Testing her weight at each step, she edged her way down toward the sound of furious water, a roaring that got louder and louder by the second. Her entire being became fixed on the search for secure handholds, the feel of the shifting ground under her toes, and the narrowing distance between herself and the brink of the chasm. So tight did her mental focus become that Kim was almost surprised when the object she was after appeared within arm’s reach. One worn shoe, toes and heels well scuffed, half buried in the soft gravel of the slope. Kim pulled it loose and was about to stuff it inside her jacket, freeing both hands for the climb back, when she was stopped by a shout from Rozek.
“Throw it up here!”
For the first time, Kim took her eyes from the ground beneath her and looked up to the top of the slope. The entire company had dismounted and was lining the rim. The Rangers were watching her with expressions of appalled dismay. Even the Guards looked worried. Except for Major Rozek.
“I said, throw it here, Ranger.”
Kim pulled back her arm and lobbed the shoe up. The action sent another small avalanche of stones tumbling over the edge and nearly unbalanced her, but after a brief struggle, Kim regained her grip on the slope. The shoe landed on the grass by Rozek’s feet.
“Great, now we know the shoe size of one of the outlaws,” Chip muttered to the Ranger beside her.
Kim was about to start the ascent of the slope when she was again stopped by the major. “While you’re there, check that nothing is under that bush.”
Kim’s eyes followed the direction Rozek was pointing. The plant in question was five meters to her left, a small shrub that had somehow established a foothold on the steepest part of the slope. Its knotted branches overhung the edge. Kim looked up, meeting Rozek’s eyes. For a long time, they held the contact, Rozek with an expression somewhere between expectation and triumph, Kim with resigned contempt. In Kim’s head echoed the words, You have my solemn oath as an officer in the temple Guard. You will die for it. Rozek’s intention was that she should not live to climb out of the crater, but there was a limit to how far the major could push things. Already there was muttering from above, and not just from the Rangers. No soldier liked to think her commanding officer would play games with their lives.
Kim took a quick glance down to the black emptiness opening centimeters below her feet. The thunder of the underground river boomed from the cave below. To slip would be certain death, but she had gotten this far, and a certain grim amusement arose from the thought of frustrating Rozek.
An eternity passed in the cautious sideways scramble, but at last the bush was reached and as expected, there was nothing to be found. Up above, Rozek’s expression had changed to one of irritation, but she did not dare drag things out further and made no attempt to demand more exploration of the chasm, allowing Kim to begin the climb to safety.
The first meter went without a hitch, then Kim’s hand fastened on a larger rock embedded in the ground. To a careful tug, it seemed securely held by the surrounding soil, but as Kim pulled on it, levering herself up the slope, it shifted, twisted, and came loose in her hand. The jolt sent the loose gravel under her toes and knees rolling, taking her with them down the slope, an unhaltable, unhurried slither. In desperation, Kim dug her fingers into the ground, trying to stop her slow slide, but the chasm’s edge came ever nearer, and then her feet slipped over. A last hopeless sweep of her hands, and Kim caught hold of the bush, pulling herself to a stop. Her legs dangled in free air. Never had the torrent sounded so loud.
Helplessly, Kim looked up to the line of shocked onlookers at the top of the slope. Chip was barging her way along the rim, making for the point directly above, coiled rope in hand, but the rescue attempt was too late. Kim heard the snapping of roots as the shrub tore free, felt the world reel about her, and saw the sky spin and recede as she pitched back over the edge and tumbled into the darkness.
Chapter Twelve—A Nice Night for a Stroll
A wave of disbelief and horror froze the row of women at the top of the crater. Only Chip’s cry of “Kim!” broke the silence, and then she also stood motionless, coiled rope hanging uselessly in her hands, staring down at the tiny disturbed hollow where the roots of the bush had torn free. The last echo of the shout faded away, and then only the whisper of the wind over the moorland contended with the roar of the underground torrent.
Rozek’s voice was the next to be raised. “May the Goddess treat her soul with mercy. For we are all her children and must one day stand before her to be judged.”
The bland words of piety lifted the spell of inaction from the assembled women. Guards muttered to their neighbors, and Rangers slowly shook their heads in denial of what they had witnessed. Some spun away from the fissure and fixed their gaze on the horizon. Others wandered back to their horses and then stood still, as if trying to summon the enthusiasm to get back into the saddle.
Rozek turned to the junior Guard officer beside her and said, “We’ve wasted enough time here. Get them mounted up. I want to make a fair bit of progress by nightfall.”
The Guardswoman nodded and was about to shout the command, but just as she opened her mouth, she was stopped by the sight of a furious Lieutenant Coppelli, elbowing her way through the confused line of soldiers, heading toward them, hands balled into fists.
“That was murder!” Chip screamed the words, her face only centimeters from Rozek’s.
The major’s eyes were contemptuous. “And that is gross insubordination.”
A fresh circle of silence rippled out from where the two antagonists stood, eyes locked in hostility. But at last, Rozek drew in a long breath through pinched nostrils and quoted, “The gift of life is the Goddess’s alone to bestow, and hers alone to take back. At the painful parting, seek not to understand why, merely to believe that all is done according to her will.”
“The will of the Goddess be damned! You murdered her.”
The blasphemy drew gasps of shock from the Guards.
Rozek’s face hardened into rigid outrage, but her voice softened to a dangerous intensity. “You have gone too far.” Louder she said, “Lieutenant Coppelli is relieved of duty. Captain Ahmed, you will take temporary command of the 23rd Squadron.” She glanced back at Chip. “You may rejoin the rest of the Rangers. Until further notice, you have the acting rank of private. Command headquarters in Landfall will receive my report when we get back and may make a more permanent decision.”
Rozek turned on her heel and began to walk away, but she did not get far. A hand grabbed her shoulder and swung her back, then a fist smashed into the side of her head. The blow sent her reeling backward; a second sharp punch knocked her to the ground, half stunned.
Before Rozek fully realized what was happening, Chip was sitting astride her chest, thumbs pushing down hard on her windpipe. Fingers clawed into the back of her neck. The speed of the assault was such that a few moments passed before the nearest Guards gathered themselves to respond. Several grabbed hold of Chip and dragged her off the half-strangled major.
Still, an air of unreality gripped the majority of those watching. The previous few minutes had held too many shocks. They watched in dream-like confusion as Rozek rolled over and pushed herself up on one arm while the other hand massaged her throat. The major took a deep breath and rose unsteadily.
The Rangers recovered first. Even before Rozek had regained her feet, a couple were moving forward to where Chip was held, restrained by four Guards. The hands of others went to the hilts of their swords and their eyes shifted left and right as they readied themselves for action. For a moment, discipline teetered on the brink of chaos, but then Rozek’s deputy stepped in, shouting commands, instilling a sense of purpose in the stunned Guards and shaking them out of their state of frozen confusion. As military order reasserted itself, the Rangers halted, reminded of the extent to which they were outnumbered. Many of the Guards looked uneasy, some looked ashamed, but there was no doubt that they would follow Rozek and the other Guard officers.
With furious impotence, the Rangers had no option but to watch as Chip’s hands were tied behind her back and she was led away prisoner, to ride with an escort of Guards until Rozek should have time to consider her fate. Not that anyone had much doubt about what that would be.
Away from the hole in the ground, the soldiers reclaimed their horses and climbed back into their saddles, rapidly forming themselves into a double column. The major remained by the rim of the crater, twisting her neck experimentally from side to side, until something in the grass caught her eye. From their position in the middle of the line, the embittered Rangers watched Rozek bend down and pick up the discarded coil of rope. They were too far away to see her expression of grim satisfaction or hear the soft comment, “I guess we might have a use for this after all,” but all could read her intention.
As soon as Rozek had returned to her horse, the order to ride on was called, the route still heading directly for the distant mountain. The column set off across the open moorland, but as they rode away from the chasm, hard, calculated looks passed from Ranger to Ranger. Circumstance forced them to be silent for the moment, but there was a lot they all wanted to say.
*
Both moons floated clear in the black night sky, their brilliance diminishing the glitter of the stars and lighting the valley where the company had made the next night’s stop on the other side of the moorland. Chip looked up at the shining crescents through the branches of the tree, remembering the many other occasions they had kept her company through the night on lonely sentry duties. The moons were like longtime comrades. She smiled up at the familiar sight of Hardie, now almost directly overhead. She would have one last night to watch the moons’ slow progression across the sky. And bid them goodbye.
Her hands were still tied behind her securely, the rope going around the rough tree trunk that her back was propped against. Two Guards stood a little to one side talking quietly, their eyes occasionally traveling in her direction. She was being held on the edge of camp, a little apart from where the sleeping forms of Guards littered the ground. Here and there, dull red embers glowed, the remains of campfires. Then beyond them was the outline of the major’s tent. Chip could not restrain the sneer that twisted her lips as she looked at it.
You did not do much for the state of your health in striking a commanding officer, let alone trying to kill her. And if you were going to do it when on active duty, the sentence was a forgone conclusion. To give Rozek her due, she had held a proper field court-martial, although Chip suspected it was only because she enjoyed the ceremonial qualities and the chance it gave to hold someone totally in her power. The gratification in the major’s voice was unmistakable as she had pronounced the phrase, “hung at dawn.”
But it was not in Chip’s nature to waste what hours she had left brooding on someone who deserved nothing but contempt. She allowed herself a little guilt that she had not been able to save Kim, slightly more guilt that she would not be able to fulfill the promises she had made to Katryn, and some regrets that they would not be able to carry through their plans for the future, but it was better to look at the moons and let their peace and beauty flow into her.
Her contemplation was disrupted by a succession of soft sounds from the left: a thud, a muffled gasp, a dull slap. Chip turned her head. The standing silhouettes of the two Guards were gone, replaced by a confused huddle near the ground, then one dark shape broke away and scuttled to her side.
A quiet voice whispered, “Isn’t that just typical of the Guards? Lying down on sentry duty.”
“Katryn!”
“The one and only.”
The sound of cutting followed and then the rope around Chip’s hands slackened. In a few seconds, the last of the binding had been removed from her wrists.
“What are you...?” Chip’s voice faded in confusion.
“I’ve got a message for you from the girls. We’ve been talking among ourselves about you and Kim. And we’ve been looking at the moons, and someone said, Wouldn’t it be a nice night for a stroll? So we were all about to set off and then someone else said, I wonder if Chip would like to come with us? So I said I’d come and ask you, and of course a few others came with me to make sure the Guards didn’t mind me talking to you.”
“Katryn, stop acting the clown.”
“Oh, that’s a bit much, coming from you,” Katryn said in mock indignation.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I, my love.” Abruptly, all humor left Katryn’s voice. “It’s bad enough we stood back and let Rozek murder Kim. There’s no way we’re going to form up into nice straight lines tomorrow and watch you die as well. We’re deserting, every last woman in the squadron. We all know this isn’t a raid on bandits. We’re going to leave the Guards to sort it out for themselves. And let Rozek try and explain that when she gets back to Landfall.”
“Where have we got to go?”
“You can think of somewhere worse than this? Of course, if you don’t want to desert, you can wait here until morning.”
Chip’s head tilted back to look up at the sky, but then a grin twitched at the corner of her mouth. “Damn. Do you know I’d been looking at the moons, and I’d gotten this close”—she indicated with finger and thumb—“this close to making my peace with the Goddess.”
“Good thing I came along when I did, the poor deity would never have withstood the shock.”
Slipping away was absurdly easy. The term “stroll” was not misleading. Out of habit, all sentry duty, with the exception of those guarding Chip, had been assigned to the Rangers. Muffling the horses’ hooves was an over-precaution. No alarm was raised as they passed up the side of the valley and assembled on the ridge at the top. Chip looked down on the peaceful campsite, then turned to meet Katryn’s amused gaze.
“Do you know, I feel a bit guilty going like this?”
“Any particular reason?” Katryn asked.
“Well, I mean, how will the poor lambs find their way home without us?”
Chapter Thirteen—Someone Really Doesn’t Like You
Kim felt as if she fell forever into the darkness before hitting the river with a splash that was utterly insignificant in the fury of white water. Immediately, she was swept away, spinning helplessly in the torrent. Her shoulder grazed over a boulder and then she was pulled out and smashed against a rock wall. The river dragged her on through a series of jarring blows. She felt a leg rise clear of the water before she was sucked down again. Already her lungs were starting to ache, but it seemed certain she would be battered to death before she drowned. There was no light, no up or down, just the savage pounding of ice-cold water.
Once more, she crashed fully against a rock wall, leaving her semi-stunned. However, this time it was different. Still the water rushed around her, giving the sensation of motion, yet the rocks stayed in place. She was lodged in a crevice, but her lungs were burning, and she was not sure which way was up. So it’s drowning, then. The ironic thought shot through Kim’s mind, but it was still just a little too soon to give up.
The pressure of the current made movement a battle. She was pressed against the rocks like a leaf on a window in a gale, but slowly, painfully, Kim raised her arm above her head and felt it break into the air. The two sides of the crevice formed a wall on left and right, both were washed smooth, but it was just possible to brace arms, legs, and shoulders against them and propel herself upward until her face lifted above the surface of the water and she drew a deep gasp of air into her lungs, spluttering in the spray as the current hammered on her back and broke in cascades over her shoulders and head.
The cavern was pitch black, impossible to see a thing, and the roar of the water was deafening in her ears, but Kim thought she could detect a faint echo from high up, giving the hope that the roof of the tunnel was more than just a few centimeters above her head. The water surged past her in a torrent, dragging on her clothes. She was not in a dead end fissure, but a narrow channel. The current had drawn her in, but she
was too large to go through. And now that her head was clearing slightly, Kim was aware of painful grazing from where she had been rammed between the two rock faces, even though both were polished smooth by the years of rushing water. Polished smooth, and therefore devoid of handholds.
Nothing Kim could feel gave even the faintest hope of a grip sufficient to pull herself out of the water, but as she had already found, it was possible to brace herself in the gap. The water was like a dead weight, trying to suck her down, and the polished rock was as slippery as glass, but slowly Kim got higher and higher, fighting to gain some purchase on the wet surfaces, not knowing where she had to go, only that she could not stay where she was. Her body was battered and bruised, but adrenaline kept her moving.
Several times, she nearly slipped back before she finally got clear of the water. The two sides of the crevice were drawing closer. Kim wedged herself in the gap and felt above her head. To her despair, she touched the roof on the tunnel, and then her exploring hand felt an opening on the sheer wall to her right and a little behind her. She had no way to tell how deep the aperture was or where it led, but it was the only way for her to go. It was a desperate struggle in the dark, to shift backward hampered by wet, clinging clothes, with the ever-present risk of falling. But eventually, Kim was able to put her arm into the empty space and feel a gently sloping ledge, maybe half a meter wide. With a hazardous kick and twist, Kim rolled onto the shelf of rock and lay on her back, gasping from the exertion of the climb.
Once she had recovered her breath, in something verging on surprise, Kim realized she could see her surroundings—very, very faintly. The darkness was no longer absolute. The space was not sufficient for Kim to sit up, so she raised herself on one elbow and looked around. The shelf she lay on was the start of another fissure in the rock, a crooked, sloping shaft, climbing upward. The faintest glint of daylight came from this opening.
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