Grizelda (28 page)

Laricia’s fliers were suiting up in the
machine graveyard. Kricker sat on the edge of the Death Ledge
struggling into his riding boots. Tunya was there, too, as well as
Geddy, who’d decided to go along with the breakout though he did
not approve. Not all of the ratriders had, though. There were
definitely fewer pixies putting on their riding gear around Kricker
than the same time before their last breakout.

He could have been one of the ones that were
gone. He could have said he didn’t think they should be going in
there a second time, and nobody would have guessed the real reason
he didn’t want to fly. But Tunya was going.

Plus, he had a feeling Grizzy was going to
need all the help she could get.

Laricia, already fully dressed, strode up and
down the clear space behind them, offering advice to some, checking
the tightness of straps for others. When she got to Kricker, she
stopped.

Kricker acknowledged her with a grunt and
continued to pull on his boots. She squatted down next to him and
put a hand on his shoulder.

“Stop. You’re sitting this one out.” She
spoke quietly, so they’d be out of earshot of the others.

“No, I’m not.” With a final yank, he got one
boot on and started to work on the next. “They need as many of us
as they can.”

“You were ill, physically ill, this
afternoon. I can tell.”

Kricker scanned the ledge around him. “Where
are my goggles?”

“You won’t lose face. I’ll make up an excuse
for the others.”

“I’m
going.
”

“All right, I’ll be frank with you.” Laricia
folded her arms. “Things might get hot out there tonight. I don’t
know. If it does, I won’t have time to come pick you up again.
You’ll be on your own.”

“I’m going!”

She didn’t argue with him any more. She stood
up without a word, and turned her attention to the rest of the
fliers.

“Get your goggles on and find your bats,
everybody,” she called. “We’re moving out.”

Meanwhile, Warden Calding had called a
general assembly of all the prison staff. Elbow-to-elbow they stood
before him, officers and gendarmes alike, crowded into the
too-small officers’ mess. Calding walked back and forth the head of
the room as he delivered their instructions.

“I want every entrance to the goblin tunnels
covered. Stay in the shadows, don’t show yourselves. Wait until
they’re right on top of you. Does everybody understand?”

Grizelda was shaken by the incident at the
Union Hall, but she forced herself to keep walking. Shaken, no, she
was shaking, but she wouldn’t acknowledge it. And what would happen
to her when she went back to the Union? It was too late, that was
what.

They would not all meet before they began the
breakout; Jamin had decided even getting all the Undergrounders
together in one place was too dangerous. Instead, each of the
prearranged pairs would meet in locations scattered across the
underside of Lonnes. Grizelda’s meeting place with Toby was in the
sewers not far from the place where he’d first fallen on her.

Toby was already waiting for her when she got
there. His look was chilly as he got to his feet.

“Are you ready to go?” he said.

She nodded. There was a lantern and two
crowbars that had been left waiting for them; she picked them up
and handed one crowbar to Toby.

“Let’s go.”

Chapter 27

“I don’t like this, Geddy.”

Laricia came up alongside Geddy as he was
flying down a long straightaway and settled into pace beside him.
They were in the abandoned goblin mines, near one of the cellblock
entrances. He hadn’t expected her to come; this was far from the
route they’d agreed on.

“What is it? Did you see somebody?”

He looked over his shoulder at her; a quick
glance was all he could afford. She kept her eyes on her flying,
impassive.

“That’s just the thing. Nobody,” she said.
“You’d think this time they’d have doubled security down here.
Where is everyone?”
“What do you want to do about it?”

She tsked. On either side, the darkened
doorways to the mine shafts flew past them. “We’ve got to call it
off. This is getting too weird. Go tell Tunya and the two of you
spread the word, all right? I’m just going to scout on ahead.”

She sped up. Geddy was just beginning to turn
when something exploded out of the doorway below them, a whirl of
blue uniform, pockets and hands.

“Gotcha!” came a man’s voice. Something hit
Hoarfrost’s belly and his bat was sent tumbling off course. And he
was spinning like a skipping stone, unable to concentrate on
anything more than keeping on Hoarfrost’s back.

“Shit!” That was Laricia.

“Huh?”

Finally Hoarfrost righted himself and Geddy
could see. There were two gendarmes in the tunnel. One of them
stared at his hands, then up at him and Laricia. “Mike, what the
hell are those things?”

“I don’t know. Don’t let them get away!” said
the other one. He lunged for Laricia.

She swooped out of the way just in time and
brought Apollo down to bite on his hand, hard.

“Get out of here!” she yelled at Geddy.

The gendarme yelled in pain and pulled away.
Geddy hesitated. What if Laricia needed help? Then there was a bang
and a bullet whizzed past him, rocking him with turbulence. He
caught her gesturing frantically at him to move, and he got ready
to make a dash for it…

There was a horrible jerk.

Geddy found himself upside-down, squeezed in
a furry and enclosed space, so tight he could scarcely breathe. He
felt Hoarfrost pressed against him squirming mightily to get out of
the gendarme’s hand. Hoarfrost must have managed to get a bite in
because there was a cry of pain and for a moment the grip loosened.
Geddy struggled forward in a panic, trying to get out between the
man’s fingers before he was crushed again. All he got was a glimpse
of tunnel ceiling and Laricia winging away from them, then the
fingers closed in.

Desperately Laricia pushed Apollo harder,
harder. It had all gone wrong. It was a trap. They had Geddy and
even now they were doing who knew what to him. She had to push the
thought out of her mind; it was too horrible. First she had to warn
the others.

She was so busy running over in her mind
which of the Undergrounders would be closest that she overshot the
first pair. A blur went by below her, and she brought Apollo around
in a hard turn. It was Katarin and Stevry hurrying down the tunnel,
heads down. She dove, flying into their faces to get their
attention.

“Stop! Stop! It’s a trap! Pull out!”

They looked up at her. Then without a word,
they turned around and started running the other way. Laricia
didn’t waste any time watching them. She was already flying off to
the next group.

The only warning Grizelda got was Geddy’s
muffled voice somewhere ahead of her. She didn’t even have time to
turn invisible.

“Stop! It’s a–”

Then she was shoved sideways and onto her
knees. Somebody twisted her arms behind her back and pressed her
down, so her face was inches from the floor. Beside her there were
feet scuffling and a thud.

“You’re both under arrest for high treason.
Get up.”

The grip relaxed slightly. She’d had all the
wind knocked out of her and for a moment she stayed where she was,
stunned. It had all happened so fast, she didn’t have time to take
it in that– Lord, it was a–

The gendarme gave her a warning kick. She got
up. Toby was pulling himself off the floor nearby, supervised
closely by another gendarme. He had Toby’s wrists by one hand; the
other was held aloft, clutching something. Geddy.

“Don’t crush him!” she cried.

Something metal pressed into the small of her
back. “Come this way,” the gendarme said.

“Jamin, it’s a trap! What do we do?”

Jamin and Mitchell turned in surprise as
Laricia flew down to meet them.

“Geddy’s been taken prisoner. There are
gendarmes waiting at the entrances to all of the cells. They
know!
”

Jamin blanched, but he struggled to recover
himself. “How many people know?”

“Katarin and Stevry. And now you two.”

“Tell everybody to get back to the meeting
cave. We’ll decide what to do there.”

“Right!” Laricia rose and flew off.

Kricker heard a scream. It was not a scream
of fear but of fury – so piercing that he could hear it clearly
even though its source was nowhere in sight. He recognized it
instantly. It was Tunya.

Up till then he’d been having a miserable
night, flying low and slow around some less-than-critical tunnels,
but as soon as he heard Tunya screaming he turned his bat right
around and flew in what he hoped was the right direction. He had
nothing but sound to work on. She could be anywhere, on the
opposite side of Lonnes for all he knew. He tried not to think
about it.

Then he turned a corner and there she was.
She’d been cornered by a pair of gendarmes who were doing their
best to catch her. She was constantly in motion, weaving back and
forth, trying to find an opening and dash through it. Every time
they blocked her she made another cry of frustration. Even then,
her eyes sparkled.

Kricker yelled before he could even think
about it. “Hey! Hey, over here!”

One of the gendarmes turned and pointed.
“Look, there’s another one of them fairies!”

This was exactly what he’d hoped would
happen, though what he was going to do next he wasn’t quite sure.
After a moment’s hesitation, he waved his arms over his head.
“That’s right, over here! Come and get me!”

“Kricker, what are you doing?” Tunya’s voice
was higher than usual.

“Distracting them so you can get away!” The
gendarmes had both stopped to look at him now. He blew a raspberry.
It had the desired effect: one of them took a step forward and
swiped at him with the butt of his gun. He darted out of the way
just in time, making a stomach-lurching U-turn.

“Stop! Don’t pay attention to him! Over
here!” Tunya looped around the gendarme’s head. He obliged and took
aim at her instead.

“Look, I’m trying to rescue you here–”

“No. You get out–”

“
No.
Your momma!” And with that he
dove straight for the gendarme’s face. He had his lantern-stick
out, trying frantically to jab something with the pointed end… He
wasn’t sure if he ever connected. A moment later something hit his
bat and the world was sent spinning. The other gendarme had
reentered the fight and gotten a blow in with his gun.

Then Tunya screeched. Kricker couldn’t tell
what she was doing, he was still seeing double. There was a whirl
of color around the gendarmes, flashing, jabbing, and they simply
could not connect with her. He shook his head, trying to clear
it.

“We’re pixies!” At least he was pretty sure
that’s what he said as he flew in after her.

Finally one of the gendarmes managed to fire
off a shot.

Tunya pulled up with a jerk. “Let’s get out
of here.”

Kricker nodded. Together they shot off down
the hall.

She was doing it all over again. That iron
grip on her shoulder, the swaying lantern, the layers and layers of
prison cells – it could have been that rainy day in November again,
the day her normal life ended. Only this time there was a gun
pointed at her back and Toby was with her.

The two gendarmes were marching them at
gunpoint up the stairs of the cell blocks. Geddy was still clutched
in the other gendarme’s hand. She hadn’t heard any sound from him
since they’d been caught.
It had been planned. The whole thing had been planned. Katarin had
tried to warn her the purge was a trap when they read about it in
the newspaper, but she wouldn’t listen just because she’d wanted to
prove a point, that witches could do Corvain some good. And now the
Undergrounders were all going to pay for it.

These gendarmes, they must have all been
sitting there waiting for them.

There was little point in struggling. The
gendarmes had them at gunpoint, after all, and where would she run?
Back to the Goblin Union? Instead Grizelda did her best to go
looking good. She walked unnaturally erect, head up, chin jutting,
and hoped Toby was doing the same, though she couldn’t afford to
turn her head to look. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

When they got to the top of the stairs the
gendarmes unbarred the entrance door and led them into the
medieval-looking halls in the bottom of the fort. Someone was
waiting for them there.

“We caught a couple of them, sir,” one of the
gendarmes behind her said, but Grizelda hardly noticed. All of her
attention was focused on the man who had received them. It was
him
. It was the officer who had interrogated her the day she
was arrested. Sure, he had the warden’s insignia now, and he was
looking frayed when before he was so calm. But she would recognize
him anywhere. She could tell he recognized her, too, because from
the first moment he was staring.

“It’s you!” he said.

“Sir?”

“I’ll interrogate this one myself,” he said
with a snatch at Grizelda’s wrist. “You take the other. Good work,
officers.”

She struggled and actually managed to bite
the man’s arm. He hissed in pain. Then there was a rustle of cloth
and a pistol pressed against her cheek.

“
March.
”

Somehow, she managed to put one foot in front
of the other and walk, though she wanted to scream. Every step she
took, took her farther and farther away from Toby and Geddy, who
were being strongarmed down the hall in the other direction. She
could hear thumps like Toby was kicking, but he wouldn’t cry
out.

The warden took her upward into the main body
of the prison. The place was unusually full for the middle of the
night. It looked like some sort of a control center, with gendarmes
going purposely to and fro on some secret mission. One of them came
up to the warden and saluted.