We pitched in and got to work for the rest of that day. I don’t know if you know this or not, but harvesting gold is hard work. I didn’t have to take a turn in the actual seam but I did spend several hours standing in relatively cool water up to the middle of my thighs sifting gravel for hints of gold. We really did not have all the equipment we needed to claim the gold on a large scale so when I said I was panning, I meant that literally. Before long, my legs were pruney and the beginnings of hypothermia were setting in. I tried to take breaks from time to time to warm up but sitting on dry land with wet legs was only marginally better than being in the water. My teeth chattered as I worked as my body futilely fought against the heat loss. I had to keep at it, though. If my plan was going to work, we needed every ounce of gold we could dredge up.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore so I let others take their turn. I stomped over to the fire where Tikter was working with the crucible and tongs to extract the gold. I could see that he wasn’t close to a hundred percent efficient in his efforts, but there was no way we were going to be able to drag hundreds of pounds of ore containing rock down the mountain to get more professional results.
As I sat there in silence attempting to warm back up, I realized that I was making Tikter nervous. I couldn’t blame him. If our situations were reversed, I would be nervous as well. I didn’t say anything to him as I watched him work and he didn’t speak to me either. The tension continued to grow until finally it was becoming unbearable. Finally, I spoke to him.
“Have you done this before?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I have talked to others who have, though. The way they described it, I thought it would be easier.”
“It probably would be easier if we had professional quality equipment,” I replied. “Well, that and if we actually knew how to do this. I assume that gold mining wasn’t something that anyone spent a lot of time talking about when this trip was being planned.”
The wind shifted and the fumes from our impromptu refinery started coming towards me.
“Stay out of the fumes,” Tikter said. “They can be pretty poisonous from what I was told.”
That’s right, I thought. Gold is often found in rock deposits that are heavy with arsenic. Since I didn’t want to be poisoned, I got up and moved upwind. Then, we sat there silently for a little while longer. It was clear that Tikter wanted to ask me something but he just couldn’t work up the nerve to go ahead and do it.
“You obviously have something on your mind,” I said. “Go ahead and ask it.”
“Well, I have two questions,” he said. “First, what’s going to happen to me when this is all done? Also, did things happen like you said or did you kill Caider?”
“I’ll answer your second question first,” I replied. “Yes, things happened just as I described. We came upon Caider when he was being robbed in the middle of the road by a bunch of tough looking orcs. He said some crap about fighting criminals his whole life and drew his sword. He killed one but they cut him down mercilessly. We attacked from ambush and killed two more before they knew we were there. Then, Aleyda and I had to fight the remaining two. But to get to the heart of your question, if we had come upon him by himself, knowing what we know about his plans, would we have fought him and likely killed him? The answer to that is yes. Without a doubt. He meant all of us harm.”
“Yeah, that crap about fighting criminals is the kind of thing that he would say,” Tikter said. “At one time he was a tough man. Then, he got promoted and stopped doing much of anything to stay in shape. He let the promotion go to his head.”
“I have heard that called the Peter Principle,” I responded.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“In hierarchies, good performing people tend to get promoted. Unfortunately, the jobs they are promoted to often require a different set of skills. Not everyone can rise to the occasion. If they do, though, they are inevitably promoted again. Eventually, they reach a level that requires skills that they don’t possess and they end up not being competent enough to effectively do their jobs. To put it another way, everyone ends up being promoted past their level of competence.”
“That sounds about right,” he said with a laugh. “He was a good friend and I am sad that he is dead, but he was not a very good watch commander.”
“Now, on to your next question,” I continued. “What happens to you is entirely up to you. Out of the two of you, I always liked you more because you would actually pitch in and work. I assume that you still have many people in the company that are your friends. I don’t think that anyone here wants you dead but I also don’t think people trust you all that much. There’s a good reason for that. You were a willing participant in a plan that would have gotten many of us hurt or worse. What happens next depends on how you act from here on out. Do I think they will give you a full share of the gold? No, I don’t. I still think you are going to profit, though. I don’t think that you will be left with nothing for your efforts. It will likely be a little bit less than everyone else gets but that’s alright. You will still be back home with money to spend. That’s better than being dead here on the island.”
“I don’t know what it says about me, but I knew what Caider wanted to do was wrong but I was going to do it anyway. I wanted to pitch in and help more, but he kept insisting that I shouldn’t because it would send the wrong message.”
“The message it would have sent was that Caider was lazy and thought he was above actual work,” I said. “He was trying to protect himself. The other stuff about what you were about to do, the people that you call friends that you would have hurt, you need to sort that out for yourself. We have all done things that we are not proud of. At least I have. I believe, though, that there is a path to redemption for you and for almost anyone else. It’s up to you to find it. I can’t give you any advice on that.”
“Do you seriously think they aren’t going to hurt me or kill me?” he asked after pausing a few seconds to collect his thoughts.
“I do,” I said. “And if it looks like they are going to try something, I will try to defend you.”
“Why would you do that for me after everything that has happened?” he said.
“Because it is the right thing to do,” I replied. “Just think, if you were in a little better shape and could run a little faster, you would likely be dead near the bottom of the mountain as well. I am not one of those guys who thinks everything happens for a reason. Life is way too haphazard for that. But I do think you need to do the best with the chances that you are given. You have a chance now. It’s up to you to prove yourself.”
I had warmed up enough to move on, so I got up and started making my way over towards the cliff to see how the mining there was going. As I was walking away, Tikter called out to me.
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“You have given me a lot to think about.”
I nodded at him and went about my day.
I peeked up at the gold seam. Our workers had done a surprising amount of work in the time that Aleyda and I were gone. Being able to rotate out every half an hour or so let whoever was actually mining treat it like a sprint and not a marathon. The channel the water had carved was much wider now, at least near the gold vein. Pregu, who was currently working the seam, was swinging his pickaxe like a berserker. Several of the others were picking up the ore where it fell. I heard more than one curse word from the gatherers when the ore coming from above them kept raining down on their heads. Getting hit in the head by rocks hurts, even if they have fallen less than ten feet. That irritation and pain didn’t stop anyone from working. The gold wasn’t going to refine itself.
I felt like I had regained enough warmth and stamina to take another turn in the water, so that’s where I headed. My next shift was no more pleasant but I was pretty excited when I found a chunk of gold about the size of a golf ball. It was ridiculously heavy for its size. I thought, based upon our efforts, we would stay there for another three or four days unless the seam petered out before then. That would likely load us down with as much as we could reasonably carry without looking like we were humping sacks of gold down the mountain. None of this would mean shit if we were too obvious and ended up dead at the side of the trail.
That night and the next day passed fairly uneventfully. There is a benefit to having so many people in one place. Even the hardiest predator might reconsider attacking when faced with opponents numbering in the double digits. I took a turn in the seam. It was punishing work. While I was up there, I studied the vein. It showed no signs of diminishing. There was a high likelihood that we would end up leaving gold in the mountain. My common sense and greed were in constant conflict. There is just something so enticing about the appearance of shimmering molten gold. I did notice that Tikter improved a little in his refining process. The orc may have come off as lazy but he certainly wasn’t stupid.
Our refined gold was bagged as soon as it cooled. We didn’t refine it into nice looking ingots. We didn’t have a mold for that. Instead, our finished product was a conglomeration of lumpy chunks of various sizes. That was alright, though. I imagined it would all spend the same.
Those of us not actively working or recovering, usually three or four of us, stood guard. It was probably shallow of me, but I tried to arrange things so I got to stand guard with Aleyda. When we were all working, we didn’t get any chance to spend much time together. This way we got to see each other and converse a little during our waking hours. Although each of us had been getting some sleep, it was never enough. There was too much to do so we worked from the time it was bright enough to see until we couldn’t see anymore. Then, we had to take guard shifts during the night. I thought once we made it back to the ship, everyone was going to collapse. I dearly hoped that repairs had been made and we wouldn’t have to spend the whole journey back working the pumps, or there would be some really angry, sleep deprived people in our group by the time we made it back to Shroud Hallow.
Aleyda and I were standing guard and chatting late that second afternoon.
“Are you still happy with how our conversation played out?” I asked her.
“I will say it again,” she replied. “You think too much. Yes, I am happy you idiot. I would have been happier, though, if we had worked out things back at the farm.”
“What can I say,” I said. “Like you said, I am an idiot. I have trouble recognizing good things when they are right in front . . .”
“Quiet,” she hissed at me. “I heard something.”
“Where?” I asked in a low voice.
“Over to our left out in the forest.” she said. I started to turn around and look in that direction but she stopped me. “Don’t look over there. You’ll let them know that we know they are there.”
“What do you think it was? An animal.”
“I heard metal rubbing against metal,” she said. “That’s no animal.”
“How do you want to handle this?” I asked.
“I’ll wander off and circle around,” she said. “When you hear something, come running.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand. Then out loud I said “I really don’t understand how you can be hungry all the time.”
She played along. “If you worked harder, you would be hungry all the time, too.” Zing! That one stung a little.
She wandered off like she was headed back to get something to eat. I didn’t watch her go. That would be a giveaway. Instead, I walked back and forth, slowly scanning the terrain around us. When my eyes swept past the area she had indicated, I didn’t see anything.
The wait seemed to last forever. I was keyed up and ready to fight and just standing there, I felt useless. I needed to be nonchalant. Even though I was prepared to go sprinting into the forest I couldn’t look like I was ready to sprint into the forest. Finally, I heard a muffled scream and I took off running.
Navigating the terrain was not easy. I had to watch my step so I couldn’t run full out. Dodging trees and other obstacles slowed me further. I didn’t have to run far, though, and within a minute or so I had reached Aleyda.
She was standing over the corpse of a human. She had obviously crept up on him and put him down before he knew she was there. I reached down and flipped him over. My breath caught as I saw that his tabard bore the insignia of the Gremmans Confederation. Things took a turn for the worse when Aleyda spoke.
“He had a partner. He took off running as soon as I attacked. I didn’t want to chase him into an ambush.”
Fuck me. When these guys were in the field, from everything I had heard they moved in force.
“Do we chase him?” I asked.
“He has too much of a head start,” she said. “We’ll never catch up.”
“Help me get this body into camp,” I said. “Then I think we need to take what we have harvested and make a run for it. There’s no way we can fight a whole unit of soldiers. And they will be back looking for blood.”
We dragged the body back into camp. As people saw what we were carrying, conversation died down around us. I yelled at the workers and told them we needed to have a meeting.
“This guy was spying on us,” I said. “His partner got away. I have no doubt that he is summoning help even as we speak. We need to pack up the gold that we have and get out of here. There is no way we are fit enough to fight a trained military unit.”
“Speak for yourself,” Yahg said. “We are plenty tough and I don’t run from a fight.”
“Even when that fight be against three or four, or even five times our numbers?” I asked.
Multiple voices spoke at once. There were so many people telling Yahg not to be stupid that I couldn’t tell where one voice began and another ended.
“Let’s just grab the gold and whatever supplies we need to get back to the ship,” I said. “If we need to buy more food back at port, so be it.”
“We won’t,” Tikter said. “We left the supplies for our voyage home on the ship.”
That kicked the bee hive. People scrambled around grabbing our bags of refined gold. Tikter looked forlornly at the ore he was currently processing but there was no help for it. We couldn’t wait for it to cool. We needed to be gone as soon as possible.
Within a few minutes, we were ready to go. Everything nonessential, we left. There was no packing up. We grabbed a little bit of food, our personal gear, and the bags of gold and started heading back down to the mountain.
We were in a race. If we won, we got to continue breathing.