“Are you alright?” James asked.

  “Do I look like I’m alright?” The injured boy replied, putting on a tough front but clearly on the verge of tears. He looked like he was going to say more, opening his mouth, but then he paused and closed his mouth again, pursing his lips. He looked pointedly at the new (ish) shirt that James was wearing. “What’d you do to get another shirt?”

  “Uh, I just asked.” James said. “Coin did tell me I wouldn’t get another, and that I owed him a favor, though. He wants me to forge a spearhead for him tomorrow morning.”

  James looked at the pile of ore next to where the injured boy was sitting. The boy followed his gaze and bit his lip.

  “There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep up now.”

  James glanced at the grey-eyed boy, but he was already back to mining. “Look, uh, the slavers don’t exactly track how much everyone outputs individually. Even he only really cares about everyone working and not causing problems. Just, do what you can, alright? As long as everyone’s doing what they can, that’s the important thing.”

  “But won’t we all get whipped if we don’t produce enough iron?”

  James debated explaining that he had some leeway when it came to mining, but ultimately decided not to. The slavers were still unaware of his [Mining] skill, and he didn’t think the new boy would go and tell them, he didn’t need to know, either.

  “Don’t worry about it, it’ll work itself out. Just try to heal up as fast as you can, and do what you can in the meantime. The most important thing here in the mine is that everyone pitches in.” James decided that he would just quietly mine out a little extra ore, to cover for what the new boy was supposed to be producing. Maybe a tad less, to keep Coin and the other slavers from getting suspicious once they learned about the injury.

  The boy looked down, avoiding James’ gaze. “Th-thanks.” he mumbled.

  James wanted to give him some words of encouragement, but nothing came to mind. There was basically no chance of things getting better, not in their situation. In the end he grunted, and then got up and walked down the tunnel. He had recently uncovered a mid-sized vein of iron ore and got to work digging it out.

  Pick

  Pick

  Pick

  Soon enough he had enough for his own share, as well as the injured boy.

  At the end of their “work day”, everyone was meticulous about cleaning up their workspace, sweeping out even the smallest pebbles from the floor of the mine. James saw the injured boy fumbling with his makeshift crutch while trying to pick up chunks of iron ore, so he walked over.

  “Hey, I got this.”

  “But I’ve gotta-”

  “On that foot, you’re just going to make the injury worse. I’ll get it with mine, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  The injured boy teared up at the Smith’s kindness. “Thanks.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  James nodded and the injured boy limped out out of the cave.

  The Smith never actually gave his name to that injured Earth Mage, nor did he ever learn the Earth Mage’s name.

  After he left, the rest of the slaves came back in, led by the grey-eyed boy. He looked around, making eye contact with everyone, before nodding. He turned back to James.

  “Smith, I know you already stuck your neck out for the new guy, but we all need to ask you a favor. There’s no way the new guy’s going to be able to mine any iron, not with his foot messed up that bad. We all know you’re the strongest guy in here. Can you help cover for him?”

  Another of the boys chimed in. “Of course, we’re all gonna do what we can, too, but with the days getting shorter there’s just not enough time for anyone else to do much extra…”

  One of the skinnier boys spoke up. “We all just want to make it through the winter. If we can just make it through the winter…”

  The grey-eyed boy resumed speaking. “We’re not asking you to pull all the weight, and we’re definitely not going to start slacking. That I can promise.” One of the other boys gulped audibly. “But we need your help. Will you help us?” He looked straight into the Smith’s eyes as he asked.

  James looked down, thinking. He had basically already told the injured boy that he would handle it. At this point, agreeing to do it would just get everyone on the same page. And fundamentally he agreed with the grey-eyed boy’s view on how the mine should work. It was better if it was handled between the slaves, and not with direct supervision from the slavers.

  James looked up and nodded. “Okay, I’ll help out.”

  The slave boys breathed a sigh of relief and the grey-eyed boy also nodded. “Thanks, that’s a huge help. If you’d just do half as much as the new guy should be covering, we’ll handle the rest.”

  With that, everyone else cleared out of the mine and James hauled out the rest of his iron ore, along with what the injured boy had left behind. That evening, after dinner and while he was smelting the day’s iron ore into ingots, he created a simple mold for the spearhead, paying extra attention to the part where it attached to the spear shaft. Without smaller, more specialized tools, his best bet was to cast that part and then hammer the spear head itself into the proper shape, before finishing off by sharpening it. Once the mold was finished, he poured some molten iron in and left it to cool overnight.

  Before they could all go to bed, however, the slaver with the whip shouted and gathered them all together. The injured boy was the last to arrive, hobbling on his makeshift crutch, but before he could join the crowd the slaver grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to the front.

  “I see you little shits let our newest friend get injured already, eh?” He thrust the injured boy back into the crowd of slaves, then unwound his whip and cracked it in the air. Everyone flinched, but none so hard as James. Instantly, James remembered how he had been whipped on his first day at the slave camp.

  The slaver’s shouting dragged him back to the present. “I don’t think I need to belabor the point to you lot, but just because you all let him get injured doesn’t mean you all get to just slack off, unnerstand? You all need to keep producing the right amount of iron, unnerstand? He’s still up here, still eating our food, so you all need to keep digging out that iron, unnerstand? Anyone not unnerstand? Raise your hand, go on, I’ll explain you what’ll happen if you all slack off.”

  Nobody moved a muscle. Most of the boys held their breath, even.

  “No takers? Smart bunch of boys you lot.” He cracked the whip again, and again everyone flinched. “So I expect to see the same amount of iron, and if I have to let you all know you’re slacking off, it won’t just be with words. You unnerstand… heheheh.” Once more, he cracked the whip, then he sauntered off with a smirk.

  James turned to look at the grey-eyed boy, but was surprised to see that everyone was actually looking at him. He was flustered for a second but then returned their gaze and nodded. The injured boy, though, looked glumly down at the ground before turning and hobbling back to the lean-to. A moment later, the rest of the boys followed suit, quickly passing him and crawling into their piles of leaves.

  James waited a minute. He looked to where the slaver with the whip had gone. The rest of the slavers were gathered around a small campfire, passing around a bottle and drinking from it, the sound of their conversation indistinct and unintelligible at that distance. James turned and walked to the lean-to himself, crawling into his pile of leaves. He thought that he might lie awake that night, thinking about everything that had happened that day, but as soon as he lay his head down he was fast asleep.

  It didn’t last long. In the wee hours of the morning, as dawn’s first light was brightening the sky and blotting out the stars by the horizon, a shout woke James and all the rest of the slave boys.

  “GET OUT HERE AND LINE UP! RIGHT NOW, GET OUT HERE YOU LITTLE SHITS!”