by Lian Tanner
Duckling scooped up the chicken, and all those hands took hold of Pummel again. Hands upon hands, grasping at his elbows and shoulders and forearms.
He gulped. The last time he did this, Duckling and Otte almost died. What if it happened again? What if the blood didn’t make enough of a difference? What if he killed all these children?
The only answer to his questions was yet another of those mind-shattering howls. Ice formed on the tips of his fingers and began to crawl towards his heart. The hands that clung to him trembled with fear and cold. The Harshman was getting closer.
With a shaky breath, and with dozens of children, a cat and a chicken in his care, Pummel stepped into the rock.
Duckling had heard Sooli say that it was the adult mine on the other side of the rock face. But a part of her had hoped for something else.
Daylight.
Freedom.
Safety.
Instead, it was more dark tunnels, crowded with ragged men and women who embraced the children desperately, whispering in several different languages. Some of them sobbed. Others laughed, as if a tiny patch of joy had come back into their lives.
Then they picked up the youngest children and urged the others onwards, saying, ‘Escape’ and ‘Druun’ and ‘Bena’, which all seemed to mean more or less the same thing.
As that great mass of people started to move, Duckling caught up with Sooli and said, ‘How did they know we were coming?’
‘Sometimes the ghosts will take messages for us,’ said Sooli.
On her other side, Pummel said, ‘Do they know about the Harshman? Do they know that we have to hurry?’
‘I have told them,’ said Sooli.
And indeed, everyone was hurrying as best they could. Some of them could hardly walk, but with the help of their friends they dragged themselves along, and no one was left behind.
‘Do they know where Grandpa is?’ asked Duckling as they turned from one tunnel into another. ‘And Arms-mistress Krieg?’
‘No,’ said Sooli. ‘And yes.’
‘What do you mean? Where’s Grandpa?’
Before Sooli could answer, a woman behind Duckling said, ‘They are here, your children, see?’
Duckling spun around. And there was Arms-mistress Krieg, staring at her in astonishment. The Arms-mistress was thinner than she had been, and covered in salt and dirt. But to Duckling’s eyes, she looked exactly the same. Honest. Strong. Trustworthy.
‘You were caught?’ asked Krieg, pulling Pummel and Duckling out of the moving throng. She shook her head and gave a humourless laugh. ‘Of course you were, or you would not be here.’
Then her eyes widened and her voice rose. ‘But where is Otte? Where is he?’ She was shouting now. ‘What have you done with him? What have you done with the Young Margrave?’
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d made a mistake; it was clear from her face. All those years of keeping Otte’s secret, and now she had shouted it to a mine full of people who loathed the Margravine and anyone related to her.
But it was too late to take it back. Every single person within earshot had stopped, and was staring at Krieg and the children with open hostility.
Sooli was one of them. ‘The Young Margrave? Otte is the Young Margrave?’
‘Don’t worry about that now,’ said Duckling. She turned urgently to Arms-mistress Krieg. ‘He’s up top somewhere. Old Lady Skint took him. And the Harshman’s here, looking for him. Sooli’s going to help us save him. Where’s Grandp—’
Sooli interrupted her. ‘I will not help you save Otte. You made me think he was just an ordinary boy, but he is not. He is the son of the Monster Margravine, who steals us from our homes and brings us here to die.’
The men and women closest to her nodded. Under the filth, their faces were unforgiving.
‘Otte is an ordinary boy,’ said Duckling. ‘It’s not his fault who his mother is.’
Arms-mistress Krieg gritted her teeth. ‘This is no time to argue. The important thing is that he is missing and the Harshman is here. Nothing else matters.’
‘Of course it matters,’ cried Sooli. ‘It matters more than anything. Let the Margravine lose her son, as we have lost so many. Perhaps then she will understand. Perhaps then she will stop the slavery.’
Duckling shook her head. ‘The Margravine’s dead. Assassinated. She won’t even know.’
Arms-mistress Krieg’s face froze. But Sooli said, ‘I do not believe you. You are just saying that to get what you want.’
Pummel grabbed her hand. The Harshman is eating the magic. You told us so yourself. Don’t you want to stop him?’
‘I will stop him,’ cried Sooli. ‘But first I will let him kill the Young Margrave.’
The words had hardly left her mouth when a sprinkle of dust fell from the ceiling. The chicken made a sound unlike any she had made before. The men and women looked up, their fierceness turning to dismay.
Duckling heard a loud rumble – and the ground beneath her feet began to shake.
‘Earthquake,’ cried Arms-mistress Krieg, and without wasting another breath she snatched up two of the smaller children and began to run. After a moment’s horrified disbelief, everyone surged after her.
Duckling had no idea where they were going, but she ran too, stuffing the windmill down the front of her jacket and clinging desperately to the chicken. She stumbled over stones. She collided with one of the struts that held up the roof of the tunnel. She fell to her knees, and Arms-mistress Krieg somehow saw her and found a spare hand to drag her upright again.
Behind them, Pummel and Sooli were herding those children who weren’t being carried.
As the shaking grew worse, the trickle of dust became a patter of pebbles, and small cracks began to open in the walls of the tunnel. Some of the lanterns went out. The air was full of cries and weeping.
Duckling was as frightened as any of them. But for all her fear, she couldn’t stop her mind working. That was what came of being raised by Grandpa – even in the worst of situations, with the world buckling around her and terror washing in from all directions, she kept thinking.
And what she was thinking was this: Why now? Why is the earth shaking now?
It was a stupid question to ask, when dust filled her eyes and nose, and she was out of breath, and the chicken’s claws were digging into her arm like a vice, and they were all about to die, trapped far beneath the earth. But it clung to her like a burr.
Why now?
She shouted it at Krieg, who was too busy carrying the children and picking up anyone who fell to answer. She shouted it at Pummel, who looked as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.
But Sooli understood straight away. ‘I do not know why now,’ she gasped, urging a little boy onwards. ‘I have never heard of earthquakes here. The rock is always quiet; it has no reason to—’
She stopped abruptly. Stopped talking and stopped moving, so that the crowd of people broke around her, and the little boy was carried away like a stick in a river.
Duckling stopped too. The chicken’s claws felt as if they were cutting right through her arm.
‘The vow,’ said Sooli. ‘I made a vow to the land.’
And suddenly, with the earth rumbling around her, Duckling knew why that question had clung so tightly. ‘You said that it mustn’t be broken,’ she gasped. ‘Why not?’
Sooli’s eyes were white-rimmed with horror. ‘If a vow to the land is broken, everything turns against you. The rocks, the land itself.’ She shook her head frantically. ‘But – but I am trying to stop the slavery! I am trying to save my people! The land would not turn against m—’
This time the shaking was right under her feet.
Sooli flung out her hands, trying to balance. Duckling shouted over the groaning of the rock and the squawking of the chicken, ‘Listen, Sooli, the Harshman’s powerful now, but if he kills Otte he’ll become unstoppable. You won’t be able to stand against him, no one will. He’ll destroy every
thing. Maybe the land knows that. Maybe it’s telling you to help us. Please, Sooli! Please say you will!’
To her relief, that was enough. Sooli swallowed – and nodded. And nodded again and again until the grumbling of the mine settled, though there were still a few stones falling in front and behind them.
The chicken cackled her relief. The cat, who had come back to see where they were, said, ‘Ooout. Nooow.’
They ran to catch up with the others, who had slowed down a little when the shaking stopped. Pummel grabbed Duckling’s arm, saying, ‘Are you all right? What happened?’
‘The vow,’ said Duckling. ‘Sooli’s going to help us after all.’
The chicken murmured; the cat brushed against Duckling’s leg.
And then they were on the move again, hurrying through the darkness with lanterns in front of them and a great whispering crowd of people all around. Duckling’s feet hurt, and so did her knees and her belly and her back and every other part of her, but she didn’t even think of slowing down.
Instead, she elbowed her way through the crowd until she found Arms-mistress Krieg. ‘Where’s Grandpa?’ she asked.
The arms-mistress didn’t answer, but her arms tightened around the children she carried. Her face still had that frozen look, as if a key had turned inside her, locking away some great emotion.
Duckling realised the reason for it, and winced. ‘You didn’t know about the Margravine …’
Krieg shook her head. ‘I did not know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Duckling whispered. ‘I’m sorry she’s dead and – and I’m sorry you had to find out like that.’
‘It was always a possibility,’ said Krieg. ‘In the Stronghold assassination is a way of life.’
‘It’s a nasty thing, all the same,’ said Duckling. ‘When she was Heir, you were Heir’s Friend, weren’t you? Like Otte and Brun.’
The arms-mistress cleared her throat. ‘Yes. Like them.’
Duckling wasn’t used to comforting people, not unless she was doing it as part of a Scheme, and then it wasn’t real. But she could imagine how she would feel if Grandpa was assassinated. She patted Arms-mistress Krieg’s hand.
Krieg glanced down at her, over the heads of the children. ‘Your grandfather was taken up in the bucket. I think he bribed the guard.’
‘What with?’
‘I do not know. He had coin. Perhaps he used that. Or perhaps …’
She didn’t need to say any more. They both knew what Grandpa would have given the guard in exchange for his freedom.
‘You did not do it,’ said Krieg. ‘It is not your fault.’
The whispering crowd turned corner after corner. Duckling listened for the Harshman, but heard nothing. She hoped he’d been crushed in the earthquake. She hoped he was completely dead, even deader than before. Too dead to come after them.
But she knew he was not.
When the tunnel began to slope upwards at last, Krieg said, ‘This was the old way into the mine. When they stopped using it, they blew it up. We have dug through all but the last barrier.’
It was steep and hard, that old way. Soon Duckling’s legs ached more than ever, and her heart pounded in her chest. There were places where the roof had fallen, leaving piles of rocks that everyone had to climb over, and other places where the tunnel grew so narrow that only people who had not been fed properly could have passed.
At last Duckling heard the sound of picks drifting downwards. For all their tiredness, everyone sped up and almost ran that last distance, right up to the rock barrier and the men and women hacking their way through it.
Duckling had seen how hard the children worked at chipping salt. But no one had ever worked as desperately as these people. They threw themselves at the rock with all their worn-out strength. They dug their picks into it and ripped them out again. They grunted and choked and wheezed, and coughed up dust and blood, but nothing could stop them.
Not until Pummel put the raashk to his eye and pointed to one side of the barrier, crying, ‘There! You’re nearly through!’
The workers turned and stared at him in astonishment. Then they redoubled their efforts, homing in on the spot he had pointed to and growling with each blow as if they were fighting a human enemy.
But the men and women of Saaf looked at Sooli, who raised her chin proudly. ‘He has borrowed the raashk for a little while,’ she said. ‘I allow it—’
She broke off as Pummel yelped, ‘Stand back!’
Everyone threw themselves backwards. And with a roar and a grumble, the rock barrier collapsed.
At first, all Duckling could see was dust. It choked her. It blinded her so that all she could do was stand there with her hand over her face, trying to breathe.
When at last the dust settled, everyone was the same grey colour. But at the top of the barrier, there was a hole.
Through it crept a finger of daylight.
Pummel blinked at the light. The cat leaned towards it. The chicken ruffled her wings and murmured.
Sooli was the first to move. ‘Come.’ She grabbed three of the children and led them towards the fallen rocks.
Everyone else stepped forward with her, drawn by a sense of urgency and hope. But they didn’t push or shove. They brought all the children to the front and passed them up to the hole, where Sooli urged them through as quickly as she could.
Pummel shifted from foot to foot. He could have taken the raashk and walked straight through the rockfall. But even with blood he didn’t think he could take this many people with him.
So he waited.
Several men were working around the edges of the hole now, carefully making it bigger. Soon it was large enough for two children at a time, then three, then four, then five. The whispering in the tunnel was like the wind on the cow paddocks in early spring. The hair on the back of Pummel’s neck rose, and he could hardly stand still.
If Lord Rump was here, he thought, he’d make up such a good story that everyone would beg him to go first. And once he was out, he’d run off and leave us.
But although Duckling’s eyes gleamed and she had chewed her bottom lip almost raw, she didn’t move.
At last all the children had gone through the hole except Pummel, Duckling and Sooli.
‘Come,’ whispered the adults to them. ‘Escape.’ ‘Bena.’ ‘Druun!’
Sooli grabbed hold of Pummel, who grabbed hold of Duckling, and with the cat just ahead of them, and the chicken scrabbling along behind, they dragged each other out into the sweet breath of day.
At first, Pummel couldn’t open his eyes. The sun was too bright, even through his eyelids, and he had to put his hands over his face and stand there, blind, with no idea what was happening around him.
If the guards find us now, he thought, they’ll send us straight back down the shaft again.
That was enough to make him take his hands away and squint at the light.
Duckling was on her knees, patting the grass, as if she could hardly believe it was there. The cat was cleaning a week’s worth of dust and salt from her paws. The chicken foraged for insects, clucking with satisfaction.
Sooli just stood there, speechless.
Behind them, the adults were scrambling out of the shaft, with Arms-mistress Krieg among them. Most of the children had already begun to stumble away into the hills, and the men and women followed them, hurrying as best they could in case the guards suddenly appeared.
But although the mine buildings were only a hundred paces away, there was no sign of any guards.
Arms-mistress Krieg shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut and ran her fingers through her short hair. Then she opened her eyes and said, ‘There are rooms above ground where Rump and I were taken, before we were sent down into the mine. If Otte is still here, that is where they will hold him.’
Duckling grabbed the chicken and stood up. The cat said, ‘Noooow?’
‘Now,’ agreed Arms-mistress Krieg.
Sooli could hardly bear to walk towards the mine
buildings. Every part of her wanted to demand the return of the raashk and the Wind’s Blessing, and run in the opposite direction, with sunlight and fresh air on her face.
It was only the vow that kept her walking. And the knowledge that if the Harshman monster killed Otte, no one would be able to stand against him. He would eat the magic. He would destroy the soul of the land.
The woman called Krieg led the way to the buildings with the cat stalking beside her. Sooli, Pummel and Duckling brought up the rear.
‘There will be guards inside,’ whispered Sooli.
Krieg nodded and said over her shoulder, ‘I will deal with them.’
‘Deeeeal,’ snarled the cat.
They were only a few paces from the front door when a loud bell began to ring. Sooli stiffened. ‘It is the alarm. They know we have escaped.’
She expected a dozen guards to come tumbling out the front door and drag her back to endless days of torment. But the guards must have gone downwards into the shafts, because the bell kept ringing and no one appeared.
Arms-mistress Krieg grinned ferociously and threw open the door. Sooli heard a muffled cry. And there was one of the guards, with Krieg’s arm around his neck and his own knife pressed to his throat.
‘Where is the boy Otte?’ demanded Krieg.
The guard rolled his eyes, but did not answer.
‘The boy. Tell me or die!’
The man gurgled something. Krieg loosened her arm a little, and the man croaked, ‘Dunno.’
‘He’s lying,’ said Duckling.
Krieg’s arm tightened again. ‘Where is he?’
But the man merely shook his head.
It was then that the cat wriggled her hindquarters and leaped up onto Krieg’s shoulder. The man’s eyes widened when he saw her, and widened further when she leaned towards him and with great delicacy, patted his cheek with her paw. ‘Telllll,’ she murmured.
Somehow that gentle pat was more terrifying than anything Krieg could have done. The man tried to back away, but Krieg would not let him.
The cat patted him again. The man croaked, ‘Old Lady Skint took ’im. A few minutes ago.’
