The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(55)
“I heard youse was comin’,” Harlow said, chewing with his mouth open and then spitting a wad of blackgum close enough to Kiva’s feet that she wondered if he’d meant it to hit her. She wouldn’t have been surprised, though it would have made her less inclined to ease his discomfort the next time he came to see her about his chronic venereal rash. Kiva couldn’t have wished such an ailment on a nicer man, and she took great delight in giving him remedies that stung and burned his nether regions, conveniently overlooking the solution that would heal him in a trice.
Perhaps he should have spat on her. He certainly would have done more than that if he knew the last remedy she’d given him was to deliberately inflame his symptoms, enough that it should be some time before he had the ability to partake in the activities that had resulted in the ailment to begin with.
Served him right, the rat bastard.
“We won’t get in your way,” Naari said in a cool voice.
“Better not,” Harlow said. “And don’t youse bother my workers none, either. I ain’t payin’ ’em to slack off.” He laughed suddenly, one hand clutching his barreled stomach as he arched his back and guffawed. “Payin’ ’em? Ha! Imagine that!”
Kiva shared a look with Naari, whose expression was equally repulsed.
“We won’t stay long,” Naari said, though whether that was to Kiva or Harlow, Kiva was unsure.
“Youse can stay as long as youse want, just not down in the quarry,” Harlow said. He eyed them both and licked his lips. “Youse can come down in my quarry anytime. In fact, why don’t we—”
“We won’t stay long,” Naari repeated firmly, her lip curling with disgust. She turned on her heel and, with a pointed look at Kiva to follow, strode purposefully away from Harlow. The last Kiva saw of the repugnant overseer as they crested the lip of the quarry was him scratching his crotch, and the image had her biting back a laugh.
“He’s a pig,” Naari said as she came to a stop to look down over the choppy, layered vista spread out into the distance.
“He’s worse than a pig,” Kiva said. Deliberating for a second, she quietly added, “But if it makes you feel any better, he’s suffering in silence as we speak.”
When Naari looked at her in question, Kiva shared about Harlow’s condition and the newest remedy she’d prescribed him. The guard laughed so hard that she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Naari said, still chuckling.
“He deserves it,” Kiva said.
“That he does,” Naari agreed. She waved at the view before them and said, “I don’t want to give him a chance to come and hassle us, so where to from here?”
Kiva chewed her cheek, considering. The topmost layers of the quarry had already been mined so that there was now a significant—and sheer—drop down to where the prisoners were chiseling away at the lower edges of the pit. The land itself was an arid gray, but shimmers caught in the light every so often, hints of the glittery luminium threading through the stone.
“Why don’t we just follow the path until we hit the bottom, and I’ll find some places to take samples once we’re closer to the workers?” Kiva finally said.
Naari started down the slope, her steps confident, while Kiva picked her way more carefully. It was wide enough to fit a cart, but all she had to do was twist her ankle on a loose stone and she’d be in real trouble. Unlike Naari, Kiva was neither athletic nor strong, life as a prisoner failing to provide much in the way of fitness. The laborers were the exception; being forced to work under such grueling conditions meant they couldn’t not be fit. It was that or die. And they almost always died anyway.
Just like Jaren would.
Kiva pushed away the thought. She’d known from the moment she’d met him that he’d be allocated a labor job, and it would lead to his death. There was nothing they could do about it, and there was no point in dwelling on it. Zalindov was cruel—it always had been, and it always would be.
But for the first time in a long time, Kiva wished she could stop the inevitable from happening.
“You’re quiet.”
Kiva’s head jerked up at Naari’s words. “I’m just watching where I step.”
Naari let it slide, even though it was clear she knew Kiva was wrestling with her thoughts. Soon the noise became so much that they weren’t able to easily converse anyway, with the sounds of hammers smashing into rock and picks chipping away at stone echoing loudly in their ears.
Given how expansive the pit was, more prisoners were allocated here than anywhere else. At any given time, there were upward of seven hundred quarriers, most perishing within a year. And it wasn’t just that there was space for them; it was also because of how vital the luminium was—not only for power and lighting, but also infrastructure and architecture. The more laborers there were, the faster the luminium could be extracted, with a further three hundred or so prisoners allocated to the depository inside the gates where they processed the mineral and prepared it for shipping to the rest of Wenderall.
It was a well-oiled machine that relied on the lives—and deaths—of prisoners.
As Kiva and Naari made their way past the first gray-clothed workers and the guards watching over them, the clanging of tools was augmented by the tangy smell of sweat and blood, combined with the chalky scent of quarry dust. A few people glanced their way, but no one stopped them. The dirt-covered prisoners had little energy to spare for curiosity, and the guards were watching their charges closely, whips in hand and ready for the slightest hint of anyone slacking off.