Masks (11 page)

The wagon lay on its side in the middle of the road, which was completely blocked by an enormous felled tree. The driver was under the wagon, motionless, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. The Watchers were also dead, but not from the crash: one lay only a few yards from Mara, the feathered shaft of an arrow protruding from the back of his neck. The dirt beneath his body was dark and red. He stared sightlessly up at the sky. His black Mask had shattered with his death, its pieces lying in crumbling shards all around his dead face, streaked with the blood that had poured from his nose and mouth. Mara swallowed, and looked away.

She counted eight attackers in all, both men and women. All wore tunics, leggings, and jackets of forest green, brown capes, and high brown boots.

They did not wear Masks. The sight shocked her almost as much as if they had been naked.

She looked around for the other children. Alita, Prella, Simona, Kirika and Grute huddled together near the wagon in which they’d been riding, guarded by a tall woman with long red hair pulled back in a tightly braided ponytail. She held a drawn sword in her hand. Mara, for some reason, had been isolated.

Who are they? What do they want?

One of the attackers broke away from the group around the lead wagon and strode toward her. She looked up as he approached, then quickly looked away again. Except for her father, Mara had never seen a grown man unMasked. She could feel herself blushing furiously.

The man stood above her. She stared resolutely at his scuffed brown boots. “You’re Mara?” he said. “Daughter of Charlton Holdfast, Master Maskmaker of Tamita?”

That brought her head up, shock erasing embarrassment. “How . . . ?”

The man looked about the same age as her father, which made it even stranger to see him without a Mask. “Never mind how we know. Just be assured you have nothing to fear. We will not harm you.”

Mara cast her gaze down again. “Who are you?” she whispered.

“My name is Edrik,” the man said. “Look at me.” He knelt beside her, and his hand grasped her chin. Gently but inexorably, he lifted her head until she had no choice but to gaze once more into his blue eyes. “You must get used to looking at men and women without Masks,” he said softly. “Because as of this moment, you are part of the unMasked Army.”

Mara’s eyes widened . . . and then flicked sideways as another green-clad figure trotted up.
His
face, freckled, framed by shaggy blond hair, she had seen before. “Keltan?”

“Hi, Mara,” said the boy from the basement. He grinned. “Surprise!”

Edrik glanced at him. “So she
is
the same girl?”

Keltan nodded. “She is. I thought she must be.”

Edrik’s eyes returned to Mara’s face. He studied her a moment longer, then got to his feet. “I’ll leave her in your care, then,” he said. “Stay with her while we finish up with the wagon.”

He strode away. Keltan placed his back against the tree trunk and slid down it until he was sitting beside Mara. She glanced sideways at him. He grinned at her again. “Told you the unMasked Army wasn’t a myth.”

“Sorry I doubted you,” said Mara. She looked back at Grute and the others. “Why aren’t I with
them
? Was that your doing?”

Keltan snorted. “Me? I’m nobody. Just the latest—and least—recruit. No, you’re here because you’re special.” She glanced back at him, puzzled. He spread his hands. “You’re the daughter of the Master Maskmaker.”

“Were you the one who told them that?” Mara asked. Then she shook her head. “No,” she said, bewildered. “It couldn’t have been you. I told you my father was a Maskmaker, but I didn’t tell you he was the
Master
Maskmaker!”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Keltan said. “I never mentioned your existence. I assumed you had gone off to your Masking like a good little girl and were lost to the service of the Autarch. But
he
,” he nodded in Edrik’s direction, “somehow, knew different. He not only knew who your father is, he knew you’d failed your Masking and were coming our way on this wagon. When he told the unMasked Army the plans for this raid, he described you, and gave your name. Good thing, too! I wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t said I thought I’d already met you, in that coal cellar when I was on the run in Tamita.”

“But . . .” Mara stared at Edrik. “
How
could he know all that?”

“Wish I knew,” Keltan said. “Presumably someone told him.”

“You mean, like a . . . a spy? In the city?”

“Maybe. Probably. But I told you; I’m the least of the least. They’re not telling
me
.”

Mara rubbed her face with her hands. Her head still throbbed from the wallop it had taken in the wagon, and her ribs ached.

A horse whinnied, the sound full of fear and pain. Mara looked up. Both horses had gone down in the traces. One, apparently uninjured, had struggled back to its feet and was being cut free. But the other remained on its side, flanks heaving, head writhing, eyes white and rolling. A woman who had been kneeling beside it shook her head, stood, and drew her sword. Mara closed her eyes for a moment, not wanting to watch.

The horse screamed, then fell silent. When Mara opened her eyes again, it lay still, blood spreading out into the dirt beneath it.

The sound of axes on wood rang out as the unMasked attacked the wagon, smashing the wheels and everything else they could. “Do they do this often?” Mara asked Keltan. “Raid the wagons?”

Keltan shook his head. “No,” he said seriously. “In fact, they
never
do it. Their recruits have always been those who escape
before
their Masking. They don’t trust those who fail their Masking. Too many of them have already gone . . . bad. Those kinds of recruits would be worse than useless.”

Mara, thinking of Grute, nodded. “There’s at least one like that in this group.”

“That’s why the others are still under guard,” Keltan said. “But something is different. Maskings are failing more often.” He nodded at the group of children. “Two or three times a month. And those failing the Maskings are no longer just those who are already twisted. Some are just ordinary children. And some are . . . were . . . Gifted. Until recently, the Gifted
never
failed their Masking.”

Oh, good
, Mara thought bitterly.
I’m special
.

“And somehow, the Army heard about the failure of
your
Mask, Mara,” Keltan continued. “Somehow they knew the daughter of the Master Maskmaker of Tamita would be in this wagon, and for some reason that was enough for them to launch this raid.”

“But . . .” Mara didn’t know what to say. “What good could I be to them?”

“Don’t ask me,” Keltan said. “I told you—”

“Least of the least. Yes, I remember.” Mara stared at the wagon, its wheels smashed to kindling, holes gaping in its side, roof, and bottom. It would never roll again. “They should burn it,” she said venomously, thinking of that wagon and others rolling, month after month, from the warehouse that had once been her grandfather’s, carrying children to a horrible fate . . .

“Can’t risk the smoke,” Keltan said. “The mining camp is still half a day down the road, but there could be hunting parties in the forest, and the next supply wagon from Tamita is due to pass this way in a few hours but could be ahead of schedule. We want to delay the Watchers learning about the attack for as long as possible.”

Edrik, who had been examining the wrecked wagon, turned and shouted, “Time to go!”

A lead had been attached to the bridle of the remaining wagon horse, which obediently followed one of the unMasked toward the forest while others chivvied the children to their feet. Keltan stood up, too, then leaned down and reached out a hand. “Come on,” he said. “Edrik will tell you more later. But for now, we have to move. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”

Mara let him pull her to her feet. His hand lingered in hers as they walked past the shattered wagon. As she gazed at it, she felt a sudden fierce joy at the thought that no more children would ride in its stinking darkness to an unknown fate.

But there are other wagons
, she thought.
The fat man is still waiting in the warehouse like a bloated white spider. The Maskery will see more blood and tears. More children’s faces will be torn apart. More children’s
families
will be torn apart.

But the unMasked Army was proof that there was another way to live. Maybe, just maybe, they could put a stop to it all: all of the evil committed and suffered in the name of the Autarch.

And maybe, just maybe, she could help.

I’d like that
, she thought fiercely, as they left the road behind and climbed the slope into the woods.
No, I’d
love
that
.

Cold Water

T
HE UNMASKED HAD LEFT
their own horses, four in all, hidden among the trees above the road. To Mara, who had never ridden one, they looked intimidatingly large as she approached them side by side with Keltan (although she’d let go of his hand; at some point during the climb it had suddenly seemed embarrassing to still be holding on to it, and she’d released him with a muttered, “Sorry.” Keltan had opened his mouth to say something, but then swallowed the comment unvoiced.)

Edrik stood patting the neck of the nearest horse, a rangy-looking gray mare. The mare turned and looked at Mara and blew out air between its lips—
Pbbbt!
—as if disgusted by the sight of her. “I don’t think it likes me,” she said nervously.

Keltan laughed. “It’s just a horse.”

“And I can’t ride.”

Keltan shrugged. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We won’t be riding.”

Mara blinked. “But . . . I thought . . . can’t we ride double?”

“Not on
our
horses,” Edrik said, turning away from the mare. “We don’t have very many, and the ones we have are too valuable. Riding double is hard on the horse, because the second rider is sitting on the weakest part of the horse’s spine. It’s also harder for the horse to balance. And a nervous rider sitting with her legs dangling down onto the horse’s flanks? No thanks. A spooked horse in the terrain we’ll be going through would be no fun for anyone.”

“But in stories—”

“Story horses aren’t real horses,” Edrik said. His mare chose that moment to let fall a sizable amount of dung. Edrik glanced at the animal. “Thanks for so pungently making my point,” he said dryly, and Mara couldn’t help laughing.

“Believe me,” Keltan said under his breath as Edrik turned away to organize the rest of the group, “you’re better off walking. I gave it a try. Better sore feet than a sore . . .” He grimaced. “Well, never mind. Let’s just say I’d show you my bruises, but we don’t know each other that well.”

Mara laughed again.

The first thing the unMasked did was open their saddlebags and provide the rescued youths with clothes to replace the girls’ prison smocks and Grute’s thin pants and top. Behind a screen of underbrush that provided a modicum of privacy, Mara, Alita, Kirika, Prella, and Simona pulled on the same green leggings and tunics worn by the unMasked Army, plus warm brown cloaks and brown leather boots.

Warmer than she’d been since the warehouse, Mara joined Keltan again while the unMasked formed into a column. Edrik led the way on his gray mare, with two other riders behind him. Mara and the others from the wagon would walk behind the riders (“Watch where you step,” Keltan said under his breath, and Mara laughed again), accompanied by two dismounted unMasked, plus Keltan. One other unMasked would lead the horse freed from the wagon, while the final mounted unMasked would bring up the rear.

The tall woman with the braided red hair walked next to Mara. With a friendly smile, she introduced herself as Tishka. Like the unMasked behind her, she led an animal on a leash: Grute, rope around his chest, hands tied behind his back. Somehow, Mara thought, the unMasked had already realized what Grute was like.
Maybe Alita told them
.

Grute, despite his bonds, showed no emotion as he looked around at the preparations except when his eyes flicked over Mara. Then, just for a moment, she thought she saw a flash of . . . something. Anger? She couldn’t be sure, and already his gaze had moved on.

She decided, not for the first time, to stay as far away from him as possible.

The unMasked band trudged through the forest in a generally westerly direction. Every now and then the sun, sinking ahead of them, stabbed Mara’s eyes through an opening in the tree, blinding her: but then, there wasn’t much to see—just trees, more trees, and more trees after that.

Mara had never been in a forest before. She couldn’t figure out how Edrik could find his way through it. After a couple of hours she began to suspect he
wasn’t
, that he was as thoroughly lost as she. But no one else seemed concerned, so she kept her fears to herself.

She had another thought she
didn’t
keep to herself, though, as she stepped around yet another pile of manure. “They’ll be able to track us easily,” she said to Keltan. “Won’t we lead them straight to the unMasked Army?”

“We won’t be leaving tracks much longer,” Keltan said.

Mara glanced at him. “What?”

“You’ll see,” he said.

And she did, very soon. As the shadows deepened and the sun, no longer able to pierce the forest canopy, turned the treetops orange, they reached a broad, fast-flowing stream, foaming white in the gathering gloom. Edrik called a halt. “We’ll follow the stream for the next few hours,” he said.

“In the dark?” Mara whispered to Keltan, who just shrugged.

“You’re crazy!” Grute shouted.

Edrik ignored him. The unMasked were rummaging in the saddlebags again, pulling out clay pots filled with . . . Mara sniffed, and blinked. Goose grease?

“Waterproofing,” Keltan explained, and Mara understood. Tishka brought Keltan one of the containers, and the two of them began slathering the grease onto their boots. Mara wrinkled her nose at the smell and feel, but gamely covered her borrowed boots until they glistened. They were slightly too large and she was pretty sure she was getting a blister as a result, but bare feet would have been far worse on the rocky path they’d been following—and the thought of wading barefoot in the mountain stream before them made her wince.

Grute, however, continued to complain. “These damn boots you gave me are too tight,” he snarled at Tishka. “My feet hurt.”

Tishka shrugged. “So don’t wear ’em. Your feet won’t hurt once they’ve gone numb. Won’t hurt at all after we’ve had to cut ’em off later.”

Grute muttered something under his breath, but subsided. Tishka handed out sausage and cheese; Mara devoured both gratefully. After a few more minutes’ rest, they all plunged into the stream.

The greased boots kept Mara’s feet dry, but almost at once she felt a chill creeping into them. And the way the boots slipped around on her feet made the uncertain footing provided by the slimy, water-rounded rocks even more treacherous. She skidded and stumbled and felt every moment as if she were on the verge of turning her ankle.

As darkness descended and a full moon rose in a sky sprayed with brilliant stars, Mara, already exhausted, hoped, then expected, then
prayed
that Edrik would say they’d gone far enough and take them ashore to make camp, but instead they kept walking, and walking . . . and walking. Her feet felt like they didn’t belong to her anymore, as if they had been cut off and replaced with stockings full of frozen sand. She staggered and almost fell; Keltan grabbed her arm to save her, and she leaned against him gratefully.

“How much longer?” she murmured. “I don’t know how much more I can stand . . .”

If a voice could sound pale, then Keltan’s sounded pale as he replied, “I know where he’s taking us, but I don’t know the path well enough to say how close we are to it. But we can’t leave the stream until we get there. We can’t risk Watchers finding our trail.”

Mara glanced behind her. The bright moon and star-spangled sky provided more than enough light for her to see the other girls from the wagon clinging to each other in pairs, Alita and Prella together, even dour Kirika leaning on Simona. Only Grute walked alone, following Tishka at the end of his leash.

Look at that
, Mara thought.
A horse’s ass, but no horse.
The thought made her grin in the darkness despite her frozen weariness.

An interminable time later, Edrik finally stopped—but not, Mara realized with dismay, to make camp. “We can take a short rest break here,” he said, coming back from the front of the column to address them. “Over there.” He pointed left, his gesture clearly visible in the moonlight. “Bread and water for everyone. If you need to relieve yourself, do it in the river; downstream, if you please, so we can replenish our water and the horses can drink. If your horse leaves anything on the rocks, wash them. We want no trace of our presence. We’re still too close to where we attacked the wagon.”

Keltan led Mara to the riverbank, and she gratefully splashed out of the water and found a rock to sit on. The horses were variously ridden or led ashore, the unMasked kneeling beside them to check their legs and ankles before going off, one by one, into the darkness downstream, adjusting their clothing as they returned after a minute or two.

“My turn,” Keltan said, and he, too, disappeared downstream. Mara, whose bladder had been uncomfortably full for hours, made her own trip a few moments later. She squatted above the freezing water feeling embarrassed, undignified, but resigned: the body had its needs regardless of the circumstances, and if she could use that noxious bucket in the cell with Grute not ten feet away, she could manage this.

Shivering, she returned to the stony beach . . . and an argument.

“I’ve got to go,” Grute said. “Untie my hands so I can go.” He was glaring at Tishka. Then his face slipped into a leer. “Unless you’d like to help me.”

“Take him downstream,” Edrik snapped. “Untie his hands so he can relieve himself. But then tie him up again. And watch him the whole time.”

“The
whole
time?” Grute said, eyes still fixed on Tishka.

“The whole time,” Edrik said levelly.

Grute shrugged. Tishka, face twisted in disgust, gave him a shove toward the river, then walked behind him. They moved downstream until they were just shadows, only visible because they were silhouetted against the sparkle of moonlight and starlight off the rushing water.

Keltan handed Mara a chunk of crusty bread and a flask of water. As she nibbled and drank gratefully, she gave Grute no more thought . . .

...until she heard a sharp cry and a splash, audible even above the stream’s constant burble. Along with everyone else, she looked downstream.

She saw two dark shapes strangely low in the water; a moment later they straightened abruptly, and then Tishka came splashing back upstream, holding Grute’s arm bent behind his back with her left hand, her right forearm clamped across his neck. She threw him, coughing and sputtering, onto the stones at Edrik’s feet. “Little beast tried to hit me with a rock,” Tishka snarled. “So I half-drowned him.” She put her boot to Grute’s rear end and shoved him facedown onto the rocks. “Should have finished the job.”

“Nice guy, this friend of yours,” Keltan muttered.

“He’s no friend of mine,” Mara shot back.

Edrik glared down at Grute, still choking and shuddering. “Tie him up,” he ordered, contempt in his voice. “He goes the rest of the way as baggage. Sling him over the wagon horse.”

Keltan made a snorting sound. “And I thought horses were a misery to ride the
proper
way!”

Mara said nothing. She’d only known Grute for a day, but already felt certain that no amount of punishment would change him.
He’s bad,
she thought.
Bad through and through. And the Mask knew it.

But the Mask rejected me, too, and I’m not bad through and through . . .

...am I?

She looked at the other children, slumped together on the rocks.
Not unless Alita, Prella, Simona, and Kirika are, too.

The call to resume the long slog through icy water came almost as a relief. Better the misery of that exhausting, freezing struggle than sitting and reliving the horror of her Masking yet again. But nothing, not the dark, nor the cold, nor the sound of rushing water, could blot from her mind the echoing memory of her mother’s screams.

They pushed on for another eternity, then another, and then another. The bump on Mara’s head throbbed counterpoint with her sore ribs. Toward the end, Mara only stayed on her feet by leaning heavily on Keltan, who had grown very quiet and grim, but gamely offered what strength he had to spare.

As they walked, the landscape changed, the banks rising higher and higher, lifting the forest with them, until finally they slogged between sheer gray cliffs, the only hint of the trees the sound of rushing wind far above.

At last Edrik pointed again, to the right, the gesture much harder to see this time, for the moon had long since vanished behind the towering stone walls, leaving only the light of the narrow strip of stars. They emerged from the water onto a shelf of rock. Even without the moonlight, Mara could see a dark split in the cliff wall. “Is that . . . ?”

“Our road home,” Keltan said from out of the darkness. “Rocky, narrow, and almost impossible to find even if you know it’s there. It would take a miracle for the Autarch’s men to trail us now.”

Mara nodded. That was good news, of course, but she couldn’t dredge up much enthusiasm from the deepening black mud of her exhaustion.

“Fires,” Edrik said. “Safe enough down here. A hot meal for everyone. Then sleep. We ride again at first light.”

A rough and ready camp sprang up. Mara had wondered where the wood for the fires was supposed to come from, but the unMasked answered that by opening bundles of sticks that had been slung on the horses. The night was clear, so there was no bother with tents. There being nothing to graze on, the horses got feedbags. “Always see to the horses first,” Keltan said, when Mara protested that the animals got to eat before they did. “They’ve already drilled
that
much into me!”