Read Online Dragon Weather by Lawrence Watt-Evans - Free Book Online Page B

each shift, we don’t get fed.”
    â€œYou risked your life over one meal, boy?” Rat sneered. “It’d be worth skipping a meal to see Bloody Hand’s brains bashed out, if you ask me!”
    â€œHey, where’s Lampspiller?” someone asked before Arlian could reply. “He didn’t come down!”
    That created a stir of concern—the miners did know the rules. Each overseer stayed for a single shift—probably twelve hours each—then was replaced by the other. Bloody Hand had been hauled up, but Lampspiller had not come down for his shift.
    And if there were no overseer, there would be no food at the next shift change.
    Arlian’s saving of Bloody Hand’s life was forgotten for the moment as the miners argued and shouted. Arlian ignored the debate and took the bread from Swamp’s hand; Swamp didn’t resist, but simply shrugged, handed Arlian a wedge of cheese, and went back to distributing food.
    Lampspiller did finally descend, by rope, a few minutes later, and promptly laid about himself with his whip, clearing out the pit; Swamp and Bitter hauled the largely empty food sack into one of the tunnels to continue handing out its contents. By that time Arlian had retreated down toward his own sleeping niche in Tunnel #32, gnawing on his bread and cheese.
    He sat on the rags he used as a bed, chewing slowly, and tried to think.
    Had he done the right thing, saving Bloody Hand? Hadn’t the overseer deserved to die for what he did to Dinian?
    He had acted almost without thinking, though.
    He wondered, for the first time, whether when the time came he would be able to carry out the revenge he had planned for so long. What if someday he escaped the mine, and tracked down Lord Dragon and his men, and then was overcome by compassion and could not bring himself to slay them?
    He had never imagined that possibility before, but now that he had saved Bloody Hand’s life, at the risk of his own, he had to consider it.
    Was he too soft, still a child rather than a warrior?
    â€œTraitor!”
    The word was whispered, so he did not recognize the voice, and spoken from behind the shelter of a corner in the passage; Arlian looked up, startled, as an open and lit oil lamp was flung onto his bedding.
    The ancient, soiled rags caught, and Arlian hurried to stamp out the blaze as quickly as he could. The smoke affected his already dry throat, and he found himself coughing uncontrollably even after the fire was out. By the time he was himself again, able to take his own lamp and go looking for his attacker, there was no sign that the assailant had ever been there.
    He stood in the corridor for a moment, then returned dejectedly to his bedding and settled down cross-legged upon it. He poked idly at the scorched part—he would probably want to replace that, he thought.
    The rag pile was under tons of rock, though, so it would have to wait.
    Rags and rock and his oil lamp, and a small collection of mementos of dead companions, were all he really owned down here. Some of the miners had managed to make a few things from broken tools or odd scraps, but Arlian had never bothered. He had no paintings on the limestone where he slept, no carved tokens, no knife or spoon or pen; he had spent what little free time he had talking to others, learning everything he could, thinking about ways he might escape and avenge his family.
    He had told the others of his plans at first, and been laughed at for his troubles; no one else believed that escape was possible. As for an escaped slave avenging himself against a lord, that was equally absurd, and the idea of killing the dragons went beyond absurd to insane. Even Hathet had sorrowfully told Arlian it was foolish, and Arlian had quickly learned to keep his plans for vengeance to himself—but he had never given them up, and was always alert to learn as much as he could, in hopes of discovering some fact that might show him a way out of