The Hero's Squire

Chapter 2

Five months after the Upheaval

The clink of a pick axe echoed in the Depths. Rat lifted the axe over his shoulder and swung down. Blue sparks flew from the ore in the bedrock. A chunk of zonite broke free and tumbled into the growing pile around his dusty boots. He lifted the axe and swung it down. Lifted, swung it down. Clink, clink.

His shoulders no longer ached. His back had grown strong. A cough rumbled deep in his chest and rattled against his white Yiga mask. He no longer felt the mask. It seemed like a layer of own skin.

A curious deep firefly hovered by his feet, drawn to the red glow of Rat's lantern. There was a time, three years ago-or was it four-that he would have dropped the pick axe and sprinted after the firefly. But it didn't matter how many fireflies he stuffed into a jar. They couldn't compare to the light of the sun-if the sun still existed. He struggled to remember its warmth, the way it used to sink into his skin.

"You." He swung again, punctuating each word with a blow of his axe. "Took. It. From. Me." On the last word, his axe lodged deep in the rock. He pried with the handle, loosening the pick. The effort shortened his breath. With one last heave, he jerked the tool free and stumbled back. He leaned over his knees, panting. Another cough shook his lungs, bringing up mucus. He lifted the bottom of his mask and spat. "Link."

Rat dropped the axe, picked up his shovel, and began shoveling ore into two waiting buckets.

Link. Poison stirred in his belly. If he didn't stop it, the swordsman's face would crawl like a fungus into his dreams. And he needed sleep. To forget. It was the only part of his routine where he felt something close to peace.

Buckets full, he loaded them and his tools on a hovercraft. Climbing onto the control module, he started up the fan. The headlight flickered to life, illuminating the gray earth and ghostly fungal trees. Rat pushed the control stick, and the craft slid forward, following a track worn smooth in the earth from the deposits to the Southwestern Mine.

The ancient structure glowed in the darkness, lit by conical Zonai lamps and flickering torches. He drove the craft around the edge of the refinery, taking his ore to the back of the fortress, behind the Yiga headquarters. The clan's headquarters towered around a cluster of trees. Built in the style of their hideout on the surface, the curved roofs, banners, and lanterns felt grounding: a memory of the surface world, echoed below. But it wasn't home.

Behind the structure, Master Kohga stood leaning on a stack of boxes, sharpening his nails to a point with a dagger. "Little Rat. Back so soon? The bell hasn't rung yet."

Rat's heart flipped, but he eased the hovercraft to a stop. The fan spun, winding down. He stepped off the cart. "The vein's dry. The mine is dead."

Master Kohga pushed himself off the boxes and peered into Rat's buckets. "I've been too soft on you. Given you too much freedom, unsupervised. If you met your quotas, I could trust you to visit the surface."

"I can't meet my quotas when there's no ore."

The master's face snapped up.

Rat tensed, holding his breath.

"This makes me sad, Little Rat." Kohga sighed. "We've been so kind to you. I was dying, bleeding from the wound in my chest, but I caught you."

"I never asked you to."

Kohga gasped.

Rat hefted a bucket and dumped the ore into a waiting crate. His ears twitched, flattened by his hood, and his body clenched to run. He was utterly mad, poking the beast like this. But a grin snuck up the side of his mouth. He lifted his second bucket.