After scampering down the mountain for nearly an hour and after passing two horse-drawn carts headed up the road toward Olhav, Vallan began speaking again.
“Do you know why the bloodless set down stakes in the Peaks, guarding its passes?”
My brow furrowed. “Bloodless? Do you mean vampires?”
He nodded slightly. “It’s so humans could not get their hands on our one true weakness and use it against us.” Vallan kept walking, laboring over his choice of words, I could tell, for many minutes before continuing. “It’s not gold, greed, power, not even sunlight we have to fear. It’s a simple, foolish fucking thing—a damned metal that by itself is useless. It’s the entire reason we trade in gold in Olhav, while you wretches trade in copper in Nuhav, and nothing in between. Its power is such it’s been banned in our city.”
Vallan was growing agitated. His words sank in, coupled with the phrase, “the mines.” I clenched my teeth, realizing where myfuture lay—what I needed to get my hands on if I was going to survive this place.
And I spit the word out:
“Silver.”
Chapter 30
The North Mine, as it was called, was a sprawling operation for extracting and refining silver notched into the lower half of the Northern Olhavian Peaks.
We took a weaving road deeper into the mountains to get there. Once we stood atop a cliff face, it all came into view under the moonlight. High bonfires lit up the vast expanse of rocky land. Nestled into the cliffside was a small city’s worth of activity, buildings, and makeshift structures for the operation. There was a sharp, pungent smell of burning metal that wafted in the air up toward the precipice where we stood.
From our vantage, I could see specks of people marching to and from tents, hovels, and deeper into the rock face, disappearing from view. A cavernous opening led underground to a black, depthless pit. Some of the workers took a ladder to descend deeper into the earth where I imagined the silver seams waited for them.
“You . . . run this camp?” I asked Vallan, slightly in awe at the efficiency with which the people below worked. Many carried pickaxes or buckets and wore heavy protective gear and helmets. There were dozens of miners, though I thought the majority of them looked quite scrawny for such laborious work.
Vallan scoffed at my question, shaking his head.
Garroway answered for him, in a cheerier tone. “The North Mine is the property of the Commerce Ministry. Vallan here is a foreman.” He shouldered me and winked. “Touchy subject, as you can tell.”
A hint of a smile formed on my face, one I made sure Vallan couldn’t see.
“Come on, chatter-birds,” the massive vampire grunted.
The mining camp sloped down the lower half of the mountain onto level ground, but the entirety of the operation took place at a slanted angle, with workers either heading into the caves or down into the pit. A large circular fortress billowed smoke in the distance—the location of the offensive scent.
Must be the refinery.Dust hung thick in the air. I had to squint to see through it at times.
Once we passed the first few tents, heading for the pit that stretched at least fifty feet across and spiraled down into the earth, I noticed a few things.
Firstly, the miners lived here. I peeked past a few open flap tents and saw cots, people sleeping, and people waking for their shifts.A hard, thankless life, I suppose.
Secondly, none of the workers wore gloves like Vallan, which I found odd. On closer inspection of their grimy, dirt-encrusted faces, I understood why.
These were humans.Slaves, no doubt.Everyone we passed lowered their gazes to the ground as they walked by Vallan, but I was able to inspect a few of the faces closer and nearly gasped at what I realized.
The long, straggly hair, the wiry builds, the angular faces . . .“They’re all interfolk,” I said aloud. All eight or ten miners we passed on the way to the pit were humans of transition—women born men, and a few men clearly born women.
Garroway’s brow threaded. “What-folk?”
Vallan said, “Halfkeepers, cub.”
Whatever name the vampires had for these forgotten people of Nuhav, it struck a chord with me. “This seems wrong. Why do you have interfolk, exclusively, working your mines, Vallan?”
He glanced over at me with his dark-red eyes half-lidded. With the giant axe on his back nearly as tall as me, his gloves and beard, he put off an intimidating figure who wasn’t used to answering questions.
“They work hard,” he answered simply. He expanded a few moments later as we continued past the pit toward a large tent. “They’re shown more respect here than they’ve ever gotten in their miserable lives. Certainly more than humans give them in Nuhav.”
His explanation caught me off-guard.
“Don’t sound so accusatory, silverblood,” he finished.
