Maynard nodded, shuffled the cards, and put his own sixpence into the pot before dealing out the cards. They all took a glance at their cards, and Maynard smiled. A queen and a ten. Not perfect, but close enough to it. I’m not going to be able to eke out anything higher though.
Across the table he heard Will say, “Deal me in, Mayn,” and so slid a card across the table. He watched Will’s smile, and while it was not a massive smile indicating he had hit twenty-one, it was large enough to pick up that he had hit eighteen or nineteen. He flicked his last sixpence into the pot and smiled before flipping over his cards. His hand was a three, and two eights. “Nineteen. Not the best, but a bloody good hand either way.” Maynard nodded along, holding back a smile. Will, at least, he was beating.
He turned to Harry and raised an eyebrow, to which Harry responded by putting another sixpence into the pot and saying, “I’ll take at least one card.” Maynard slid a card across and he frowned. He spent thirty seconds looking at his hand before finally saying “I’ll take one more,” and as Maynard slid the next card across the table he continued, “I hope it’s not a mistake.” The card arrived in his palm and he tapped it for a moment before flipping it over in front of the entire group. “This deck is crabbing me!” he cried out before revealing his hand. An ace, a six, and a two sat next to the ten that the group had just seen him reveal.
Seeing Harry’s rage, and the cards in his hand, the group burst into laughter. “Are you joshing me?” Oliver asked, “You had a nineteen, pulled a card and got… another nineteen? I guess we’re nineteens all around, lads!”
Harry swore again before upping the pot by a thruppence, then turned to Maynard. Without a word, Maynard threw an entire shilling coin into the pile and flipped his hand over, revealing his twenty and shrugging, “Don’t mess with a good thing,” he said as the group moved their attention to the cards in Oliver’s hands.
Oliver hummed and hawed as he looked at his hand. Eventually, he sighed and put a shilling into the pile and said, “I may as well see whether I’m a blind monkey or a bully trap here. Give me a card and we can all see who pulls out the victory on the final pot of the night.”
“Final pot?” Maynard asked as he handed Oliver his card.
“Didn’t we mention?” Harry replied, “We only play until one of us is out of our game cash. We’re not cruel enough to keep playing after that. None of us want to go home with a flag o’ distress you know?”
“Sure…” Maynard said after a brief pause. Most of their slang I can at least vaguely understand, he thought to himself, But that one’s stumping me. Before he could dwell on the phrase any longer Oliver flipped over the card, revealing the king of diamonds. He bashed his fist against the table and revealed his hand, a nine and a seven, which left him with twenty-six.
In unison, the three miners let out a sigh of frustration as Maynard collected the pot into his inventory via the illusion of his pocket. The only thing he left out was the crystalline die that had caught his eye. Looking back at the three anguished men as he tossed the odd stone between his hands, Maynard pulled out three sixpence coins and dropped one next to each of the men.
“I know I won,” he said, “But buy yourselves a drink on me. I had a fun time.”
“Were you fleecing us, Mayn?” Harry asked as he looked at the coin.
“I’m just lucky is all.”
As Maynard spoke there was a crack and a yell of terror that came from the front gate. While the group was not far from the gate itself, they all looked out into the pitch black in shock. To cut through the rain in such a way meant one of two things, either the scream was close, or it was desperate.
Harry looked at his companions and said to Mayn, “We should be the only ones from the mining operation on site right now, so that has to be one of your lot. The curse of the mine might be finally going for them”. Maynard looked at him, but Harry stared back, stone faced. “You should go find out the issue. Sometimes you can’t break that chain of trust, even if it means danger.”
Maynard sighed and grabbed the lantern he had left by the wayside, igniting it with ease. As he got to the doorway of the cabin they had been enjoying themselves in mere moments before, he looked at the three men and said, “In the cavern… there was something wrong with the shadows. Just do me a favour and stay in the light until the morning comes, okay? I don’t want whatever is affecting my companions to spread to you all and be on my conscience okay?”
“Sure,” said Oliver.
“It’s not like I have anywhere else I can go, you took all my money,” said Will.
“We’ll keep it in mind,” said Harry, “Now go!”
Maynard nodded back to the men and made his way out into the pouring rain, lamp held high. Thanks to the rainfall Maynard’s vision was just as limited as when he was deep within the mines, but he paid it no heed. He splashed through the puddles of mud and felt the sheets of rain soak through his clothes as he headed vaguely in the direction of the entrance to the encampment, where he and the rest of the Ringbearers were supposed to meet.
He was not sure that the entrance was the location of the scream, but it was all he had to go on. He plunged through the darkness like a hot knife, only stopping when he reached his target. The courtyard was a mess but not just because of the rain. Boxes were broken and overturned, the wall that wrapped around the perimeter of the mine had gouges in it, and the body of professor Lockley lay deflated near one of the cabins on the side, half wreathed in shadow. Even now the man clutched the papers that Maynard and his companions drew down in the mine, but as sodden and mud-stained as they were, they would not be of use to anyone – especially not Lockley.
Callum was in a similar state to Lockley. His lower half out of Maynard’s view, but his shirt was stained with blood, and his face a glassy eyed grimace. In the dim light it was not completely clear, but Maynard could not help but think that the young man was dead. Panning his head slightly and moving the light to the left, Maynard finally spotted the other three. Philippe was cowering against the far wall, just below several of the gouges that sat in the wall. His jacket sleeve was torn, and blood seeped out of his arm like magma, but he was alive. In front of him stood Tommy and Adam, the former with two knives out, desperately slashing into the black shadows that wrapped around the latter like a bear trap, the latter struggling to get free from the creature that stood at the heart of the tableau.
