by Shannon Hale
Dan left eight bandits to guard the girls in the bedchamber and three more just outside the door. Miri lay on her side, arranged her bound hands behind her, and kept watch as the fire burned low, dimmer than a crescent moon.
The men were quiet that evening, and Miri wondered if they were thinking about the story. She had started the telling to make them uneasy and if there was cowardice in their hearts perhaps prick them to fleeing. But now the story was giving her a bigger idea.
No matter what Dan thought, there was fact in it. Once bandits had come, and the villagers had beaten them soundly. She supposed the story did take some liberties, because the mountain could not really speak to them. Yet the kernel of that idea was true—quarry-speech allowed the villagers to talk through the mountain, to send their song down into the linder so another could hear. If Miri could communicate exam answers on a hill, what else was possible?
Her silent challenge to Dan heartened her. She was a Mount Eskel girl. There was something she could do.
Miri moved her upper body off her pallet and pressed her cheek on a cold floorstone. The mountain was filled with linder. There could be veins and layers and masses of linder marbled underground, deep and shallow, a trail of it from the floorstone beneath her all the way to the village. There must be.
Her breath bounced back from the stone and warmed her face. She listened to it, caught its rhythm, and tried to form a song of her thoughts.
It was a long way to the village. She imagined the road, the many turns, past decades of dead quarries, miles of cliff edge. On the hill during the exam, the girls had all been as close as two arms’ reach. The hopelessness of trying scared her, and her breath caught.
Doter always said, Thinking it’s impossible makes it so. A year ago, just using quarry-speech outside the quarry seemed impossible. Miri shoved her doubts away.
She sang her thoughts down into the linder, sang of her family, their pallets cuddled close on a freezing night. She hoped Pa or Marda might hear her memory of home and understand that Miri needed them.
Miri tried different memories until her sticky eyelids told her it was long past midnight, when everyone in the village was surely asleep. Wakeful academy girls gave her bewildered looks, a sign that her quarry-speech brushed through them; though not knowing the specific memory she used, they most likely had thoughts of their own firesides. But from far away, Miri sensed no response. Her bound hands were asleep, her neck and shoulder throbbed from lying on the floor, her middle was tight with hunger. When the discomfort overwhelmed her concentration, she twisted back onto her pallet and slept fitfully.
The gloomy light of another snowy morning woke her, and she renewed her labor. All day and into that night, she tried every way she could imagine. She quarry-spoke memories only her father knew and days she had spent with Marda alone. Stillness answered.
Britta sat beside Miri and smoothed her brow, slipping aside her gag to offer her sips of water when no bandit looked their way. Miri could not relax; the thin muscles of her forehead were bound and tense.
“Are you sick?” Britta whispered.
Miri shook her head but could explain no more. She kept reaching out, hopelessness mixed with hope.
When afternoon light melted into the room, Miri felt nearly crazed with her effort and had to try something new. Peder came to mind, and despite their recent quarrel, she found the thought of him calming. She closed her eyes, shook loose her thoughts, and sang into the linder of spring holiday. They were sitting on the same stone, their legs almost touching, the nearest bonfire echoing on the blacks of his eyes.
Perhaps an hour into trying, her concentration dissolved and her thoughts were snatched by a memory of a summer afternoon years before. She and Peder sat on the stream bank, their feet turning blue in the icy water. All around, the goats yanked at river grass and bleated at the sun. A small butterfly with pale wings flitted past her nose, pausing as if at first believing she were a flower. Peder plucked a wing-shaped leaf, sucked it against his lips, and blew it away. It spun and flew, dipping and rising on a breeze, and seemed to be chasing after the butterfly until it touched the surface of the stream and was pulled down and away.
There was nothing special about that day. It was just one of many from her childhood, one hour out of thousands she had spent beside Peder. But the thought of it made her feel warm. Her heart pulsed through her ribs and reminded her now, trapped and cold and afraid, what it felt like to be content. And the idea of Peder came knit with the memory, as though she caught a faint scent of him on her clothes.
There was no vibration behind her eyes; the memory was dim and strange. It was not like the quarry-speech Peder had spoken to her at spring holiday, strong and garish, images shouting behind her eyes. Yet she believed her mind was not just wandering. She felt it was Peder.
She moved completely off her pallet and pressed her whole body tight to the floor, desperate to keep communicating. The cold of the stones pierced through her clothes, but she clenched her teeth and ignored it. Closing her eyes, she sang a memory of spring holiday and the telling of the bandit story. Again and again she repeated the images of that event, forming rhythm with her thoughts, pairing them together as she would rhyme two lines of a song, singing them silently into the stone. Bandits, danger. She prayed Peder would understand. Now, here at the academy—bandits, tell our parents!
She quarry-spoke until her thoughts felt rough and grating, her mind as hoarse as her throat would be after hours of yelling. Peder did not speak back again.
Hours of silence pressed on her. Her body ached from lying on the floor, and she sat up and stretched her bound arms and realized how much her head hurt. Outside, the snow still fell.
Esa and Frid looked at her questioningly, and Miri shrugged defeat. Her temples felt as though chisels sought to square her skull like a block of linder. A bandit allowed Britta to remove Miri’s gag for a moment and feed her porridge; then despondency made her sleepy, and she lay down and dreamed of climbing a slope that had no peak.
n
Chapter Twenty-two
The boot prints were pricks
In the mountain’s side
So the mount it roared a stone groan
And made those bandits
Moan, yes, made them shake and moan
n
Miri awoke with such a jolt that she sat upright. Had someone called her? Her breath sounded so loud to her own ears, she was afraid a bandit might come over to investigate. Slowly, aching at the crinkling of her pallet, she lay back down.
No one had spoken aloud, she was certain now, yet she still had the impression of her name pulsing in her head. She listened—the soft sounds of sleep, raspy snarls of snores, crackle of bodies restless on straw pallets, scratching and turning, the moans of troubled slumber. No voices. A tingle behind her eyes made her believe it might have been quarry-speech, and she stayed awake, listening.
Her mind grabbed the memory of the last time she had seen Peder, just after the prince left. They had been standing within sight of the academy before the first bend in the road. In that dark, cold room, the remembrance was so bright in her mind as to warm her limbs. She could picture how the light from the falling sun had struck Peder’s eyes, making them appear all blue with no black at all, and she could feel her fists clenched at her sides.
“Ah . . .” She could not stop a small sound of wonder escaping her lips. This time there was no doubt Peder was calling to her in quarry-speech. Perhaps before, the sense of him had been faint because he had been far away. It was stronger now, much clearer. He was near, she was certain. But was he alone?
Miri rolled off her pallet to touch the linder floor, and she answered back by quarry-speaking her own memory of their last parting. His response was immediate—the mountain cat hunt. Miri was seven again, standing in her doorway, watching some thirty men and wome
n set out to hunt down a mountain cat that had stalked the village’s rabbits. They held levers, pickaxes, and mallets, and their faces were grim and determined.
Peder had brought the villagers, and they were carrying weapons.
Miri sought for a way to ask, What should I do? But she knew the answer. The girls had to get out of the building. If they could make it outside, she knew the villagers would be waiting to protect them. But if their families had to storm the building, there would be fighting, perhaps even killing.
The eight bandits in the bedchamber slept, three of their bodies blocking the room’s only door. Miri teetered to her feet and tiptoed to the window. The night was solid with snowfall, but as she stared into the torrent of flakes, a wind rose briefly and parted the storm. There, just before the bend in the road, she saw a line of darker shapes. To a watchful bandit they might appear just lumps of rocks, but Miri knew the shape of every rock around the academy. The villagers were there, waiting.
Miri closed her eyes and sang a quarry-speech memory of the stone hawk lying on that windowsill one spring morning. She hoped Peder would understand and watch the window.
She felt her blood rush through her, warning her that she was about to do something terrifying. I slit your throat first and ask questions later, Dan had said. And Miri believed him. Now, as she was about to take another step toward escape, his threat was as real and immediate as the air in her lungs.
Miri began to tremble. She leaned her shoulder against the wall and found she could not move. The villagers were so far away on the other side of the snowfall, and Dan and his knife as near as the next room. When she had started calling out in quarry-speech, she had not imagined this part, the need to get the girls out of the academy without help and the terrible risk of being caught again.
Don’t hesitate, she reminded herself. Just strike, Miri. Just swing, mountain girl. She chanted to herself to give her limbs courage and reasons to move. She was the academy princess. She was her ma alive again. Peder had heard her call and come in the night. Her pa would be out there, his arms strong enough to crush bandits like rubble rock. Olana and Knut were locked away, and there was no one else.
Her breath shuddered out of her chest. She took the first step.
Miri trod softly away from the window and to Britta’s pallet, stooping beside her to touch her with a bound hand.
Britta opened her eyes and without making a sound looked at Miri, looked at the sleeping bandits, and nodded understanding.
She untied Miri’s hands and gag, and then the two girls crawled around the room, whispering into ears and making silence gestures. Some startled awake, and the crackle of their pallets sent Miri’s heart tumbling. She shot a glance at the sleeping men—none aroused.
The steady pop and crumble of the low fire masked some of the noise of girls sitting up, lacing boots, whispering anxious queries. Miri crouched before the hearth so all might see her face. She touched the floor with her fingertips and reminded them in quarry-speech of the villagers fighting the mountain cat, hoping that all of them shared the memory of that night years before. Then she pointed to the window.
She saw their faces turn to that dull point of light and flicker with apprehension and fear. Miri could not risk having anyone stay behind. With her eyebrows raised as if she posed a question, Miri pointed at each girl and waited until she nodded agreement. To her relief, even Bena did not hesitate.
As silent as owls’ wings, the girls stole to the window. Far above the snow clouds, the moon must have been bright and full. Its light bled through the storm, marking each flake with a silvery luster and pouring a pale, peachy glow onto the mountain. Just out of sight, she believed her pa and others stood ready.
Frid and Miri examined the wood frame of the window, looking for a place to tear it free. Bena, who was much taller than Miri, stepped forward to help Frid break the wood at the top. The crack sounded like a frantic moan, and the girls froze, watching the faces of the sleeping men. The one-eyed bandit lay not two paces away, but his good eye did not open.
Frid and Bena peeled away the rest of the wood. Much of it was damp from ice leaking through and came off without too much trouble, though Miri expected that the two girls had fingers full of splinters. Bena’s hands were deft and silent, and Miri found herself thinking that Bena was a wonderful, wonderful person.
When enough of the frame was removed, they eased the glass pane free; then five girls took careful hold and lowered the window to the ground. Miri heard a collective exhale when it rested against the wall, a reaction that in other circumstances might have made her laugh. The silence instead was unnerving.
Cold air poured through the empty window. One of the bandits stirred.
Miri grabbed Liana and with Frid’s and Bena’s help lifted her through the window. No sooner had Liana landed outside than the line of villagers walked forward. Miri’s limbs felt stronger just at the sight. Thirty or forty of them marched steadily toward the academy, and Liana ran past them and huddled safely behind. Another girl was just behind her, and another. Five girls were out now. Six.
“Why’s it so cold?” called out a sleepy voice.
Panic shook Miri’s hands, and she almost fell over when giving Tonna a boost. Ten girls passed through. Twelve. Sixteen.
“What the . . .” The one-eyed bandit sat up. “Dan! They’re running!”
“No,” Miri breathed.
Frid tossed another girl through the window, then turned to the waking bandits. One lunged for Miri, but Frid was faster. She grabbed a privy pot and broke it over his head with a noise and a stench that brought the others to their feet. Bena climbed out the window. All the girls were through now but Miri and Frid.
“Hurry!” said Miri, scrambling out on her own.
She hit the ground outside and heard Frid behind her and the shouts of the bandits that followed. Bandits were surging out the front door, and girls wailed as they were caught before they reached the villagers.
Miri ran. The villagers were so close, she felt she should be able to jump to them as easily as springing across a stream. The snow was knee-high, and her escape seemed impossibly slow, as though she lay sick somewhere far away and only dreamed of running.
The villagers were rushing forward, attempting to get to the fleeing girls before the bandits could, but Miri saw Britta yanked back and heard another girl scream to her right. There was a clatter of wood on metal that meant someone was fighting. She kept her eyes on the villagers, on her pa running to her, and pushed herself faster.
Then a hand touched her back. She cried out as she was wrenched from her flight and twisted around. Dan‘s scarred face sneered at her, inches from her own.
“You’re the troublemaker,” he said, and his mouth stank of meat. “I’ll see you broken and dead.”
n
Chapter Twenty-three
Don’t look down, don’t look down
In midair you drown, drown
n
Miri!” Her pa sprang forward. Rage distorted his face, and Miri trembled just to see it. A bandit overtook him, and Pa’s mallet swung twice—once to pound the bandit’s club to the ground, once to knock the bandit down. Pa hurdled him and rushed toward Dan, his mallet raised.
“I’ll kill her!” said Dan, his hoarse voice straining to yell. His hands gripped Miri’s neck. “I’ll snap her in two, mountain man.”
Pa stopped. Miri could see him tighten his hold on the mallet shaft, look to Miri, look at Dan, wanting nothing more than to beat the bandit into the snow. His chest heaved with his breath, and he lowered his mallet slowly, as though the action pained him as much as cutting off his own hand. His eyes were on Miri, and his expression said his heart was breaking for the second time.
Miri’s own heart felt sore, like a burnt fingertip. She saw now that he would do whatever she needed—fight to
dying, or lower his mallet, or even believe Peder’s strange tale of quarry-speech spoken miles away. He had run through a snowstorm in the middle of the night to save his little girl.
She kicked backward at Dan and writhed to get free. It was like punching a stone. She hung limp from his hands and stared at her pa.
Everyone was quiet now. The frenzied running and brief fighting had stopped as quickly as it had begun. Miri and Dan stood in front of the academy steps. His hot, scratchy hands circled her throat, rubbing back and forth as if he rehearsed twisting her neck. Before her stood the wall of villagers.
She was comforted to see that many of the academy girls had made it behind the villagers, and they hugged one another and cried. The villagers had overwhelmed four bandits—three lay in the snow, a quarryman’s boot on each of their backs, and a fourth squirmed as Frid’s oldest brother held an iron lever across his neck. Miri wondered if any of the bandits were thinking of a mountain that could warn its people at the touch of an outsider’s boot.
But the villagers held only four bandits, and the remaining eleven had seized some of the fleeing academy girls. Miri spotted Esa, Gerti, Katar, Britta, and Frid among the captive. Miri shivered. There was no window she could crawl through now.
The cold soaked further and further inside her like mold creeping through bread, and the minute of silent tension seemed hours. When Os spoke, the sound of his voice closed the space, making the outside night feel like a crowded room.
“We have four of your men, you have nine of our daughters. We make a nice, easy trade: you go on your way, and no one’s blood melts the snow tonight.”
Dan laughed. “Hardly a fair trade, quarryman. How about this—you keep the four men, give us back the other girls, and we send them home safe and sound once the prince pays.”
There was a murmur of anger. Some of the villagers cursed at Dan and squeezed the shafts of their weapons. Os growled, his voice like the mountain rumbling.