After a silence, the sergeant shouted, ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m from Tiksi!’ She dared not say her name. ‘Don’t fire!’
‘Show yourself. Hold your hands high.’
She did so, slowly and carefully. Five heavily armed soldiers trooped up. She did not know any of them.
‘I’m Sergeant Numbl, of the Morrin garrison,’ said the leader. He was a tall man, greatly scarred on the left cheek. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Have you seen the lyrinx?’ a dark, thickset soldier added.
‘There is no lyrinx,’ she said weakly.
‘What is she talking about?’ the soldiers cried. ‘Where has it gone?’
‘Maybe it’s a shapechanger lyrinx, turned itself into this miserable girl,’ said a thin bald man. ‘Better kill it to make sure.’ Thrusting his sword forward, he twisted it and made a squelching sound.
Sergeant Numbl clouted him out of the way. A dangerous light flashed in his eyes and, taking Tiaan by the collar, he shook her. ‘It was you! We’ve been hunting you, all the time.’
‘Yes!’ she whispered, terrified of the man.
‘Who is she?’ asked another soldier, who had a chirping, over-the-mountains accent.
‘It must be the runaway from the breeding factory,’ said the thickset soldier. ‘The mad woman!’
‘Shut up!’ the sergeant roared over his shoulder. His face had gone purple, except for the scars, which were bone-yellow. ‘Do you realise what you have cost us?’
‘You were shooting at me!’ she cried.
‘Stupid girl!’ Numbl slapped her hard across the face.
The bald soldier raised his sword. Drops of saliva hung on his lower lip. ‘Let me finish her,’ he said eagerly.
‘We might as well have the pleasure of her first,’ said a broad-shouldered, good-looking man with a receding chin disguised by wisps of beard. He began to tear at her garments. Tiaan tried to protect herself, but another soldier caught her hands.
This could not be happening. ‘You’re scum!’ she said, struggling furiously. ‘I’d sooner be eaten by a lyrinx.’
‘That’s all you’ll be good for when we’ve finished with you,’ said the good-looking man.
‘You would take a woman without her consent, Pelf?’ said Numbl.
‘She’s a runaway,’ said Pelf. ‘If you don’t like it, walk away.’
‘Please, no!’ Tiaan whispered.
‘I’ll take care of her,’ cried the bald man with the bloodlust in his eye.
Seizing him by the arm, the sergeant walked down toward the tunnels. ‘Oh, let them have their fun! We might all be dead tomorrow.’
The remaining three threw her down on the stone. Tiaan struggled but they were too strong. Someone bound her hands. She screamed at the top of her voice. A rough hand went over her mouth.
‘Hoy?’ came an echoing cry from below. The sergeant ran toward the left-most of the five lower passages, to listen at the entrance.
‘Hoy?’ came the cry, once more.
‘Yes?’ said Numbl cautiously. Before long Gi-Had appeared, followed by a troop of ten soldiers, and a guide.
‘How did you get here?’ said Numbl in amazement.
‘I would ask the same of you?’
Tiaan bit the hand, which jerked out of the way. She gasped for air.
‘What’s going on?’ roared Gi-Had. ‘I heard a woman scream.’
The soldiers let Tiaan go. She stood up. There was a mutter of conversation down below.
‘You damn fools!’ Gi-Had roared. ‘That’s Artisan Tiaan! If you’ve harmed her you’ll be quartered by the perquisitor himself! Get down here.’
The soldiers trotted down, looking everywhere but at him.
‘How were we supposed to know?’ said the sergeant. ‘Nobody told us you wanted her.’
‘Tiksi cretins!’ Gi-Had raged. ‘So you just go around molesting every woman you meet, do you?’
None of them met his eyes.
‘Bah!’ cried Gi-Had. ‘Get out of my way! Tiaan, I must – ’
Before he could move there again came that tapping sound she had heard in her dreams.
The overseer’s head whipped around. ‘What’s that? Sergeant, go and see.’
The entire group went still. Tiaan could hear Gi-Had’s breath whistling in and out. No one spoke. Tap-tap-tap.
Numbl tiptoed from one entrance to another, trying to work out where the noise was coming from.
‘I heard it before,’ Tiaan called down.
‘When?’ cried Gi-Had.
‘Quite a few hours ago.’
‘It could be someone in the mine,’ said Pelf.
‘This mine’s been abandoned for twenty years,’ said Gi-Had. ‘It was worked out when my father was still alive.’
‘Could still be a prospector in there,’ said the bald man who had wanted to kill her.
‘Or a bear,’ the sergeant conjectured, ‘cracking open a goat’s thigh bone.’
‘I said shut up!’ hissed Gi-Had. ‘Gull, Dom, Hants, Ven-Koy, Thrawn! Stand at the tunnel entrances and listen. Everyone else, ready your weapons and take cover.’
Five of his soldiers went to their positions. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Gi-Had, pacing back and across. Another tap.
‘It came from here,’ said stocky, white-haired Hants, an ugly man with pox scars and a cast in his left eye. He was standing at the entrance to the middle tunnel. ‘Will I go and see?’
‘Yes!’ said Gi-Had. ‘Hey, what’s your name?’ he asked the good-looking soldier.
‘Pelf, surr!’
‘You’re a brave man, Pelf. Go with him.’
The two headed off, pitch-coated torches flaring. Tiaan flexed her bound hands, began to go down, then stopped. Everyone was as tense as wire. Gi-Had jammed a torch in a crack in the floor and stared into the third tunnel, tapping one boot. There was no further sound.
‘Can you see their torches?’ he asked.
‘No!’ said tall Gull, beside him.
‘Neither can I,’ Gi-Had muttered.
A scream reverberated out of the tunnel.
‘What was that?’ whispered Gull.
‘More torches!’ yelled Gi-Had, gesturing behind him. The soldiers crowded around.
‘We’d better go help them,’ said Gull, making no attempt to do so.
There came a thud, a shriek, and feet pounded down the tunnel. Pelf burst from the entrance, running without sword or torch. A continuous moan came from his open mouth.
‘What is it, man?’ yelled the sergeant. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
Pelf kept going. Gi-Had caught him by the shoulder, twisting him around. He shook him. ‘Speak, damn you!’
Pelf choked and a clot of slobber ran into his beard. ‘A band of lyrinx. We walked right into them.’
‘How many?’ said Gi-Had.
‘What’s happened to Hants?’ yelled Numbl.
‘He’s dead. It bit his head right off. He kept walking, like a slaughtered rooster. The brains squirted …’ Pelf vomited on his boots.
Gi-Had blanched but stood his ground. ‘There’s fifteen of us, and the guide. How many of them, Pelf?’
‘Three, that I saw.’ His downy jaw quivered.
The soldiers moved uneasily. ‘Not good odds,’ said the sergeant. ‘Reckon we’d best retreat while we can. And maybe send someone on ahead to warn the manufactory. Just in case,’ he added in a low voice, ‘if you take my meaning.’
‘Good idea. Rusp, go with the guide. Run, and don’t stop for anything.’
Rusp, a man as wide as he was high, said, ‘Think I’d be more use here, surr.’
‘Maybe you’re right. Gull –’
‘I’ll go,’ said Pelf. ‘We can take the woman too. Get her out of the way.’
A chill ran all the way down Tiaan’s back.
‘Get to your post, Pelf!’ said Gi-Had. ‘I’ll not leave her in your hands. I’ll be looking to you to lead the defence, since you showed such courage with an unarmed woman.’
Gull and the guide, an ancient miner Tiaan had met once or twice, by the name of Hurny, hurried off. The soldiers moved into a semicircle around the mouth of the third tunnel.
Tiaan did not rate their chances highly, or her own. She began to rasp her bonds on an edge of stone, since she could not reach her knife. It was hard work, for the marble tended to wear away before the fibres did. She had not made much progress when a noise shocked the soldiers rigid. It was a sharp clack, like an armoured foot striking a pebble.