Valley of Persath

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

The mantra ran through my mind like a prayer at Rendsdown.

Lamp oil smudged off the guard's hand and across my face as he clamped my nose shut, yanking my head back.

The cool glass of a vial clinked against my teeth.

There weren't always dragons in the val-

Acodium filled my mouth and drowned the thought out; all of my senses overloaded - the putrid taste arching my bones.

Limbs flailing involuntarily, I caught the guards' side with my elbow.

“For the love of Thorn, you monster," the dark curse croaked from his chest. In the flickering lights of red and black flame, his lips drew downwards underneath the buttress of his nose. “I’m only trying to help you.”

I swallowed hard, the acodium coating my throat.

“Never asked for this, Gribbs,” I gurgled, resisting the urge to spit bioluminescent flecks back into his face. I wiped them away from my lips with the back of my hand. “But thank you for nothing.”

He tossed the vial into the heap behind him, shooting me a sharp look. His sunken eyes, coffined upon the gray bags beneath them, held his reply: none of us did.

With a shove, I was ushered forward into the preparation row. Another poor bastard - nose quivering in trepidation, throat squeezing - was pulled forward to take my place.

I stared blankly into the darkness ahead, as a mandated jacket was shrugged onto my back, as a helmet was strapped under my chin, as my hands were dipped inside an acodium vat, as the splinters of an axe found a home between my blisters. Each worker behind me stoically received the same.

Moving forward into the depths, backs hunched, our forms faded into nothing but ethereal sets of blue teeth, faintly shining through the holes of helmet ports, and dimly lit hands.

Hands and gods. The only things you could trust down here.

The leftside path was steep. Small pebbles dislodged under my boots and skittered into the pit below, the clattering of their descent lost within the rhythmic peels of steel and stone.

One, two, three…the notches along the rail-wall rippled against my knuckles. Elry had stationed me on notch seventeen today; blood trickled down my knuckles by the time I reached it.

I ran the toe of my boot over the path until I found the rim, swinging over the edge into the ditch. The dirt shook as axes to my left and right rained against the Kala’s ribcage.

Finding the last notch from the night before, I dug my heels into the ground and closed my eyes. Shoulder to axe, axe to stone; the sound of my blade joined in with the rest of the barrage.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I glanced at the stations to the right and left, smiling when I recognized a set of familiar hands. Charpa, wizened and twisted like an oak tree, had very distinctive fingers. I had seen those same hands passing pots and mugs around friendly tables; I had watched those fingers playfully ruffle up his daughter’s hair as she ran off to play.

It shouldn’t really matter if the workers beside you were strangers or friends, but there was a sense of comfort in it. Just the simple knowledge that you weren’t fully alone.

Every twenty swings, I laid the axe against the ribcage and pressed my hands to the wall, feeling for any increase in heat that might indicate a steam vent within. It was the best part of every shift - small moments when I felt grounded and things felt real.

The smooth swaths of stone reminded me of the river - and if I let my mind drift I could almost taste the sweet flavor of honied-chipper candies, hear the laughter of my friends, and feel the cool splashes of water against my face. Each jagged edge that popped up reminded me of the crystal booths at the Olkra, the smell of dust and sunlight, my father’s hand engulfing mine as I peeked into the baskets of purple and pink rocks.

I followed the wall until the heat became too much and I had to pull back. There was definitely a steam vent up on marker four. I reached into the jacket pocket and pulled out the small container of dyed acodium, dipping a finger in and swabbing the gold liquid along the marker, being careful to use as little as possible.

Harvesting the protective saliva was no easy feat; the bosses parted with it begrudgingly - and punished anyone who wasted the resource. But I didn’t use it sparingly for their sake. None of us did. It was the acodium harvesters that held us back from pouring the blasted bottles right out onto the ground and dancing in it.

If we thought we had it bad down in the Kala, one could only imagine what it would be like to work in the caves above. And harvesting had to be especially horrifying, being face to face with those monsters, reaching your hands into their mouths and scooping their spit into pouches - praying that all of you would come back out.

There was no need to create extra work for our own.

Time moved slowly, the repetition of it all eating away at the hours and my sanity. Even the allotted surface break did absolutely nothing to revive me. The flask they passed around reeked of coal and sweat, the spring water spoiling the second it hit our throats. Charpa lifted his head and gave me a small smile in the dim moonlight of the tunnel entrance.

Collectively, we took a deep breath, gathered up our gear and headed back, weary legs leaving clouds of dust in our wake, grumblings held back only by self-preservation.

Nearing the end of my shift, I had to force my body to keep going - force my hands not to linger on the wall, my head not to lie against it.

It was on the twelfth swing out of a set that I was jolted to full wake.

Stone sent distinctive ripples through your muscles when you struck it - so did dragon’s coal. This, I frowned, felt entirely unfamiliar - like sap running through my shoulder, pangs like a froth-switch branching down through my arm.

I laid my axe against the wall, probing against the stone. A small fissure had opened, a fruitless result of hours of hard labor, and I carefully ran my fingers along its seam. Something wasn’t right. My fingernails chipped against rimmed edges, small lines and circles that felt almost deliberate. I had been working in the Kala for five years and had never felt earth shaped like this. Glancing up at the wall, I stared at the golden smudge I had placed earlier. The fissure ran a little closer to it than I would like, but…how often was there something new in the Kala? I needed to feel how far back it ran.

Reaching farther back, I traced the lines, gritting my teeth against the steadily increasing heat. By the time I was up to my elbow within the rib cage, I could have sworn that the lines formed a pattern - each rim and circle leading into the next set, and the next.

I twisted my head to the side. “Hey, Charpa!” I tried raising my voice over the noise in the beginning of a question - but permission to ask was denied by a deep roar.

A dragon’s roar, heard from within the rest of the valley was monsterous - a dragon’s roar from within the Kala was a rebirth.

A rumble sent tremors through the ceiling, pouring down dirt and stones like rain. A higher pitch crescendoed and ran through the twines of my boots, up the backs of my legs, and deep into my spine. Men had had their minds addled by less all encompassing experiences.

In this instance, it wasn’t my mind that paid the price but my body. The shaking knocked me forward, pushing my hand off the seam and directly into the vent.

Screaming, I wrenched my hand out of the wall and fell to the ground, chunks of earth pelting my back. The pain was searing, and white spots danced at the edge of my vision.

Arm cradled to my chest, I folded my body around the injured limb. And for a moment, there in the darkness, my mind drifted into despair. I could see it all: empty pots and barren plates, my father curled in the corner of our shack, bones rapidly protruding beneath palloring skin. Beloa the milk cow would dry up and she would sink into the grass for the last time.

Silence befell the Kala as the last of the roar drifted away. Somewhere far in the distance the shrill sound of a whistle joined the ringing in my ears. Time to get up. Time to get up. The thought battered at me, but I couldn’t make my legs move. Time to get up. Raise your hand. Let them know you’re okay. Time to get up. A frustrated grunt wrent from my throat, echoing throughout the chamber. The effort sent dirt into my throat, triggering a coughing fit.

It was Charpa’s large hands that pulled me out from underneath my thoughts and all of the loose pebbles.

“Elwith! Elwith!” he gripped my shoulders, giving me what he, assumably, believed was a gentle shake.

“Are you all right?”

The white spots faded and I squinted at him, spitting out a piece of gravel. It didn’t matter if he could see my expression or not - the feeling would carry into my tone. “Do I look all right?”

He muttered what had to have been a curse. “You know I can’t see yo-” His retort cut short as the smell of burnt flesh finally reached his nose. Weakly, I lifted my arm up for his appraisal. Clear fluid leaked from the burn - the red of raw flesh a murky swirl beneath the acodium coating.

“Seven suns, girl,” concern tinged his voice, “We need to get you out of here.”

I wanted to argue, but the fresh pain of being pulled upright, good arm slung over his shoulder, prevented it.

“We need help down here!” his bellows were wince inducing. The distance between my station and the tunnel was a blur. If he slung me over the rail, I don’t remember it. The guards must have met us halfway, though, because I do remember that there were suddenly at least two more sets of hands gripping me and pulling me forward.

The dim light of daybreak hit me like a bucket of cold water to the face.

Charpa set me down on an overturned vat by the entrance. Squinting, I saw that he was bleeding, a small line running from his scalp down his jacket collar.

“A-are you allri-”

“Hush, girl.” He grabbed a flask from one of the guards, pulled my helmet off, and pressed it to my lips. “I’m fine.”

I closed my eyes, forcing my thoughts to calm down, my heart to stop pounding. Fear was not a good look here.

“You, there! Get back to work!” Rilien, the coalmaster - making a rare appearance above ground - stormed out of the tunnel, pointing a crooked finger at Charpa.

“I was just making sure this worker was safe, Sir,” Charpa’s measured response did nothing to alleviate the coalmaster’s anger.

“And you’ve helped her well,” he snapped, his short stride rapidly covering the ground between us. “You’re no longer needed.”

Hesitantly, my friend stepped back, brushing strands of gray hair out of his face. His eyes sought mine with concern and our gazes met, the unspoken message hovering in the air between us: a worthless hand could mean ruin. We both knew it. Everyone knew it.

Go, I mouthed, and he turned his back just as Rilien reached my side, not even stopping to clean the blood away from his face.

“Blasted wench,” the vitriol filled scolding traveled on breath that smelled of whiskey and musk. “You know better than to go near the vents.”

“I know, Sir; I’m sorry, Sir.” The contritness was a bitter pill upon my tongue, but I swallowed it willingly; anything to avoid angering him further. “I got pushed forward by the roar. I wasn’t expecting one at this hour.”

Rilien narrowed his eyes sharply, stepping closer and grabbing my hurt arm in his claw-like grasp. I bit back a yelp, keeping my face as blank as possible. “Are you blaming the riders, scum-sucker?”

My teeth scraped together. “I wouldn’t do that, Sir.”

He released me with a shove. “That’s what I thought.”

Having released his inner rage, the coalmaster finally stopped to evaluate the injury before him, shrewd eyes running over me.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” the lie sounded as close to truth as I could muster.

“Like hell it’s not,” he snorted. “Take off your gear, worker. Go find a healer - and don’t come back until you’re good enough to work.”

“I can work,” there was an edge of desperation to my voice - a voice that sounded like it didn’t even belong to me. “I promise I can work. Please, Sir, my fath-”

“This isn’t up for debate, worker! Get out!”

Trembling, I pulled the jacket off with my good arm and stumbled away from the entrance. The fresh workers in line pointedly looked at the ground, as if to keep my luck from rubbing off on them.

Flexing my hand, I tripped over a root and staggered forward, not stopping until I reached the tree line. Under the shelter of oak and pine, I paused. A cool morning breeze ran down over the peak, drying the droplets of sweat on my forehead.

Cautiously, I looked down at my arm. It was bad, but, I realized with a sigh of relief, it would heal. Sooner than later, if the gods had mercy - and if Tahl had any new and improved balms.

The market at Olkra would just be waking with the dawn, grandmothers and traders bending their heads over their work, their hums and whistles beginning what would grow into an uproarious din.

On a good day, I would have loved being part of the hustle and bustle - but not like this. It should never be like this.

I took one look back towards the Kala, cursing the day the mine had opened.

The pain demanded I stop scowling and keep moving.

There weren't always dragons in the Valley, I reminded myself yet again, as I headed down the hill.

And, one day, they would be gone.