All is Not Lost, Part 1

The fall was long enough to allow Reiner to wonder how far to the bottom, and to tense up in preparation for the inevitable fatal impact that would shatter his bones and burst his organs. However, when it came, it was more of a slide than a crash.

It was not painless, though.

Reiner's first thought was that he was sliding down the wall of the ravine he was falling down, but the surface that scraped his clothes crumbled and fell with him. After a short while, it changed to become an almost perpendicular slope made of gravel, dirt and large rocks. Reiner hit one of these and the pain caused him to double over. He began to roll and bounce down the slope at breakneck speed, scraping and bruising his elbows, knees and shoulders. His brain seemed to jump back and forth inside his head until he lost track of what was up and what was down, whether he was alive, dead, in pieces, or whole. Only half-conscious, he hid his head between his arms as the angle of descent began to become less acute and the rate of fall slowed.

He was slowing more and more, sliding down the mound, half buried in an avalanche of gravel and thinking he might have survived, when a body landed on his chest cracking his ribs and then bouncing and grunting away again. Reiner tried to breathe in but could not. It felt as if a press was squeezing his lungs.

A second body, lighter but more bony, landed on his face. A knee split his nose and blood flooded his mouth. At last he stopped, breathing in like a desperate man and spitting blood. All around him were voices groaning and screaming in pain. In the center of his vision lights danced. At first he thought they were an effect of the fall, but then he realized they were torches standing as high as the top of a castle wall. He could have sworn he had fallen to a much greater depth than that. The barbarians were peering into the void to see what had become of them. He thought he heard them laughing. He doubted they could see anything.

"Q..." He tried to speak but failed because he did not have enough air in his lungs. After a moment, he tried again. "Nobody... turn... on... light. Wait."

He heard a chuckle near him.

"Don't be afraid of that, Captain." Hals said. "Torches are of no use to the dead."

After a moment, the torches disappeared and it was completely dark.

"Unfortunately." Reiner said at last. "It seems that we are still alive. If you have the flint handy, Hals..."

"Yes, Captain."

Reiner heard him rummage and then groan from sudden pain.

"Ouch, I think I've broken one of my legs."

"Any others hurt?" asked Reiner, though he feared he knew the answer. "Pavel?"

There was a muffled retort and then a curse.

"I've lost a damned tooth."

"Oskar?"

"No..., I don't know. I don't feel too much."

"Franz? Did that monster get you?"

"I'm..., I'm fine."

"Ulf?"

There was no answer.

"Ulf? Quiet."

"Wait a moment, sir." Hals said. "The light is almost ready."

Reiner went back to roll call.

"Gustaf?"

"I've lost a little skin, that's all."

"That's a relief. I hope you haven't lost the pouch."

"I got it."

"Giano?"

"A rock cut me. I'm bleeding a lot, I think."

Light flashed as Hals flicked sparks from the flint, followed by a glow as the tinder ignited, which he then moved closer to a candle.

Reiner raised his head. His face felt as if it were twice the usual size and also weighed twice as much. He looked around, eyes narrowed against the yellow light. Men lay like broken dolls at the foot of a huge slope of gravel and loose rocks rising up into the darkness. It was the place where the slaves obviously dumped the debris they uprooted when mining for ore. He looked at the men, one by one. Pavel was sitting, hands over his mouth, fingers dripping blood. Hals was near him, holding the candle. He had one leg bent at an odd angle. Franz lay further down the slope, curled up and clutching his side. Reiner could not see the boy's face, but he appeared to be shaking. Oskar lay on his back, staring upwards, holding one arm to his chest. Gustaf was hunched over his duffel bag, checking the gear. His canvas jacket was in tatters on the left side, as was the skin underneath, and he was bleeding from hundreds of minor lacerations. Giano remained seated, bare-chested, pressing his shirt to a cut on his thigh. His arms, shoulders and chest were dotted with bruises, and Reiner was certain that they would all look the same if they had no clothes on. At last he found Ulf on the periphery of the candlelight; he was a motionless mass lying on his side at the base of the mound.

"Gustaf." Reiner said as he dropped his head again. "Can you look to see if Ulf is still alive?"

"Yes."

Gustaf cautiously descended the slope, slipping and sinking into the loose gravel. He leaned over Ulf to touch his neck and chest and lift his eyelids.

"He's alive." He said. "But he's hit his head. I don't know when he'll wake up. It's possible he won't."

Reiner groaned. It was the last thing they needed.

"This is a miracle." Pavel said in an unclear voice as Gustaf climbed back up to approach Giano who was bleeding the most. "We are all alive. The gods must be watching over us."

"If only the gods had been looking out for us." Hals said dryly as he lit a torch with the candle. "Wouldn't have dropped us down the damn ravine in the first place."

"I can't work here." Gustaf said. He had bandaged Giano's gash, but the satchel was sliding down the hillside and he was knee-deep in gravel. "We need to find a level spot."

With a groan, Reiner sat up and looked around as Hals' torch began to burn and the others began to stand up, painfully and slowly. The hole into which they had fallen was a natural fault line, deep and wide, that cut into the darkness to the right and left. The pile of gravel on which they lay stretched in a semicircle across an uneven muddy floor that made Reiner suspect that water ran through it from time to time. He was wondering which direction would be best, when he noticed a circular opening in the opposite wall of the fault. More decisions. What would be the best way?

Then he remembered he had Barrister's compass, which he had picked up from the pouch on the corpse belt. He pulled it out and looked at it with a frown. The needle pointing south pointed almost directly toward the circular opening.

"Try that way." He said, pointing to it.

Pavel began to help Hals down the slope, each with an arm over the other's shoulders, both grunting in pain. Reiner felt as bad as they seemed to feel. His ribs ached every time he breathed in, and each joint seemed to have its own particular, independent pain. He and Giano spread out a blanket and rolled Ulf's recumbent body over it and then, with Gustaf's help, dragged him to the base of the slope.

Oskar and Franz closed the march, Oskar holding his left arm with his right and Franz clutching his ribs and walking almost bent in half. The back of his jacket was torn and his breeches were turning black with blood.

"Boy." Reiner asked him. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"It's nothing." grunted the latter through gritted teeth. "Nothing."

Dragging Ulf across the dry mud floor was quite an effort and Reiner's ribs and muscles protested with all his soul, but the task became easier when they entered the tunnel. Although rough hewn, it was almost perfectly circular and the floor had been worn smooth by what had to have been centuries of traffic. A hard, oily film coated everything like a glaze and contributed to making it smooth. It was as if the entire tunnel had been varnished. Reiner felt repelled by the feel, even though it made towing Ulf almost effortless.

Giano sniffed the air suspiciously.

"Smells like rat men."

Reiner chuckled.

"Don't be foolish, man. Rat men are a myth."

"You're wrong. They are real."

Pavel smiled mockingly over his shoulder.

"Giant talking rats? Come on, mercenary, what do you take us for?"

Giano stood upright, outraged.

"They are real, I tell you. They destroyed my village, murdered my mother and father. They come out of the ground and kill everything. I have sworn vengeance on them."

"It's kind of hard for them to do that, since they don't exist."

Giano snorted through his nose.

"You guys think you know everything."

"Captain!" Hals called. "I've found a room of sorts. It could serve as an operating room."

He was sticking the torch into a round opening in the tunnel wall. After releasing Ulf's makeshift stretcher, Reiner joined him and peered inside. The hole led into a round, curved-walled chamber that had eight smaller chambers communicating with it like the fingers of a glove. Reiner took the torch from Hals' hands and entered.

A chill ran down his spine. At some point in the past, the chamber had been occupied, though he didn't know by whom or why. The walls were covered with angular geometric reliefs that to Reiner had not the slightest meaning. Against the walls were a few warped wooden shelves on which rested a series of broken ceramic jars and bowls. Reiner peered the torch into each of the eight chambers. They were small and almost circular, and the floor was covered to calf height with bits of cloth and straw. Reiner wrinkled his nose. They smelled of dust and animal musk. The place gave him a certain uneasy feeling, but it was dry, flat, and there didn't seem to be any danger.

"Excellent." He said with more enthusiasm than he felt. He waved an arm to call to the others. "Come on, let's go in."

Pavel and Hals were the first to enter, limping, followed by Gustaf and Giano dragging Ulf. Giano grimaced.

"You see. Rat men. We found ourselves in one of their nests."

"You don't know that." Reiner said. "Anyone could have made these holes."

"Looks more like the work of orcs." Gustaf commented, pushing a broken pot aside with the toe of his foot. "It's crude and primitive."

Pavel and Hals exchanged a nervous glance.

"Only orcs?" asked Hals dryly. "What a relief."

"You see it don't you?" asked Giano as he pointed to the walls. "Rat faces and bodies."

Reiner looked at the reliefs again just as Franz and Oskar entered. The drawings could have been of rat heads with wide-spaced eyes and sharp fangs, but they were so abstract and poorly carved that they could have been anything.

He waved a hand to play it down.

"Orcs or ratmen, whoever lived here left a long time ago." He stuck the torch into the mouth of an unbroken urn to keep it upright, and turned to look at Gustaf.

"Surgeon, what do you need us for?" He was doing his best to be bright and efficient as a good captain should be, but his head ached abominably and his stomach was churning from all the blood running down from his nose from the back of his throat.

Gustaf laid Ulf down on the blanket in the center of the room and opened his satchel.

"Decide who has the most serious wounds. I'll start with the one who is the worst off and finish with the one with the lightest injuries. If anyone can split these shelves to make splints, it will be a great help. And if anyone can sacrifice a shirt, too, because I'm running out of bandages."

"I think Franz needs to be taken care of first." Reiner said. "He's losing blood."

"No!" said the boy with white lips. "I'm fine. I can heal myself." He hurried over to one of the smaller chambers and disappeared into it.

"Come back here, you little brat." Reiner ordered. "You're not well." With a grunt of annoyance, he followed the boy.

Franz was leaning against the wall with a trembling arm and had his head dropped to his chest. He was breathing in ragged gasps and clutching his left side with his elbow. The fabric of the shirt made sounds like liquid suction.

"Get out!" he gasped. "Leave me alone." Reiner shot him a scowling look.

"Don't be stupid, boy. You're badly hurt. You must let Gustaf take a look at you."

"No!" Franz whimpered. "No..., I don't need anyone..."

"But boy, you are..."