“Smith.” he whispered. James sat up hurriedly from his pile of old leaves. There were, of course, no blankets in the lean-to. The slaves would periodically gather fresh leaves for themselves from the forest near the camp, under the watchful eye of the hunter overseer. All the slaves were deeply aware that there was no chance of outrunning a fully grown hunter in his own territory. Nobody ever made the attempt, at least, not since James had arrived.

  “Shh.” he hushed James. “We don’t have much time, and I need you to understand, because you clearly don’t get it.” His face was expressionless, but his gaze felt like it pierced James’ soul, pinning him in place.

  “Things around here have been very… calm, since you arrived. And you don’t understand why that is. Maybe you think it’s just normal. It’s not. Nobody else has arrived in months. When you got here, you were whipped, remember?”

  James flinched, and nodded. The healing mage had ensured there were no scars left, but the memory of the pain rushed over him like a wave.

  “And since then, nobody’s been whipped, yeah?”

  James nodded again.

  “That’s because you were the example. When there’s an example, everyone behaves. And when everyone behaves, there’s no need for more examples. But people forget. And if we’re lucky, there’s just another example. A slave slacks off. A slave messes something up. That slave gets whipped, and everyone remembers why they need to behave.”

  The grey-eyed boy paused. “It almost never works like that. No, a slave slacks off. The mining slows down. Everyone gets whipped. Now everyone’s working injured. There’s no healer here. Everyone heals slow because there’s no rest and there’s not enough food. Slaves start having accidents, hurting themselves in the mine. Mining slows down even more. Everyone gets whipped again. Over and over, until…”

  James gulped.

  “Eventually, we start dying, Smith. There ain’t no coming back from death. It don’t usually happen in the mine, and the whipper ain’t so sloppy as to kill a slave on accident. No, the injuries just pile up, and they go to bed one night and they just don’t wake up in the morning. Their bodies can’t handle it. Their minds can’t handle it. Then they make us throw the body on the waste pile and it rolls down the hill a ways and they’re gone forever. But we still gotta mine. And now we’re down a person. And we’re all injured. And we’re all tired. It pushes people past their limits. They start taking their chances running. Some of ‘em take a swing at the slavers. And those assholes-”

  He sucked in a breath, then resumed speaking somewhat more quietly.

  “They’re lucky, they just get put out of their misery right away. The rest of us? All whipped again. Then… then… they make us choose. They pick a number, and that’s how many examples we have to choose. And I can’t even call them unlucky, because there’s no luck. It’s a choice. We choose them.”

  He looked away.

  “They die, Smith. And it ain’t easy, like going in your sleep. And it ain’t fast, like an arrow to the back or getting your head knocked off. It’s slow. The whipper, he takes his time. He enjoys it. And they make us watch. And then, after all that-”

  He turned to face James again.

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  “After all that,” he repeated, “everyone remembers why they need to behave. Everyone left, that is.”

  The grey-eyed boy coughed, clearing his throat.

  “The last time that happened, it was me and only two other guys left. They didn’t make it. Died in their sleep. I woulda, too, but that healer came back with a new batch of slaves. These guys. Ain’t none o’ them died yet. Ain’t none o’ them misbehaved yet. That’s partly thanks to you coming in with a rep as a troublemaker. Seeing you get whipped, and then behaving, that’s kept them in line this long. But now, you’re not just the cowed troublemaker. You’re changing. Everyone sees it. The slavers took you outta the mine to build a new smelter. Now they’re lettin’ you make your own smithy. Me? I get it. You’re just doing what you’re told. You’re not trying to be their pet or nothing, and you pull your weight in the mine. But it’s different. And the other guys, they don’t understand. They just see that you don’t have to mine sometimes. But I don’t let ‘em slack off. I can’t. If we don’t make the same amount of iron, every day, whether or not someone’s missing, either the slavers are going to make an example outta someone, or someone’s going to get it in their head that they can get away with slacking off. It’s easy, when every day’s the same. Everybody works, everybody eats, everybody sleeps, nobody’s injured, nobody dies. But now, things are changing. You’re not just another slave here. You’re the Smith. You’re the Smelter. But you’re also going in and out the mines and you’re not mining with the rest of us and you’re not pulling your weight with the day’s ore. It’s pulling people out of the routine. It’s getting them thinking. That’s gonna get some of them dead.”

  “Look, I’m so-” James started to apologize.

  “Shut up.” the other boy interrupted. “You don’t even need to apologize. You ain’t doing nothing wrong. You’re doing what you’re told, and you ain’t doing nothing but. It ain’t your fault. But things are getting tense. And I’m just one of the miners. I been here longest, yeah, but that’s starting to matter less and less.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” James whispered. He was horrified. He realized now that he’d been lulled into the routine, just like the grey-eyed boy had described. When every day was the same, it was easy. Just a morning of clearing rubble. Just another lunch of thin porridge. Just another swing of the pickaxe. But now he found himself looking forward to seeing how his anvil and hammer had cooled. To making his tongs. To repairing tools, new tools each day, maybe making tools. To Smithing. But that would change things. And then what would happen? He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. And it was clear to him now that there were lives on the line. Other peoples’ lives, and yes, they had some responsibility for their own actions. But what he did was influencing them. Possibly for the worse.

  What was going to happen?

  “You ever bullied anyone?” the other boy asked.

  “N-no!” James replied forcefully. His parents hadn’t raised him like that. The other boy clicked his tongue, softly somehow.

  “Wish you had.” he lamented. “You don’t look mean, either. I don’t think you can be a boss. A boss gotta be able to scare someone with a look, keep them on their toes, so they don’t gotta say anything at all. I used to be able to, but now the other guys, they look at you and it doesn’t work. They get cocky.”

  The boy paused to think.

  “Can you throw a punch?”

  “Huh?” James was stunned.

  “Look, all of us here are mages, yeah?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.” James answered. Everyone wore mana-sealing shackles, after all.

  “But you got a [Smith] Class, too.”

  James hesitated to reply, then nodded. The other boy snorted, amused at James’ reluctance.

  “It’s way too late for that, Smith. Everyone knows. But that makes you stronger that most anyone here. Everyone knows mages ain’t strong. That’s one of the reasons they don’t expect much from us in the mine in the first place.

  “So what I’m thinking is, I want you to stand by me. Back me up. And if someone gets uppity, they start talking back, you hit em. Not hard, but enough to wake em up, remember what being struck feels like. And you’re running the smelter every day now, right? If you notice we’re not putting out enough iron, or I tell you we’re not, you and me, we’ll tell everyone else before the slavers notice, and we’ll get em working again. We can keep em in line.”

  The boy looked up at the shabby roof of the lean to. The sky visible through the gaps and holes was growing brighter.

  “The days are getting shorter. Winter’s coming. It’s gonna be worse when it gets cold. People get clumsy, get injured. Less daylight means less time working. Longer nights give people time to think.”

  The boy fell into silence for a minute, and James couldn’t think of anything to say. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. Especially not helpless slaves like himself. But… The grey-eyed boy was persuasive. James didn’t know what the slavers were like when they were angry. Even when they’d tortured him when he first got to the slave camp, it wasn’t like the whipper was angry. He was enjoying it. He couldn’t imagine everyone going through that. He listened to the sounds of the other slaves breathing as they slept. What would it sound like if one had died, was no longer breathing?

  What if it was totally silent one morning?