Free Taste of Lightning by Kate Constable Page B

through the rain toward the dim, wavering lights of the Palace, bent double and gasping for breath as the wet ground slammed up beneath his feet. The rain was blinding. His dagger-belt was loose; it flapped at his side. He clutched it with one hand. Where were the lights? All the lights had gone out. No, there they were. He was veering south . . .
    He slammed face-first into a hedge and the ground came up to meet him with a smack. Automatically he rolled, pressed himself flat. He groped for his dagger-belt, his hands slippery with mud and rain, and managed to pull it tight. Don’t panic, Perrin. All you have to do is creep through the garden.
    He crawled along the line of the hedge until he found a gap. But beyond the gap was another solid wall of greenery, parallel with the first. He blundered beside it; this one ran in a curve that took him right round the other side of the Palace. Another gap, a straight avenue, then bang, into yet another hedge. At last Perrin realised he was trapped inside a maze. Tugger hadn’t mentioned a maze. Had he?
    Back and forth Perrin crawled in the rain for what seemed an eternity, inching his way forward, sometimes forced back on his tracks. The hedges were too slippery to climb, and too dense to burrow through.
    Then at last he was out, with a gravel path under his hands and knees. He rolled over and turned his face up to the rain. He guessed he’d only advanced twenty paces in all that time. The sky was black; the water fell out of it like stones. Far away, someone was shouting.
    Someone was shouting. Perrin stumbled to his feet and set off again, head down, shoulder to the rain. The lights were close now, looming out of a sudden cliff of solid shadow. The Palace wall. What was he supposed to do? Low, get low, behind this fountain. He cursed the rain and wiped his hair out of his eyes. He couldn’t see a damn thing.
    There was a noise. Shouting again. Perrin tensed. It might be all right. It might be the shout of one patrol to another, calling, ‘all’s well’.
    But he knew, even then, that it was all wrong.
    He waited and waited, but no patrols came by. He heard voices, close to the Palace wall, but no more shouts. He glimpsed the flicker of lights. For no real reason, he started to run, crouching, toward the wall.
    â€˜Snake! Snake! ’
    Pigeon’s long arms wrapped around him from behind and brought him to the ground with a thud. ‘You frugging idiot,’ he hissed in Perrin’s ear. ‘What are you playing at? I’ve been watching you march around that garden like you were on parade this full quarter of the night. Keep your head down. We’re safe enough here. By the bones. As if things weren’t bad enough.’
    â€˜What’s happened?’ whispered Perrin. Pigeon held him tight around the waist, so tight he could hardly breathe, and rocked him cheek to cheek.
    â€˜Fello’s gone. Got stuck in that frugging maze and the patrol found him. Don’t know where Tugger’s got to; no sign of Wispy either. Shut up and let me listen.’
    â€˜Fello’s captured?’
    â€˜Dead.’
    Perrin swallowed. For a long time the two men were silent, rocking back and forth in the rain. Pigeon didn’t seem to realise that he was clutching Perrin like a child with a rag doll. The rain beat down. Nearby, dogs barked, an excited clamour. Pigeon let out a long sigh, and released Perrin. ‘Hear that? Come on, Snake. Go, go, go.’
    Pigeon disappeared into the dark. Perrin gaped after him. Go where? On hands and knees he crawled after Pigeon. Now he heard other noises too: the scrape of metal on stone, the whirr of a rope through a pulley. Trust Tugger to get it right, even when everything else was turning to piss and mud. Tugger had pulled it off, climbed the face of the Palace with his pegs and toes, secured the rope and let it down.
    Out of the rain Pigeon grabbed him again, shoved his mouth close to