The Burning Shadow Read Free Page A

sneered.
    â€œI’m not an Outsider,” lied Hylas.
    The others were taking rawhide sacks from a pile, and Zan chucked one to Hylas. Copying the older boy, he slung it on his back with his arms through the straps. Then he tossed dust over his shoulders, spat three times, and asked the Lady of the Wild Things to protect him. She felt far away in Akea. He wondered if She’d hear.
    Bat climbed in first, then Zan, Spit, and Beetle.
    The Egyptian boy looked almost as scared as Spit. “Watch your head,” he told Hylas, “and breathe through your mouth.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œYou’ll find out.”

    He was struggling down a slimy rope ladder. A smell like a dung heap caught at his throat. He breathed through his mouth.
    Fifty rungs . . . A hundred . . . By the time he reached the bottom, he’d lost count.
    He was in a tunnel so low he couldn’t stand up. It was dark, and the walls threw back the rasp of his breath. A log supporting the roof creaked. He was horribly aware of the weight of the hill pressing down. Here and there, a clay lamp on a ledge cast a smoky glimmer. Shadows leaped and skittered away. He thought of the snatchers, and crawled after the others.
    As he groped around bewildering turns and sudden drops, the stink became eye watering. He sniffed his palm and gagged. He was crawling through the muck of hundreds of people.
    Muffled voices reached him through the walls. He recognized Zan’s, and guessed that the tunnel doubled back. “Nobody help him,” Zan was saying. “He’s on his own.”
    It grew hotter as they descended, and soon Hylas was sweating. He caught a distant sound of hammering. Nine levels, he thought. The whole hill must be riddled with holes. He tried not to think of the Earthshaker, the god whose stamping brings down mountains.
    Suddenly the noise became deafening, and he found himself in a large shadowy cavern. The air was thick with dust, but here and there, little pools of lamplight glimmered in the murk. On ledges cut into the walls, naked men lay on their backs, pounding veins of green rock with hammerstones and antler picks. Boys and girls no more than five summers old flitted warily among them, collecting the fragments into piles. Hylas felt sick. The hammermen were hacking the earth’s green blood from Her flesh. He was inside a giant wound.
    The pit spiders had covered their mouths and noses with wet rags, and were filling their sacks with greenstone. Hylas did the same. When their sacks were full, Zan led them up a different tunnel. The straps bit into Hylas’ shoulders. It was like dragging a corpse.
    After an endless climb, they reached the main shaft. Two men grabbed Hylas’ sack, tied a rope around its neck, and hauled. The sack rose jerkily.
    Moments later, it burst and its load crashed down, narrowly missing Hylas.
    â€œWhose sack was that?” yelled a furious hauler. He spotted Hylas. “You! You didn’t check it!”
    â€œAlways check your gear,” jeered Zan.
    Hylas set his teeth. Zan had given him a faulty sack on purpose. All right then, he thought. Time to sort this out.
    Back at the cavern, he made sure that he stayed near Zan while they gathered another load, and he stayed near as they headed for the shaft. Halfway there, Zan clutched his chest and frantically searched the ground. By the time they reached the shaft, he was shaking.
    â€œLooking for this?” Hylas said quietly. He gave Zan the shriveled finger, then brought his face close. “We’ll keep this between ourselves,” he breathed, “and I don’t want to take your place as leader—but never mess with me again. Understood?”
    Slowly, Zan nodded.
    They did two more exhausting rounds, then an overseer called a halt. Zan must have spread the word, because the others made room for Hylas and let him share a skin of vinegar and a grimy flatbread.
    Zan and Beetle ate with grim