Shadows Beyond

Chapter 7

7

Tagg put a reassuring hand on Emtani’s arm as the dogs’ barking grew louder, ‘Don’t worry,’ he said.

She put her fingers to her lips, telling him to be quiet.

But he knew they were safe. ‘They cannot hear us up here.’

Chapter ‘But they be in the tunnel,’ she said anxiously as the barking bounced up the sheer rock to their shallow cave. ‘I be hearing them. They be on the ledge soon.’

‘They’ve been in the tunnel most of the night,’ Tagg explained. ‘Don’t worry. There’s not a Rooter small enough to follow them, and dogs can’t climb sheer rock. We’re safe.’

‘But the Rooters could be waiting us out?’

‘Waiting where?’ Tagg asked. ‘They’ve no idea where we are. If they wait anywhere, it will be outside the cave entrance. At this moment they’re probably trying to entice their dogs back. It’ll take them ages.’

‘So we bain’t going back that way?’

‘No.’ Tagg pointed to the beginnings of the rough indeterminate path cut into the rock that Zeff had pointed out the day before. ‘As soon as Zeff’s leg can take it we’ll be climbing down there.’

‘We go tonight,’ Zeff said.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Tagg muttered.

‘It’s already much better,’ Zeff said gruffly. ‘ZefShad got the worse of it.’

‘Tonight?’ Emtani looked at the path that was, at best, indistinct. She could only see the beginning of it, but it was narrow and crudely cut, and there was a sheer drop to one side. ‘We be going down there in the dark?’

‘We’ll start before nightfall,’ Zeff said. ‘The first part is the worst. If we get through that in daylight, the rest shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.’

‘Bain’t the Rooters seeing us?’

‘If they do, they’ll have to find their own way down and we’ll be long gone.’ She did not look reassured.

‘We’ll take you home, if you like,’ Zeff said.

‘I be going to the City,’ she said obstinately.

‘It’s a dangerous place for a girl on her own.’

‘I bain’t alone. I be with you.’

Zeff nodded. ‘We have a cover story.’ He rummaged around in the bag they had brought, pulled out a headlet and tossed it to her.

‘Who you stole’d that from?’ Emtani asked Tagg coldly.

‘It was our mother’s,’ Zeff replied.

Despite her hostility, Emtani murmured an apology. She had lost her own mother several moons before and felt the bereavement keenly. Turning the headlet over in her hands, she could see it was finely made and bore the Esterhausil motif of three linked stars, but instead of the triangle that represented the village where Emtani lived, it had three vertical bars. ‘Were your mother living in the City?’ she asked.

‘Always.’

‘I bain’t know you were City folk. You bain’t talk village, but you bain’t talk city, neither. Tagg were always wearing our village triangle on his headlet.’

‘That’s for when he lives there,’ Zeff said.

She suddenly noticed that Tagg’s headlet now bore the three vertical bars. ‘He be having more than one?’ she asked, feeling something between awe and hostility. ‘Bain’t that illegal?’