It is notable that an Ireborian’s darker skin contrasts the much lighter skin of those in Nacilia despite their relative closeness in terms of geography. According to Irebor myth, this trait is a gift from their god intended to make it easier to distinguish themselves from their mortal enemy on the battlefield.
***
“Wait, you said you had experience with magore tech?”
I asked Elina the question that had been bugging me ever since I talked with her 2 days ago. We were taking a quick break from work to drink and to refill our canteens while the guards swapped out. Conversation was lively as usual, but having Elina as part of our group definitely changed the tone. We were also in slightly higher spirits thanks to Elm giving us a date to work with. 40 days until the revolt was long enough for us to feel confident we could spread the message around. We had a few days after the revolt before any military could arrive, so having the supplies the day after the revolt meant we could leave the next day.
“Oh yeah, I got pretty damn good with them. Just because the Arlinians beat us during that 6th campaign didn’t mean that Irebor was out of it, so there were a bunch of small rebellions and freedom fighting groups. As this guy’s people would say,” She nudged Alex in the side, who was looking uncharacteristically forlorn. “You can’t take the fight out of Ireborians. My group did a pretty good job, compared to others. Whenever we took down a platoon we’d scavenge their weapons and use them in the next fight. It was some trial and error, and it definitely made a bunch of us sick, but I was able to figure it out pretty easily. The rest of the people there thought I was a freak of nature for how easily I handled their shit. I just thought I had a strong stomach, and didn’t realize it had anything to do with aptitude.”
I gave her the best smile I could with the energy I still had in my system.
“That sounds like it’ll be useful. Guess that also means you’re a trained mage?”
“Self taught. Burned down a lot of buildings in the process, but I figured it out. Might not be the best way to learn, but I damn well got more kills than anyone else I was on the battlefield with. Well, till I got captured and ended up in this shithole.”
It was good that Alex was able to find her. Well, it was more accurate to say that she found Alex and which led to her joining the cause.
It’s still odd seeing two people who are supposed to automatically hate each other be friendly. Guess having a common enemy really can change how you view others.
I tried to talk to Alex, but he still seemed like his mind was on something else entirely. Checking in on him seemed like a good idea.
Maybe I should consult Sera first…
***
“I mean, you do realize how much work you’re placing on him, right?”
Sera was doing a lot better than she had earlier and was about to start working with the other penal laborers. Her reaction to me telling her about the deal that Elm struck was complex to say the least. It proved that Elm was mostly on our side but it also felt like he was just utilizing me for whatever he could get. It was true that I was kowtowing to whatever he asked me to do so far, but he was too useful to let go of. He understood the guards and the systems at the camp and his extensive knowledge of magore tech was on the edge of believability. Elric was already theorizing that he might not even be a slave at all, but a person from the Arlinian government who was hired to watch over the camps from the inside and just ended up going rogue. As time went on, I was almost starting to believe that.
“I guess. He’s not been doing much actively, but I hope the job of recruitment doesn’t hang on him too hard.”
I scratched the back of my head, thinking about the entire situation. Hearing that we had a selected time made him happy at first, but maybe the fact that I was still not giving him anything to work with was enough for him to be slow about his recruitment. For him to look like that was worrying, but it at least meant that he was really thinking about the plan and wanting to help. I needed to talk with him if I was going to be a strong leader.
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“By the way, you’re going to start working with the criminals tomorrow, right?”
Sera let out an emphatic sigh, placing a hand on her forehead.
“North, you need to stop thinking of them like that. Arlinian or not, they’re still victims of the camp. You’ve seen how the guards treat them and you know that the work they’re doing is killing them a lot faster than it is killing us. Nobody deserves this, not even them.”
It was a point that I’d struggled with for a while. I knew that we would want to have them on our side, but it felt wrong. They committed crimes against the Empire and were being punished for it, while we were taken without our will and shoved into dark caverns for what they presumed to be the rest of our days. I knew it was wrong, but it was a little bit comforting in a way to know that some people here were being given this treatment as punishment. Whether intentional or not, it meant that the empire realized that what it was doing to us was a sin.
“I’m sorry.”
As I was sitting on the floor, Sera reached out and patted me on the shoulder.
“You got this. I’ll try to find people within the penal laborers who we can rely on. You go take care of Alex.”
Her statement was a comfort I definitely needed at that moment.
***
Asking Elm for a night off to handle something was a pain, but he gave me the opportunity because he understood that I needed a break. Apparently, he also got 1 day every once in a while to take a break, and he decided to extend that to me as well. His stipulation was that it was going to double the amount of work I was going to do the following day, which I was dreading.
Alex sat in front of me inside my bunk, his eyes attached to the floor. Something was wrong, and it was much bigger than I originally anticipated. The person above us was sleeping like a rock, and the person below us was Elric, who was half asleep listening in.
It’s a blessing that the guards don’t like coming in here. Guess there’s a perk to being constantly covered in poison.
“Alex, you need to tell me what’s going on.”
Alex finally looked up at me, and it was abundantly clear that there was something big hanging on his mind.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
Alex’s hands were fidgeting with each other as he spoke.
“Why do you think you can do this? What about this-” he poked at my chest, ”is unique enough for me to believe that you can lead me into war?”
Although it was dark, I could make out the faint outline of tears in his eyes.
“Before… this, you know what I did? I was one of Nacilia’s finest. A man on the frontline, fighting for his people, hoping to destroy Arlin before it could consume us. I fought and fought because I truly believed that I could hold them back.”
He spoke in hushed tones, but the emotion in his voice was palpable.
He’s been holding this all in for a while.
“And where am I now? I’m stuck here and I don’t know if there’s anything other than this? I thought there was. At my first camp, there was a group of slaves who tried to rebel, who made a run for it into the wilderness. And they got away, they ran off into the horizon while the rest of us silently prayed for their safety.” He paused, holding up three fingers. “Three days. It took them three days for them to be found and killed. For the next month, their corpses were hung on metal poles outside of the mine as a reminder that the only inevitable outcome of escape was death.”
His eyes finally locked with mine as he grabbed my left hand by the wrist.
“But when I saw this, I truly began to believe that there had to be something. You gave me that little bit of hope that I’d needed. I can only stay smiling for so long without something to keep me moving. And I want to believe. You told me you were doing this to save Sera, right? The only other child of Marlisle who remembers its story.”
His hand let go of my wrist and fell limply on to his own lap.
“But you haven’t given me anything beyond that, and I’m already too deep into the point where any mistake you make will get me killed as well. How am I supposed to fight if I don’t know where my battlefield even is, or what I’m supposed to do? I’m a soldier, and soldiers don’t go onto the battlefield without orders. If you want to lead me into war, you need to tell me now- What exactly am I fighting for?"