Section 9: A Friend of the Opposite Sex

When Annan woke that morning, he had to face a fact.

The note was gone. So was the drawing board.

The door bolt was still in place, and Martin was fast asleep, clutching his bedding. There was no doubt about it: the Ghost had come again last night and taken the drawing board. Annan could hear the faint commotion outside.

It was the first gift Annan had ever received, and it meant a lot to him.

Annan woke Martin, but the groggy fellow pulled on his clothes and collapsed back onto the bed.

Old Zoran came by soon after and said today was their last day—though who knew whether he would show up that night with bloodshot eyes and demand one more try.

Old Zoran proved his resolve with action: he dragged his bad leg into the gold mine with them.

Annan felt less pressure. Whatever happened, the Ghost had taken the drawing board, which meant it liked the painting. Perhaps it was waiting in the mine to lead them to an undiscovered tunnel.

"Which tunnel do you think has ore?"

Annan pointed at the tunnel they had entered yesterday at random. To his surprise, Old Zoran took his advice and urged them to hurry.

They returned to the hollow they had dug yesterday and kept at it. Old Zoran swung his pick a few times before the pain in his bad leg reduced him to supervising.

Old Zoran's encouragement worked on Martin, who put in far more effort than usual. Annan wanted to do the same, but his strength failed him. Old Zoran did not scold him; he merely shook his bad leg restlessly whenever Annan stopped to rest.

So Annan kept going. As exhaustion set in, his form grew sloppy. On another swing, the pick point scraped across the rock wall, throwing sparks. The loosened pick head flew off its wooden handle, skimmed past Annan's face and Martin's scalp, and hurtled toward Old Zoran.

Thank goodness Old Zoran was holding his pickaxe like a crutch. The flying pick head struck it, changed course, shot up into the tunnel roof, and knocked loose a rock before coming to rest.

The falling rock landed squarely on Martin's head.

"Getting hit on the head was never part of my life plan..." Martin muttered, clutching his head. He failed to notice Annan staring at Old Zoran, or Old Zoran staring at the ground by his feet.

In the lamplight, the fallen rock gleamed dark gold. A pale outline flickered in the darkness and vanished.

Old Zoran pounced on the rock and cradled it, forgetting that he had nearly been killed. He urged Martin and Annan to dig overhead.

Martin raised his pickaxe and could barely reach the roof. After a few complaints, he began tossing the pickaxe upward.

Old Zoran dodged away with an agility neither of them had ever seen from him.

It was hard to say whether their luck was good or bad. They found nothing else over the next few hours. There was no ore vein; the chunk that had fallen might simply have been overlooked.

Clang—

Martin put down his pickaxe and sat beside Old Zoran to rest.

The sound of the blow traveled down the deep tunnel, then returned wrapped in a murky jumble of noise.

"Did you hear that?"

Annan looked toward the depths of the mine in puzzlement.

"You heard it?" Martin rubbed his stomach. "That's my belly growling again."

"No..."

Annan listened closely. The noise, distinct from the sound of pickaxes, had not faded.

He set down his pickaxe and emerged from the side tunnel. In the main passage, the clamor grew clearer: a chaos of shouts, screams, and running feet.

Realizing something had gone wrong, Annan ran back into the side tunnel. He had Martin drag Old Zoran away from the ore he was clutching, and they fled outside with the miners rushing up from the depths.

The oil lamps cast halos over the chaotic shadows. Annan led Martin and Old Zoran along the rock wall so they would not fall or collide with anyone.

Amid the commotion, Annan heard faint barking, bringing back the dread of their recent encounter—the wandering Kobold.

How had the Kobold ended up with the undead?

A glimmer of daylight appeared ahead. They and the other miners made it out of the gold mine before the Kobold caught up.

For the second day in a row, the miners had been driven out of the gold mine.

The foremen gathered at camp once more to rack their brains, while the miners began refusing to go back in. Annan and Martin helped Old Zoran break apart the ore they had brought back and smelt it, producing a speck of gold smaller than a fingernail.

It was just enough for Old Zoran to pay their wages and make a small profit—slightly more than one silver coin. In effect, he had earned his own share of the wages.

At least they had not come back empty-handed.

When they returned to camp, the foremen still had not decided what to do.

If they had been Gnolls or a swarm of Ghosts, the miners would have abandoned the mine without hesitation. The Haunted Gold Mine had long since been depleted and was not worth such a risk. But a Kobold was a rank-one creature that could not beat a grown adult even with two against one. It was hardly frightening enough to drive them off.

More importantly, Kobold tribes had miners, and like Dragons, they loved collecting shiny gold things. If the foremen could find this tribe's lair...

It seemed their only option was to raise the pay. But that was no longer Annan's concern.

Annan persuaded Old Zoran to give up his unrealistic hopes and collected their wages: one silver coin and forty copper coins each for him and Martin.

"Remember our agreement, cousin."

As he spoke, Martin hid twenty copper coins between his feet, which had not been washed in days, and his shoes, which had not been washed in weeks.

Whoever received those coins would be unlucky indeed.

Annan agreed, ran out of the shack, and found the half-minotaur in a secluded part of the woods. He told her he was heading back and warned her to watch out for ghosts and Kobolds.

"My name is Annan."

"Tasia," the half-Minotaur said.

"A woman's name?" Annan realized what he had missed.

"What did you think?"

Annan could not look for signs that Tasia was a woman without being rude, so he skipped past the subject and said goodbye. "Uh... I hope we meet again."

He rejoined Martin. As they left the camp, he looked back and saw Tasia still standing beneath the tree, watching them.

Annan returned to town feeling disappointed. As he approached Aunt Susan's house, his spirits gradually recovered. Then he spotted her familiar, sturdy figure in an apron.

"Aunt Susan!"

Martin, who had not been home in days, rushed toward Aunt Susan in excitement.

"Oh, my little Annan, look how thin and filthy you are—" Aunt Susan pushed Martin aside and pulled Annan into her arms. "Look at your hands. It breaks Aunt Susan's heart..."

With Annan and Martin home, dinner was much more plentiful that evening. Aunt Susan heated some water and sent the two boys to wash up.

Martin soaked for a bit before getting out. Annan stayed in longer to ease his exhaustion, but when he emerged, he found something off about the mood at the table.

Uncle Holin sat hunched in his chair like an audience member waiting for a show to begin. Martin stood nearby, desperately making eyes at Annan.

"Little Annan, tell your aunt how much they paid you."

"Forty copper coins a day. Why, Aunt Susan?" Annan asked, tilting his head in confusion.

"Thank you, little Annan."

Aunt Susan grabbed the broom and advanced on a terrified Martin.

Mr. Fast would not be back for another three days. If Annan counted the begging he had done before Aunt Susan took him in, he had now lost three jobs.

"Little Annan, would you like to go out and have some fun tomorrow?" Aunt Susan asked kindly after she had finished dealing with Martin.

Annan wanted to say he was not a child, but after spending so long in that oppressive mine, he really did need to lift his spirits.

"What about me?"

Martin looked up from binding the broken broom back together.

"You can chop all the firewood that's piled up these past few days!"