Free Set in Stone by Frank Morin Page B

and noticed two of Lord Gavin's soldiers rushing down the hill toward them. A third appeared behind, mounted on a draft horse.
    He turned to run, and his mother said, "Not at the house. They'll be sure to check there first."
    "Don't worry," he shouted over his shoulder as he bolted for the gate. "They'll never find me."
    "Wait until dark," Hendry called after him.
    Connor did not bother to reply. He raced through the gate and darted to the right so the wall concealed him from the guards' view.
    He threaded his way through Alasdair fast. The streets were all but empty, with every able-bodied hand already running to help fight the fire. Everyone else was still up at the quarry or down at the Powder House.
    Laid out in a grid pattern, the streets of Alasdair would make it all too easy for the guards to sweep the town looking for him. Connor moved two streets to the right and then turned left down a main cross street.
    As he ran, he considered his options. Several possible hiding places came to mind. As children, he and his friends had played find-the-devil and many other games that forced them to find all the best hiding spots. He doubted the guards knew the town half as well.
    His best bet was the flood-under passage, but it lay on the downriver side of town, and the clatter of hooves on granite roads declared that the mounted soldier had reached Alasdair. So he bolted down a narrow alley between two shops, shimmied over an aged woodshed that would collapse if it were ever fully emptied, and climbed through a dust-covered window in the back wall of a maintenance barn behind the town council offices. The window was supposed to be locked, but the lock had broken years ago.
    Inside, Connor moved slowly, clambering along one of the shelves, breathing shallow. This building was used only sparingly, and housed among other things, the town's store of pumice dust, which was used in the quarrying process. A fine layer of the light but gritty powder coated everything. A quick step and a deep breath almost guaranteed a coughing fit, while a careless step would leave telltale footprints.
    Protected in this safe haven, he relaxed. He'd hidden here with great success many times. On the other hand, Hamish had only tried it once. He'd ended up sucking on a rock coated with pumice and coughed for ten minutes straight.
    The interior was one long, open room lined with sturdy shelves that held tools, boxes of spare parts, and heavy barrels of pumice. Connor wedged himself into an open space on one shelf next to a moldy roll of burlap.
    Men's voices sounded outside a moment later, and Connor silently shifted along the shelves to the front wall, where he peeked through the tiny, grime-crusted window set above the door. He could just make out the dim forms of two of the guards, but could not hear what they said. He crouched lower even though he knew they could not see him.
    Connor stepped to the left, and his foot slipped on a box of hammer handles. He lurched to one side and barely caught himself, while the box tumbled off the shelf and struck the floor with a loud crash. Flying hammer handles made a thunderous din.
    Connor's heart nearly stopped at the sound. The guards would have to be raging drunk and sitting on each other's heads to not hear that. Thinking fast, he stomped hard on the shelf, and it splintered under the blow, tumbling Connor to the floor with a crash.
    For a second he lay amid the scattered handles. The guards' voices drew closer, as he had expected. Hopefully the sound of the shelf crashing blended in with the echoes of the fallen box.
    The outer door rattled, and Connor quietly crawled along the lowest shelf toward the far window where he'd entered. The door was always padlocked, and he doubted the guards had a key. While they fiddled with it, he could escape out the back.
    Just as he was about to climb up onto a barrel of pumice dust under the window, one of the guards spoke just outside. "Aye, there's a window over here. I'll