Ash & Bramble (30 page)

F
ROM THERE WE MAKE THE ROUNDS, GOING FROM ONE
workshop to the next, warning Lacemakers and Glovers and a surly old Shoemaker—a new man, a replacement for Owen—who tells us to go away and turns back to his work, and Bakers of gingerbread, and all the rest. Watch for the signal, we tell them. It's time to fight.

Nothing about the fortress is even remotely familiar to me. I thought I might remember the smell—musty—or the feel of the air—damp—yet it is as if I have never been here before.

Owen saves the Seamstresses for last. We are hurrying now, knowing that the Godmother's slaves are on the move, that we need to get to the wall and give the signal for the Huntsman and Templeton and Cor and the rest to come over.

“Here.” Owen points to a door at the end of a hallway.

I open it. The room of the seamstresses is long and narrow with whitewashed walls and a low ceiling stained with candle smoke. At the table sit old women, hunched, squinting, their gnarled fingers gripping silver needles. There is no color in the room except for the brilliant cloth they are stitching into dresses—sapphire velvet, ruby silk, gold satin shot with silver threads.

As I step into the room, the old seamstresses peer up at me. I stare back at them.

I remember what Owen said to me out on the terrace, at the prince's ball. I was wearing the stunning flame dress that Lady Faye had given me.
Where did you get the dress?
he had asked. No, he'd demanded—and I hadn't understood; I hadn't seen why the dress mattered.

But now I know. These slaves of Story had made it. The Godmother had taken my measurements with her thimble, and these sad, bent women had measured the silk, cut it, and sewn it with stitches no bigger than a grain of sand. This is all they know. The endless labor, the pain of gnarled hands and hunched backs, and then . . . an ending.

Once I'd worked on dresses just like the one I'd worn to the prince's ball. I run my thumb over the calluses on my fingertips. For the first time Pin is physically real to me in a way she never was before. The memory of it takes shape, the ache in my hunched shoulders as I bent over my work, my eyes straining in the meager candlelight.

Then I feel Owen's steady strength at my side. “Tell them,” he whispers.

My Pin-self fades away, and I straighten and feel my new calluses as I grip my staff. “Do you remember me?” I ask, even knowing how frightening any question about memory might be for them. “I was a Seamstress like you. I was a rebel, but I didn't end up stabbed by thorns on the wall. I got away. You can, too, if you come with us.”

Even before I finish speaking, the old seamstresses are dropping their work, pushing themselves off their benches, hobbling toward us.

The oldest Seamstress pauses and squints up at me with watery blue eyes. “We remember,” she says in a cracked voice. “We helped you find scraps of silk for the rope.”

“The rope?” I glance questioningly at Owen.

“The one we used to scale the fortress wall,” he tells me. “Pin made it. She persuaded the Jacks to make the grappling hook, too.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised. I'm starting to like Pin—her cleverness and resourcefulness.

“This way,” Owen says, and we gently help the old Seamstresses out the door.

And then we hear it. A shout, and the sound of running footsteps. A scream echoes down a hallway.

“Hurry,” Owen says, his voice tense, and the seamstresses shuffle faster. They go around a corner ahead of us, and Owen casts a look back the way we've come. He skids to a
halt; I crash into his back and we both stumble.

Coming down the hallway behind us is a woman. I blink. The woman has lidless eyes with slits for pupils; her hands are covered with scales. As she sees us, her wide mouth opens and her forked tongue flickers in and out, tasting the air.

“The Seamstresses' Overseer,” Owen whispers. “We have to hold her off so they can get away.”

“Sahhh,” the Overseer breathes. She glides closer on silent, scaly feet. “So, Seamstressss.”

Owen and I back up a step.

Three pig-faced guards in blue uniforms lurch around a corner and run to join the Overseer.

Owen pulls the knife from the sheath at his back.

I dig into my trousers pocket for my thimble and slip it onto my finger. At the same moment, the three guards charge us. A tusked face pushes close to mine; strong hands seize me. I twist in their grip, and fire flashes from the thimble, and a pig-guard grunts and collapses. The two other guards duck past us, trying to attack from behind. I slip the thimble back into my pocket.

Gripping my staff, I take up a low guard stance, my back to Owen. He'll have to handle the Overseer while I deal with these two. The moves I've practiced come without thought. One guard lunges at me with a sword and it's as if the blade slows down. I see the glint of light on metal, the grimace on his pig-snouted face, and I am turning, blocking the blade and coming around to strike with the top of my staff, right
in the middle of his chest. I feel the blow all the way up my arms, but I hold my ground. The guard falls to the floor, groaning. The other guard flails at me with his sword and I dispatch him, too,
block
and
thrust
.

Then I whirl, staff at the ready, and see the Overseer weaving closer. Her mouth gapes; her fangs drip with poison. Before I can move, Owen lunges at her with his knife. She writhes out of his way and strikes back. With a shout, I swing my staff around until it slams into the side of the Overseer's head; she crumples to the floor.

Owen and I stand next to each other, panting. “Did she get you?” I ask, checking his sweater for blood from the Overseer's bite.

“No.” With steady hands, he resheathes the knife at his back. He's not afraid, I realize. Just determined to do whatever needs to be done.

A sudden silence falls. After a moment, I hear pounding feet in the distance, more guards shouting, then another scream.

“The outer door?” I ask. We must give the signal at once, or we risk losing before the battle's even begun.

Owen nods. “Come on.” Taking the lead, he guides me through the fortress's winding passages. A guard looms up before us; I don't even hesitate. Using one strike I lunge past Owen and sweep the guard from our path.

“Well done,” Owen says breathlessly, and leads us on.

When we reach the door, I expect to see the fortress slaves
waiting there for the signal, but apart from a tight knot of old seamstresses, only the Jacks have gathered. They are holding lengths of pipe, chunks of wood with nails hammered into them, and shards of glass, ready to fight. “Where are the rest?” I pant, pushing past them to the door.

“Too afraid,” the lead Jack answers, and hefts an ax.

“This way,” Owen says urgently, pointing at an outer door. “We have to give the signal!”

The Jacks and seamstresses and I stumble out of the fortress. With Owen at my side, I hold the thimble high, and a brilliant flash flares out, flooding the courtyard with light. “Come on!” I shout. In the light I can see that the wall around the fortress is crawling with brambles; the Huntsman and Cor and Templeton and the rest are fighting their way down it. I clench the thimble in my hand again and turn. Fortress guards are spilling into the courtyard, some with pig snouts, others with naked rat tails or furry ears, or paws bristling with claws.

I turn to Owen; his face is pale and determined. “Stay with the Seamstresses,” I tell him. “Protect them.” A swift nod, and he goes.

The guards, seeing how few we are, break out into howls of triumph.

The Jacks cringe; in a moment they will break, and flee.

“Come on, Jacks!” I shout, and step forward, swinging my staff. The lead Jack comes with me, and then the rest follow, and so do Owen with his knife and the seamstresses, armed
only with needles. The fortress guards roar out a challenge and advance across the snow-covered ground to meet us.

I block and strike and try to keep the Jacks from losing their nerve. I catch a glimpse of Owen protecting the oldest Seamstress. A footman with hooves thrusts his jagged sword past him; the tip of the blade slashes across the Seamstress's arm. Drops of blood scatter, staining the snow; she collapses, and Owen stands over her, gripping his knife, outnumbered. The fight boils around us. I catch torchlit glimpses of horns, tails, claws, snarling mouths—we are surrounded.

Then, with a shout, the Huntsman pushes through the Jacks and bulls into the center of the fortress guards, swinging his ax. Behind him comes Templeton, screaming out a challenge, and Zel, whose blade flickers as she slices through the first line of guards.

There are still too many of them and not enough of us. We need more help; somebody has to rally the other slaves. The Jacks look to me for direction.

I fight my way over to Owen and pull the old Seamstress out of the worst of the fighting. As Owen gently eases her to the snowy ground, I catch sight of Cor's tall form. “Cor!” I shout over the crash and clash of weapons. He stabs a guard with his sword, follows up with a punch, and then glances my way. Owen stays with me like a shadow as I push past two Jacks until I reach his side. “Cor,” I pant, my breath steaming in the cold air. “I have to go for help. Can you take the lead here?”

The Huntsman heaves up beside me; he bends to pick up a handful of snow and uses it to wipe off his bloody ax. “Where are the rest of the fortress slaves?” he rumbles.

“They're frightened,” I snap back at him. “I'll go rally them in a moment. But first—”

“Pen!” Templeton shouts. “I need your thimble here.”

“Coming,” I answer over my shoulder, then I address Cor again. “Cor—”

“Yes, of course,” he interrupts. “Go do what you have to do.”

No protest that I need protecting; I feel a surge of appreciation for him. “We'll be back as quickly as we can.”

Cor nods and, avoiding a cluster of snarling, goat-footed guards, grabs a few Jacks to ready an assault on the fortress door.

I
TURN BACK
to the fight. With Owen a steady presence at my side, I clear a way to where Templeton and Zel are fighting back to back against three guards and one snakelike overseer. “Pen!” Templeton shouts, catching sight of me. She ducks, and Zel reaches past her to block a guard's knife thrust. “We're being overrun. Go find more of the slaves to fight for us!”

“Right!” I shout back.

We manage to extricate ourselves from the fighting. A clot of guards is at the door that leads inside; we're blocked.

“There's another way in,” Owen pants.

I follow him as he ducks into the shadows at the edge of the fortress wall; we make our way through the knee-deep snow to another door. Quietly Owen pushes it open and we step into a darkened hallway. The sound of the fight fades behind us. I pause for a moment to catch my breath and stamp snow from my boots.

“All right?” Owen asks, his voice rough.

“Yes.” I'm so glad he's with me. Gripping my staff, I follow him at a jog down the long hallway to a door at the end; it opens onto another hallway, this one lit with torches and lined with open doors. From one door peers a ruddy-faced man built like a barrel; others crowd behind him, too afraid to step into the hallway.

“You!” I shout, and pick up my pace, passing Owen.

As I get to the door, it slams shut; from behind it comes a babble of voices.

“Who are you?” demands a loud voice from behind me. From one of the other doors comes a huge woman with red hair that hangs down her back in two long braids. In her burly arms she holds a three-legged spinning wheel. She scowls fiercely at us. “No, wait. I already know. You're the ones who escaped. Seamstress and Shoemaker? Caused a lot of trouble, didn't you?”

“And we've brought more trouble,” I say. Beside me, Owen nods.

“Good!” she cheers. “This place needs trouble.” Reaching
past me and Owen, she bangs on the door. “Hey, you in there. Open up! It's a Spinster here!” Then she glances at me. “Straw into gold is what we spin.” She turns to the door again and pounds with a meaty fist.

The door cracks open. I see dozens of eyes peeking out.

“We need your help,” I tell them. “I used to be a Seamstress, and Owen was the Shoemaker, and we're here with others who are freeing the slaves from the fortress. We need your help.”

“No, no,” one of the Candlemakers protests; behind him, others are shaking their heads. “It's too dangerous.”

“If we light this wick, we're the ones who'll be burned,” another puts in.

Owen turns his grim stare on the Candlemakers. “She has power, and strength, and she can lead us out of here.” He nods at me. “Show them the thimble.”

I draw it from my pocket and it flares with light. The Candlemakers understand light, I think, and flame; at first they flinch away, and then they stare, as if drawn toward my thimble. Urgency makes my voice shake. “We can be free,” I tell them. “We just need you to help us.”

Behind the door, the heads come together, and there's a babble of discussion.

Then, suddenly the Candlemakers' door opens wide, and the barrel-shaped man steps out. “Aye, we'll help.” The other Candlemakers step into the hallway, carrying heavy iron
pitchers, and a knife or two, and one edges past me with a pot that brims with hot, melted wax. As good a weapon as any, I suppose.

I turn to the Spinster. “And you'll come, too?”

She gives a fierce grin, and from the doorway behind her come five more Spinsters, all carrying spinning wheels or wickedly sharp spindles like weapons.

I feel a sudden flame of hope. This might be enough to push back the fortress guards. “To the fight!” I shout, and turn to show them the way.

Owen's hand comes down on my shoulder. “Wait,” he says to me. “You go on,” he tells the Spinster. “Go toward the noise of fighting. We'll catch up.” Then he points with his chin farther down the hallway.