The Frost Child (17 page)

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will not take the Workhouse. You and Cati and all the rest have to make sure that the Resisters are not beaten from within. I have to do--"

"You're not going on your own," a small voice said. They looked around. Silkie was standing up. And although her fists were clenched, her face was still pale and bandaged.

"Don't look at me like that," she said angrily. "I'm hurt but I'm not asking for pity. The
Wayfarer
listens to me, and I know how to handle her and how to fix her. She'll sail for me, I know. How is Owen going to sleep or rest or fix her when she goes wrong when he doesn't know nothing about boats?"

"I don't know, Silkie," Wesley said. "You're bad enough hurt, and you don't know what's out there or anything--"

"If the Raggies can spare her," Owen cut across Wesley, "Silkie is the best person I could hope to have with me."

Silkie stood proud and tall and her eyes flashed. She reached up with her right hand, took hold of the dressing on her face, ripped it off, and flung it to the floor. The gash on her cheek looked angry and swollen.

Rosie made a sound.

"What?" Silkie turned on her.

"Nothing," Rosie said, "I didn't mean nothing. I thought I saw ... on your face ... a rose ..." She rubbed her eyes, looking confused.

"Well?" Silkie said, turning to Wesley.

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"If Owen thinks you're the right one, then I won't stand in the way."

Silkie grinned. Owen and Cati cheered. Only Wesley noticed that Rosie wasn't joining in.

The attack on the Harsh was to take place at dawn on the following day. All evening there was the sound of weapons being prepared and of soldiers practicing drills. Owen moved about the Workhouse as best he could, in spite of Samual's guards. The soldiers were on extra rations and he helped Contessa serve the men and women. Some of them shook his hand. Others asked him what they might expect from the Harsh, but he had no answers.

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they have always had men and women to do their fighting for them."

"Where do these people come from?" Cati asked.

"Time is full of strange people. There are wanderers, mercenaries--bands of fighters for hire. Samual is hoping that he can target the Harsh ships and damage them. He also hopes to deliver a victory to give heart to the Resisters."

"He's trying to take over, isn't he?"

"Samual is doing what he thinks best. If we don't agree, then we have to show him that he is wrong. After the damage the Albions did, a lot of people agree with him."

"But blaming the Raggies--that's not fair!"

"No, it isn't, but people will always point at somebody different when things go wrong. It's the way the world is. Now, I have something for you." He held out a card.

"What's that--a pass?" Cati asked.

Dr. Diamond smiled wearily. "Yes. Samual is doling them out to a selected few. Contessa is setting up a field hospital in the Convoke hall. If there is any power left in the Yeati's ring, then that is where you will be needed. I persuaded him to give you one. It took a lot of persuading."

Cati went back to her quarters. She sat on the bed and thought for a while. It was almost two o'clock in the morning, but she could not sleep. She took out the pass that the doctor had given her, almost of a mind to tear it up. The words on it read:
The bearer and all who accompany her are entitled to access to the Convoke hall
.

Wish it could get me into the kitchen
, she thought, idly
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rubbing her thumb across the words. She was about to put it away, but something on it caught her eye. Instead of saying
Convoke hall
, it now said
kitchen
. Amazed, she tried it again. This time she rubbed her thumb over it and thought of the Starry, and the word changed to
Starry
. Dr. Diamond had given her a pass that would get her anywhere!

Thanks, Doc
, she thought, and then realized something: if the doctor had given her a pass, then he intended for her to use it. She opened the locked drawer where she kept the few treasures she owned, including the cornflower brooch that had belonged to her mother. Taking up the length of the box was a magno gun and a belt of the bulbs of magno that it fired. She strapped the belt around her waist and slung the gun over her shoulder. She stood up, her tiredness lifted. She was the Watcher, and there wasn't going to be any fight unless she was in it. She closed the box, then changed her mind. She opened it again, took out her mother's brooch, and pinned it carefully to her tunic. It was time to face the Harsh.

She walked down the corridor, but didn't get far before a strong hand grasped her shoulder. She gasped. She was jumpier than she thought--it was Wesley. His shrewd eyes took in the magno gun and the brooch.

"Oh no you don't," he said, "not on your own."

"Then come with me," she said, knowing it was useless to argue with Wesley. He looked at her for a long time.

"You know," he said, "I've a mind to see a real battle."

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"I can get us through the checkpoints," Cati said eagerly.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Cati had no trouble with the sentries. They all knew her, and most of them had known her father. Wesley drew a few looks and there were mutterings behind him, but he ignored them.

Outside it was still dark and bitterly cold. Campfires were not allowed, so men and women huddled in trenches and tried to keep warm with the constant stream of hot drinks sent from the kitchen by Contessa. Cati spied Rutgar pacing at the head of his troops.

"Don't let him see us," she hissed. "He'll only send us back."

In the distance they could see the mast tops of the Harsh ships, but, unlike the previous night, there was no sign of the Harsh in the town or in the trees.

Half an hour before dawn, just when they thought they could bear the cold no longer, the Resister banner was raised at the front of the army. Men and women rose to their feet and fanned out along the river. The whispered order was given, and the Resisters began to move out.

High above them on the battlements, Owen watched them go, shadowy figures against the snow. His heart misgave him. There were so few of them. It was too far away to see Wesley and Cati, or he would have been even

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more worried. He went down the stone stairs toward the Convoke hall and the kitchen. As he took the last step he saw a small dark figure move swiftly down a side corridor and disappear. He quickly followed.

The corridor led toward the dank basements that lay in the damp ground alongside the river. Owen felt ice crackling under his feet, and could barely make out where he was going. But he heard footsteps ahead of him: a faint clack of high heels on the stone floor. He recognized the sound, and wished he didn't. What was Rosie doing here at this time of night?

The corridor opened out into a disused laundry. Rows of stone tanks and pipework ran across the ceiling. There were only a few tarnished magno lights in the laundry, and the light was very dim. Somewhere water dripped onto a stone surface, drop by drop. The footsteps had stopped. Owen crept forward, then froze in his tracks. The room filled with sound--an eerie, moaning, echoing noise in which he thought he could make out words, or at least sounds that might once have been words. The noise stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and he heard Rosie talking, her voice quick and urgent, but too low for him to make out what she was saying. Rosie stopped and the moaning noise started again. Forcing his feet to move, he crept forward. He rounded the end of one of the mangles to see Rosie crouched on the floor beside a large pipe. The sound was coming from the end of the pipe!

Owen watched, holding his breath. The sound stopped, and Rosie put her mouth to the end of the pipe.

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She was using the pipe to communicate in secret with someone elsewhere in the Workhouse!

He inched forward, trying to hear but her mouth was too close to the pipe. She gave a furtive look around, spoke once more into the pipe, then stood up and walked back toward Owen. He pressed himself against the machine as Rosie passed him, close enough to touch. Owen waited five minutes, then followed. As he reached the top of the staircase he could hear a commotion--the unconscious sentry had been found. There was no sign of Rosie, but a window to the outside lay open. Owen climbed onto the windowsill and slipped through. Footprints led away outside--the footprints of someone with a dainty foot, wearing shoes that weren't meant for snow.

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Chapter 18

The small Resister army led by Samual and Rutgar advanced across the snow, the first cold light of day in the eastern sky. Behind them came teams of men pushing magno cannons on sleighs. And behind that was a large sleigh with the Porcupine mounted on it. Alongside the Porcupine, Pieta strode easily. She had always fought on her own, but this time she was not alone. On either shoulder walked her children, Aldra and Beck, tall and silent and each carrying a magno whip. At the very rear Wesley and Cati moved stealthily, still afraid that someone would see them and send them back.

There was no sign of the Harsh when they reached the outskirts of the town. Here and there a roof had collapsed from the weight of the snow. The Resister soldiers spread out and moved cautiously, checking empty buildings one by one and covering each other as they went forward.

"This is spooky," Cati whispered. The buildings hid

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the harbor from view, and beyond the harbor, the Harsh fleet.

"I just thought of something," Wesley said.

"What's that?"

"The Hadima entrance. Somebody needs to check it out. The Albions came through it."

"It's daylight," Cati said. "The Albions can't stand the light."

"Who says the Albions are the only people that side of the entrance that don't like the Resisters?"

He was right. But Rutgar and Samual were far ahead and probably would not have appreciated the advice anyway.

"We'll go as far as the harbor and cut back," Cati said. "We'll have a look at it then."

On they went, through the deserted town. From one of the buildings, a thin dog ran. One of Rutgar's men tried to call it, but the dog ran away, howling in despair. "Harsh must have got to it," one of the soldiers murmured.

The sky was heavy with snow and strange mists rose every few hundred yards, obscuring their progress. At last they emerged onto the harbor road and crested the rise above the harbor. They stopped, awestruck. Not only were the Harsh ships moored on the ice in their dozens, each one looking bigger than the Workhouse, but beside each had been built a ice mansion.

"Igloo," Cati breathed as she and Wesley caught up with the leaders.

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"Some igloos," Wesley said. The mansions were the domed shape of proper igloos, but there were many windows and great doors of ice.

"Set up the magno cannons along the ridge," Rutgar said. "They are not expecting us."

"All snoring in their beds, I expect," one soldier snorted as they hastened to do as they had been told.

But the Harsh were not snoring in their beds.

"Look." Rutgar pointed to the windows of the giant igloos, where they could now see the barrels of ice cannons.

"Not houses," Samual said, "castles."

"But why don't they fire?" Rutgar said.

"I don't know," Samual said, "but it's time we got dug in along the ridge. We can mount sorties from there."

"Now is our chance," Wesley said. He pointed toward the river and the Hadima entrance, but Cati could see his eyes were drawn toward his old home in the warehouse.

"We'll look at the warehouse afterward," she said, patting him on the knee.

Back at the Workhouse, Owen stood with Martha on the battlements. They were each consumed with a feeling of foreboding.

"I've been checking radio stations for the past twenty-four hours," Martha said. "People around the world are still broadcasting, but the signals are getting weaker. I think the Resisters are the only people who understand what is happening."