Onwards

The tunnels were cramped. Normally she wouldn’t rush down the gully to enter them but she didn’t really have time tonight. Normally she would pause on the threshold stone before entering. A pause to breathe deeply, a moment to collect herself and have a last look at the the sky above with the stars in the vastness, the feel of the wind as it moved from rustling leaves to her cheek and the smell of the damp moss and ferns lining her narrow path in the v-shaped ravine.

A carved motive in the stone. What was the combination again? Fingers pressed on the rough granite surface which sank below her fingers like buttons. Rats, she should press section upper middle, left, left, middle centre then bottom right…. not bottom left. She always forgot. Why break a habit of a lifetime, especially as that lifetime may be rapidly concluding?

What was that? Sounded like an unguarded swear let slip into the night. She smiled, the path at the top of the gully was effectively a mud slide ending in a particularly nasty trip at the bottom. Sounds like the pursuer hadn’t been this way before. That was good, that meant he probably didn’t know the combination to the tunnels. Probably…….


….’Glas?’

A ringing voice.

She paused. A heart beat longer and silence as if two people were holding breathes listening for a sound in the night. Well, she would break it first.

‘Xsavro? if that’s you then you are a pain and I’m not speaking to you’

A grinning face appeared in the scene in front of her. ‘Scared, Glascia? I never took you for the fleeing for my life type. You can certainly move when you want’.

She glowered

The boy in front of her frowned. ‘Glas, what’s up? All ok? I was only joking, you knew I was going to be here, waiting, and, well, I never could pass up a chance to make you jump’.

A pause. She looked directly into his face.

‘Soldiers, Lewis, there are soldiers in the woods’. It was no longer the time for nicknames.

‘What???!’ Panic spread with his surprise. He couldn’t keep the high tones of fear out of his voice.

She took a deep breath. ‘Soldiers’. ‘They just seem to appear on my tracks as I cut through the clearing. I guess they were behind the trees. I didn’t stop to look, I just ran. I take it from your surprise that you didn’t know they were here. Weren’t you meant to have Oked the area?’

‘..I…..I……er’

‘Well?’

“i. I…I meant to. I did. But, well you know how things are.’

She gave up. She did Know. She may have skipped doing the checks herself. Why check woods that no one enters and knows about. Well, knows about what goes on here, who passes through.

“It’s ok. I’m not cross. Actually I forgot that you would be here. Lets gets in side’



-----

It had all begun with a spat of small robberies on one of the outer islands, far from the central regulatory based at Town Hall. The wealth landlords, who had been waiting generations to seize local control, complained that the islands were too big and sparsely populated for a central law HQ to work effectively. Today small robberies, tomorrow armed robbery and worse in the years to come. In a way this scaremonger worked, not on the intended mayoral office but on the crowd. Old Joe Cropper came to fear for his life and bought a shot gun for protection. He naturally tried to see how it worked and some how shot himself. Old Joe told his wife that an intruder had done it. Old Joe’s wife reported it to the Mosons when she cooked for them in their fine hall next day. The story spread though the great halls who ensured their villagers heard it. The country blazed with fear, forcing Mayor Harris Spherter out of office and governance to be handed over to the Lords and Ladies. Power crazed, it turned into a competition about who has the tightest control. It was the villagers they controlled.

I was in a unique position. I was the heir to the hall of Charivalley which stood on the sea cape behold Dunsfar. My parents had died before their time but not unkindly. I was raised by the Celtic hall warden ‘Hans’. However, when he was busy running the estate, I was busy exploring it. Now at the age of 21, I was respectable on the outside but village life and rights where where my heart was. And what the heart wants, the brain strives to obtain.

-------
(added after the above)
We walked downwards. Lewis would have walked quicker, anxiety and adrenaline fueling him. However I was just glad to sink into an normal restful pace. It was odd, he seemed to be skipping beside me although we weren’t going fast.

I had known Lewis for years. I had first encountered him as he was climbing the old green beech tree on the edge of town. He was dodging the bullies. I was one step ahead, or more like one branch above, as I had climbed the tree as soon as I heard them coming. We shared a packet of crisps until the coast was clear then a flask of tea for the companionship of it. I have since spent a lot of time doing this sort of thing with Lewis.

He was giving me the low down on situation…

…’plans had to be got out. Rouga and Venel* thought you would be the one to see that. They had convinced themselves you would go through the pub network even though I told them I was meeting you in Rainers Copse. I tried to tell them, I know you don’t like the landlord. Plus there are too many eyes in the bar to risk entering the pub passages if you were trying to get the manuscript out’. His spoken inflection raised in this last sentence and I nodded in response to his query. He paused taking it in then spoken even faster.
(* Jill and Neil Vent to you and me)

‘Gail and Gerry at the garage didn’t seem to know what was going on. They say they could hide the papers under the rugs lining the garage, you know the ones Gerry lies on to look under the car without getting cold from the ground? Well if the plans were put there, then he could park a car over the rugs so no one could lift them up. I mean, it’s a prefect plan but we have to get the plans to them. Where do we go from here? Do you have the plans on you? Or did someone else take them? I can skip above ground if you need me to provide cover for someone’

‘Chase has them’

‘Chase?!’

‘Yeap’

‘Chase? As in Chase? Why? That’s an interest choice’

‘Because I trust him. He knows the area, he can pass through almost as well as I can and there are certain people who trust him more than they trust me.’

‘Oh’

Chase was Lewis’ uncle. They weren’t close. Lewis’ mum was Chase’s sister and when she was settling down for a family (namely Lewis), her kid brother was just being a teenage kid. She though he was a reckless idiot. Wherever he was or not is beside the point, the siblings went their own way and didn’t really understand each other.
The Chase I know would be called valuable.