Page 56 of The Sun He Buried

All of it, probably.

Poor Asta.

Chapter Six

The third warning bell rings while the first rescue crew is still tying on ropes.

Nine miners are trapped beyond the fall. We can hear all nine. For now.

Dust coats the map chamber beneath the eastern cut. Runners come and go while three men explain the same problem at different volumes. Ketill stands across the stone table, both hands planted beside the lower-shaft map. A red line marks the collapsed passage. A second marks the old south crawl.

The mine captain points at it. “That route was sealed two winters ago.”

“I remember.”

He looks at Ketill instead. Sensible. Ketill’s less likely to remove anything important.

“The roof moved,” the captain says. “We open that crawl, we could bring the rest of it down on them.”

“How long through the main fall?”

“Six hours. Maybe eight.”

Another bell rings below us.

Ketill looks toward the ceiling. “They’ve got air for four.”

The captain’s fear sharpens. He knows three of the people on the other side. One is his daughter.

“Open the south crawl,” I say. “Brace every ten feet. Two rescuers at a time, and nobody goes in until Ketill’s seen the first span.”

“My Dróttin—”

“You may waste their air arguing, or you may move.”

He moves.

Half the chamber goes with him. Ketill drags the red marker down the south route. Three clerks crowd in. A runner waits at my right, blood drying at his hairline. The room smells of stone and lamp oil and the fear leaking through every wall in it.

Heat.

Pooling low.

My hand stops over the map.

Her.

Warm skin I can’t see. A touch along her body, and every part of her opening under it.

“Eirik.”

Ketill says my name. Nobody else here does.

I set the marker down. “The upper crew.”

The oldest clerk looks up. “Ready, my Dróttin.”

“Behind the first brace. If the south roof moves, they pull the rescuers out.”