Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

hearth held nothing but a little coal and
    some ashes. Four mismatched chairs, one obviously a small child's, surrounded a roughly hewn table.
    Wooden platters had been set, as though for a meal. The whole room couldn't have been more than ten feet square, and the ceiling was so low Rupert kept wanting to duck his head. The smell was appalling.
    Rupert wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'How can people live like this?'
    'They're a miner's family,' said the Champion, 'which is just another way of saying poor. If a miner doesn't dig enough ore to meet the overseer's quota, he doesn't get paid. If he meets the quota too easily, they raise it till he can't. Wages are low, and prices are high; the overseers run the only stores. A miner digs enough copper in a day to feed his family for a year, but the penalty for stealing ore is death.'
    'I didn't know,' whispered Rupert. 'I just never . . . thought about it . . .'
    'Why should you?' said the Champion. 'You have your responsibilities, the poor have theirs; that's the way of things.'
    'Nobody should have to live like this,' said Rupert flatly.
    'We can't all live in Castles, Sire. Somebody has to mine the copper.'
    Rupert glared at the Champion, and then they both froze as a door slammed shut somewhere above them. The Champion hurried over to the only other door at the back of the room and pulled it open, revealing a narrow, rickety stairway. He peered up into the dark, and then slowly mounted the stairs, each step creaking loudly under his weight. Rupert glanced round the empty room, and then followed the Champion, sword at the ready.
    The stairway led to the second floor: the same tiny room, this time containing two simple beds, separated by a hanging curtain, only half-drawn. The Champion pushed the curtain back to reveal a window, the flimsy wooden shutter banging in the wind. He shook his head, put away his sword, and closed the shutter. Rupert frowned at the two beds; they appeared to have been made up, but not slept in. He thought about looking underneath them, but they were too low to hide anything but a chamberpot. He held his lantern high and stared about him. Something lying on the far bed caught his eye, and he moved over to get a better look. It was a child's toy, a ragged cloth doll with crudely drawn features. Rupert sheathed his sword, and picked up the doll.
    'Sir Champion, look at this.'
    The Champion studied the doll, and frowned. 'It's well past a child's bedtime.'
    'Right. So where is she?'
    The Champion shrugged. 'With her family. Whatever happened here, I'd say they left together, of their own free will. There's been no fight or struggle in this house.'
    Rupert scowled. 'The goblin said Coppertown had been visited by demons.'
    'Goblins,' said the Champion, 'have been known to lie, on occasion.'
    Rupert looked at the doll in his hand, and then thrust it under his jerkin and headed for the stairway. 'I want every building in Coppertown searched, sir Champion. Get the guards moving, while there's still some light left.'
    'They won't find anything.'
    'Do it anyway!'
    'Yes, Sire.'
    The Champion followed Rupert down the stairs, his silence clearly indicating his disapproval. Rupert didn't give a damn. All right, maybe the goblin had lied to him; certainly demons would have left more traces of their passing. But there had to be some good reason why eight hundred people would just walk out of their homes and disappear into the falling night. Somewhere in Coppertown there was an answer to all this, and Rupert was going to find it.
    He stalked through the house and out into the street. The evening was fast becoming night, the darkening sky streaked with crimson from the setting sun. The Champion barked orders to the waiting guards, and soon the town was alive with running figures. The distant sound of banging doors carried clearly on the still air, and lanterns danced through the empty houses like so many will-o'-the-wisps. And one by one the guards returned, having found nothing and no one. Coppertown lay silent and deserted beneath the ebony sky.
    'This is a mining town,' said Rupert finally. 'Where's the mine?'
    'Just down that road, Sire,' said the Champion.
    Rupert shook his head resignedly. 'We might as well check it out; it's the only place we haven't looked.'
    'Aye, Sire. It's not far, half a mile at most.'
    Rupert looked at him thoughtfully. 'How is it you know this place so well?'
    'I was born here,' said the Champion.
    A pale sliver of moon shone in the