Blue Moon Rising (Darkwood) (17 page)

“Thank you, sir goblin. But remember; if I hear you’ve molested one lawful traveller between here and the Castle, I’ll personally have you strung up by the heels for the moat monster to gnaw on. Got it?”

“Oh sure,” said the smallest goblin. “Us Forest folk got to stick together. Oh yes. Definitely. Not even one?”

“Not even one.”

“Spoilsport,” said the smallest goblin. He grinned, bowed quickly, and hurried after his friends. The guards watched the goblins depart, and glanced respectfully at Rupert. Anyone who could intimidate an entire pack of armed goblins without even raising his voice was clearly a leader to be reckoned with.

“Coppertown,” said the Champion slowly. “We could be there by evening.”

“You know the place?” asked Rupert.

“Small mining town, Sire. Eight hundred people live there, including half a company of guards. It’s not possible Coppertown could have fallen to the darkness …”

“The Darkwood must be closer than anyone thought,” said Rupert. “Eight hundred people … we’d better check it out.”

The Champion nodded grimly, and led the way deeper into the Forest.

The sun was sinking fast when Rupert and the Champion rode into Coppertown. No lights glowed in the miners’ houses, and the narrow streets were full of shadows. The guards eyed the silent houses warily, and eased their swords in their scabbards. Muffled hoofbeats echoed hollowly back from the thick stone walls, the dull sound eerily loud in the quiet. The horses tossed their heads and whinnied nervously. Rupert stared about him as he led his men deeper into Coppertown, and the unshuttered windows stared back like so many dark, unseeing eyes. There was no sign of violence or destruction, but every house lay still and silent and abandoned. Somewhere out in the growing dusk, a door banged lazily as the wind moved it, and there was no one to shut it. Rupert signalled for his men to stop, and reined in his unicorn.

“Sir Champion …”

“Aye, Sire?”

“Hold my unicorn. I’m going to check out one of these houses.”

“I’d be more use guarding your back, Sire.”

Rupert studied the Champion a moment, and then nodded shortly and swung down from the unicorn. There was a general rustling of chain mail as the guards drew their swords and moved quickly to block off both ends of the street. Rupert unstrapped the lantern from his saddle and struggled to light its candle with flint and steel.

“Rupert …” said the unicorn.

“Ah,” said Rupert, “You’ve finally decided to stop sulking and talk to me.”

“I have not been sulking! I’ve been thinking.”

“About what?”

“You mostly. You’ve changed, Rupert.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Well, you used to have more sense, for one thing. There could be any number of demons hiding in these houses.”

“I know,” said Rupert, grinning broadly as the candle-wick finally caught. “That’s why I’m going to check one out.” He closed the lantern and held it high as he moved cautiously forward to study the nearest house. The unicorn made as though to follow him, and then stopped and turned away as the Champion joined Rupert before the gaping doorway.

“Ready, Sire?”

“Ready, sir Champion.”

Rupert padded forward, slipped silently past the open door, and then slammed it back against the wall in case there was something hiding behind it. There wasn’t. The heavy crash echoed loudly on the still air, and the timbered ceiling creaked in sympathy. Rupert moved away from the door and stared about him, the Champion close behind. Dirty straw matting covered the earth floor, and the bare stone walls were discolored by lichen and running damp. The smoke-blackened hearth held nothing but a little coal and some ashes. Four mismatched chairs, one obviously a small child’s, surrounded a roughly hewn table. Wooden platters had been set, as though for a meal. The whole room couldn’t have been more than ten feet square, and the ceiling was so low Rupert kept wanting to duck his head. The smell was appalling.

Rupert wrinkled his nose in disgust. “How can people live like this?”

“They’re a miner’s family,” said the Champion, “which is just another way of saying poor. If a miner doesn’t dig enough ore to meet the overseer’s quota, he doesn’t get paid. If he meets the quota too easily, they raise it till he can’t. Wages are low, and prices are high; the overseers run the only stores. A miner digs enough copper in a day to feed his family for a year, but the penalty for stealing ore is death.”

“I didn’t know,” whispered Rupert. “I just never … thought about it …”

“Why should you?” said the Champion. “You have your responsibilities, the poor have theirs; that’s the way of things.”

“Nobody should have to live like this,” said Rupert flatly.

“We can’t all live in Castles, Sire. Somebody has to mine the copper.”

Rupert glared at the Champion, and then they both froze as a door slammed shut somewhere above them. The Champion hurried over to the only other door at the back of the room and pulled it open, revealing a narrow, rickety stairway. He peered up into the dark, and then slowly mounted the stairs, each step creaking loudly under his weight. Rupert glanced round the empty room, and then followed the Champion, sword at the ready.

The stairway led to the second floor; the same tiny room, this time containing two simple beds, separated by a hanging curtain, only half drawn. The Champion pushed the curtain back to reveal a window, the flimsy wooden shutter banging in the wind. He shook his head, put away his sword, and closed the shutter. Rupert frowned at the two beds; they appeared to have been made up, but not slept in. He thought about looking underneath them, but they were too low to hide anything but a chamberpot. He held his lantern high and stared about him. Something lying on the far bed caught his eye, and he moved over to get a better look. It was a child’s toy; a ragged cloth doll, with crudely drawn features. Rupert sheathed his sword, and picked the doll up.

“Sir Champion; look at this.”

The Champion studied the doll, and frowned. “It’s well past a child’s bedtime.”

“Right. So where is she?”

The Champion shrugged. “With her family. Whatever happened here, I’d say they left together, of their own free will. There’s been no fight or struggle in this house.”

Rupert scowled. “The goblin said Coppertown had been visited by demons.”

“Goblins,” said the Champion, “have been known to lie, on occasion.”

Rupert looked at the doll in his hand, and then thrust it under his jerkin and headed for the stairway. “I want every building in Coppertown searched, sir Champion. Get the guards moving, while there’s still some light left.”

“They won’t find anything.”

“Do it anyway!”

“Yes, Sire.”

The Champion followed Rupert down the stairs, his silence clearly indicating his disapproval. Rupert didn’t give a damn. All right, maybe the goblin had lied to him; certainly demons would have left more traces of their passing. But there had to be some good reason why eight hundred people would just walk out of their homes and disappear into the falling night. Somewhere in Coppertown there was an answer to all this, and Rupert was going to find it.

He stalked through the house and out into the street. The evening was fast becoming night, the darkening sky streaked with crimson from the setting sun. The Champion barked orders to the waiting guards, and soon the town was alive with running figures. The distant sound of banging doors carried clearly on the still air, and lanterns danced through the empty houses like so many will-o-t he-wisps. And one by one the guards returned, having found nothing and no one. Coppertown lay silent and deserted beneath the ebon sky.

“This is a mining town,” said Rupert finally. “Where’s the mine?”

“Just down that road, Sire,” said the Champion.

Rupert shook his head resignedly. “We might as well check it out; it’s the only place we haven’t looked.”

“Aye, Sire. It’s not far; half a mile at most.”

Rupert looked at him thoughtfully. “How is it you know this place so well?”

“I was born here,” said the Champion.

A pale sliver of moon shone in the starless night as the Champion led Rupert and the column of guards down a steep hillside. Lanterns hung from every saddle, glowing golden against the dark, the pale light barely sufficient to show the path the Champion followed. Tall crooked shadows loomed menacingly out of the darkness as the company wended its way through the sparse trees. The wind had finally dropped, but the night air was bitter cold. The slope flattened out suddenly, and the Champion reined in his horse.

“This is it, Sire. The mine.”

Rupert held up his lantern, but the dim light hid more in shadow than it revealed. The mine workings looked old; centuries old. A few ancient half-timbered buildings surrounded a main entrance barely wide enough to admit three men walking abreast. The Champion swung down out of the saddle and stood quietly, his cold dark eyes fixed on the entrance. After a while, Rupert dismounted and moved forward to stand beside him.

“I was ten years old when my father first took me down below,” said the Champion quietly. “The motherlode was running out, and the Barons had cut our wages, to reduce the overheads. My family needed the money, and there was always work for children down the mine. The tunnel that led to the main face was so small my father had to crawl through it on his hands and knees. All I had to do was duck my head. The only light came from the candles in our caps, and the air was thick with dust. That first day the shift was only six hours, but it seemed forever.

“I ran away, that night. I thought I was brave, but I couldn’t face another day down the mine. I haven’t been back here in over thirty years, but that mine still has a hold on me. Funny, isn’t it, after all these years.”

Rupert shot a quick look at the Champion, but he seemed to have finished. The Champion’s face was mostly lost in shadow, but it seemed as calm and impassive as ever. Rupert looked away. He didn’t know why the Champion was telling him these things; it wasn’t as though they were close, or even friends. Rupert studied the mine entrance before him. It was hard to think of the Champion as a boy; a child who laughed and cried and ran away from a darkness he couldn’t bear.

“Sir Champion …”

“We’ll check the buildings first,” said the Champion evenly, and moved away to give the orders.

Light soon flared from a dozen torches set around the main entrance. Guards moved silently through the darkness, searching for traces of the missing townspeople. The buildings proved to be empty, but strange scuff marks were discovered in the tunnel leading down from the main entrance. Rupert entered the tunnel and knelt beside the marks, studying them as best he could in the dim light from his lantern. They weren’t tracks as such; it looked more as though something indescribably heavy had lain briefly on the tunnel floor, crushing and packing the earth tightly together. Rupert frowned; whatever was responsible for those traces, it definitely wasn’t demons. The Champion came back out of the tunnel darkness, and Rupert rose quickly to his feet.

“Have you found anything?”

“Not yet, Sire. They’re in the mine somewhere.”

“We can’t be sure of that, sir Champion.”

“I’m sure,” said the Champion flatly. “Something called to them. Something called to the townspeople, and they left their houses to come here, to the mine. Men, women and children; so many they must have had to wait their turn to file through the main entrance. They’re down there somewhere, in the dark, waiting for us to join them.”

Rupert glanced at him sideways. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the Champion was cracking up. The man had always been a little unstable, but. … Farther down the tunnel, a guard cried out in horror. Rupert ran forward, the Champion at his side, and the guard came out of the darkness to meet them, his face drained of all color. He’d lost his sword and his lantern, but he was carrying something in his hand.

“What’s happened?” snapped the Champion. The guard stumbled to a halt. His mouth worked, but he couldn’t speak.

“What have you found?” asked Rupert. The guard shook his head wordlessly, and handed Rupert a red shoe. Rupert frowned. It was small, too small to be anything but a child’s. It seemed strangely heavy in his hand. He looked into the shoe, and then fought back the urge to vomit. The child’s foot was still in the shoe, neatly severed at the ankle. The shoe was red from dried blood. Rupert passed the shoe to the Champion, who studied it calmly.

“Did you find anything else?” Rupert asked the guard.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t … I couldn’t see much; it was too dark. But the smell … the smell’s pretty bad.” He swallowed dryly and stumbled away, heading for the surface.

“He’s young,” said the Champion absently. “First tour of duty. Never struck a blow in anger, like as not. He’ll get over it.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Rupert. His stomach lurched as the Champion casually threw the bloodstained shoe to one side, and he quickly looked away. “Quite a few of my guards seem equally young, sir Champion. I take it they’re all equally inexperienced?”

“Pretty much, Sire.”

“No wonder the King let me have them.”

“You’re learning,” said the Champion.

Rupert smiled tiredly, and for a moment they stood together, staring down the tunnel into the darkness.

“Well,” Rupert said finally, “There’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s get back to the town.”

The Champion frowned. “Back to Coppertown?”

“It’s better than being trapped out in the open,” said Rupert. “If there are demons here, we’ll be safer behind stone walls.”

“They didn’t help the townspeople much,” said the Champion. “Aren’t you curious about what’s down there in the dark?”

“Not a lot,” said Rupert.

“There could be somebody still alive, deep in the mine,”

“It’s not very likely.”

“No, Sire. But it is possible.”

“Yes,” Rupert sighed regretfully, “It is possible, sir Champion. What do you think we should do?”

“We must go down into the dark,” said the Champion calmly, “And either save the townspeople, or avenge them.”

Rupert felt a sudden surge of empathy for the Champion. In his own way, the Champion was as scared of the mine as Rupert had been of the Darkwood. And like Rupert, the Champion wasn’t going to be stopped from doing what he felt was right, just because was afraid.