"Jones, J V - Sword Of Shadows 02 - A Fortress Of Gray Ice V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones J. V)

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J. V. Jones






A Fortress of Gray Ice







PROLOGUE
Diamonds and Ice
The diamond pipe was hot and stinking, and when the water hit the walls the rock exploded, spraying the diggers with a cloud of dust and steam. Scurvy Pine swore with venom. Hard blisters of sweat rose on his forehead and he wiped them away with a greasy rag. УFires have only been out an hour. What do those bastards think we are? Crabs to be steamed for the pot?Ф
Crope made no reply. He and Scurvy had been working the pipes together for eight years, and theyТd been scalded worse in their time. A lot worse. Besides, speaking took up space for remembering, and Crope had important things to remember today. УDonТt you go forgetting, giant man. You be ready when I give the word.Ф
Placing the empty bucket down on the blue mud of the pipe floor, Crope watched the rock wall as it continued to crack and pop. The fire set by the free miners heated the rock, making it split and break. Water hauled up from the Drowned Lake cooled the walls so quickly, boulders the size of war carts shattered to dust. УSoftening,Ф the free miners called it, making the pipe ready for the diggersТ picks. Crope could see nothing soft about it. Mannie Dun had broken his back pickaxing a seam last spring. Crope remembered carrying the old digger away. MannieТs legs jerked against his belly as the [missing] wasnТt for safetyТs sake; Crope didnТt know much but he knew that. The sealing was to keep the diggers away. Before MannieТs spine had twisted and popped, the tip of his ax had lodged in a rock wall speckled with flecks of red stone. Red Eyes, the miners called them. Red Eyes meant diamonds . . . and diamonds were the business of free men, not slaves.
УPick to the wall, giant man. DonТt go giving me good reason to spread my whip.Ф
Crope knew better than to look at the man who spoke. The guards in the pipe were known as Bull Hands, on account of their oiled and flame-hardened whips. Scurvy said they could take the hands off a man before he even heard the sound of bull-hide moving through air. Crope dreamed of that sometimes; of hands not attached to any living man, clutching his neck and face.
Diamond rock split and crumbled to nothing as Crope took his pick to the wall. Water still warm from contact with the heated stone ran through the cracks at his feet. Above, the pipe twisted up and up, its walls gashed by stairs and pathways hewn from the live rock. Tunnels and caves pitted the sides, marking seams long run dry or walls over-mined to collapse. The entrances to the older tunnels had been plugged with a makeshift mortar of horsehair and clay, for there were some in the pipe who feared shadow things rising from the depths.
Rope bridges spanned the pipeТs breadth, their wooden treads warped by steam, their fibers ticking as the wind moved a thousand feet above. The sky seemed far away, and the sun farther still. Even on a clear day in midwinter, little light found its way into the pipe.
Down below, in the lower tier of the pipe, where a ring of pitch lamps burned with white-hot flames, the hags were at work with their baskets and claws. Scratch, scratch, scratch, as they raked the new-broke ground for the hard clear stone that was valued above gold. The hags were slaves too, but they were old and weak, bent-backed and stiff-fingered, and the Bull Hands did not fear to let them near the lode.
Crope thought he spied Hadda the Crone, in line with the other clawed and sorted. Hadda scared Crope. She had long, sunken breasts shaped like spades that she bared to any digger who looked her way. Scurvy, Bitterbean and the rest looked her way often, but Crope did not like Hadda, and he would not look at her breasts.
When the lash came he was half expecting it. The sting was cold, cold, and it took the breath from him like a punch to the gut. The tip of the whip curled around his ear, licking flesh hard with scars. Tears of blood welled in a line around his neck, and he felt their hotness trickle down his shoulders to his back. The salt burn would come later, when the gray crystals of sea salt that the Bull Hands soaked into their whips worked their way into the wound.
УItТs not enough that they whip us,Ф Scurvy always said. УThey have to make us burn.Ф
УI can smell you, giant man.Ф The Bull Hand pulled back the whip with practiced slowness, drawing the leather through his half-closed fist. He was a big man, hard-mouthed and fair-skinned, with broken veins in the whites of his eyes and the shineless teeth of a diamond miner. Although Crope had seen him many times, he couldnТt remember his name. That was ScurvyТs job, the remembering. Scurvy knew the names of every man in Pipe Town; knew what they were called and what they were.
The Bull Hand thrust the whip into his belt. УYou stink like the slop pots when your mindТs not on the wall.Ф
Crope kept his head down and continued to break rock. He was aware of many eyes upon him, of Bitterbean and Iron Toe and Soft Aggie down the line. And of Scurvy Pine beyond them, watching the Bull Hand, yet not seeming to, his eyes so cold and hard they might have been mined in the pipe.
ScurvyТs gaze flicked to the chains at CropeТs feet. Iron they were, black with tar and dead skin, and they ran from ankle to ankle, from digger to digger, joining every man in the line. УDonТt you go forgetting, giant man. You be ready when I give the word.Ф
Crope felt ScurvyТs will working upon him, warning him to keep swinging his ax. Eight years ago theyТd met, in the tin pits west of Trance Vor. Crope never wanted to go back there again. He hated the low ceilings of the tin caves, the darkness, the stench of bad eggs, and the drip, drip, drip of the walls. Spineless, thatТs what everyone had called him, before Scurvy had made them stop. Scurvy had picked no fight nor raised a weapon; he had simply told the other tin men how it was going to be. УHe carved the eyes out of an ice master who cheated him at dice,Ф Bitterbean had once told Crope. УBut thatТs not the reason they Сprisoned him.Ф
Out of the corner of his eye, Crope thought he saw Scurvy nod minutely to Hadda the Crone.
Time passed. The diggers continued breaking the wall and the hags kept sifting through the dust. CropeТs lash wound began to burn with the hot sting of salt. Softly, so softly that he wasnТt even sure when the sound began, Hadda the Crone began to sing. It was like no song Crope had ever heard, high and wavering and strange to the ear. It made the hairs around his wound stand upright. Other diggers felt it too. At CropeТs side, Soft AggieТs chains rattled as he stamped his feet in the mud. Bitterbean and the others slowed their strikes, and the sound of breaking rock lessened as HaddaТs song began to rise.
If she sang in words Crope did not recognize them, yet fear entered him all the same. High and higher, her song rose, keening and wailing, her voice disappearing for brief moments as she reached pitches that only dogs could hear. Other hags joined in, chanting low where Hadda soared high, rough where she was as clear as glass.
Crope felt a queer coldness steal into the pipe. He watched as the shadow cast by his ax lengthened and darkened, until the shadow seemed more real than the ax. One of the pitch lamps blew out, and then another. And then one of the Bull Hands cracked his whip and shouted, УStop that fucking wailing, bitch.Ф
Crope risked a glance at Scurvy. Wait, his eyes said. Be ready when I give the word.
HaddaТs song turned shrill. The diamond drilled into her front tooth was the only thing that glinted in the darkening pipe. Crope felt sweat slide along his fingers as he raised his ax for another strike. A memory of a time long ago possessed him, a night roaring with flames. People burning alive, precious stones popping from their jewelry in the heat, smoke curling from their mouths as they screamed. Bad memories, and Crope did not want to think of them. Driving his ax deep into diamond rock, he sent them smashing against the wall.
Two Bull Hands jumped down into the lower tier, where the hags squatted as they sifted dust. A tongue of black leather came down upon a thigh, opening skin stained blue with mud. A woman screamed. A basket full of rubble dropped to the floor, sending stones the size of rat skulls bouncing into the hole at the center of the pipe. УThatТs where the diamonds come from, that hole,Ф Scurvy had once told Crope, Уleads right down to the center of the earth. And the gods that live there shit them.Ф
Fear quieted the hags. HaddaТs song rose alone and defiant, beating against the walls like a sparrow trapped in the pipe. As the Bull Hand moved toward her, the Crone set down her basket, straightened her back and looked into the blackness at the bottom of the pipe.