“Then we’ll deal with it,” said Alex in a normal tone. It echoed off the walls. The torchlight jittered off the walls as Alex jumped.
They didn’t talk much after that, but Alex reached out with the hand that wasn’t carrying the torch. Grace caught it and twined their fingers together.
It was as hard to keep track of time as it had been when Grace was alone.
“I should have brought a clock,” said Alex, when they stopped to rest after they could walk no farther.
“If you can carry more weight, I would rather had brought more food,” replied Grace, testily. She shoved a handful of nuts into her mouth and worked to start the fire.
Alex reached over to touch her, very gently, on the small of her back. “We should sleep,” she said gently.
Grace swallowed, and all the tension went out of her. “All right,” she said.
The comfort didn’t keep her from waking up half a dozen times while Alex slept, scenting the air and trying to taste a change in the moribund stillness that surrounded them.
When Alex woke, she’d been awake and fidgeting for a while.
“Rough night?” Alex asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes in the dim light. She stretched, and even the sight wasn’t quite enough to cut through Grace’s foul mood.
Grace nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Maybe it was the walk or maybe it was just the comfort of Alex quiet at her side, but Grace felt a bit better with every step they took. By the time they took a short break for lunch, she felt like a human again.
“So stiff,” said Alex, groaning as they stood up again. “Everything hurts.”
Grace reached out, rubbed her back lightly.
“Actually, would you mind rubbing a bit harder? Right over my lower back?”
Grace put her pack back down and did. Alex made a low noise of pleasure that echoed through the tunnels, and this time, neither of them jumped at the sound.
“Any better?” Grace asked. The noise had stirred things that couldn’t be constructively stirred.
“Enough,” said Alex. Her voice was just shy of grim. “Let’s get it over with.”
Grace shouldered her pack and they began walking again.
A faint glimmer of light appeared a the end of the hallway. Grace had been about to suggest another stop, but instead she nudged Alex. “Are you seeing--?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Alex. “Praise be.”
They extinguished the torch as they grey light seeped into the tunnel like dirty dishwater. Their legs screamed protest when they sped up, but the thought of being outside again propelled them forward.
“Well, we’re here,” said Alex when they finally stepped out of the mouth of the tunnel into a mountainside illuminated by moonlight. “Now what?”
Not a whole lot was different, it turned out. There was more hiking, more hiding. Abandoned mines dotted the countryside. Fear gnawed paths through Grace’s gut.
They had to leave the path they’d set to make uncomfortable camp every night when their legs could walk no farther. In the dark, they traded watches so they would be equally grouchy in the morning.
Finally, it paid off. Just a few hours after they’d started walking for the day, they heard indistinct voices just in time to press themselves against the bare rock face. They shared a moment of breathless terror that they’d be discovered, but whoever had passed had done so far enough away from them that they couldn’t even make out the individual words.
When the voices had faded, Grace looked to Alex. Alex grabbed her hand and squeezed. “We’re close.”
The wash of enthusiasm faded shortly later when they realized this meant they needed to take even more care with where they stepped. They had to climb higher, seeking the cover in the thin mountain air.
Alex nearly stumbled on exhausted legs into the path, and Grace only just caught her wrist to stop her from falling. It was just in time: they caught a glimpse of the mine entrance, and her quick reflexes meant they weren’t spotted.
Grace pushed Alex behind a crag of rock. “I’m going to see if I can get closer,” she said. “Stay here.”
Less than ten minutes later, Grace spotted the entrance. Guards in black flanked it.
Creeping through the rocks, she looked for a vantage point. It would be easier if she could just shoot them all without causing an international incident.
She found a place where she could almost make out the guards’ faces. They slouched against the struts that marked the entrance, and were probably deeply bored. If they weren’t paying attention, she could probably kill them all from here, but then she probably wouldn't have the proof she needed to bring her parents, and she would definitely have broken international treaties.
Still, sneaking around like this itched.
They barely had a plan, Grace mused, as she crouched and watched for any sort of action. They were just watching, watching and waiting and--
Duck! Grace hit the ground and ran her tongue over her back teeth, tasting cinnamon and cloves. Alex, she realized, as she felt a blow fly right by where her head had been a fraction of a second earlier.
She crouched, rolled, and planted a fist squarely in the person's belly. He hit the ground, gasping for breath, and she regained her feet in time to plant a boot on his throat.
“Try something,” she invited, showing her teeth. “Make my day.”
“Not trying anything,” he said hastily. “Promise.”
“Good.” She nabbed the coil of rope off her belt with one hand and beckoned with the other. “You just stay right where you are.”
Alex picked her way over the rocks, unobtrusive, and the man clearly hadn't seen her coming. She took the rope from Grace’s unresisting hands and started tying the man up. The man began to gibber something about invisible Couran demons.
Alex rolled her eyes. “Given any thought to where we'll keep him?”
“I don't particularly want to keep him.” Grace shot the man a look of disgust. “But that appears to be the situation. Perhaps we can even become friends.” She showed her teeth some more. Alex nodded and stood up, and Grace could see his arms and legs were secured. She took her boot off his throat so she could crouch next to his face.
He made a fidgety motion with his hands. The knots held. “Friends is good,” he squeaked. “I'm George, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance!”
“Hi, George, I'm Grace,” said Grace. “Now, tell me more about the tunnels I saw.”
Armed with a map of the tunnels, Grace left Alex watching George. He’d be missed soon, so she moved quickly before the new guards started their shift.
The air in the mine was thick with dust and the repetitive clanking of metal tools impacting rock. It wasn’t hard to follow the noise.
She rounded a corner and saw them.
There were probably fifty men and women in view. Grace saw tattered leather boots, tunics that must have been bright at one time, and one jacket that had a rip all the way down the back. Mine dust coated everything.
There were a handful of faces Grace recognized. She didn't know their names, and a wave of shame swamped her. Looking away from the miners, she sought out her opponents.
It wasn’t hard to identify the guards: they stood in a group of three, lounging against the wall. Their faces shone faintly blue in the light, and their black uniforms were clean and in good repair. Grace gripped her staff a little more firmly and chose a route across the room. She didn’t want to be seen until she’d already hit them.
She crept along the edge of the room until another step would put her directly in their line of sight. Taking a breath, she braced herself, and on the exhale she took off in a run. The first blow cracked on the head of the nearest guard and he went down like a tree.
The next guard turned to her and caught a blow smack in his gut. It wasn’t enough to knock him down, Grace thought, but she couldn’t waste her momentum. The third guard had gotten her weapons and begun to move in.
Grace couldn�
�t hear the thud of the mine over the blood roaring in her ears as she squared her staff, gripped firmly in front of her. She’d never seen anything like them. She’d have better reach, but the other guard’s weapon was metal and unfamiliar. It was shaped like a baton, and it had copper prongs sticking out of it. She sidestepped, cautious, and the guard swung out. The baton caught the very edge of Grace’s arm.
An electric shock jolted up past Grace’s elbow, making her arm throb. So she needed to be more careful, she thought to herself, resisting the urge to rub it.
The guard pressed in, swinging wildly, and Grace took a step back. The metal clattered against the wood of Grace’s staff. The impact reverberated along her tingling arm.
There was a vague yelling and a flurry of motion behind her, and Grace assumed that meant that the miners had noticed. She didn’t have the attention to spare. The third guard was advancing, and any moment now the second would have his breath back.
Stepping back, she shifted her grip, trading control for reach. The tip of the staff nearly brushed the cavern ceiling, but it gave her the power to bonk the guard right on the head, dodging the batons.
It was enough to knock her off her feet. She whirled, ready for the second guard’s advance, and realized it wouldn’t be coming. Four miners had taken the guard’s arms, and a fifth was sitting heavily on the ground looking dazed. His batons lay on the ground, and Grace gingerly confiscated them.
“All right,” said Grace, stepping over the body of one of the fallen guards into a sudden quiet. “Let’s get out of here.”
At her gesture, the group of people began to gather, shuffling back the way Grace had came. She began to stride toward the mineshaft, ready to lead them all out of the mines.
A small woman, even skinnier than the others with wispy dark hair twined through with strands of silver, took Grace's wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. Her bony fingers dug painfully into Grace’s arm. "They have our children."
The bottom dropped out of Grace's stomach. Why hadn't she thought of it? "We'll get them out," she said, voice catching in her throat as she herded the woman along the passage. "We'll get them all back." She just didn't know how.
The fingers dug in deeper. “Promise me.”
“I promise-- what is your name?” Grace asked.
Emotion passed over her face, clouds over a restless ocean. “No one has asked me my name in a long time,” she said. There was the faintest suggestion of the glimmer of tears at the corner of her eyes, but she blinked, tiny and fierce, as if even in this place she was ashamed to show a weakness. “I’m Marie.”
Grace nodded. “I promise you, Marie. We’ll get them back.” She strode off to lead the group back to the camp with a racing mind.
Alex was waiting when they got back to camp. “No kidding,” she said, surveying the bedraggled group. She made a gesture to the cave. “Well, it’s not much, but it’s safe. Mostly.”
Grace moved fast as a mountain lion to George, shoved him up against the rock face of the cliff. “Children?” she asked, pointedly.
“Gah,” he said.
Grace removed her hand from his throat so that he could breathe, but left the hand on his shoulder heavily in place.
George swallowed hard. “I didn’t have anything to do with the children.”
Punctuating her words with a harsh little shove to his shoulder, Grace glared at him. “But you knew about them.”
“Like you know that there’s the ocean to the north, yeah. You don’t think about it.” He tried to shrug casually. It didn’t work.
Grace let her teeth show and enunciated every syllable. “So, where are they?”
“Two shafts down, behind the main guard barracks.” He made a pained grimace, and Grace eased up on the pressure a little bit. It wasn’t worth it to hurt the man, especially not when he seemed so cooperative. His initial information had been helpful, after all. “I can show you the back way in.”
Grace hadn’t noticed it, but Marie was at her elbow. “Are you going to tell her the rest of it?”
“The rest of what?” asked Grace.
“The quotas? The system?” Something dangerous flashed in Marie’s eyes.
“Look, lady, it was just a job.” He fidgeted, agitated.
“You took our freedom,” she hissed, stepping in close. “You took our children, and we had to hack metals for your precious government out of the earth itself. If we didn’t meet them, we didn’t eat. There were six targets: one for each of our meals and one for each of our children’s meals.”
“I didn’t make the system. I just wanted a job! You people from the southlands, you can just plunk down a cottage and live off the fat of the land! Well, my family was hungry, too. My garden never grew enough to see us through the winter. We would take to the seas to fish and hope we would survive the trip. I took the job because I was sick of going to my friends’ funerals!”
“So you took what was ours? Not only our things, but our lives and our children? I could kill you.”
Grace wished, fervently, for Petra, for any Arbiter. She missed her sister like a rotten apple in the pit of her stomach, and the whole situation was out of her depth.
She was responsible and she could not let Marie kill George, even though she kind of wanted to help her. “Enough,” she said. “We don’t have time for the two of you to fight. We need to get the children out before word spreads.”
“Before anything can happen to them.” Marie’s eyes still blazed.
“We’re not torturers, we’re still human!” said George, puffing up in indignation.
Marie let her eyes sweep over him from head to toe, cool and flat. “No, you weren’t a torturer. But neither were you the only guard.”
George deflated. Marie looked like she had more she wanted to add, so Grace pulled her away. “We don’t have time for this now,” she said, and Marie nodded.
“I know where the children are, and I know where there is one more group of adults,” Marie said crisply. “And I know who can fight, and who doesn’t have the strength.”
“All right,” said Grace. “Tell me who we’ve got.”
It was a woeful crew, Grace thought, looking over the small band Marie had hand-picked. Even with the weapons she’d liberated from the guards, there weren’t enough to go around. Half of them didn’t even have proper boots.
It wasn’t going to get any better than this.
“OK, crew,” she said. “You have an hour to get ready and then we’re leaving. If you can’t handle it, there’s no shame in that, but the more people we have, the better chance we have of success.”
She used the hour to get a better map out of George. She drew it out three times and handed one copy to Marie, one copy to Alex. “If we aren’t back tomorrow morning, take everyone and get out of here.”
“You want me to leave you here?”
“If we’re not here in the morning, you won’t be leaving much behind.”
Alex looked like Grace had hit her. There was no time find a way to reassure her. Grace didn’t know if she knew anything reassuring to say.
At a loss, she leaned in and kissed her. It was hard and fast and awkward, with the maps clutched between them.
When she pulled away, Alex had masked the shock with something fiercer. “Come back to me, Grace,” Alex said. Her eyes blazed.
Grace nodded, once, and turned on her heel. She had a rescue to lead.
They took the narrow cave entrance they’d used to get out back into the mountain, turned before they’d reached the mines.
They split at the agreed-upon point. Marie took half the group to free the children. Grace took the other half to engage the guards.
Trouble found them soon enough. As George had told them, there was a lounge, a hollowed-out room between the main tunnel and the mine itself that had once been part of the mine itself. Guards clustered around tables, mugs steaming at their elbows. They played cards by the light of orange-tinted globe lights suspended from the ceiling abov
e them. Grace counted as quickly as she could.
They had surprise on their side, and since four guards from the sixteen George promised were missing, they even had numbers. Barely.
Grace pointed, and her people ringed the room, trying to block off the exit to the outside, the exit to their weapons. She could already see that three of the guards had their weapons on them.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be the hopeless endeavor she’d feared. She charged in, aiming for the first armed guard who had stood.
Swinging her staff hard, she cracked it over his head. She followed it with a boot to his chest, and he fell like a tree under the axe. Kicking high like that was self-indulgent, and she knew better. Her blood sang anyway.
She turned to the next armed guard and could see a man whose name she couldn’t quite remember stoop to retrieve the fallen guard’s baton. Good.
None of the weapons the guards had were designed for lethal force, she noticed. Well, why would they want to kill any member of their valuable workforce?
Returning her focus to the fight, she found the second guard more prepared, but there was only one person attacking her this time. It beat trying to fend off half a dozen attackers at once.
She had just caught an elbow with her face and returned a knee to the guard’s groin when she noticed a skinny guard trying to break away from the melee and run.
“Stop him before he calls for help!” she called.
Alex swirled out of the far entryway in a blur of motion and knocked the guard over with a well-placed blow to the back of his head. “I took the liberty of cutting the communications line,” she called. She crossed the room, “I hope you don’t mind.”
“What are you even doing here?” yelled Grace, covering her back from the increasingly desperate guards’ attacks. “You’re supposed to be back at the camp!”
“I decided there I didn’t want to regret for the rest of my life if you were killed when I could help,” said Alex over the crash of wood on wood. “It’s worked out, hasn’t it?”
There was that. She considered arguing, but before she could work out something cogent, she realized that the room had gone quiet and was full of mostly-unconscious guards.
Misfit Princess Page 17
