Maren Goldweaver's Arc

Chapter 10 of 42

By late afternoon the pines thinned. Maren saw sky through the trunks. She slowed. Miller slowed with her. The cub shifted inside her coat and pushed its head up under her chin. They crept to the last line of trees and crouched behind a fallen trunk. The forest ended in a slope of yellow grass. Beyond the grass sat a low building of weathered wood and iron. A row of cells stood along its front, roofed rough, locks fat with rust. A gate cut the fence at the near corner. Two guards leaned there in gray coats. A third crossed the yard. Maren's breath stopped. In the second cell from the end, a girl sat with her knees up. Long curly hair. A red sash. Even from here Maren saw the gold hoop catch the sun. "Gisela," she whispered. She started to rise. Miller's hand hit her shoulder and drove her flat. His other arm pinned her elbow. Grass pressed into her cheek. "Stop," she hissed. "Let go." "No." "That's her. That's my sister." "I see her." His voice stayed even. His grip did not. "You cross that grass, they shoot you before you make thirty steps. Then she watches it. Then she still doesn't come home." Maren stopped pulling. Her chest heaved against the ground. The cub squirmed free of her coat and crouched beside her, ears flat, wings folded tight. Miller eased his weight off her but kept one hand on her arm. He watched the yard. "Only the coats go through that gate," he said. "Nobody else. They wave each other in." Maren wiped grass off her mouth. She made herself look at the guards instead of the cell. Gray coats. Belt, cap, a badge sewn at the chest. The third guard walked out through the gate and up a track toward a shed at the tree line, alone. "If we got a coat," she said. "A cap. A badge. I could walk to that cell." Miller's eyes tracked the lone guard too. "One at a time. That one." "He's coming back this way." "He is." They watched him reach the shed. He propped a rifle by the door and went inside. The door swung half shut. Maren pushed up onto her elbows. "We take him quiet. In the shed. You hold him. I take the coat." "And the cap. And the badge." Miller was already moving, low along the trunk, toward the cover of a thicket that ran to the shed wall. She followed. The cub came at her heel, silent in the grass. They reached the shed as the guard stepped out. Miller took him from behind, one arm across the throat, one hand on the mouth. Maren caught the rifle before it fell. The man kicked once, twice, then went slack. Miller lowered him inside. Maren shut the door. She pulled the gray coat off his shoulders and laid it flat. The cap. The badge. Her hands shook. She folded the coat over her arm. "I go," she said. "You go," Miller said. "I cover the gate from here." She looked at him. He looked back. Neither said the rest. She started buttoning the coat.