Well, soldiering on with Daemon for now.
Montana de Oro
Drake could feel the sweat trickling down his spine as he reached for the another rock, it had been a long hot day, the kind of day when he even wished he was down the mine instead of working on the surface. He was working alongside three others around his age, Pepe, Fanon and Sawyer.
Pepe brought the large boulders in need of crushing to Drake from the ever-present pile at the mine entrance. He was short, but strongly built, and he heaved pumpkin sized rocks without slowing from dawn until dusk. The others called him El Toro, not so much because of his build, which was indeed that of a bull, but because of Pepe’s surly disposition and short temper. Pepe had dumped chunks of ore at Drake’s feet mercilessly for the entire day, offering no assistance when the others fell behind. Drake did not much care for Pepe, especially since his relentless routine was impossible to match, and as a consequence, Rollo the slave master had chastised him for being too slow.
Fanon was the raker for the day. His job was to rake the crushed fragments of ore from the chamber into a cart, using a long handled wooden toothed rake, tossing back those pieces larger than a thumb. When the cart was full enough, he rushed it over to the hand crushers, who ground the shattered rocks into dust for smelting. Fanon was amicable enough, but he spoke only French, and Drake could never understand a word he said. This did not deter Fanon, and the boy spoke often, singing and offering esoteric comments to nobody in particular as the day wore on.
Sawyer has the easiest job, all he had to do was wait until the crushing block had been raised, and he then heaved on a weighted rope to disengage the gear which attached it to the ever-rotating mill, which released the huge granite block and it plummeted into the chamber with a terrible crash, shattering the ore. Sawyer was the oldest, and largest of the boys, he ought to have been sent down into the mine to work two summers previously, but he was also a turncoat and Rollo had allowed him to remain on the surface in return for his treachery. It was a known fact that Sawyer was an informant for the slave drivers, but he was an excellent fighter and a violent bully and harming him would incur the wrath of Rollo and even Don Francisco, so nobody challenged him though all despised him. Because he had helped the authorities so many times, he was rewarded with the easiest and simplest jobs, despite the fact that he was one of the strongest men at the Montana de Oro.
Drake hurled one last lump of ore into the chamber, and as it clattered about inside, Sawyer gave his hoarse warning.
‘Stay clear!’
He yanked heavily on the rope, and the great monolithic cube of granite came down with a deafening crash. Drake and Fanon shielded their eyes from the flying debris momentarily, before both returning feverishly to their work. Their meal was not far away, the sun was beginning to set, and even Rollo and his cronies moved sluggishly, keen to retire for the evening. From the other side of the furnace, Drake detected the warm scent of Soldado Soup bubbling away in the great cast iron cauldrons, just waiting to be consumed. His stomach complained as he heaved another rock into the chamber, Pepe hadn’t slowed despite the advancing shadows, and he was returning with another load, Drake could hear the whining squeak of his barrow wheel as it approached.
He sniffed the air again, savouring the meal it spoke of. Soldado Soup for the forth night in a row, Drake smiled inwardly, this much meat was hard to come by. Usually, the men of Montana de Oro were served a thin, salty stew of beans and potatoes, which was more water than vegetables, and two thick slices of tasteless black bread. Over the last seven years, Drake had come to despise and love that soup and bread in equal measure, each evening he lusted for it in hunger and each night in the dark he cursed it for never being quite enough. Tonight was different, a large pack of Daemons had attacked the mine a few days ago, tonight would be Soldado Soup. Whenever Daemons attacked, the slave master had the carcasses gathered from outside the wall and butchered for their tough grey meat and strong sinew. Many years ago, when the Daemons had first scourged the land, the Spaniards had called them La Soldados Del Diablo – The Soldiers of the Devil, the English speaking men from the mine called the meaty broth that Jimenez the Cook made from their meat Soldado Soup. Drake had at first hated the greasy grey meat of the Daemons even more than the watery fare they usually received, but it was more filling, gave more energy and once one grew accustomed to the strange tang of the meat, a rare and much coveted treat.
Around him, as he worked, Drake could hear the rest of the camp beginning to wind down, the clunk of the hand crusher’s blocks had slowed, the echoing tramp of the miners ascending from underground to receive their meal grew a little louder, and as Pepe dumped his load at Drakes feet, he uttered his first word for the day.
‘Acabado.’
Finished.
As Pepe loped away, the unwelcome sight of Rollo came into view from behind the furnace, already Drake could see he was coming to needle him for laziness. Quickly he doubled his work rate, heaving stones as fast as his tall, thin body would allow, and meanwhile, Fanon swore in French as the ore Drake tossed in impeded his raking.
‘Scum!’ it was Rollo’s pet name for Drake, ‘Hurry up and finish that pile Scum, or you can forget your dinner!’ Rollo menaced him with a fist as he approached. Drake feverishly hauled the rocks, there were only three left to move, but there came the sound he had dreaded.
‘Stay clear!’
Sawyer chuckled audibly as he yelled, before yanking the rope. The block came down again, almost smashing Fanon’s rake which he got clear just in time. Sawyer released the rope, and above them the steel cog clicked back into place and the granite block rose painstakingly into the air again. As it did so, Drake quivered with rage, inside the chamber, most of the ore was too large to be raked, Sawyer had pulled the rope prematurely. Seething, he reached for another rock, expecting the fiery sting of Rollo’s cane on his back at any second.
Instead, there was an odd grinding sound, and the granite block suddenly jerked to a stop, halfway to the top of its ascent. Even the mill stopped turning, and from the open topped stone cylinder, there came a frightening roar.
The mill that powered the crushing block at Montana De Oro, was the work of the great French engineer Claude Hulot of Noveau Marseilles. Drake, and every other man at the mine knew this because Claude Hulot was the only slave to leave Montana De Oro with his life. Don Franciso had paid him for his services by setting him free when the mill was completed and functional, six years earlier. Nobody knew how or why a man such as Claude Hulot, who had built the citadel of Noveau Marseille during the Cherokee War, had come to be Francisco’s slave, but because he had walked out the gates of Montana De Oro alive, and because his device had released them from the hardest job of all, he was a hero of mythic proportions amongst the men.
Hulot’s design was brilliant. The mill was powered by two hulking Daemons, Hugo and Buey. The mill was actually part of the walls which stretched around the entire mine in a huge rectangular quadrangle, extending out from the sheer cliffs at the base of Montana De Oro. The mill doubled as a prison for Hugo and Buey, a fifteen feet high cylinder of equal width, made entirely of stone. Inside, each Daemon was attached by a short chain to thick arms which radiated out from a wooden shaft at the centre made of a pine trunk. Extending perpendicular to these arms, to make a big X at the base of the mill, were two others, on the end of which were large hooks laden with raw meat. Every day, Hugo and Buey strained with all their might in pursuit of the impossible meal, turning the mill, which, through a series of diabolically clever cogs and gears, raised the crushing stone and also powered the bellows in the furnace next door. Each evening, one of the guards would unhook the meat with a long pole, and it would be devoured by the Daemons, and each morning they used the hooked poles to attach two more hunks of meat to the arms, setting Hugo and Buey on their futile journey for another days work. The joints in the mill’s gears and mechanisms were greased with animal fat, usually skimmed off the top of Soldado Soup and cooled. The days everyone on the surface dreaded were the days after someone had tried to escape or attacked a guard, because on those days Hugo and Buey worked twice as fast, and everyone, even Pepe struggled to keep up, because the severed limbs hanging off the hooks in the mill were the Daemon’s favorite meal. Life was the cheapest commodity in the Montana De Oro.
Drake could see already the problem, the gear had skipped out of place and was jammed, Sawyer would have to pull the rope again and Drake prayed that the mill was broken and they would simply send him to eat. Rollo, his bald head turning purple, like a bloated beetroot perched upon his shoulders, was trying to poke the granite block with Fanon’s broom. Sawyer had obsequiously trotted over to help him, shouldering Fanon, who was complaining in French out of the way. Drake sat on the black earth, next to Sawyer’s rope, waiting for the dullards to realize the problem and ask him to tug it. He daydreamed as Rollo and Sawyer climbed up on top of the chamber to look in from above, thinking perhaps that a stone had jammed against the inside wall.
‘You can not escape from la Boca del Infierno with a plan Drake,’ that was what Jaco had said after his father had perished years before, ‘the masters have eyes in the mountain watching you.’ Drake missed his father, Francisco’s men had ambushed them in the mountains, his mother and sisters were sold at the next river town, led away in chains. Francisco kept only the men, and he had brought them to Montana De Oro when Drake was only eleven years old. His father was a sickly man, a passive soul and the shame of seeing his wife and daughters sold like livestock had broken him. He had died in the darkness of the mountain from exhaustion after only a year, and his body, like so many others had been tossed into Hulot’s ingenious mill to feed the goliath Daemons inside.
Jaco had saved him. He had come across Drake curled in the snow, his cloak and blanket stolen by other slaves after the death of his sole protector, half frozen and mad with grief. Jaco had sheltered him, fed him and over the years he had taught him to live in the Montana De Oro. Jaco had been a soldier of fortune for the English Lords in the east for many years, but he had been taken prisoner and sold into slavery. He called the mine ‘la Boca del Infierno’, the mouth of hell. Jaco had tried, as best he could to pass on to Drake his warrior skills, but because they were watched so closely it was difficult. The mine had strengthened him, his body was hard and knotted with muscle, his hands were rough and his anger had matured into steely determination.
‘I can’t see anything stuck in ere!’ Sawyer offered as he peeked into the top of the chamber. Rollo climbed back down, shooting a venomous glance at Drake as he did so, and began to inspect inside the chamber. He leaned in, his chubby legs planted firmly in the ground, and twisted his grossly short neck to try and inspect the underside of the block. Sawyer was descending lazily, smirking at Drake with mocking sadness in his eyes, obviously eager to see Rollo’s foul temper brought to bear on Drake’s well whipped back. Above them, the guard on the mill rampart drifted towards the ladder, lured by the smell of Soldado Soup, and around them, the hand crushers and smelting crew followed, taking the guard’s movements as a sign that work was finished. Fanon joined them, chattering away happily with the French speaking hand crushers, a spring in his step as he disappeared, Fanon was particularly fond of Soldado Soup.
Drake’s eyes snapped up. The wall was empty, only the corner towers were manned, each of them forty paces away on either side of the mill. Usually two men were placed in between the mill and the towers with crossbows, and a man patrolled on a circular route around the wall of the mill itself, but Don Francisco had taken many of the mine’s guards earlier that day to transport a shipment of gold from the mine to his fort. Even then the guard on the mill was more than enough to put an end to thoughts of an escape, but he was halfway down the ladder, licking his chops in anticipation of a hot meal. For the first time since he had quietly begun to observe the security at Montana De Oro, Drake was looking at eighty yards of untended wall.
‘One day Drake, fortune will call you, and you must answer,’ Jaco had said this to him before going to sleep every night, for six hellish years in the Montana De Oro.
‘I don’t understand it Saw, it should be working,’ spat Rollo as he lay on his back, inside the camber, looking up at the stone. Sawyer was smarter than Rollo, he didn’t put any part of his body inside the chamber, too many boys had lost hands and arms in it over the years, sometimes because Sawyer himself had pulled the release early with sadistic delight.
Drake fondled the fist sized rock in his hand as he rose with surprising speed, and all the anger that had boiled inside him for seven long year burst into hope as he reached out with his free hand and pulled with ferocity on the rope…