Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight (20 page)

Somebody had been playing tic-tac-toe there.

The lines were cut into the flesh of her back, the scars shiny pink and only half healed. In the squares were
X
s and
O
s, raggedy-looking and brighter red because for the most part they’d
been burned in. A few looked cut, like the strategic position in the middle which would have been taken first. Somebody had won, three diagonal
X
s, and had run a burn-line through the winning marks.

Maggie gasped. She kept on gasping. She started to hyperventilate, and then she started to faint.

The world seemed to recede from her, narrowing down to a one-dimensional point of light. But there wasn’t room to actually fall over. As she slumped backward, she hit the wall of the cart. The world wobbled and came back, shiny at the edges.

“Oh, God,” Maggie said. “Oh,
God.
They did this to you? How could they
do
that?”

“This is nothing,” the girl said. “They did it when I escaped the first time. And now I escaped again—and I got caught again. This time they’ll do something worse.” She let go of her top and it slid down to cover her back again.

Maggie tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. Before she knew she was moving, she found herself grabbing the girl’s arms from behind.

“What’s your name?”

“Who ca—”

“What’s your name?”

The red-haired girl gave her a peculiar look over her shoulder. Then her arms lifted slightly under Maggie’s hands as she shrugged.

“Jeanne.”

“Jeanne. It’s got to stop,” Maggie said. “We can’t let them
do
things like that to people. And we’ve got to get away. If they’re already going to punish you for escaping, what difference does it make if you try it again now? Don’t you think?”

Maggie liked the way that sounded, calm and competent and logical. The swift decision for action didn’t blot out the memory of what she’d just seen, but it made the whole situation more bearable. She’d witnessed an injustice and she was going to do something about it. That simple. Something so wicked had to be fixed,
now.

She started to cry.

Jeanne turned around, gave her a long, assessing look. P.J. was crying, too, very quietly.

Maggie found her tears running out. They weren’t doing any good. When she stopped, Jeanne was still watching her with narrowed eyes.

“So you’re going to take on the whole Night World alone,” she said.

Maggie wiped her cheeks with her hands. “No, just the ones here.”

Jeanne stared at her another moment, then straightened abruptly. “Okay,” she said, so suddenly that Maggie was startled. “Let’s do it. If we can figure out a way.”

Maggie looked toward the back of the cart. “What about those doors?”

“Locked and chained on the outside. It’s no good kicking them.”

From nowhere, an image came into Maggie’s mind. Herself and Miles in a rowboat on Lake Chelan with their grandfather. Deliberately rocking it while their grandfather yelled and fumed.

“What if we all throw our weight from one side to the other? If we could turn the cart over, maybe the doors would pop open. You know how armored cars always seem to do that. Or maybe it would smash one of the walls enough that we could get out.”

“And maybe we’d go falling straight down a ravine,” Jeanne said acidly. “It’s a long way down to the valley, and this road is narrow.” But there was a certain unwilling respect in her eyes. “I guess we could try it when we get to a meadow,” she said slowly. “I know a place. I’m not saying it would work; it probably won’t. But…”

“We have to try,” Maggie said. She was looking straight at Jeanne. For a moment there was something between them—a flash of understanding and agreement. A bond.

“Once we got out, we’d have to run,” Jeanne said, still slowly. “They’re sitting up
there.
” She pointed to the ceiling at the front of the cart, above Maggie’s head. “This thing is like a stagecoach, okay? There’s a seat up there, and the two guys are on it. Professional slave traders are tough. They’re not going to want us to get away.”

“They might get smashed up when we roll over,” Maggie said.

Jeanne shook her head sharply. “Night People are strong. It takes a lot more than that to kill them. We’d have to just take off and head for the forest as fast as we could. Our only chance is to get lost in the trees—and hope they can’t track us.”

“Okay,” Maggie said. She looked at P.J. “Do you think you could do that? Just run and keep running?”

P.J. gulped twice, sank her teeth into her top lip, and nodded. She twisted her baseball cap around so the visor faced the back.

“I can run,” she said.

Maggie gave her an approving nod. Then she looked at the fourth girl, the one still curled up asleep. She leaned over to touch the girl’s shoulder.

“Forget it,” Jeanne said shortly. “We can’t take her.”

Maggie looked up at her, shocked. “What are you talking about? Why not?”

“B
ecause there’s no point. She’s as good as dead already.” Jeanne’s expression was as hard and closed as it had been in the beginning.

“But—”

“Can’t you see? She’d slow us down. There’s no way she could run without help. And besides that, P.J. says she’s blind.”

Blind. A new little shock went though Maggie. What would that be like, to be in this situation and sick and blind on top of it?

She tugged on the girl’s shoulder gently, trying to see the averted face.

But she’s beautiful.

The girl had smooth skin the color of coffee with cream, delicate features, high cheekbones, perfect lips. Her black hair was pulled into a loose, glossy knot on her neck. Her eyes were shut, long eyelashes trembling as if she were dreaming.

It was more than just the physical features, though. There was a serenity about this girl’s face, a gentleness and stillness that was…unique.

“Hey, there,” Maggie said softly. “Can you hear me? I’m Maggie. What’s your name?”

The girl’s eyelashes fluttered; her lips parted. To Maggie’s surprise, she murmured something. Maggie had to lean down close to catch it

“Arcadia?” she repeated. It was a strange name; she wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

The girl seemed to nod, murmuring again.

She can hear me, Maggie thought. She can respond.

“Okay. Can I call you Cady? Listen to me, Cady.” Maggie shook the girl’s shoulder slightly. “We’re in a bad place but we’re going to try to escape. If we help you out, do you think you can run?”

Again, the eyelashes fluttered. Then the eyes opened.

Doe eyes, Maggie thought, startled. They were extraordinarily large and clear, a warm brown with an inner radiance. And they might be blind, but Maggie had the oddest sensation that she had just been
seen
more clearly than ever before in her life.

“I’ll try,” Cady murmured. She sounded dazed and in pain, but quietly rational. “Sometimes I feel strong for a little while.” She pushed herself up. Maggie had to help her get into a sitting position.

She’s tall. But she’s pretty light…and I’ve got good muscles. I can support her.

“What are you
doing
?” Jeanne said in a voice that was not just harsh and impatient but horrified. “Don’t you see? You’re only making it worse. You should just have let her sleep.”

Maggie glanced up. “Look. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but we can’t leave anybody with
them.
How would you like to be left behind if it was you?”

Jeanne’s face changed. For a moment, she looked more like a savage animal than a girl. “I’d understand,” she snarled. “Because that’s the way it has to be. It’s the law of the jungle, here. Only strong people survive. The weak ones…” She shook her head. “They’re better off dead. And the faster you learn that, the more chance you’ll have.”

Maggie felt a spurt of horror and anger—and fear. Because Jeanne clearly knew the most about this place, and Jeanne might be right. They might all get caught because of one weak person who wouldn’t make it anyway….

She turned and looked at the lovely face again. Arcadia was Miles’s age, eighteen or nineteen. And although she seemed to hear what Jeanne was saying—she’d turned her face that way—she didn’t speak or argue. She didn’t lose her still gentleness, either.

I can’t leave her. What if Miles is alive but hurt somewhere, and somebody won’t help him?

Maggie shot a glance at P.J. in her baseball cap. She was
young—she might be able to take care of herself, but that was all.

“Look, this isn’t your problem,” she finally said to Jeanne. “You just help P.J. get away safe, okay? You take care of her, and I’ll be responsible for Cady.”

“You’ll be caught with Cady,” Jeanne said flatly.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not. And I’m telling you right now; I’m not going to help you if you get in trouble.”

“I don’t
want
you to,” Maggie said. She looked right into Jeanne’s angry eyes. “Really. I don’t want to wreck your chances, okay? But I’m not going to leave her.”

Jeanne looked furious for another moment; then she shrugged. All the emotion drained from her face as if she were deliberately distancing herself. The bond she and Maggie had shared for that brief moment was severed.

She turned, looked through a crack behind her, then turned back.

“Fine,” she said in a dull, indifferent tone. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better get ready to do it now. Because the place is coming right up.”

“Ready?” Maggie said.

They were all standing—or crouching, actually, since there wasn’t room to straighten up—with their backs against the walls of the cart. Jeanne and P.J. on one side, Maggie on the other, with Cady in the corner.

“When I say go, you guys jump over here. Then all of us throw ourselves back that way,” Maggie whispered.

Jeanne was peering out of the crack. “Okay, this is it,” she said. “Now.”

Maggie said,
“Go!”

She had been a little worried that P.J. would freeze. But the moment the word was out of Maggie’s mouth, Jeanne launched herself across the cart, crashing heavily into her, and P.J. followed. The cart rocked surprisingly hard and Maggie heard the groan of wood.

“Back!” she yelled, and everybody lunged the other way. Maggie hit a solid wall and knew she would have bruises, but the cart rocked again.

“Come on!” she yelled, and realized that they were all already coming on, throwing themselves to the other side in perfect sync. It was as if some flocking instinct had taken over and they were all three moving as one, throwing their weight alternately back and forth.

And the cart was responding, grinding to a halt and lurching off balance. It was like one of those party tricks where five or six people each use only two fingers to lift someone on a chair. Their combined force was impressive.

But not enough to tip the cart over. It was surprisingly well-balanced. And at any minute, Maggie realized, the people driving it were going to jump out and put a stop to it.

“Everybody—come on! Really hard!
Really hard!
” She was
yelling as if she were encouraging her soccer team. “We’ve got to do it,
now.
”

She launched herself at the other side as the cart began to sway that way, jumping as high as she could, hitting the wall as it reached the farthest point of its rock. She could feel the other girls flinging themselves with her; she could hear Jeanne giving a primal yell as she crashed into the wood.

And then there was a splintering sound, amazingly loud, amazingly long. A sort of groaning and shrieking that came from the wood itself, and an even louder scream of panic that Maggie realized must have come from the horses. The whole world was teetering and unstable—and suddenly Maggie was falling.

She hadn’t known that it would be this violent, or this confusing. She wasn’t sure of what was happening, except that there was no floor anymore and that she was engulfed in a deafening chaos of crashing and screeching and sobbing and darkness. She was being rolled over and over, with arms and legs that belonged to other people hitting her. A knee caught her in the nose, and for a few moments all she could think of was the pain.

And then, very suddenly, everything was still.

I think I killed us all, Maggie thought.

But then she realized she was looking at daylight—pale and feeble, but a big swathe of it. The cart was completely upside down and the doors at the back were hanging loose.

It did pop open, she thought. Just like those armored cars in the movies.

Outside, somebody was yelling. A man. Maggie had never heard such cold fury in a voice before. It cleared the last cobwebs out of her head.

“Come on! We’ve got to get out!”

Jeanne was already scrambling across the floor—which had previously been the ceiling—toward the hanging back doors.

“Are you okay? Come on, move, move!” Maggie yelled to P.J. “Follow her!”

A scared white face turned toward her, and then the younger girl was obeying.

Cady was lying in a heap. Maggie didn’t wait for conversation, but grabbed her under the arms and hauled her into the light.

Once outside, she caught a glimpse of P.J. running and Jeanne beckoning. Then she tried to make sense of the scene around her. She saw a line of trees, their tops hidden in cloud-like vapors, their edges blurred by mist.

Mist, she thought. I remember…

But the thought was cut short almost before it was started. She found herself running, pounding toward the forest, nearly carrying Arcadia in her panic. The flat area she was running through was a sub-alpine meadow, the kind she’d often seen on hikes. In spring it would be a glorious mass of blue lupines and
pink Indian paintbrush. Now it was just a tangle of old grass that slowed her down and tried to trip her.

“There they go! Get them!” the rough shout came behind her.

Don’t look, she told herself. Don’t slow down.

But she was looking, twisting her head over her shoulder. For the first time she saw what had happened to the cart.

It had fallen right off a narrow road and onto the sloping hillside below. They’d been lucky; only an outcrop of dark rock had stopped it from falling farther. Maggie was amazed to see how much damage there was—the cart looked like a splintered matchbox. Above, the horses seemed tangled in reins and shafts and fastenings; one of them was down and struggling frantically. Maggie felt a distant surge of remorse—she hoped its legs weren’t broken.

There were also two men scrambling down the hillside.

They were the ones shouting. And one was pointing straight at Maggie.

Run, Maggie thought. Stop looking now.
Run.

She ran into the forest, dragging Cady with her. They had to find a place to hide—underbrush or something. Maybe they could climb a tree….

But one look at Cady and she realized how stupid
that
idea was. The smooth skin of the girl’s face was clammy and luminous with sweat, her eyes were half shut, and her chest was heaving.

At least Jeanne and P.J. got away, Maggie thought.

Just then there was a crashing behind her, and a voice cursing. Maggie threw another glance back and found herself staring at a man’s figure in the mist.

A scary man. The mist swirling behind him made him look eerie, supernatural, but it was more than that. He was
huge,
with shoulders as broad as a two-by-four, a massive chest, and heavily muscled arms. His waist was surprisingly narrow. His face was cruel.

“Gavin! I’ve got two of them!” he shouted.

Maggie didn’t wait to hear more. She took off like a blacktailed deer.

And for a long time after that it was just a nightmare of running and being chased, stopping sometimes when she couldn’t hold Cady up anymore, looking for places to hide. At one point, she and Cady were pressed together inside a hollow tree, trying desperately to get their breath back without making a sound, when their pursuers passed right by them. Maggie heard the crunch and squish of footsteps on ferns and started praying. She could feel Cady’s heart beating hard, shaking them both, and she realized that Cady’s lips were moving soundlessly.

Maybe she’s praying, too, Maggie thought, and applied her eye to a crack in the tree.

There were two people there, horribly close, just a few feet away. One was the man she’d seen before and he was doing something bizarre, something that sent chills up her
spine. He was turning his face this way and that with his eyes shut, his head twisting on a surprisingly long and supple neck.

As if he’s
smelling
us out, Maggie thought, horrified.

Eyes still shut, the man said, “Do you sense anything?”

“No. I can’t feel them at all. And I can’t see them, with these trees for cover.” It was a younger man who spoke, a boy really. He must be Gavin, Maggie thought. Gavin had dark blond hair, a thin nose, and a sharp chin. His voice was impatient.

“I can’t feel them either,” the big man said flatly, refusing to be hurried. “And that’s strange. They can’t have gotten too far away. They must be blocking us.”

“I don’t care what they’re doing,” Gavin said. “We’d better get them back fast. It’s not like they were ordinary slaves. If we don’t deliver that maiden we’re dead.
You’re
dead, Bern.”

Maiden? Maggie thought. I guess in a place where they have slaves it’s not weird to talk about maidens. But which girl does he mean? Not me; I’m not important.

“We’ll get her back,” Bern was saying.

“We’d better,” Gavin said viciously. “Or I’m going to tell
her
that it was your fault. We were supposed to make sure this didn’t happen.”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” Bern said. He turned on his heel and walked into the mist. Gavin stared after him for a moment, and then followed.

Maggie let out her breath. She realized that Cady’s lips had stopped moving.

“Let’s go,” she whispered, and took off in the opposite direction to the one the men had gone.

Then there was a time of endless running and pausing and listening and hiding. The forest was a terrible place. Around them was eerie twilight, made even spookier by the mist that lay in hollows and crept over fallen trees. Maggie felt as if she were in some awful fairy tale. The only good thing was that the dampness softened their footsteps, making it hard to track them.

But it was so quiet. No ravens, no gray jays. No deer. Just the mist and the trees, going on forever.

And then it ended.

Maggie and Cady suddenly burst out into another meadow. Maggie gave a frantic glance around, looking for shelter. Nothing. The mist was thinner here, she could see that there were no trees ahead, only an outcrop of rocks.

Maybe we should double back….

But the voices were shouting in the forest behind them.

Above the rocks was a barren ledge. It looked like the end of a path, winding the other way down the mountain.

If we could get there, we’d be safe, Maggie thought. We could be around the corner in a minute, and out of sight.