Grizelda (31 page)

They got their things together and they
left.

Calding meant to get back to his prisoners,
but dealing with the Promontory sting operation kept him occupied
at every turn. Something was wrong. Gendarmes kept coming back to
him telling him they’d found nobody. A couple of them had even
apparently gone mad: they complained of being attacked by
mysterious flying little people. He was in the middle of arguing
with them when that secretary burst in, breathless, looking
panic-stricken.

“It’s the prisoners, Warden! The door to your
office has been bashed in and they’re gone!”

There was no point in stopping to think; he
immediately sprang into action. He dropped his conversation and
military-jogged with Mr. Bavar back to the office. It was true. The
door was broken, hanging off its hinges. Calding stepped over it to
get inside. Bavar hung back, looking concerned. The two youths were
nowhere to be seen.

He didn’t even know what to think about this
new development. He was still trying to decide when Lieutenant
Whatshisname showed up. He looked a little taken aback at the door,
but he stepped over it and saluted.

“Warden Calding?”

“What now?”

“There’s someone from the Committees of
Public Safety here to see you, sir.”

There was a whispering in the goblins’ Union
Hall. The voting for the annual chairmancy election was supposed to
have taken place first thing in the morning. Dutifully all the
citizens of the Union had assembled in the hall, like they did for
all their great meetings, but still the Chairman had not come. The
minutes stretched into half an hour. Miner Nelin half-jokingly
suggested that the Chairman had fled the scene rather than face a
rout, but nobody much laughed. When Mechanic Lenk took his seat
late, the goblins around him didn’t even notice.

There were other things to worry about. There
were rumors flying about, some of them concerning the Chairman,
some of them not. A midnight break-in at the government building.
The ogre-child had disappeared. Some sort of fight at the debates.
Many goblins were convinced the Chairman was somehow connected to
it all, though they weren’t sure how.

The murmuring rose. The Chairman had
appeared. He came in at the end of the Foremen’s balcony, and
calmly stepped past the seat that was waiting for him and came up
to the edge.

“I regret to announce that there has been a
change of plans for today.”

The goblins responded in outrage, thinking he
was going to cancel the election. It took him a long time to get a
word in.

“For reasons that you are probably already
beginning to find out, I have decided to resign. I am withdrawing
my name from the ballot. You may still cast your ballots if you
wish, though there is no longer much point.”

He started to withdraw. But Miner Nelin stood
up from his seat in the audience and shouted.

“What’s this all about, Chairman?”

The Chairman stopped, turned around, and
returned to the edge. “All right, you want to know why I’m
resigning. If the state of politics is such that I have to sneak
around to help Seamstress Grizelda flee the country, I’ve clearly
gotten too old for it. My congratulations, Miner Nelin. Good
hunting with your war.”

There was a moment’s stunned silence, then
the room exploded in confusion of equal measure to the pig iron
riot. For a few moments, it seemed like anything could happen.

“Quiet!” It was the Mechanic who called for
order this time, since nobody seemed quite sure who was chairman.
Only respect for his position made the crowd finally quiet
down.

“A word in the Chairman’s defense! By saving
this girl’s life Chairman Grendel did what he thought was right. He
may not have been our Union’s best chairman, but he is one of the
best goblins I have known. Let him pass in peace.”

There was utter silence as Grendel – he was
only Grendel now – walked past the Chairman’s seat and stepped down
from the balcony.

The journey through the catacombs was as long
and hard as the last time, but now they had to go it alone. Toby
and Grizelda hiked side by side, their supplies slung over their
shoulders, Geddy riding again in Toby’s pocket. A soreness was
building in Grizelda’s legs already. Toby, it was clear, was in a
foul mood.

“This is awful,” he said. “I mean, what am I
going to tell my folks when they see me? ‘Oh, it got a little scary
and I left.’ Grandpa’s going to have a laugh.”

Grizelda turned to him. “Actually, Toby, I’ve
been thinking. Maybe we can do stuff from in Salinaca.”

“Yeah, like what? Write pamphlets?”

“Well, yes, actually.” She paused, her mind
running ahead of her. “Or we could do … research or something for
the Underground, send them back what we know. Recruit
Salinacans.”

Toby made a noncommittal sound, but he did
seem to brighten a little.

They began to pass racks of bones, and skulls
leering out at her from their walls. Maybe it was because it was
morning, but they seemed to Grizelda to have utterly lost their
power. They moved on.

The road ahead of them would be a hard one,
she knew. What if they didn’t manage to get to the train station
before the search patrols were set out? Even if they did make it,
they faced days and days of sleepless, bone-jittering riding,
stopping only now and then to bribe the conductor to hide them in
the luggage compartment during checkpoints. Salinaca City was a
huge place, Grizelda didn’t speak the language, and Toby only knew
it a little. It would take incredible luck just to find out where
Toby’s family was living. But they didn’t have to worry about that
quite yet.

And Grizelda knew how she was going to thank
Grendel. She would thank him with her life, because that was what
he had given her. She would go to Salinaca and study and grow up
and see trees and all the time fight for Corvain. This exile was
only temporary. Someday she would come back and walk the streets
and this time there would be no headscarf. The light would hit her
witch-mark for everyone to see.

They quickened their pace as the tunnel
steepened. Filled with a sudden urgency, they ran up the last slope
and there it was, the secret exit, flooded in morning sunlight.
Grizelda winced. Even though she had made the occasional foray to
the surface in the last few weeks, she wasn’t used to daylight at
all. But gradually her eyes adjusted and she saw there was a
brilliance in the east, a rising sun that shot up the whole horizon
with gold.

She turned to Toby, and hand in hand they
stepped outside.

Special sneak preview:
The Confederacy of
Heaven

Thank you for downloading this ebook. If you
liked
Grizelda
, you might also like
The Confederacy of
Heaven
, my second novel that will be coming out in Smashwords
in the fall of 2010.

In a post-apocalyptic Canada that hasn't seen
rain in two hundred years, exile from the clan spells death. When
Nasan, a junior warrior of the Rattlingbones Clan, is disgraced and
cast out for a crime she didn't commit, she has other plans. She
will survive alone in the wasteland of junipers and broken, haunted
cities – just as soon as she figures out how. Enter Oscar, a
strange bird who claims to be her spirit guide but can’t quite
prove it. The rich people in the walled cities are fighting wars
over water and Oscar wants to suck her into the fight. As he goes
on and on about her being chosen to save the world, she begins to
suspect there's a conspiracy going on.

For more information about
Confederacy
, please visit my website at
www.steamtrainsandghosts.wordpress.com. Here's a scene from the
book in the meantime to whet your appetite:

Nasan returned to consciousness by degrees.
It was a confusing and drawn-out process. At first she thought
maybe she was dead, since it was pitch dark and she couldn’t seem
to move. But that couldn’t be right; Heaven was filled with the
brilliance of the Stars. Then all her pain came back and she had to
rule dead out.

The pain was duller than back at the poisoned
lake, but still quite there. Her side twinged each time she
breathed in and there was a steady, dull throb in her arm. Her skin
burned. She heard something move nearby and out of old habit tried
to reach for her bow. It didn’t work well. She let out a low
moan.

“You’re awake, then?” came a familiar
voice.

She sat up with difficulty.

“Oh. It’s you.”

“Yes, it’s me. And I saved your life, if you
might recall. You could try sounding a little happier about it,”
the bird said, wherever he was.

She was still too groggy to rise to the bait.
“Why can’t I see?”

“We’re in a cave underground. If it’s any
consolation, I can’t see a thing, either.”

She felt around on her jacket and found a
light khipu by touch. Her left arm still wouldn’t move, so she
pulled the tie cord with her teeth. The knots flashed as they came
undone, then the light spread down the wool and settled to a bluish
glow.

The bird hadn’t lied; they were in a cave.
She couldn’t tell how big it was, the light wasn’t strong enough,
but she could see the flat bit like a beach where she was sitting
and what looked like an underground lake. The bird perched on a
rock a few paces away. She caught it staring at her with a
dumbstruck expression, the light reflected in those bright dark
eyes. It started preening itself to cover up.

“That was … interesting,” it said.

“Haven’t you ever seen khipu magic
before?”

It shook its head. There it went, acting
human again. “I’ve seen plenty of magic in my time, but that’s a
new one on me.”

There was something about it that wasn’t
quite natural. Its movements were too sinuous, like those illusions
Tumen Cara would conjure up to entertain the clan children.
Obviously it wasn’t a real bird, she could conclude that much.
Everybody knew that birds couldn’t talk.

“What are you?” She reached up with her good
hand to rub her head.

The bird hop-fluttered down to her and peered
closely at her throbbing arm. Was he delaying?

“I’m your spirit guide. Before we get into
any detail, you should wash up. Demon blood’s notoriously bad for
wounds.”

Her skin and clothes were all covered in a
sticky, half-dried substance. A mixture of her own blood and some
black and tarry stuff that gave off an acrid smell when she touched
it. Yech. Then she realized she had another problem. Her bow and
arrows were still in the sling that was half sliding off her
shoulder, but the sack was nowhere to be seen.

She started to stand up. That turned out to
be a bad idea, as a wave of dizziness and nausea came over her and
she lurched, only just managing to catch a stalagmite for support.
She disentangled herself from the sling and started undoing the
ties of her jacket one-handed. The stork politely settled itself –
himself? – on a rock facing the other way. She dropped the jacket
on the floor, then took off her boots and her leggings, smock, then
finally her underwear. What the heck, he was just a bird. She lay
the compass on top of the pile of her clothes.

When she was finally naked, she stepped down
to the edge of the lake. Real water, this, not that rippling lead.
Liquid water! A king’s hoard of it. If only the Rattlingbones could
see her now. She realized she was desperately thirsty, and bent
down to drink.

“Bird?”

It cocked its head, though it was still
facing the other way.

“There’s … things in the water.” She eyed the
dark shapes that flickered within, keeping just outside arm’s
reach. “They’re alive.”

“Those are fish. They used to be common once.
Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you.”

“Seriously? Fish are real?”

The bird nodded, but didn’t say more. Storks
were real, though she’d only heard about them in stories before.
Apparently, so were fish. Only a little reassured, she stepped into
the water. It was cold – very cold. It made her gasp as she edged
in slowly, the cave rock slippery under her feet. The fish darted
in retreat from her.

“Bird?” she said again.

“Yes?” There was only a touch of irritation
in his voice.

“Are you going to explain now?”

“All right.” He made a preparatory ruffle of
feathers. “I’m Oscar the Bird, spirit guide sent by the Stars to
help you fulfill your destiny.”

It sounded like he was reciting a spiel. Very
suspicious. She decided not to reply right away. Instead she took
the time to run over her body and count her wounds.
You really
managed to get yourself banged up this time.
There were bruises
and scratches aplenty and both red and black blood all over. Her
skin was pinkened and burned, especially where her clothes hadn’t
been covering her during the fight, her head ached where it was
struck, and the ribs all down her left twinged. They were probably
cracked. Her arm was the worst: it was red and swollen, and burned
whenever she tried to move it. It hung at the wrong angle.

She didn’t know how to set bones. If her arm
was broken, what was she going to do about it out here in the
wilderness?

Now, about that bird…

“If you’re my spirit guide,” she said slowly,
“your job is to look out for me, right?”

The bird nodded.

“Why are you appearing to me now, and never
before?”

“I didn’t show myself until you truly needed
me.”

The two-faced bastard, to give her a line
like that! “Do you have
any
idea what I’ve been through in
the past few days?”

A long pause from Oscar. He cocked his head,
as if listening to something far away. “Um… Something bad.
Something very bad.”

“Didn’t really need you? Didn’t really need
you? You’re some townsperson’s witchcraft! Someone coached you to
say that!” She probably would have attacked him then, but her
weapon was back on the shore, and it hurt her sides just to
shout.