It struck him hard: What an awful, stupid chance he had taken, speaking frankly to her. Nothing would be easier than for her to betray him, and the payment ought to be extra rich. Was she leading him on till she could sneak off? The thought flashed: If he killed her, nobody would know who’d done it. He had powerful hands. Laid around her neck—
“Maybe it’s because you trust me,” Squeaky said.
His arms dropped. He barked his knuckles on the floor. Horror rushed through him. He heard: “Or maybe it’s because you are you, Runt. You were always good to me.”
Had she forgotten his childhood teasing? Or had she put it aside, or even found a different meaning in it? He strangled on a sob.
She caught hold of him anew. “What’s the matter, Runt? Tell me.”
“We’ve got to escape,” he groaned. Escape from more than death. “But who will help us? Who can we ask?”
Silence drove the hammering of pulses inward until she, now curiously calm, proposed, “What about Cockeye?”
In the midst of everything, Runt bridled. “Cockeye? That pest?”
“He’d think sunlight of you, if you’d let him,” Squeaky said.
“No, he’s loud and flighty and can’t sit still a single minute. He’d bring the goblins straight down on us.”
“Runt,” she sighed, “if you say we must be three to open a door, I don’t know what you are thinking about, but I believe you. Well, you have to believe in me, and we both have to trust Cockeye, or we’ll never get anything done, will we?”
He sagged back against the wall, overwhelmed by thoughts altogether new. She stood up. “Wait here,” she said, and padded back to the sleeping quarters.
Alone, Runt sat in a whirl. His fist pounded the flagstones. What to do, what to do? He could leave before Squeaky returned with Cockeye. Those two might well be afraid to approach the goblins. He, Runt, might manage to skulk about, evading capture, lifting food and water by night, until he saw a goblin open a door. He might thereupon dart past, too quick to be caught. No, goblins moved faster. But they weren’t really so strong. He might kill that one and get away before others arrived.
Might, might, might, maybe!
And Squeaky would stand forsaken.
Runt stayed where he was.
He scrambled to his feet when the shadowy shapes came around the corner. His heartbeat slowed. The earlier clearness rallied. There was simply no more time for fear or doubt. “Let’s go,” he said, and led the way.
“What for, what for?” Cockeye demanded.
“Hush.” Squeaky tightened her clasp on his hand. “You promised when I woke you, if we took you along on this adventure, you’d do what you were told and stay quiet. Runt and I trust you. Please don’t fail us.”
Cockeye sucked in a breath and held it as long as he could.
Squeaky plucked Runt’s tunic. A flame showed tears on her cheekbones. “But the others,” she begged. “What about them? I left them sleeping. We can’t just go from them.”
“We’d never control the whole lot,” he replied. “Maybe later, when we’re free, we can bring help. We’ll try.”
“We will? Honest?”
“I don’t know, I can’t tell—Yes, Squeaky, we will.”
The nearest of the tall doors loomed before them. They heard the final shrill sounds of goblin revelry, echoing through the glooms. Squeaky looked up and up with dismay. “What we gonna do?” asked Cockeye. “Oh!” He laid palms over mouth and threw Runt a contrite glance.
“Listen,” Runt said. “If I stand here by the jamb and brace my arms on the wall, can you climb and stand on my shoulders, Squeaky? My tunic’ll give you a hold. And then can you get onto hers, Cockeye? From there, step off onto that shelf and swing the bolt free.”
“Why?” the small boy wondered, carefully soft-voiced.
“Can’t stop to explain. Will you do it, you both? Can you?” They had better be able to, Runt thought.
They were, barely. As Cockeye was swarming over Squeaky’s back, she, precariously in the middle, started to fall sideways. Runt felt her weight shift, heard her gasp, and took a counterbalancing step. Agony jabbed into his back. He held fast and held silent. A minute afterward, he heard a thud as the bolt swiveled.
Sweat sprang forth all over him, more cold than the air. “C’mon down, quick,” he wheezed. Cockeye scrambled to a safe jumping height. Runt’s back could take no more. He and Squeaky toppled in a heap.
He clenched his teeth and clambered from her. Squeaky saw him lamed. “Lean on me,” she said. Her left arm circled his waist, her right hand caught an iron knob and pulled. The door creaked open—loud enough to rouse Apples, thought Runt through the fog of pain.
No sunlight, no flowers, no moon or stars lay beyond. A chill breath wafted out of darkness. It smelled of damp and mould. Cockeye shrank back. “I’m scared,” he said.
“Don’t be,” Runt gritted. Squeaky helped him hobble through. Cockeye gulped and followed.
They found themselves on the landing of a stair that plunged down into the murk. Flames, blue at intervals along rough stone walls, gave light to walk by. “This has got to go somewhere,” Runt pushed between his lips. “You wouldn’t expect the Greenleaf World right outside the castle, would you? Come on.”
Squeaky closed the door. They couldn’t very well lower the bolt that was on this side, but maybe the goblins hadn’t heard anything, maybe they wouldn’t soon notice the inner fastening loosened.
Deep the stairs went before they ended in a tunnel that reached beyond sight. Each step he took sent a knife through Runt’s back. He tottered on, harshly breathing. How delicious it would be to curl on the wet stone, wrap sleep’s blanket snug around him, and dream forever. But they were bound to the Greenleaf World, weren’t they? And his friends might yet have need of him.
He heard Squeaky tell Cockeye the reason for their faring. The boy keened. “Naw, can’t be, awful! I don’t b’lieve you!”
“Well,” said the girl wearily, “if you don’t, you can turn around and go back to the masters. P’r’aps when they’ve caught us they’ll give you a sweetmeat.”
Cockeye swallowed hard, then clutched her free hand again. “I’m coming ’long,” he told them, and stumped onward.
However toilsome for the children, wrung as they were, the tunnel was not much over three miles long. At the end—at the end!—they found a slanting door. Runt was past caution or hope or anything save pain. He fumbled at the handle. The door wouldn’t budge for him. Squeaky tried. It swung heavily on noisy hinges.
The air that met their faces was fresh but nearly as cold as underground. Light also was as dim, gray light from no source in view, shadowless, veiled by countless little white flakes. Those dropped in silence to an earth they had already decked, a ground where shrubs were formless colorless masses within which lurked thorns and sharp twigs. It sloped, the children had emerged on a hillside, but they saw only a few yards before the white blindness overtook their eyes.
“What’s this? No Greenleaf World?” cried Cockeye. It was the tone of a child struck for no known reason.
“I can’t say,” Runt grated. “We’ve got to keep going, that’s all.”
Squeaky shut the door. Its outer surface was a box of dirt in which grew dense heather, so that when it lay closed it was indistinguishable. She took note of a lean lichenous stone rising nearly—a menhir of the Ancients, though she did not know that. It must be a landmark for the goblins. Not that she meant to return, whatever laired ahead. Shuddering, she hurried to Runt’s aid. His gait staggered.
The three went downhill because that was the least hard way. Their bare feet soon left blood spots behind. However, the falling white stuff swiftly covered every track. The goblins could not trail them. Belike that made scant difference. They would leave their bones here rather than traded off to the ghouls. Starving, hurting, on their last strength they covered several thousand paces. They reeled a bit longer on hope, before it too drained away.