Rebel's Cage (Book 4) (32 page)

‘You know where they’ve gone, don’t you?’

Guy nodded. He swallowed loudly, then his eyes flickered up to hers. ‘Neil said that if I told anyone …’

‘Neil isn’t here,’ Jenn replied gently. ‘And I wouldn’t let him do anything to you anyway. Tell me where they’ve gone, Guy. If they’re in the new caves below, they could get trapped, hurt or killed. I need to know.’

‘They wanted me to go with them but I said what they were doing was stupid and it is. They’ve … they’ve left.’

‘Left?’ A faint shuffling in the room made her hold up her hand, but she kept all her attention on the boy. ‘Left the Enclave?’

‘Yes. Last night. They took horses and clothes and …’

But Jenn didn’t hear the rest as the entire room erupted. Still ignoring them, Jenn leaned in close to Guy. ‘Do you know what direction they headed in?’

As he shook his head, Jenn squeezed his shoulder and stood, keeping hold of him as much for his protection as anything else. Once more she raised her voice, forcing them to listen. ‘We need two mounted search parties, one to head east and one west. Recall the searchers from the lower caves. Murdoch
will lead the party heading east, Arlie going west. Martha, Desta and Seamus, gather the people you need and sort out a plan of evacuation just in case we need it.’

The noise exploded again, fear, horror and determination. Jenn added, ‘We don’t have time to ask why or how. We need to get those children back. Now.’

Murdoch, Arlie and others helped then, drawing worried parents out of the room, issuing orders of their own. At the movement, Jenn turned back to Guy. ‘Do you know how many went?’

‘Neil and Zea, Liam and Sayre and …’

‘Jenn!’ Finnlay’s voice cut through as he himself was pushing through the last of those leaving. He held a piece of paper in his hand, his face white as snow, his eyes wild. ‘I have to go with Murdoch. Helen’s gone with them!’

*

Finnlay ignored the wind as he brought his horse out of the stable, even ignored the icy brush of snow as it slapped against his face. He could only focus on getting out there, following Arlie’s men through the gate and rushing down the eastern path through the mountains.

It was all his fault. Entirely his fault. If he’d never suggested taking the children out into Shan Moss, if he’d never given them a taste of freedom, this might never have happened. And now there were five of them and his own dear, sweet Helen, all out there on their own, with no real knowledge of the world, thinking that Osbert’s laws would save them. They had no real understanding of the Bresail, how it could Seek them out and betray them to either King or Nash. They simply couldn’t comprehend the danger they were in from a country terrified of what they were.

Damn it, they’d been
told
the law changes were a plot! How could they think it was safe to leave?

Fiona was right: he was too wound up with Andrew and Jenn and Robert; not spending enough time thinking about his own family, his own daughter. He should have seen her desire to go, should have found some way to stop this before it happened.

He couldn’t Seek her. Jenn had reminded him, made him promise he wouldn’t try. If he did – out there on his own without her protection – and Nash was paying attention, then he would be found and …

No, he couldn’t think about that either. So he wouldn’t Seek her, but he would find her, he had to.

Murdoch called out to him, his words whipped away by the wind, his face almost invisible in the darkness. How long had it been now? A day and a half, perhaps? How far could they get in that time?

‘We can’t go out in this, Finn! We’ll get blown off the mountain!’

‘I’m going on!’ He began to lead his horse across the field, already ankle-deep in snow. Of course the children had taken their opportunity, hadn’t they? When the snow had cleared for a few days, when getting down off the mountain was possible; a brief opening in the winter for them to escape into.

Murdoch stumbled after him, grabbing onto his arm, forcing him to stop. ‘We have to wait until this calms down! What good are you going to be to Helen if you get killed? Now come inside!’

‘I can’t leave her …’

‘I’m not asking you to! We just need to wait a few hours, that’s all.’

‘A few hours might be too late!’

‘Not if we get some help!’

Finnlay stared at the man, into dark eyes framed by greying hair made whiter by sticky snow. The pause allowed him to remember who this was. A moment later, he let Murdoch drag him back to the stable, left his horse in the care of the others, then followed him back into the caves where the air was warmer but his heart was colder.

Murdoch’s stride was long and purposeful. The door to the council chamber was half-open, only a few people still inside. The big man wasted no time. He walked the length of the room, carefully caught Jenn’s elbow and drew her into a corner where the lamplight drew strange shapes against the painted walls.

‘You need to mindspeak Robert.’

Jenn’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. She looked at Finnlay, standing by uselessly and frowned. Finnlay could almost see the thoughts flashing across her mind, but she restricted herself to just one word. ‘Why?’

‘Because we can’t get down off the mountain at least until morning, possibly longer. That will give the children almost two days’ head start. If they have gone east, they could be anywhere by then – and if they have been picked up by—’

‘By Nash or Kenrick?’ This was barely breathed, but instantly, Jenn’s mind was working along the same lines as Murdoch’s.

‘I know where Robert will be now. He’s close enough to meet up with us – and he’s almost as strong a Seeker as Finnlay. He can find the children no matter how strong their shielding. If you mindspeak him now, he can be Seeking them, while we’re waiting for the storm to stop. He might even find them by the time we get down into the valley.’

Jenn said nothing for a moment, then said, sharply. ‘You’re right. I’ll get my cloak. It will be easier if I’m outside.’

The solid walls of Dunlorn Castle protected Robert from the outside world, but not even that dense stone could silence the voice inside his head. He pressed both hands against the guardroom wall, feeling the ancient and the familiar, the close and the near; concentrating on keeping the past in this present, remembering whose voice was speaking into his mind eight years since he’d last heard it.

Robert? Where are you?
She sounded worried, quiet and yet urgent, but with no personal inflection in her silent tone.

Robert swore, a muttered curse, even as he was preparing words to send back to her, carried on a breath of fear.
I’m at Dunlorn. What’s wrong? Is it Finnlay – or my mother?

No, they’re both fine. Murdoch said I should contact you. Some of the children have left the Enclave. They’ve run away. We’ve
sent a search party west, into Shan Moss, but the Goleth is besieged by a snowstorm at the moment and the eastern search party can’t get away until it stops. Can you help?

Robert was already moving, packing up his few things, storing the others away beneath the floorboards.
How long since the children left?

A day and a half now. Murdoch and Finnlay are ready to go, but …

Finnlay? Why?

He could almost taste the hesitation in her voice.

I can’t stop him, Robert. Helen has gone with the others.

Helen too? His own niece? And why would they run away?
How many in all?
He’d reached the stable and was saddling his horse, yet his eyes saw nothing in the darkness, only the memory of Jenn’s face as he’d last seen it, her beauty no reflection for the shadows within him.

Five. They think it’s safe with these law changes. I should have …
And he could hear her drawing herself together, turning from self-recrimination to determination in one swift step.

That step brought a smile to his face, even as the memories sifted around inside him. Without a word, he brought his horse out into the empty courtyard and swung up into the saddle.

She had been to Dunlorn once, in secret, aiding the Queen’s escape. She’d seen nothing of the place and he’d sent her away, already afraid of how he felt about her, knowing that there was all some terrible purpose behind it, but desperately wishing there wasn’t.

With a kick to his horse, he brought his thoughts back to her in this time, back to these problems here and now.
Are you prepared in case we don’t find them in time? Or in case they’re followed back up to the Goleth?

We’re already packing in case we need to evacuate.

Do you have somewhere to go if you do?
The naked pause at this made him curse. Before she could provide him with some hasty lie, he said,
Head into Shan Moss and stick together. If I can, I’ll come and get you – if not, as soon as the weather calms,
go south to Aaran. Take a ship to Flan’har and make directly for Bleakstone. The Bishop will be there and there’s enough room to keep everyone safe for a while. Just don’t go unless you have to.

Of course not.
Jenn paused and when her voice came back, it was as though the last eight years had never been.
The Key said we should stay, no matter what.

Robert rode through the gate, closing his eyes in what he knew, deep down, was defeat.
The choice is yours, Jenn. You’re joined to the Key after all, and bound to do as it says. All the same, if you head to Bleakstone, you will at least have the luxury to argue that I’m wrong.

I know.
That voice was small – but then, abruptly, she returned, as strong and as indomitable as always.
Let me know when you meet up with Finnlay. I don’t want him mindspeaking me, just in case Nash can trace him that way as well. Good luck.

I think we’re going to need it.
And with that, her voice was gone and the feeling of being alone faded with it.

*

Helen shivered, a rattle that made her bones ache and her teeth snap together. She’d lived her whole life on top of the highest mountain in Lusara and yet she’d never felt this cold before.

She could hardly see anything in the gloom. Thick fog surrounded the wood, soaked into the tree trunks, seeped into the ground, leaving her skin, her clothes, her boots, everything, damp and cloying. One of the boys had tried to light a fire just after dark, but it had never grown into the blaze they needed, never did much more than emphasise just how dark the fog really was in the middle of the night.

But she refused to be sorry, to wish she’d not come. Perhaps they should have waited until spring at least, but nothing bad had happened to them so far, and they
would
go home in a little while anyway.

She gave a determined sniff. Mother and Father would be worried, that was true. But she had left a note, so they would understand at least. Hopefully they wouldn’t worry too much. She gave another sniff and batted aside the twinge of guilt. It only made the cold worse.

It was her turn to keep watch. She sat with her back to a
rotting trunk, blankets wrapped around her, arms hugging her knees, trying not to jump and call out at every noise in the night. She could smell dawn on the air, but it was still a long way off. The others were all asleep, as close to the meagre fire as they could get, in their own blankets, with their own nightmares, with their own share of the cold.

Liam had given her the opportunity and she’d taken it. Neil had made it all sound so exciting, so possible, and she’d believed him. Sayre had got the horses for them, Zea the food, all without the adults knowing. They were going to see Lusara at least once in their lives, do it on their own for once, without Father, or the Jaibir, or anyone else saying where they could go or what they could do. No more stupid rules to follow or punishments for breaking them.

Just … freedom.

It had sounded so good. And the gods seemed to be with them, giving them a break in the weather, a passage into the hills between layers of snow. But every time they turned south, they found soldiers riding the roads, more men in Guilde yellow, a stark warning despite the fact that the laws had supposedly changed in their favour.

She shivered again, pulling the blanket over her head, shutting out the soft slithers and gentle quakings of the winter forest. She did want to go home – but not yet. There was still more to see, perhaps a thread of sunlight on the hills, or better still, the ocean.

That’s what the others wanted, though they were careful not to show the fear they felt whenever a Guilde squad rode nearby or when they had to find some empty building, away from villages or farms where they could take shelter.

She knew, without asking, that she was not the only one who wanted to go home.

*

The horse stumbled and Robert jerked awake, blinking rapidly, his Senses reaching out from instinct, looking for trouble. Alert now, he looked around, feeling more than seeing, but for the moment, he was alone on the road. It was his horse who was in trouble.

He pulled up, swung his leg over the animal and slid gingerly to the ground. His legs felt stiff and his feet tingled with the sudden movement. An icy winter sun bled down through patchy clouds, giving no warmth and none too much light. He glanced up at it, trying to guess how much of the day was left, but his head ached with the angle and a moment later he pressed his forehead against the warm neck of the horse, both giving and receiving comfort.

He was getting too old for this.

A dry chuckle rattled inside him. He didn’t feel age, not physically. The Key had seen to that. He was forty-three, but looked and, on a good day, felt ten years less than that. Only this wasn’t a good day. Nor had the three previous been as he’d raced across Lusara looking for Salti children and his foolish, stubborn brother. He needed sleep, and so did his poor horse. It stood panting beside him, too well-trained to move, too brave to just settle where it was and take the rest it needed.

‘Don’t worry, my friend. Not too much further to go.’ He gave the animal another pat, then collected the reins and began walking, letting the horse follow at its own pace.