Keeper of the Black Stones (29 page)

The canon fired again and I instinctively ducked, then increased my speed. Tatiana appeared suddenly at my side, matching my pace. We raced past piles of garbage and rats the size of small dogs, barely noticing our surroundings in our panic.

Then the alley, along with the densely packed buildings around it, was gone, and we were outside the city. Reis pushed us over the small wooden bridge beyond the last building, and we sprinted forward until at last the city and its stench fell behind us.

We reached a small copse of trees several minutes later. Without a word, all four of us darted into the underbrush, paused, and collapsed.

Reis didn't let us rest long. Less than ten minutes later we were back on the road, now under cover of darkness, jogging quickly toward a farm that sat several miles from the city of Doncaster. I quickened my pace to catch up with Reis, who was moving with a long, steady stride that ate the miles. In the end, I had to sprint to keep up with him.

“What are we going to do?” I huffed quietly.

Reis grunted and pointed toward the barn ahead. “We're going to get to that barn and find some sort of cover. I don't like being on the open road when people are chasing us with canons and guns.”

“I don't think canons move that fast, actually,” Paul called from behind us. “They're … you know … heavy.” His voice faded off at my quick glance, and he looked down.

“Not the point, Paul,” Reis muttered. “We're fairly limited on time, here. We can't afford any delays. And that includes hiding for too long from thrill-seeking soldiers with heavy–but definitely deadly–canons.”

His final words brought us abreast of the stable, and we slid down to the ground gratefully, our backs resting against the crude wall of the building. A full moon had swung into the sky, and the landscape was relatively clear before us. From this distance, we could still make out the towers of the castle, as well as the church, jutting up against the moonlit sky. The stars scattered across the darkness were brighter than any I'd ever seen in my life, with the country around us smooth and dark. The land around us was relatively flat, and appeared to be tilled for farming. Farther away, I could see stalks of wheat or corn, gently swaying in the breeze. No skyscrapers rose into the blackness, no streetlights ran along the roads. Of course there were no streetlamps, I realized suddenly. There was no electricity. These people counted on fire–candles, torches, and bonfires–to cut through the darkness. This deserted area, and the barn behind us, were lit only by the moon.

It would have been peaceful, if we weren't running for our lives.

Reis had been leaning against the wall behind me, scanning the scene for soldiers or danger. Now he jumped back into action, grabbing a compass, flashlight, and the map from various pockets in his ensemble.

“Don't move!” he snapped at Paul, scooting toward him. He grabbed the end of Paul's robe, then bent forward and threw it over his head. Within seconds he–and the flashlight–had disappeared.

Paul, Tatiana, and I were left staring stupidly at the space where he had been.

“Checking our position,” I muttered, answering the question before Paul could ask. It made sense–we had to know where we were, and we couldn't risk anyone seeing the light from the torch. Not out here in the middle of nowhere.

“Well I'm glad somebody has a plan,” Paul said with a shake of his head.

I snorted. He'd evidently forgotten that we'd talked about this before we left home. We waited tensely, our eyes trained on the landscape around us,
while Reis figured out where we were.

“If my mother could see me now…” Tatiana murmured, pulling her hair into a tighter bun. “Running from people with guns and swords, watching a road for signs of attack… I'd be getting a strong lecture on the meaning of ‘lady like.'” She laughed at some memory, shaking her head.

“Tatiana, is that a Russian name?” Paul asked suddenly, breaking the silence. “Is your mother Russian?”

Tatiana looked at him and paused a moment before answering. “It's a Russian name, but I'm Romanian,” she said.

“Kind of the same thing, isn't it?”

Tatiana shook her head. “No, Russia is a Slavic country. Romania is Latin based. Also, they're different countries. For those who care about geography.”

Paul nodded, trying to pretend he knew what she was talking about. “Fleming, though, that's your last name, right? Isn't that–”

“Fleming is
not
my name,” she snapped, her voice low and intense. “My last name is Lazar. My mother's name.”

Paul held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, wildcat, I was just asking. Sheesh.” He turned to me and raised his eyebrows. “Talk about oversensitive.”

I looked past him at the girl, wondering where all that anger came from. “What exactly happened between you and your father?” I asked quietly.

“What's it to you?” she snapped back.

I shrugged. “You have your mom's last name. You hate your father. Insisted on coming with us, just to make sure he was stopped. Seems like the obvious question.”

She frowned and looked like she was going to snap at me again, but then sighed. Her face softened, and she opened her mouth to answer.

Before she could say anything, a scream ripped through the still night air.

Tatiana's mouth shut with a snap, and she jumped to her feet. “What on earth was that?”

“Someone's crying,” I said, rising quickly to my feet as well. “Where's it coming from, can you tell?”

Reis emerged from under Paul's robe, grasping the map and flashlight to his chest. “Okay,” he muttered quietly, “if the coordinates you gave us are correct, I know which direction to go, if we–”

The scream sounded again, cutting Reis off mid-sentence, and his mouth dropped open. Now that I was listening for it, I could hear exactly where it was coming from. A girl was in the barn we'd been sitting against. She'd been quiet when we first got here, but now she was sobbing. And screaming intermittently.

“Stay here!” Reis said. He stood up and made his way slowly toward the corner of the stable.

I watched him for a moment, then started after him. “Stay here,” I said to Paul, pushing past him.

“What, with the ice princess? I don't think so,” Paul muttered. He stepped into place beside me, and we crept along the wall. I didn't have to look back to know that Tatiana was following us; I could feel her breath on my neck.

We walked quickly around the corner of the barn, accompanied by the nameless girl's cries, and found ourselves half standing, half kneeling beside the back door of a stable, adjacent to the cottage. Now that we were closer, I could hear that the girl was actually crying for help. Begging for someone to save her. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see that the farm was deserted. The door to the house hung wide open, and broken furniture was strewn across the yard.

No one was coming to save the girl.

“Are we going to just hang out back here, or are we going to do something?” Paul whispered suddenly.

Reis turned around and was about to answer when another sound interrupted him. Several men were laughing at the girl's distress, and it wasn't pleasant. The sounds of their voices made my blood run cold and the hair on my neck stand up. Beside me, Tatiana grew tense and stifled a snarl.

We dropped as one to the ground behind the half-open door of the barn. It was built of dense, heavy boards, but the construction was poor; there were half-inch spaces between the slats. The light from inside the barn spilled though these openings, and we bent greedily to peer through. I'd never been in a barn before, but I suspected that this one held what most of them would–a horse, multiple piles of straw, two pigs, and several chickens, with some tools lining the walls. A few torches sat in holes in the bracings, throwing their light over rough dirt floors, which were strewn with manure and dirty straw. But it wasn't the tools, straw, or animals that grabbed our attention as we peered intently through the slatted door.

A short, round man dressed in bright green and blue robes, his hands flashing with jeweled rings, stood over a small girl in the center of the room. I couldn't see much of her, but she didn't look much older than Tatiana. She was certainly much smaller than the girl at my side. Two ugly, rough-looking men with dark features stood behind the fat man. They too wore robes, but in darker, more muted shades of brown and black. All three men were gazing intently at the young girl, who lay helplessly in front of them.

The girl's dress, face, and hands were covered in mud. Her hair was matted and tangled with blood and dirt, which also covered most of her face. There was blood on her knees and elbows, which she clutched against her ribs. She was down on the ground, as though one of the men had hit her and she'd fallen. She turned over now, and looked up at the three men who stood over her. Her expression was a mixture of fear, hatred, and outright rage.

20

T
he Bishop's mouth curled into an even uglier smirk and he swept his heavily booted foot toward her ribs again. “Your father was just hanged for treason, girl. You have no hope of salvation,” he snarled.

Katherine curled inward to avoid the worst of the blow, and forced her mouth shut on the scream. It would do her no good, she knew; the men were here to beat her into submission, and her moans and cries would only goad them on. They had been here for some time already, and no amount of talking on her part had stopped them. She was bruised, cut, and bleeding in several places. She could no longer see out of one eye, and thought that several of her ribs might be broken. But her pain wasn't going to stop these men either. In fact, she believed that it would get worse before the end.

Of course she didn't plan to let it get that far. She hadn't decided what she was going to do, but she was working on it.

When she looked up again, the Bishop was still smiling. Gloating, this time. He thought he had her in his grasp. She glared at him, which only seemed to make him happier.

“Everything you had is gone. You have no choice but to follow us and beg admittance to the abbey,” he smirked.

Katherine swallowed heavily, weighing her options. She was only fifteen, but had already endured more than most people her age. Her mother had died in childbirth, leaving her with only one parent. She and her father had done well enough–he as both farmer and local healer, she as midwife and housekeeper. Now, however, he was gone, hanged by the local lord, and she was an orphan. Having been born a girl instead of a boy, her options
outside of wedlock were limited. The Bishop had come to her home with what he considered a charitable offer. For her own good and safety, he'd said. She snorted through her tears. A charitable offer indeed. If she agreed to sign herself into the hands of the church, as he demanded, her freedom and estate, which she had received just hours before, would be lost forever.

Suddenly the Bishop's boot struck her again, taking her unawares and sinking into her vulnerable stomach. Katherine wheezed in pain, shocked, and then turned on him with a snarl of her own.