Shadow's Edge

“He’s crazy,” Nick said.

“It’s our only chance,” Tatts said. “I’m in.” Everyone looked at Tatts in wonder. It was the first time anyone had heard the tattooed Lodricari speak.

“Good,” Logan said. “We need three people to make a tower to reach the grate. Gnasher will be the base, I’ll be second, and Lilly will unlock the grate. From there, we’ve got two options—and which one we choose is up to Fin.”

Fin looked even more suspicious.

“First option, all of you who are light enough and strong enough to climb up the three of us can get out, but I won’t let Fin climb out. So me and Gnasher and Fin will die.”

“If anyone’s going, I’m going,” Fin said. “You’re not—”

“Shut up, Fin!” someone said, suddenly brave at the prospect of freedom.

“Second option, Fin gives Lilly his rope. She can tie it to something up there and we all climb out. Fin, it’s your rope, so it’s your choice. Oh, and if I don’t get out, I’m not telling you my plan to get out of the Maw.”

Everyone looked at Fin. Logan was suddenly sweating again. Come on, body, just a little longer.

“You can use the rope,” Fin said. “But you want to use my rope, I’m going to be part of the tower. I’ll open the grate.”

“Forget it,” Logan said. “No one here trusts you. If you get out, you’ll leave us here.”

There was mumbled agreement to that, even from some of the Holers on Fin’s side.

“Well I’m not climbing up that toothy freak. You want my rope, I’m part of the tower, and that’s final.”

“Fine,” Logan said. He’d figured it would be this way all along. He’d just needed to offer the first position so Fin could feel that he’d won something. “I’ll be the base. You be second. Lilly opens the grate.” Logan handed her the key. “Lilly,” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “If Fin tries anything, you throw the key down the hole, got it?”

“If anyone tries anything, I throw the key down the hole,” she said. “I swear by all the gods of hell and pain and the Hole.”

“We do this one at a time,” Logan said. “I’ll tell you who goes next.” He drew the knife and handed it to Natassa. “Natassa, anyone comes close before their turn, you stick them with this, all right?” Again, he said it loudly so everyone would know.

“Natassa will be the first out. She’ll tie the rope to something up there so we can all climb out. Fin and me will be the last, but everyone’s going to get out. We’ve paid for our crimes.”

Fin walked around the hole, uncoiling the sinew rope from around his body. He rolled it into big loops with an almost frightening ease. He claimed to have strangled thirty people before he was caught, not counting islanders and women. Underneath the ropes, he looked like anyone who’d been in the Hole for a long time. Scrawny, skin deep brown with dirt, reeking, his mouth bloody sometimes from the scurvy that every long-time Holer suffered.

He smacked his lips as he stepped close to Logan and sucked blood through his teeth. “We’ll settle us later,” he said. He took the coiled rope and settled it around his neck.

Logan wiped the sweat off his brow. He wanted to kill the man now. If he grabbed the rope and shoved, maybe…. Maybe. It wasn’t worth the risk. He was too weak, too slow now. He should have tried this plan earlier, but earlier, Fin would never have come this close to him. Fin would have expected Logan to try to kill him any other time, and before Logan had regained the knife, trying it would have made him too vulnerable.

Bracing himself against the wall with his hands, Logan squatted. Fin edged close to him, sneering and swearing under his breath. He finally put a foot on Logan’s thigh, stepped onto his back, and then up onto his shoulders, walking his own hands up the sheer wall.

Surprisingly, the weight wasn’t that bad. Logan thought he could make it. He just had to lock his knees and lean on the wall, and he could make it. There was no way he’d be able to climb up the rope on his own strength, but maybe his friends would pull him out. If he went out last, he’d tie the rope around himself and Lilly and Gnash and Natassa could pull him out. If only he’d stop shivering.

“Hurry,” he said.

“You’re too damn tall,” Lilly said. “Can you squat down?”

He shook his head.

“Shit,” she said. “Fine. Ask Gnasher to help. You’re the only one he listens to.”

“Ask him what?” It should be obvious, he knew, but he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“To lift me,” Lilly said.

“Oh. Gnash. Pick her up. No, Gnash, not like that.” It took some coaching, but finally, Gnash understood, and squatted beside Logan while Lilly climbed up onto his back and then stood on his shoulders. Then she put the key in her teeth and started trying to transfer over.

Logan was much taller than Gnasher, so Lilly had to step up onto Logan’s shoulder, where Fin was already standing. The uneven weight made Logan sway.

“Stay still,” Fin hissed. He cursed Logan repeatedly as Natassa put a hand on Logan’s shoulder, trying to brace him.

Logan felt cold wash over him. “Go,” he said. “Just hurry.”

Lilly’s weight pressed down again on his left shoulder, then weight shifted back and forth above him as she and Fin tried to balance. Logan couldn’t tell what they were doing. He squeezed his eyes shut and held onto the wall.

“You can do this,” Natassa whispered. “You can do this.”

The weight shifted suddenly, hard to the right, and the Holers gasped. Logan sagged and then fought, his right leg shaking with the exertion.

The burden suddenly lightened and there were little gasps around the Hole. Logan squinted up and saw that Lilly was on Fin’s back, and she had grabbed the grate above her with one hand, stabilizing herself and taking some of her weight.

Then they heard the sound they dreaded. It was the sound of leather and chain mail clinking and protesting, curses floating freely, a sword tapping on the rocks. Gorkhy was coming.

39

The wytching hour had come. An icy wind scoured clouds through the mountains’ teeth. It was cold, too cold for snow. The wind cut through cloaks and gloves, made swords stick in their scabbards, made the men shiver at their posts. The clouds looked like phantoms scurrying over the killing fields and rushing up and over the walls. Thick wide braziers of coal that were burning all along the walls did nothing to stave off the chill. The heat was carried off and swallowed into the night. Beards froze and muscles stiffened. Officers barked at the men to keep moving, shouting over the familiar scream of the wind.

Those high screams were usually the subject of endlessly retold jokes and comparisons to the men’s last bedchamber conquests, sometimes done with imitations. Regnus Gyre had never disciplined the men for howling into those winds. It staved off fears, he said. Anywhere else, it would be a distraction, would make the men unable to hear invaders, but you couldn’t hear a thing at Screaming Winds anyway.

No one howled tonight. Tonight those screams seemed ominous. And if the men’s hearing was bad, their sight wasn’t much better. The swirling, racing clouds were thick enough and obscured the moon and stars so fully that they’d be lucky to see fifty paces out. The archers would only be useful to about that distance anyway, with this wind. It had been Regnus’s nemesis. No matter now much the archers trained, shooting into that damn inconstant wind, their accuracy never improved much. One or two had an uncanny sense of when the wind would gust and could hit a man-size target at sixty paces, but that wasn’t nearly the advantage a garrison usually got from holding a wall.