Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 97
the wall. The floor around this whole area was scuffed. The
burial party had come straight to this section of wall. No set of
footsteps ventured into any of the other halls, unsurprisingly.
The superstitious soldiers who'd put the general in here had
wanted to get the job done as quickly as they could, and get out
again. Enneas imagined they'd looked around themselves
fearfully just as Choltas did now.
And his own pulse was racing. He wanted to leave--but
each time he thought that, he remembered poverty and
disappointment, and his feet remained planted right here.
"It's none of these, they're all old," Corres complained.
"And the letters make up other names, I think."
"Yes." The general had not been buried in any of the top
or middle niches. Enneas lowered his own lantern and
examined the row of low openings at floor level. Several were
bricked over, and two of these fell in the center of the scuffed
area. "It's one of these."
Choltas backed away. "We shouldn't be doing this," he
said.
They both looked at him. Corres was unslinging the
smith's hammer he carried for this kind of work. "Getting
traditional on us?" he asked.
"It's--it's wrong," said Choltas. "There must be a better
way to..."
"To live?" Enneas was annoyed. Choltas was shaking;
this would not do. "You can be a beggar, Choltas, you can do
that. Go on--leave us and take up your position on some rainy
street. And every time a copper piece clinks into your cup,
remember that for every one of those, a hundred gold
sovereigns hang in the purse of a dead man, vaulted away
underground where they'll never buy any child a year of meals,
least of all yours. And when they spit on you and call you