Published at 1st of December 2023 10:40 am

Chapter 35 Every Single Body

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“I’m telling you, it doesn’t make sense,” Todd said, mostly to himself as he sat against the wheel of the wagon that held the bodies and took advantage of the scant shade that it provided.

The other boys were letting him rest because he’d gotten overheated from the work they were doing. That’s what he’d told them at least, but he doubted they believed him. Why would they? It wasn’t a particularly hot day, so sun sickness was unlikely. Cowardice or enervation at the sight of the corpses that he and the other orphans had been charged with burying in the churchyard today was much more likely.

That was doubly true considering he’d fainted right after one of the sackcloth bags had ripped open, spilling limbs and viscera onto the patchy yellow grass. He was sure he’d seen the man in the bag move though. The corpse had fixed him with its dead eyes and tried to warn him about the gold just like the last one had. So, now he was very carefully staring at his own feet to avoid seeing anything else unnatural while he recovered from his embarrassing fainting spell in the shade.

“Is he still talking?” Bradwin asked Cole, pretending he couldn’t hear Todd’s muttering.

“Talk? All I hear is croaking. I don’t speak animal,” Cole answered. They both laughed at that, but even their jokes at his expense didn’t stop their digging. There were four corpses today, and if they had any prayer of getting all of them in the ground before dinner, they needed to hustle.

“Very funny, guys.” Todd answered, rolling his eyes. “You see what I mean though, don’t you?”

He tried his best to play off jokes like that, because he knew that they would only get worse if he revealed that they got under his skin. He didn’t think he was ugly enough to really be compared to a frog of course, but he was smaller than the other boys, and his name… well no one would accuse the lads that took their frustrations out on him of being clever.

Garvin’s gift, as the priests insisted they call the monastery, was still only half built, but even the red clay walls that were slowly rising a little bit every day, and the tents that sheltered inside them from the wind were a kinder fate than he’d be able to find anywhere else after his village had been wiped out, and his family with it. He tried to be grateful to the gods for what little they gave him, even if he had to deal with this kind of nonsense every day…

“Okay TOAD, I’ll listen, but when you’re done with your fairy story your break is over and, and you’re getting back in the pit to dig. I’m not working late because you’ve been out of the water too long,” Bradwin answered, interrupting that train of thought. “Explain it again, but this time use your small words. Cole - he ain't so smart as the rest of us.”

“I’m smart enough to know I can kick your ass,” Cole spat back, but he did nothing beyond that because he was precisely smart enough to know that Bradwin would break his bones if he tried.

In the little group of orphans that was slowly building up in this backwater gutter of human suffering there was no one stronger than Bradwin, and no one weaker than Todd. The older boy ruled over the rest of them when none of the adults were around. If that made Brad the King of the hill, then that made Todd the jester, because he was the butt of almost every joke.

“Think about it,” he said starting from the beginning because he couldn’t remember how much of this he’d said out loud and how much of it had been in his head before he’d fainted. “This month there’s been what - 18 bodies including these one?”

“Sounds right?” Brad grunted, brining up another shovel full. “But that’s not so many. There’s hundreds of miners and thousands of goblins - sometimes they’re going to kill each other. It’s bound to happen. It’s the will of the gods, the priests said so.”

That part was true. The priests had given many long sermons to the boys about the mysterious will of the divine. He was sure that the message was meant to reassure the orphans, given that the cause of their parents' deaths had been goblin raids in nearly every instance, but that just raised other questions for Todd.

“Sure. People die,” he agreed, wanting to move on to his main point. “But those 18 bodies are from four raids, and every one of them was on caravans going to the canal, not from the canal.”

“Ohhhh,” Cole chimed in. “That’s what you’re croaking about. You’re saying that the goblins are following them from here to the—”

“Of course that’s what he’s saying. It’s obvious,” Brad answered. “Everyone knows the caravans to the mines are guarded better than the ones leaving it.”

That wasn’t true. It was actually the opposite of true. The groups that left the mines laden with golden bars had almost double the guards of those coming from the canal bringing fresh workers and food from civilization which made it even less likely they’d be the ones to be attacked, but correcting the bigger boys would likely get him a bruised for his efforts, so he tried another tactic.

“But there are only a few more guards,” he lied, “wouldn’t the goblins be just as drawn to both groups? The people coming here travel slower because they bring livestock with them, but they always seem to attack the ones carrying gold. I think goblins would be more interested in a pig than in—”

“Why wouldn’t the goblins want gold?” Cole asked. “Everyone wants gold. Hell - I want gold, but the priests make us turn it all in. Sounds like your theory is full of holes to me, Toad.”

“Yeah,” Bradwin echoed as he stopped digging and climbed out of the half dug grave. “Your facts are all wrong. Cole found two bodies just the other day that had no gold, because he’s not as lucky as me. I think you're just saying shit to get out of digging.”

Todd stood up and grabbed the offered handle, but he was careful not to look at Cole as he climbed into the pit. He knew what kind of glare he’d see on the other boy’s face. He’d given away too much with that statement without thinking. Just because no one but him had noticed Cole filching didn’t mean that it hadn’t happened.

But Cole was never supposed to know that he’d noticed, and Todd had done a good job of keeping that secret, until now. Since Brad hadn’t picked up on it, Todd hoped that the revelation would only earn him a little extra harassment until Cole felt like he’d gotten his retribution. As the grave digging wore on, Todd seemed to be proven right. The older boys were a little meaner than usual, but it didn’t escalate to violence, so he just kept his head down and his shovel moving until he was so exhausted that he worried that he might actually faint from the heat.

It was only after dinner, when everyone was preparing to go to bed that Cole cornered him while he was securing the shutters on the south wall.

“What are we going to do with you, Toad?” he growled, grabbing Todd by the scruff of the neck and pushing him hard into the wall. “You’re always noticing things. You keep it up and one day you’re going to notice so much that a beating isn’t going to cut it and someone is going to have to shut you up for good.”

“I-I don’t know anything and I didn’t see anything,” Todd blurted out, struggling weakly in the grip of the other boy. If he screamed now someone might intervene, but they would probably just watch, and if Cole had an audience he would feel obliged to put on a show, which would be so much worse than taking whatever was coming in private.

“Of course you don’t,” Cole said, grinding his victim’s face into the sunbaked wall. “You didn’t see anything, you don’t know anything, and even if you told someone they wouldn’t believe you. But worthless as you are, I do have one question for you, since you know so much.”

“Of course! Anything,” Todd said, willing to say whatever he needed to, to stop this from getting worse.

“You said that every victim of the goblins had gold? Do you really think they’re drawn to it?” Cole asked. “Let's say I have this friend - and he has a few nuggets. Enough to get far, far away from this hellhole - how can he get to the canal safely if the goblins are drawn to his stash?”

“Of course,” Todd squealed, trying to choke out words from the way Cole gripped his neck. “You can… you can…

“Hmmm? What’s that? I can’t hear you…” he interrupted, pressing Todd painfully against the wall again by his throat. “If you’re such a smart little frog, then you’ll know the answer to a simple question like that, won’t you?”

“With coal dust!” Todd blurted out the first stupid thing he could think of. “Goblins are attracted to shiny things because they live in the dark. If you cover them in coal dust there will be no shine to attract them!”

For a moment Todd thought he was going to get his brains bashed in for saying something so obviously dumb. Instead, the grip slackened, and eventually Cole released him.

“Coal dust, huh? That’s pretty smart for a Toad. That will fool the priests too if someone tries to search me. Maybe you’re smart enough to stay quiet after all…” Cole looked at him appraisingly, obviously trying to decide if it would be more trouble than it was worth to silence the only other person that knew he had such immense illicit wealth hidden away.

Todd said nothing. He just backed as far into the corner from the other boy as he could.

“I’ll tell you what Toad,” Cole finally said, conspiratorially. “I’m… I mean my friend is getting out of here in a few days. He plans to make a run for the canal on the morning the next boat is due. If you don’t say shit between now and then, well then he won’t have to gut you like the gobs gutted your parents. Are we clear?”

Todd didn’t trust his voice, so he just nodded vigorously until the other boy left. He wasn’t even sure if Cole had a knife, but he was sure that anyone with eyes that dead could do what Cole had just threatened. People disappeared all the time in the red hills, and no one was going to save him. As it was, he was too shaken up and didn’t even have the presence of mind to be angered by the crassness of Cole’s threat until he was lying awake in his cot.

He tried to be optimistic. There was no reason that a tough kid like Cole couldn’t make it as far as Blackwater or Tagel, not that it mattered to Todd. Whether Cole escaped or he got killed along the way, he knew he’d never see Cole again.

He knew in his bones that if the bully tried to leave with that ill-gotten gold the goblins would find him and rip him to pieces though. Todd didn’t know why, but he knew that the goblins were drawn to the people that carried stolen gold from the mine. It had to be cursed or something.

As he lay there in the tent listening to the snoring of the other boys, Todd almost felt guilty enough to try to tell Cole the truth, but he decided against it. Trying to save him would be the right thing to do, but he didn’t feel the need to do the right thing for someone that had brought up his parents like that. If he told the priests it might save the other boy's life, but that good deed might just cost Todd his, and even if that's what the gods would have wanted him to do, he had no interest in making such a selfless trade for such a miserable boy.

No, everything in Todd’s life would get a little bit easier if Cole wasn’t around, he decided. It was better this way.

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