Thirty people couldn’t get through – but a handful might. And of that handful, if only a few managed to get back to the Plains it would be worth it. “Come on,” I said, pausing only to shout for Tamin. “Uncle! Follow me!” I said, running past the mine entrance to the far end of our terrace and the boulder wall, scrambling past the first few monoliths of stone and turning back to reach down to help Oleer,
who wasn’t there!
It was Tamin who was behind me, looking wide-eyed and spooked. “It’ll be alright, Uncle,” I said to him urgently. “Up there to the creek. Turn left at the top. Quickly!”
Oleer still stood at the foot of the rocks, looking up at me. He had that flat, stubborn expression on his face that I had seen him use against a particularly hard bit of ore many times.
“Oleer? What in the name of the wind and the sun are you doing? Get up here!”
“You’ll be quicker with two people,” Oleer said resolutely.
“Oleer! Don’t be an idiot. Grab my hand, now!” I said, reaching out to him.
Pheet! Pheet! The sounds of the guard’s whistles were loud, and a gang of them was already racing towards us all, crossbows in hand.
“Tamin’s smart. You’re tough,” Oleer was saying to me. He was already walking backwards, back across the mine entrance to where the rest of our work team was trying to scale that easier slope of the mountain. “We’ll draw them off. Now go!” he turned and started climbing up the slope nearer the guards and the overseer. There were already about ten or fifteen people ahead of him, but they were all way too exposed. Way too easy to get shot.
“Oleer!” I shouted desperately.
“Little Nari – he’s right.” It was Tamin, who was only a few meters above me. “Most of the others have gone that way. We can sneak through, and take the message to the Plains.”
I looked from Tamin’s solemn face back to Oleer’s climbing back and knew that they were both right. I hated it – but that didn’t make them wrong. With a snarl of frustration, I turned and clambered up the side of the mountain, my heart burning in my chest.
Chapter 10
The Chase
Pheet! Pheet! The sounds of the mine guards’ whistles seemed to be everywhere as we clambered up the dried-up creek bed.
“I can’t see them,” Tamin whispered in the dark. He was just a shadow against the starry sky, and for a moment I wondered if this had been such a good idea – to go mountain climbing at night. But what other choice did I have?
Oleer. The others. My heart still ached, but the frustrated rage had subsided now to the ache of useless impotence. I could have done something to save him, couldn’t I? I could have led more out.
“He’s brave, that one,” Tamin seemed to read my thoughts as I crouched beside him.
“He’s stupid,” I muttered, but I knew it to be a lie. Oleer had been brave. Braver than me. I wondered if he was still—
No. I wouldn’t let myself think that thought. Oleer was no fool. He knew when to hold his hands up to the mine guards. He might get a beating, but that didn’t mean that they would.
There was a sudden skitter of rocks from over on our right. It could have been anything of course, but it was matched by a smell that was out of place. The haze of acrid and bitter smoke, the same as came from the small pipe of one of the wall guards. I hunkered down a little lower, and I saw Tamin ahead of me do the same. If I had wondered if Tamin, with all of his time apart from the community, still knew how to hide – then I was clearly wrong.
Neither of us held our breath. That only makes you gasp and gulp for air when you can no longer take it. Instead I breathed shallowly through my mouth and did my best to remain calm as the skittering turned into the thud of footsteps and the flare of light.
There were two of the mine guards all right, each carrying a lantern in one hand and their metal poles in the other. It was too dark to recognize them, but I was sure one of them was Pipe-Smoker. “I’m telling you, this is too far – they all went that way!” said Pipe-Smoker.
“You want to be the one to explain that to Dagan?” muttered the other one. I wasn’t surprised that Mar had a bad reputation with the guards as well.
“Nah, maybe not,” huffed Pipe-Smoker. “But still, my legs are killing me. The bleeding stonedogs will get them, or the dragons, I say—”
“Ha! Dragons pass by here as often as fish, mate,” said the second, proving just how stupid he was. For one thing, all of these mountain streams held silver fish, and there was at least one lake past the saddle of the Masaka which was teeming with them.
“Ugh,” Pipe-Smoker groaned. “Look,” he held his lantern high. “Out from here is the crags, and then it’s just leagues of bare rock before you get to the Middle Kingdom. D’you reckon that anyone is really going to—”
And then there was a sharp, wet thud as Pipe-Smoker fell to the ground.
“Alar!” the second guard managed to say, racing forward as another dark figure rose from the rocks, armed with another boulder. It was one of the runaways, it had to be – but I couldn’t see who it was.
The silhouette threw his rock, missed – but the second guard had stumbled to get out of the way – straight into Tamin.
“Ach!” Tamin burst to his feet, and the second guard screamed in shock. Our cover blown, I rose from my crouch, one hand already clutching a rock just as our mysterious interloper did.
Just as he sprang forward into the middle of us, bringing his rock down on the second guard. There was a strangled cry of pain, and silence, but both I and Tamin had clearly seen who our ‘saviour’ was.
It was Fankin, worst of the criminals.
“Get behind me, Uncle,” I said, holding my rock high to my shoulder. Fankin just sniggered at my display. He was too busy ransacking the body of the second guard.
“Don’t move,” I said. I was a good throw. But I probably wasn’t as strong as this criminal was. And it was dark.
“Calm yourself, princess,” Fankin snapped back at me. “I’m not here to kill you or grandpa. I’m only here to get what I need to get out of here.” He stood up slowly, and now in one hand he had the metal pole, as well as the guard’s pouch-belt slung across his chest. He raised the pole slowly between us, pointing it straight at me.
“Now, I figure that you might be able to brain me with that lump of rock just like I did poor Alar over there,” the horrid man said with obvious pride in his voice. “But I reckon I can dodge it. And then you and grandpa will just be standing there with stupid looks on your faces, won’t you?” He waggled the metal club again.
“So, here’s my plan. You’re a pair of these ‘wild people’ right? You gotta know how to find the nearest road, settlement, inn – whatever. You two are going to help me out. And then you can wander off back to your bushes or wherever it is that you lot liv—”
“Plains,” Tamin growled. I had never heard so much vehemence in my god-uncles voice before. “It’s called the Plains.”
“I don’t care,” Fankin sighed. “Now – I want princess here to grab that one’s belt, and tie grandpa’s hands behind his back. You got that? And then I’ll tie your hands and we’ll be getting on our way, right?”
“Get out of here,” I said instantly. There were two of us, after all, we could—
“Ah!” Fankin waved the metal club menacingly. “You speak to me like that again, and I’ll knock his head straight off his shoulders – or don’t you think I’d do it?”