Page 106

Harder and harder Fenrir pulls, until something along the way snaps and breaks free, chain suddenly moving, the lift above descending while the collapsing vein at their back closes in.

Light spills into their little air pocket and then Fenrir’s got the bottom edge of the lift in sight. He gives up the chain and leaps, catching the edge and feeling hands close around his ankles, dragging him down and with him, the cage of the lift that will save all their lives.

Fenrir breathes again once the cage is far enough down the shaft the miners can begin climbing in.

He holds on against its upward resistance, whoever is at the top trying to draw the lift up but unable to match one lone man’s strength. But that’s not what Fenrir’s thinking about. He counts the men as they climb in and only lets go once it’s him and the woman and the injured man left, some twenty miners packed into a cage meant to carry ten. He watches its ascent with an impression that it won’t be returning, has his suspicions somewhat confirmed when it takes the lift almost thirty minutes to again descend.

Fenrir and the woman say nothing during the ride up, both breathing heavily, until the lift reaches the top and a roaring cheer greets them.

“Foreman Rawkner!” the miners all shout, over and over, like a chant. Against the far wall, several of the senior foremen watch on, their voices silent, their eyes too sharp.

Chapter XXIX

The Tower

For the second time in almost as many days, Fenrir stood atop of the throne room dais while the Empire’s nobility begged for either the Empire’s purse or their army. There was a sense of order that hadn’t existed three weeks ago, half the room hovering around the perimeter of columns while those who had been scheduled for that day were called forward.

“Lady Olivia of the Pine Flats?” Vera hovered in his peripheral, her finger trailing her notepad while she called the name of the next noble in line.

“Your majesty.” A dark-haired woman of middling age, Lady Olivia wore a simple well-tailored coat over a homespun shirt and cotton pants. Like most of the nobles he’d seen today, she didn’t wear her wealth for all to see, and the concern she brought to Fenrir was presented with an earnest desperation. “I need workers to harvest my fields, or the crop will rot on the vine, but I took a loss last year after Netherflame spread into my northern orchards, so I can’t afford to hire the help I need this season. Is there anything the crown can do? If the harvest this year goes as well as expected, we can pay it back with interest.”

It was a simple request, inconsequential on the surface except Mercer had informed Fenrir the day prior that Lady Olivia’s crops yielded over twenty-five percent of the Wasteland’s food supply including the grains they stored to get through winter, and the last thing Fenrir wanted was a seasonal famine his first year on the job.

Fenrir stalked across the dais, hand on his hip and head bent against the sunlight. Red was better at this kind of stuff, but he could hear her voice inside his head asking, if it’s bodies she needs, who has those to spare?

Oh, right, of course.

“The army has men,” he said aloud, solution coming together as he spoke. “We’ll supplement your work force until you’ve turned enough profit to hire your own workers. In exchange, the crown will claim twenty percent of the crop our men harvest on top of the ten percent normally collected for the emergency food stores. Is that fair?”

The fact the woman’s eyes turned glassy before her bow took her nearly to the ground seemed to answer his question.

The next dozen nobles all presented similar problems. Issues where either the Empire’s infrastructure or core needs were in flux rather than the more personal, pettier issues the first day of questioning had brought. Fenrir offered solutions where he could, and in the few situations where he couldn’t he had Vera make a note, promising to get back with each noble once he had more concrete options for them to consider.

“You’ve gotten the hang of this,” Vera said when the last of the nobles filed through the throne room doors and they were alone. “How do you feel?”

Good, Fenrir didn't say out loud. “Not bad.” He still wouldn’t sit in Lore’s throne, but no one had made a stink about that yet. “Think I can finally get that crown fitted?”

“We should probably wait for your head to stop growing first.”

Fenrir laughed, low and rolling, then caught himself.

Beside him, Vera pretended to be busy with her list, but Fenrir could feel her attention, and he tried to imagine what it had been like for her. Five children to feed, one of them bigger, stronger, nearly a man in all ways except when confronting the brutal choices Vera had done her best to shelter him from. All until she couldn’t, anymore. And then it’d all come to a head.

How is this any different? Maybe now Fenrir understood the difficulty of having to make choices, real personal choices, in favor of the greater good, but did that mean he could forgive her?

Maybe I should, Fenrir thought. Maybe I can.

Maybe there were a lot of things he could do that he hadn’t thought possible anymore.

A knock came at the throne room doors, and a messenger poked his head in without waiting for a response.

“Your majesty.” The messenger bowed and Fenrir went still as a mountain. “You requested to be notified as soon as Bastion arrived. He’s already on his way to the tower, I thought you should know.”

“Fantastic,” Fenrir breathed, hopping off the dais and heading towards the throne room doors. “I’ll meet him. I need to be there when they hook up the antenna. They need all the hands they can get as it is.”

“Need, Fenrir?” Vera asked, on his heels. She took his elbow and gestured at the messenger who made a small sound, backing through the doors and shutting them on his way. Vera turned back to Fenrir. “Don’t you think you’ve helped out there enough?”

“Red requested I make sure the tower gets completed, it’s important.”