Free Darkwood by M. E. Breen Page B

think, she wouldn’t have done it. Of course she wouldn’t have done it, something so strange. But she didn’t think. She bit Smirch’s hand, bit him so hard that blood spurted into her mouth and he screamed a thin scream of real pain.
    Then, a blur. Running, Gregor running with her, a surge of hope—they were free!—and then a feeling of being cut in two, cold air where his body had touched hers. A pair of strong hands grabbed her under the arms, wrenching her upward. It was a mistake, lifting her like that. It left her feet free to kick, her hands free to punch and claw. Whoever was holding her let go, and she turned, frantic.
    â€œGregor!”
    Something heavy and salt-smelling closed around her throat. “Too fresh,” said a voice in her ear.
    â€œDon’t,” she gasped.
    He eased up, just a bit. “Don’t what?” “Don’t let them toss him over. Don’t.”
    Hauler stilled. “We’ll see.”
    Then he flexed the arm around her throat, and a darkness fell that she could not see through.

Chapter 6
    She woke in the pit on Chopper’s farm. Her throat hurt. Her feet were cold. No boots. No Gregor. No cats.
    She remembered certain things, like remembering a dream: jostling cart wheels, raised voices, the brightness of sunlight, a man’s voice, “Kill her … Gibbet … wait … unusual,” then a hand pinching her jaw and an awful sweetness filling her mouth. She could taste it still, the same sweetness that flavored everything here—the fruit she had stolen, the water Chopper had given her—but much stronger. The stiffness in her limbs told her she had been unconscious for many hours.
    It took a moment to register that she was not alone in the pit. There was a rat. Her first thought was food. But then, as she watched, the rat sallied past her with a bit of old melon rind in its teeth, reached the side of pit, and disappeared.
    Before, the pit had been shaped something like a teardrop: round on the sides and narrowed at the top, where the door was. Standing in the middle with her arms stretched out, her fingers had not quite reached any of the walls. Now she couldflatten her palm against the side where the rat had disappeared. She crouched down. Bits of straw edged the rat hole. This was a wall, a mud wall. Someone had built this wall, and recently. Annie wiggled her fingers into the hole and tugged. A clump of dirt fell away.
    Annie kicked the wall.
Smirch
. Kicked it again.
Chopper
. Kick.
Pip
. Kick.
Rube
. A very hard couple of kicks.
Gibbet. Uncle Jock
. She hesitated, foot raised. Should she kick Hauler?
    Past the rubble of wall a room appeared, the mirror image of the pit. Except this room was full of ringstone: stone banked like snow against the walls, stone laid inches thick along the ground. Annie dropped to her knees. There were coins, too, some in the lesser currency of Howland, some she did not recognize. Big reddish coins stamped with the image of a bird. Heavy gray coins covered in strange symbols. Smooth, milky green coins that looked like buttons. She put one of each kind of foreign coin in her pocket, along with a handful of ringstone. A handful of white stone. It made her feel sick.
    But now: a trail of rat droppings led her from the room into a low tunnel. She crawled a few yards and then dropped to her belly. The dirt around her smelled damp and alive, as though freshly turned over. Roots tickled her scalp. Then, as quickly as it had narrowed, the tunnel broadened, high and wide enough that a grown man could walk upright. From time to time she’d pass a burnt match or drops of hardened wax. After a mile or so the tunnel began to slope downward, so steeply in places she had to scoot on her backside. She’d come two miles at least. How long had it taken them to dig such atunnel? Maybe not so very long, if you had arms like Hauler’s.
    Gradually she became aware of a strange sound, a sort of