Firesong by William Nicholson Page B

seemed to cross overhead, in slow impossible leaps: but Kestrel had no energy left to wonder at such things. The night was dark, and the labyrinth was long.
    As first light began to seep into the sky, the rock walls on either side grew lower, and the descending moon reached further down to lay the last of its silver light at their feet. Then there came the moment when the guiding cat was no longer high above, but was waiting ahead, on the same path they trod: and they knew that at the end of this long last slope lay the open land.
    Exhausted, panting, drenched in sweat for all the chill of the night, they came out of the labyrinth and stood still, gazing at the sudden great distances reaching to the dark horizon. It was like a return to life after burial in the tomb. Endless space, brightening sky, the fresh sting of the wind.
    Not far off, flying high above a ridge, they saw the white flag of their people.
    Pinto was awake, and had been for some time. She was too young to share the watch, but she knew she would not go back to sleep, so she chose to sit here, under the flagpole, and look out over the labyrinth. Somewhere out there were her brother and sister, and Mumpo who she loved more than either of them.
    It seemed to her a whole lifetime since they’d gone away, but it was only one long night. Her father and the others had buried Harman Warmish under a cairn of stones, and she had helped. With every stone she had laid she had thought about Kestrel and the others, and Ashar Warmish, who was only a few years older than herself.
    The capture of the young women had had a strange effect on Pinto. It had frightened her terribly, and she still shivered as she thought about what might be happening to them. Her mother had told her they had been taken to be wives. But how could anyone be forced to be a wife? Pinto tried to imagine one of the scarf-masked bandits forcing her to be his wife, and it just didn’t make any sense. It was like forcing someone to be your friend. It couldn’t be done.
    The absence of Kestrel and the other young women had brought about a change within their group that Pinto felt acutely. Somehow she and Fin and Jet Marish, none of them more than eight years old, had become young women. No one had said this: it was just how it felt. As if in any group of people there must be some who were the young women, and now she was one of them.
    After the burial they had all set to work clearing the rock fall that blocked their way. She had worked with the rest, glad to be occupied. They had made a fire, and cooked the meat from the dead cow. Then somebody had said something, something about weeping. What was it?
    Mrs Chirish had given her some of the meat to take to Creoth, and he had refused to eat it, because he was sorrowing for the cow’s death. Mrs Chirish had not been at all sympathetic. She had said to the grieving cowman,
    ‘It’s bad about your cow, but things have a way of dying. People weep for a while, and then they stop.’
    Pinto sat under the flag in the faint light that preceded dawn and wondered if that was true. Mrs Chirish had given Creoth no reason to feel better, but her words had seemed to help him.
    People weep for a while, and then they stop . . .
    If they never come back, thought Pinto, if Bowman and Kestrel and Mumpo never come back, I’ll weep and I won’t stop. I’ll cry myself to death.
    She heard a faint sound behind her, and turned to see who was coming. There was nobody. The other lookouts were a little way away from her along the ridge. The rest of her people were sleeping under and around the wagon. Then she felt a brief tickle at her neck, and reached up to scratch it. There came a lurching feeling inside her, that for a few moments made her feel she was going to be sick, followed by an entirely different feeling, a feeling that she could do anything she wanted in the entire world.
    She stood up, and reached her arms high, and pranced up and down for sheer joy.
    I can do