The air is filled with soot.

Our small team was like walking on a huge gray felt, and as far as the eye could see, it was gray. The clouds in the sky were so low as they were before the showers, but there was certainly not a drop of water in the air here, and all that could be seen was animals annoyed by noise and dust, dead trees, low-flying grey birds, everything was gray.

Behind a hillside, a group of dark-skinned slaves with dull faces were cutting down trees, and a Creel overseer was watching them with a long whip wrapped around his waist." The logs are piled up into a hill, and some strong men with upper bodies are using two-handed axes to deal with these woods, and after the branches of these woods are cut off, they are carried to the side of the lumber yard by a group of four or six people, and there are several huge logging hobs in the lumber yard, this tool requires sixteen slaves and the same number of mules and horses to drive together, and after the hobs began to rotate quickly, there were slaves who carefully put the logs into the knife slot, and the logs were divided into small sections here.

The wood was sent to the next group of workers, who partly split the timber into small pieces, and some sent it out of the charcoal chamber to make charcoal for the city. In the past, there were many farmers in the surrounding forests who burned their own charcoal for the mines, but now most of these farmers have disappeared and either died or fled, and there is no one left, and the mines have to solve the fuel problem on their own. But there was obviously not enough wood that had just been harvested, and I saw several places where the timber was stocked with a ground full of wood dregs, which used to be piled up for a long time, and the color of the ground was different from that of other places, and wood must have been a scarce resource for this mine.

"There used to be three towns that supplied the wood," said Abi, after noticing me on the wood, "and the Rhodocs invented the open-top carriage, the four-wheeled kind, which made it cheaper and faster to transport wood over long distances, and the only thing that hindered the towns from making money was the lack of manpower." So these towns had to buy slaves from the desert, and they felt that they were spending clean money. Do a clean deal. But the Salanders have to hunt slaves constantly in order to make money, and the gods are not destined to make everyone happy, and some people will be happy, and some people will suffer. ”

These lumberjacks, or rather slaves, had chains on their feet, and their skin was as dry as the bark of a tree. The wound above is scabbed, covered with dust, and the field is a color. Their hair is not even comparable to the weeds, and the weeds have a little life, and these hot hairs are like cobwebs tangled together, and all of them are like old people. Leaning on his back, he silently watched us pass by.

Several men on donkeys were waiting for us in the distance, these people belonged to the mines.

The people of the settlement caught us in front of these men, and they came up to us.

"Damn," said one of the dark-skinned Creelians, "you've made fewer friends, how come there are two children in there, and their hair is all right?" ”

"There are quite a few people." The people of the settlement are visibly down. So he avoided the important and trivialized, "I just know how to bring people over." I don't care what people do. Adults, take these people, we don't have many people left. ”

"Not many people?" A Creelian casually touched his armpit and said to the young escort, "Are you good, you will come and work for a few days, huh?" How did I tell you in the past, don't you send it if you don't have enough people, why do you want to embarrass us? Why are there hundreds of people in your little fortress, what's the use of raising so many idlers? ”

"That was some time ago, my lord," said the young man, "and when the plague had subsided a little, many of them went back to the village. We can't get these from the countryside, it's too big, how can we have enough manpower? Besides, there are many slave catchers, and we can't do anything about taking away the people who belong to us. ”

"Who wants to listen to you?" The mine man yelled at him, "Get out of the way." ”

The young man hastened to dodge.

A couple of people from the mine came over and told us to roll up our sleeves, and then used a large brown brush to dip something like black oil and brush our arms vigorously. The person who brushed me looked at me curiously when they saw the small wound on my arm, which I had cut when I was captured at Vicchia.

"Hey, come and see," he beckoned to his companion, "what's that sign?" ”

Another Creelian approached, "Look at his eyes, it's obvious that he's a heretic." It's a common sign that if someone steals a sheep, they'll get a small cut, you know? This boy is a sheep thief. Stop talking nonsense, put them all together. ”

The man, apparently believing his companion's words, looked at me, and then said disdainfully, "The sheep thief must be very clever and can't let you stay on the ground." ”

He drew a circle on top of my arm.

Abi stared at a Creelian and was slapped in the face and his arm was circled, as was Noha.

Then we were stripped of our chests and backs, checked for scars, and after finding that there were no problems, the men gave the young people of the settlement a money bag.

"The mines give money to the settlements?" As I was being taken to the pit, I whispered to Abi, "Didn't you say that the people in the settlement gave up their labor to survive?" ”

Abi didn't reply, "What do you think?" With such high walls, so many people, endless food, and ample weapons, how can one be willing to be in danger? See with your eyes, think with your heart, my friend. How did Prince Varan grant you the title of boyar, and are you a relative of anyone? ”

Abi's words annoyed and ashamed me, so I didn't answer him.

"Abi does not despise blood," said Abi, "please don't mind the words of a barbarian." ”

All of a sudden, I became very curious about Abiy's identity. 'Barbarian', this is not a noble status, and who would not care about such a disgraceful identity?

A big fat man stood at the end of a path, and beside him stood a tall old man. There are smelting rooms on both sides, the applauding bellows exhale scorching air, the huge hammer sound is like thunder, the air is full of the smell of burning, the ground is not a single grass, but there is a naked little boy, sitting on his own urine and playing, no one cares about him. When we passed by him. The little boy shouted in Creelian. "Dead miner, good miner, dead miner, good miner!" A few of us turned pale with fright, but Abiy and the blacks couldn't make out what it was.

"That fat man, the foreman of the mines, is the youngest son of Eureka City Vecchier. The one on the right is the real owner of the mine, the head of the merchants. Abi whispered to me, "These merchants are the most vicious dogs in the world, the craziest brutes, who don't eat a man's flesh and blood." Never stop. When they throw a copper plate into the sky, and when it falls back into their hands, if it does not become two, they curse the gods for being stingy. ”

Step by step, we walked in front of the two men.

The fat man nodded to the old man, "I'll count the number of people." ”

This utterly polite remark made the old man grin at the corners of his mouth and say with a smile, "I'm just here to take a look, you can count it." ”

This time. There was another group of people behind us. Like us, their arms are marked and tied together with ropes. Abi looked back, and several of the black youths in the group met Abi's gaze, and then hurriedly turned his head to look away.

The foreman waited for the two groups of us to meet, walked back and forth, and then went over and said to the old man, "There are quite a lot of people this time, twenty people, eleven go down the mine, six wash ore, and the remaining three go to collect wood." ”

The old man nodded, took out a small leather wallet from under his arm, opened the clip, took out a slender reed pen, and clicked a few times on the small round box that could produce ink at any time, this kind of round box I have seen somewhere'It should be at Dongquan University in Beihai, where young students and some note-takers are writing with this kind of convenient gadget, such a round box will not flow out of a drop unless the tip of the nose is pierced, and it is very ingenious.

The old man finished recording the things at hand very competently, "This time, are those lucky guys who can not go down the well?" ”

The foreman said, "Ah, these are these." ”

He pulled out a few of us who had only a horizontal line on their arms.

"Why do they get this kind of care?" The old man asked.

"These people are the only children in the family, or someone in the family has died in the well, and their protector has made a request."

"Their protector?" The old man's tone was as calm as a piece of ice that slowly melted and exuded cold air, "What does this have to do with me?" I pay you the same amount for everybody, but you let so many people wash the stones. Washing stones, people who are dying can also do it, and healthy men do not have to be wasted. All sent down the well. ”

The foreman hesitated, but nodded, "You're right. Do as you wish. ”

The old man said, "I don't want to interfere in your work, but I can see if you are working hard. I didn't want to talk about you, but you've sent more than a dozen people to the stone mine in the past few days, and if you don't say anything, are you going to give me a piece of ore a day to send me away? ”

The foreman was a little embarrassed, the old man scolded him in front of us, obviously detrimental to his majesty, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, "You are not from the mine, there are some things that I may want to explain to you, after the ore is cleaned, it will be more '' when smelting"

The old man snorted coldly and turned to leave.

I saw a very familiar symbol on the old man's cloak: a white dove.

A merchant of the Jill family?

A few minutes later, we were taken to a dark mine head, ready to go down. At this time, a group of black men were pushing a large cart out, and on the cart lay some emaciated dead or dying people, most of whom were blacks, and a few were Creelians. Abi's eyes began to well-up with tears as he looked at these people, and the black youth around him seemed to be always paying attention to Abi.

"Let's go down!" The foreman waved his hand, and several men drove us underground with sticks.

Stuffy, dizzy, foul smell.

For a moment I felt like I was going to hell.

But my confusion and disappointment made me even more painful, and I asked Abi, "I haven't asked you who these merchants are?" ”

"All the wolves in the world eat people," said Abi, "and what does it matter where the merchants come from?" '''Since you asked, these people seem to be from Nord.' They owe allegiance to a lame man, the most vicious merchant chief in the world, and every penny in his hand is stained with blood, sweat, and the smell of the dead." ”

The huge mural suddenly came to my mind: rugged paths, dense forests, and sunshine. But now, I'm heading to the darkest corners of the world, and its protector is the gentle smiling Jill. Bianwen.