The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) Read Free Page B

sand and the rubble, cursing to himself as the debris scraped against his crushed fingers, and pulled on the body until it was free of the roof fall. Behind him there was a sudden noise of rock falling and he instinctively covered his head with his arms and the man’s head with his body. Wherever the rock was falling it had missed them.
    A dim light filtered through the dust and he sighed in relief as he heard the sound of digging and the heavy breathing of labouring men. He grabbed the man’s arms and dragged him towards the light, ignoring his groans as he regained consciousness. If the man was injured it probably wasn’t doing him any good dragging him like that but it was better than just leaving him until the rest of the ceiling fell on him.
    By the time he reached the light there was an escape hole big enough for the man to be pulled through. He left him there for the others to deal with and returned for the other buried armsbrother. To be honest he was sorely tempted to leave him there, but if the Goddess or Talis or whoever looked over the fortunes of men had been good enough to save him, then the least he could do was return the favour. When he reached the mound he had crawled over, the sand had shifted and the man had regained consciousness and had cleared most of the debris from his body. All that remained was one heavy beam that pinned his foot to the tunnel floor. In the darkness Tozaman couldn’t see his face but he could hear his ragged breathing and smell his fear.
    He crawled across the body and felt around the trapped foot. The ankle was broken and it was likely that the foot beneath was crushed although it was impossible to tell. He ran his hands along the beam to each end. Both ends were buried deeply in the mounds of rubble and when he gave the beam a tentative push nothing moved, except a small clatter of stones and pebbles. Around him the strained timbers had started to groan again and the grinding of moving stone came from somewhere above him. The man gave a whimper of fear and Tozaman made the only decision he could.
    There wasn’t enough room in the enclosed space to slice quickly downwards so he rested the knife on the man’s ankle just above the place where the bone had broken. The man’s whimpers were louder now and he only hoped that the armsbrother would have courage enough not to scream and bring the roof down on them both. He took a deep breath and pressed down as hard as he could and the sharp knife cut through skin and muscle and tendon until it reached the bone. Now he had to saw to get the foot free and the man jerked and whimpered but kept the scream to himself.
    Once the bone parted Tozaman clambered back over the body and pulled him free, leaving the trapped foot behind. When he reached the hole eager hands pulled the man through and then helped him into the main tunnel. It wasn’t until they were almost back into daylight that they heard the roar of the tunnel collapsing behind them and felt the whoosh of air and dust as the gem cave was sealed forever.
    *
    Tozaman sat outside the miners hut and nursed his injured hand. He had splinted the two broken fingers and had wrapped them as tightly as he could but it was an awkward job with just one hand. That was another one of Talis’s idiotic tenets; that each man must care for himself so that they may honour their god with their pain. Clearly the god had never tried to stitch himself up or set his own broken bones. At least he had taught all his armsbrothers how to care for their wounds, and if they practiced that care in pairs when there was nobody watching, then who was he to stop them? Normally it would have been Dravin who would have practiced his field craft on him but he hadn’t seen Dravin since the roof fall in the mine.
    Out here in the Stone Hills the miners had a much more sensible approach to caring for their sick and injured so even the overseer had turned a blind eye to their blaspheme. He had no problem leaving