“So it’s all just practice?” Evitt asked. “What’s the point?”
The skinny young man replied, “We don’t know all that much, but I’m sure the king’s planning something.”
“There’s something happening today,” the woman said. “A general came yesterday with a couple hundred more troops. She led some of them out on a mission early this morning. I heard they’re confronting a town that won’t pay their taxes.”
Evitt tried not to show his excitement. “Really? I didn’t think there were any towns near here.”
“There’s a big forest not far from here,” the girl said. “The town’s in there somewhere.”
“Sounds like an interesting mission,” Evitt said casually. “When do you think they’ll get there?”
The girl looked up at the sky. The sun barely shone through a layer of clouds. It had hit its peak a couple of hours earlier and was crawling west. “Probably about now,” she said. “They were hoping to take care of business, then start marching back later tonight.”
Take care of business. Evitt didn’t even know quite what that meant, but his heart felt like it dropped halfway down his chest. He’d spent weeks walking, freezing, and starving, just to reach Tavi and warn her. And he was too late.
Chapter Ten
When I began my apprenticeship, I was overcome with dread. I knew at some point, a birth at which I was assisting would turn difficult. Perhaps I should not admit this, but my worries did not center on the safety of the mother and child I would be attending. My worries centered on my own reactions: Would the pressure reveal that I had the strength of diamond, or would I crumble into graphite? Alas, it was something in between. As most things are.
-From Midwife Memoirs by Ellea Kariana
Tullen and Tavi were flying.
It had been several weeks since the debacle with the duke, which was the last time Tavi had been on Tullen’s back. She’d missed the freedom of moving so fast that it felt like soaring. So when Tullen’s day off had coincided with hers, she’d eaten lunch with him, then pleaded with him to take her on a run. She needn’t have begged; Tullen’s face had brightened, and he’d leapt out of his seat. She jumped on his back before they’d even left the meeting hall.
Now Tavi’s cheeks stung from the autumn wind, and she wished she’d worn a hat, but she was happier than she’d been in weeks. Her mind kept focusing on things she usually tried not to think about: the firm muscles of Tullen’s broad shoulders, the way his back rumbled against her when he laughed, the warmth of his hands where they held her legs. Today she indulged the silly, secret thoughts. Tullen couldn’t see her face; he wouldn’t guess the direction her mind was taking her.
Suddenly she became aware of their surroundings. They were approaching the creek that ran through the middle of the Meadow. Tullen had told her the creek rarely dried up, though it was often little more than a trickle. Lately, however, there had been so much rain that the pleasant little waterway had expanded into a wide, rushing force, complete with miniature white caps where it hurtled over stones.
“Tullen!” Tavi squeaked. “The creek!”
“I know!” She could hear his reckless smile.
“It’s too wide!”
“Have a little faith.”
Faith wasn’t her strong point these days. But Tullen didn’t stop. As they reached the creek’s banks, Tavi’s eyes widened, and just as quickly, she squeezed them shut. A moment later, the rhythm of Tullen’s boots slapping the ground stopped, and for a terrible, exhilarating, bloodcurdling second, his jump carried them so far, Tavi marveled that she’d ever considered running to be flying. This was flying. Beneath them, she heard the racing water of the creek, laughing at them in a voice that wavered between enthusiasm and malevolence. Then with a thud, they were on the ground again.
For a heart-stopping moment, Tavi worried they’d fall, but Tullen’s steps continued, smooth and fluid, his stride gift guiding them as surely as ever.
His laughter resonated against her again. Then she realized she was laughing too, great peals of relieved joy originating in her lungs and bubbling out of her mouth, as energetic as the water they’d leapt over.
Soon they reached the perimeter of the Meadow, and Tullen ran close to the fence line, showing Tavi some areas she hadn’t yet seen. He was describing a collection of tiny, dilapidated houses, left over from the Meadow’s early days, when a bell began pealing.
“Oh, no,” Tullen said, and he ran even faster.
“What is that?” Tavi asked. She’d never even seen large bells in the Meadow, much less heard them.
“Alarm bell,” Tullen said. “We’ve got them at all four guardhouses, plus one in the meeting house. The bells are behind shutters most of the time.”
“There are four guardhouses?”
“Yes. The lookouts all have spyglasses and can signal to each other. There’s a lot more security here than you realize.”
“What does the ringing mean?”
“It’s probably just a drill. But if it’s not, it’s something bad. Sounds like it’s coming from the nearest guardhouse. We’ll go see what’s happening. The other bells will join in soon.”
As if on cue, another bell began clanging, out of time with the first, and much farther away. By the time the nearest guardhouse was in sight, two more bells were sounding alarms.
“That’s only four,” Tullen murmured. “Where’s the last bell?”
The guardhouse looked similar to the one at the front gate, with a small building abutting the fence and a tower rising several stories above the ground. Tullen ran straight to the guard at the door and set Tavi down.
“What happened?” Tullen asked.
The guard crossed his arms. “Not authorized to say.”
“Listen to me.” Magical running didn’t tax Tullen’s lungs at all, but the urgency of the moment made him sound a little out of breath. “If there’s something happening and we need to evacuate, I can spread the word faster than anyone else.”
The guard squinted warily at Tullen. Everyone knew about the young Meadow Dweller who’d gone to live as an Outsider and then returned with friends. And most of them distrusted him. “Hang on,” the guard said after a moment. He knocked on the door of the small building and called, “It’s me. Seven five seven five.” The door opened, and he rushed in, bolting it behind him.
“If we’re evacuating, you can go with a guard,” Tullen said. “Then I’ll run and tell as many people as I can.”
Tavi shook her head hard. “If you’re running off to spread the word, I’m coming with you. You can take me on your back, and then we can both knock on doors. We’ll talk to more people that way.”
Tullen looked like he would argue, but then his mouth closed, and he nodded once.
“Where in the world would we evacuate to?” Tavi asked. “The forest?”
A strange, hesitant expression came over Tullen’s face. But before he could respond, the door opened. The same guard beckoned them in.
“Aunt Bellika!” Tullen said.
Sure enough, his aunt was in the guardhouse, along with one other guard, who appeared older than the first. Bellika’s face was bright red and streaked with tears, and her hair was coming out of its pins, chunks of it hanging next to her face. She sat on a chair, her shoulders curved inward.
“I let him in,” she cried. “I let them all in.”
Tullen knelt before her and grabbed her hand. “Who, Aunt Bellika?”
She began to cry. “I’m so very sorry.”
A guard, the one they hadn’t yet spoken to, cleared his throat. Tavi and Tullen both looked up. “After the duke visited, she met with him in secret, and they began sending messages back and forth,” he said. “She arranged for the back guardhouse to be empty today so she could let the duke in through the back gate.”
Tavi gave Tullen a sharp look. There was a back gate? But his eyes were still on the guard, and Tavi shifted her gaze that direction too.
“She’d
told the duke she’d bring him to talk to the elders,” the guard said. “She says she just wanted to keep the peace. But when she opened the gate, the duke wasn’t alone. He had soldiers with him, maybe two or three dozen. She says they have those new black powder weapons we’ve heard about. One of them, some sort of supervisor, prevented her from closing the gate. They said . . .” He gave Bellika a questioning look.
Bellika’s voice was strained as she spoke. “The leader said, ‘We’ll teach this place a lesson. All of you, men, women, and children.’ Then she pointed her weapon at me.”
“Where are they?” Tavi asked. Her breathing had quickened, and her whole body felt cold.
The older guard answered, “Bellika ran a few feet away. Then she created a wall of heat in front of the gate. It’ll hold them off for a little while, but not for long.”
“A wall of heat?” Tavi asked.
Tullen glanced at Tavi. “Bellika has hands of gold.” He looked back at the guards. “We have to evacuate.”
“I agree.” The older guard gestured to the younger. “Parin, we’ve already signaled to the other guardhouses. They know this is an invasion. With the alarms sounding, everyone should already be headed to the rendezvous point, but many people will be slow to move until they realize it’s not a drill. I want you to knock on doors. Tullen, we’d love your help.”
Tullen nodded. “We’re going now.”
Tavi was on his back before he stepped out the door. He began running, and she asked, “She created a wall of heat with her hands?”
“Yes, and it’s so hot, no one can get through it. It lasts less than an hour, but she might have bought us enough time to get most of the people out.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We’ll stop at various houses between here and the center of the Meadow. The people we talk to can tell others. We train for these things; it’ll go quickly.”
“But where are we going, Tullen? Where are we evacuating to?”
He let out a nervous laugh. “I’m not actually sure.”
Word spread faster than Tavi expected. Many of the people they spoke to ran to tell others rather than going straight to the rendezvous point behind the Hall of Elders.
Minutes passed far too quickly. As she knocked on the door of a neat little cottage near the center of the Meadow, Tavi heard a shout: “The soldiers are in the Meadow! Rendezvous now!” The voice repeated the message.
She looked for the person who’d made the announcement, and halfway through the second recitation of the message, she found him. As Tullen had said, there was a bell in the roof of the meeting hall behind a set of open shutters. Next to the bell, Tavi saw the man again shouting his message. As she watched, however, he left the window, doubtless to follow his own advice. His bell stopped ringing, and then the others did too. The sudden cessation of sound was haunting.
Tullen ran up. “We have to go. It’ll probably take the soldiers a quarter hour to get here from the periphery.”
The door to the cottage finally opened, and Tullen turned to a tiny, elderly woman who stood there. “This isn’t a drill,” he said. Then he scooped the woman up and carried her on one hip. He gestured to Tavi, who hopped on the other side. When Tullen began running, his magical feet hitting impossible speeds, the woman screamed. It didn’t slow them down.
They reached the little Hall of Elders in seconds. Tullen ran toward the fence that surrounded the spectator area in back. A wide gate was open, and Meadow Dwellers streamed in. The woman was still screaming, so Tullen set her down.
Tavi jumped to the ground. She grasped Tullen’s arm and pulled him off to the side.
“You weren’t planning for us to evacuate, were you?” Tavi asked.
“We have to.”
“But we could stop those soldiers.”
Tullen’s eyes were sadder than she’d seen them in a long time. “I want to as much as you do, Tavi. But if we try to stop them, we may not even survive. And if we do succeed, Konner will just send more to replace them. We don’t need to stop the soldiers, we need to stop Konner. We need to stop his king and queen.”
“But shouldn’t we go find the other Golds?”
“We don’t have time,” he said. “They probably got here before we did.”
Tavi bit her lip and swallowed. She forced herself to nod. They rejoined the crowd.
Several adults were directing people into the back yard. Tavi recognized a few of the helpers as elders, and her respect for them grew. At least they weren’t putting their own safety first.
It didn’t take long to get through the gate. Tavi and Tullen walked with the others toward the little building. Its back wall was open, just as it had been before, and everyone was streaming inside. Tavi stood on her tiptoes as she walked, trying unsuccessfully to see above the heads of those in front of her.
When she entered the building, Tavi gasped. Just as the whole back wall was essentially one large door, most of the building’s floor was a trapdoor. The crowd was descending down a wide, wooden staircase beneath it, lit by lantern light.
As they approached the stairs, Tavi turned to Tullen. “Where do those stairs lead?”
“I have no idea.”
The stairs led into a large cellar. They walked through the room, past crate upon crate of labeled supplies. Off to one side was an opening almost as wide as the cellar itself. As they walked through it, Tavi’s mouth dropped open.
A huge gate was attached to one side of the opening with massive hinges. The gate opened outward from the cellar and had been fashioned to look just like the cellar walls, with rough dirt, stone, and even wide timbers that looked like structural supports. Tavi could imagine that once the gate was closed, no one inside the cellar would realize it was there.
They descended more steps, these made of stone. The stairway was lit, but Tavi couldn’t see above the surrounding people to tell how far down the stairs went. A couple of minutes later, she still didn’t know, but one thing was clear: We’re going deep into the earth.
At last, Tavi and Tullen reached the end of the staircase. They were in a massive cavern, lit with dozens of lanterns. Hundreds of people were already there, many of them sitting on blankets or bags of belongings.
“Amazing,” Tavi whispered.
“It is,” Tullen said.
Surprised he’d heard her in the crowded room, Tavi looked up at him. His ears were glowing.
“I’m listening for the others,” he said.
Embarrassed she hadn’t thought to do the same, Tavi activated her own hearing gift. It was difficult to pick out individual voices with this many people around, but it would help to have two of them working at it.
It turned out their gifts weren’t needed at all. Above the voices of so many people, one rang out: “Tavi! Tullen!”
Tavi had known that voice nearly all her life. “Narre!” she called, looking around for her cousin. Then she saw her. Narre, Sall, Jenevy, Reba, Wrey, and Ash rushed toward them from one side of the cavern. All the Golds had made it. They exchanged hugs, and Tavi wasn’t a bit ashamed of the tears on her cheeks.
Raised voices sounded from higher on the stairs, and the people descending began moving more quickly as a message of some sort was passed from one person to another.
Tullen tapped someone who’d just come down the stairs. “What is it?”
“We’re closing the doors,” the man said.
Tullen nodded and turned to the Golds. “I hope everyone got out.”
The man they’d just spoken to turned around. “We heard loud popping sounds and screams before we made it in. Lots of screams.” He blew out a loud breath and continued on his way.
Tavi’s tears returned. She’d given in to relief, happy her friends were safe. The man’s words sobered her. Soldiers had come to the Meadow. And they’d come to attack.
She looked at Tullen. “Is there anything we can do?” Her voice caught on the words.
He reached his arms out, and she fell into them. He held
her tight and murmured, “I don’t know.”
Chapter Eleven
You funny thing! I won’t have to embellish; the truth is enough.
I finally convinced a friend to walk with me to the place where the king and queen hold court. The new palace is still being constructed, so I won’t waste your time describing the ugly building they’re using now. Instead, I will tell you of the royal guards outside. They wear gorgeous, dark-red uniforms with silver, braided trim. Even the homeliest of men would look tempting in such attire! And the female guards appear strong and proud.
I hesitated to get too close, for they carry hand cannons. Have you heard of those? They are weapons that use black powder, the same material used in mining. People say the metal tubes throw out pebbles with such force, they can kill in an instant. Despite my nerves, I approached the barriers and engaged the most handsome guard in conversation. My eyes could not decide whether to stay fixed on his face, his uniform, or his weapon! I do so wish you’d been there.
- Erti Stag to Mika Stag, from Year One: Correspondence in the Corminian Kingdom
Long, narrow formations of rock hung from the cavern ceilings. Some looked like delicate icicles and others like tapered, knobby fingers. Similar marvels rose from the floor of the cavern. There were even natural pillars connecting floor and ceiling, giving the whole area a strangely regal look.
Further spectacular sights revealed themselves in countless smaller caves connected to the main area by meandering hallways. Pools of water glistened in the lantern light, and some of the walls and floors were damp. The entire place was eerily beautiful.
Tavi and Narre had decided that since they couldn’t do anything to stop the soldiers, they might as well look around. After half an hour, they were still staring in awe at the natural wonders around them. And one of the most impressive features of the caverns wasn’t created by nature. Several smaller caves were crammed full of provisions, the result of years of secret preparation.
Facing the Fire Page 10
