Chương 2: Well, Fuck

The sound of picks rang through the cavern, dozens of strikes folding into one long echo. Five minutes in, and Solstice's arm was already numb. Every swing landed heavier than the last. His lungs burned. His vision blurred at the edges. Each breath tasted like cold iron. Lere glanced over.

"You okay?" Solstice dragged his sleeve across his eyes, arm trembling.

"Yes." Same flat cold as always.

"You don't look okay. You look like you're about to pass out."

'Why won't this frostbitten idiot leave me alone. Being hungry is exhausting enough without someone adding pity on top.'

"I said I'm fine." He raised the pickaxe again. Lere lowered his.

"You should take a breath. If you pass out down here, nobody's picking you back up." Solstice's pick met the salt, chipping off a sliver. He looked at Lere, brown hair falling over one eye, and held the look despite his vision swimming at the edges. He lowered the pickaxe.

"What's your deal? Here to make friends?" Lere blinked.

"No?"

"Then why are you acting so friendly?" Lere opened his mouth, closed it, scratched the back of his head.

"Dunno. You remind me of my younger brother, so."

"I'm not your younger brother. Quit it." Lere held his stare for a second, then went back to swinging.

'Ha. I hate this type. Acting like they care, and—' The thought never finished. Something hit the back of his head. Metal hard, sudden. Solstice pitched forward and caught himself on the vein wall, turning back with his face already twisted in malice. A big man stood over him, holding a chunk of raw Pale Salt like a club. Coat pulled up over half his mouth. A jagged scar cutting through his left eye. And a black goggles hanging from his neck.

"Shut your mouth, you nameless runt! Not even twenty minutes in and you're already loud enough to hear over the picks!" Beside him, Lere kept swinging, eyes flicking sideways, saying nothing. Solstice's gaze crawled over the man, the canister at his belt, the thick, well fed build. Not a miner. Never had to swing anything for a living. A Saltbearer.

'Who do you think you are.' The scarred man caught the look on his face before Solstice could smooth it away. Something shifted behind his eyes, the particular look of a man who'd found something to hit.

"You dare look me in the eyes, boy?" The second blow came slower than the first, almost lazy, like he wanted Solstice to see it coming and still not be able to stop it. It caught him across the jaw and sent him down hard, cheek grinding into cold stone. Sound dropped away for a second, just a ringing, high and thin, and the taste of blood flooding his mouth. The man crouched over him, close enough that Solstice could smell salt and old sweat.

"Next time I catch you looking my way, I'll gouge them out myself. Understand me?" Solstice said nothing. The Saltbearer straightened, wiped his knuckles on his coat like Solstice's blood was an inconvenience, and turned to scan the other miners for something else to be angry at. Blood ran warm down Solstice's nose, dripping onto the stone between his hands. He stayed down a moment longer than he needed to, not from pain, but because standing up too fast in front of a man like that was its own kind of mistake.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

'Hit me again. I want to remember exactly who you are.' He pushed himself up. Beside him, Lere kept mining, jaw tight, eyes on the salt instead of on Solstice. Guilt sat plain on his face, useless as it was. Solstice picked his pickaxe back up. Chunks of salt dropped into the cart at his feet, one after another, the rhythm swallowing the ringing in his ears. Minutes of nonstop swinging later, he was close to blacking out. Even so, he kept glancing around, at Lere, at the Saltbearer, at anyone who might be watching.

Because every few minutes, when no one was looking, his hand found a stray shard of Pale Salt and slid it into his coat. He bent double, faking a cough. His left hand slipped under the cart. One crystal. Into his sleeve. Another cough. Into his mouth. The bitterness nearly made him gag, metallic, rotten at the edges, before warmth bloomed slow across his chest and the numbness in his fingers started to fade.

'If they catch me, I lose my head.' He put another speck into his mouth.

'I should be careful. Too much salt, and it'll start crystallizing my insides.' A miner nearby finally snapped.

"Would you stop coughing?" Solstice glanced at him.

"I'm sick."

"No shit. You've been coughing every damn minute since we got here." A few miners looked over. Solstice lowered his head and swung his pickaxe again.

"Ignore him," someone muttered.

"Probably trying to get out of work." Another cough escaped him. The first miner's grip tightened around his pickaxe.

"If you're sick, go wait outside. You're making everyone nervous." Solstice said nothing. He bent over the cart again.

"Hey." He froze. The miner was watching his hands.

"What the hell are you doing under there?"

"Coughing."

"Then why does your hand keep disappearing?" Solstice stared at him for a moment before raising his pickaxe again.

"Maybe my hand is sick too." A few miners snickered. The man didn't.

"Just keep your hands where I can see them, Nameless." Solstice clicked his tongue and went back to mining. Annoying. Another shard disappeared into his sleeve. Then a shriek cut through the cavern. Solstice's head snapped up. A woman came sprinting out of the dark, face white with panic.

"Salt Dwellers!" Every miner froze. The Saltbearers moved as one, fanning out toward the noise. Something stepped into the lamplight, dark green, humanoid, legs bent wrong, teeth overlapping past its lips. A single eye split its forehead.

"SKREEEEEEEK!"

"Eyes up! Hold your line, follow the plan!" One Saltbearer cracked his canister open, scooped a handful of fine Pale Salt dust, and swallowed it whole. The creature lunged, claws first, saliva stringing from its jaw. The Saltbearer thrust a hand out to meet it.

"Expand." The Salt Dweller burst apart mid-air, dark purple blood spraying across the tunnel wall. Silence. Then the murmurs started.

"Thank the Furnace we got one who actually knows what he's doing."

"Right? Not like the last idiot. Nearly got us all killed."

"Still, strange, isn't it? Twenty minutes in and only one's shown up. I was expecting five, easy."

"Don't jinx it." The Saltbearer clapped his hands once, brisk.

"Back to work." Solstice squinted and held is eyes on him a moment longer, then on the black mouth of the tunnel beyond, one hand pressed to his left eye as the searing pain entered behind his eyes.

'If more of those show up in a pack, I run. I've already got what I need.' That was when the club came down. One clean swing, no warning. The nearest Saltbearer went flying sideways, skull meeting stone with a sound Solstice felt in his teeth. Nobody breathed. Something bigger stood where the tunnel dropped into shadow, a Salt Dweller twice the size of the last, one eye bloodshot and rolling, a slab of Pale Salt gripped like a weapon in its fist. The three remaining Saltbearers snapped into formation.

"PROTECT THE SALT!" Solstice watched from the back of the crowd, eyes locked on that single eye, his breath coming faster than he wanted it to.

"Well. Fuck."