Page 58 of The Sun He Buried

Thirteen years I’ve felt her sleep, laugh, grieve, and settle under his hands. This is the first time I’ve had her pleasure with it.

I can empty a hall. I can’t empty myself of her.

Ketill’s walls drop—concern first, then the old steady thing under it. He isn’t braced for mine to fail. He knows they won’t. He stands there so I’m not doing this in front of anyone who’ll remember it.

The damned fool.

I breathe once. Then again. Nothing gets past the silver.

Ketill’s concern doesn’t change.

Below us, the hammers start in the south crawl. Three strikes. A pause. Three more.

I count every one.

The first shout reaches the chamber before the heat eases. Ketill’s walls rise. He opens the door.

We go down.

The south crawl has room for one man on his hands and knees. We’ve put a rescue line through it, two timber runners behind that, and every fool in the eastern cut within shouting distance.

Two miners are already on the gallery floor when we reach it. The first has a strip of cloth tied over one eye. The second is missing two fingers and trying to help the healer wrap them.

“Sit on him,” I tell the healer.

The miner stops arguing.

A third crawls out coughing black into both hands. The fourth comes backward with a rescuer dragging him by the shoulders. His left boot points the wrong way.

Alive. All four.

The captain stands beside the crawl mouth and counts them again. His daughter is still beyond the fall.

The rescue line pulls tight.

A woman appears under the lowest brace. Blood covers one side of her face. She gets one knee onto the gallery stone, sees the captain, and forgets how to use the other.

He catches her before she falls.

Relief pours off him, salt and hot iron against my tongue. Then he looks at the crawl. Four people remain inside, and shame ruins the taste.

“Your daughter’s alive,” I tell him. “You may be grateful.”

His mouth closes. He holds her tighter.

Three hammer strikes come through the crawl.

The timbers answer with a crack.

Every miner in the gallery knows that sound. They move before I speak—healers dragging the injured back, line men bracing their boots, the rescue captain dropping flat beside the opening.

Stone grinds under us.

The line jerks hard enough to pull one man to his knees. Dust bursts out of the crawl. A rescuer follows it, rolling onto the gallery floor with blood running from both ears.

The second rescuer doesn’t come.

Ketill takes the line with three men and hauls. A hand appears beneath the broken brace. Then an arm. They drag the man free before the roof settles another inch.