A Betrayal in Winter by Daniel Abraham

Author:Daniel Abraham
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Epic, Fantasy, General, Fiction
ISBN: 0765313413
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Cchmai rode tip the wide track, switchbacking up the side of the mountain. The ore chute ran straight from the mine halfway up the mountain's face to the carter's base at its foot. When the path turned toward it, Cchmai considered the broad beams and pillars that held the chute smooth and even down the rough mountainside. When they turned away, he looked south to where the towers of Machi stood like reeds in the noonday sun. His head ached.

"We do appreciate your coming, Cehmai-cha," the mine's engineer said again. "With the new Khai come home, we thought everyone would put business off for a few days."

Cchmai didn't bother taking a pose accepting the thanks as he had the first few times. Repetition had made it clear that the gratitude was less than wholly sincere. He only nodded and angled his horse around the next bend, swinging around to a view of the ore chute.

There were six of them; Cchmai and Stone-blade-Soft, the mine's engineer, the overseer with the diagrams and contracts in a leather satchel on his hip, and two servants to carry the water and food. Normally there would have been twice as many people. Cehmai wondered how many miners would he in the tunnels, then found he didn't particularly care, and returned to contemplating the ore chute and his headache.

They had left before dawn, trekking to the Raadani mines. It had been arranged weeks before, and business and money carried a momentum that even stone didn't. A landslide might overrun a city, but it only went down. Something had to have tremendous power to propel something as tired and heavy as he felt up the mountainside. Something in the back of his mind twitched at the thought-attention shifting of its own accord like an extra limb moving without his willing it.

"Stop," Cehmai snapped.

The overseer and engineer hesitated for a moment before Cehmai understood their confusion.

"Not you," he said and gestured to Stone-Made-Soft. "Him. He was judging what it would take to start a landslide."

"Only as an exercise," the andat said, its low voice sounding both hurt and insincere. "I wasn't going to do it."

The engineer looked up the slope with an expression that suggested Cehmai might not hear any more false thanks. Cehmai felt a spark of vindictive pleasure at the man's unease and saw Stone-Made-Soft's lips thin so slightly that no other man alive would have recognized the smile.

Idaan had spent the first night of the festival with him, weeping and laughing, taking comfort and coupling until they had both fallen asleep in the middle of their pillow talk. The night candle had hardly burned down a full quarter mark when the servant had come, tapping on his door to wake him. He'd risen for the trek to the mines, and Idaan- alone in his bed-had turned, wrapping his bedclothes about her naked body, and watched him as if afraid he would tell her to leave. By the time he had found fresh robes, her eyelids had closed again and her breath was deep and slow.

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