Hans twisted beneath the tent’s canvas wall. He squirmed a little to the side, to where the chair wouldn’t block his sight. He wanted to see the boy’s face.
‘I take orders from Ulvax and the King,’ said the squat ugly man on the chair. His voice grew louder and more fretful. ‘Don’t you forget who I am either, little caught-in-the-bush! I’m Corbluncz Fire-Tongue! I’m Prince of the Charcoal Burners, and a General, to boot!’
Yellow Socks stepped forward. Now Hans could see his face. The face was cold and haughty. ‘And I,’ he said, gathering himself up to his full height, ‘I am the White Lady’s only child, and she has given to me the mastery over you and all your foul-smelling folk, you unwashed ash-peddler!’
The strange boy looked even odder in the light of the charcoal fire. His face looked pinched and thin, and as pale as ice on a January dawn when the light cracks the sky after a storm and all the world lies still. His eyes were black pits in the bony hollows sunk between his cheeks and brow. Deep in those pits a cold white light shone like a dagger at the ugly little man on the throne.
‘Why – you – you,’ spluttered the Prince of the Charcoal Burners.
‘Will you argue with me?’ said the boy. ‘Will you talk back to your betters? Grumble at orders from the White Lady?’
‘I – I do nothing of the sort! The Loom King knows I’m loyal to the high ones! But that’s not you, boy! Make good on those proud words. Go on! Show me your pedigree, your lineage, back up those words with something solid! Why, you’re not even as old as my son Blunczhelm, and what’s more he’s a Captain, and that’s a good deal better than you’re ever likely to become!’
‘So so, is that your tune?’ asked Yellow Socks. His voice was colder than his face. His thin lips stretched across his white, sharp teeth in a grimace of fury. ‘I’ll show you. By God in Heaven, I will show you!’
He pulled the White Lady’s gauntlet from his belt and drew it on. With it he reached out and took hold of Prince Corbluncz’s collar. He twisted the little man halfway off his throne.
In the grip of Clutchfast, the Charcoal Prince curled up as small as a cat held by the back of its neck, helpless. He twisted about, not even struggling. Hans could see his face now, dirty with soot sunk so deep into his pores that it had become part of his skin.
‘She gave this to me, the White Lady herself,’ said Yellow Socks. ‘Look at it, you wretched thing! See how she favors me! Will you quarrel with this? Will you talk back to the one whose hand wields it?’
Corbluncz choked and sputtered, half choking. Under the soot his face was purpling.
‘By this I hold mastery over you, ash-peddler. If mousling in the fields wore this gauntlet, even she could make you quiver and quake, like this!’ he gave the collar a sharp twist and the Charcoal Prince squeaked. ‘By this you know me, and the one from whom I come, whose words speak through my lips, whose dread will is made known through me. And you will do what I say, and you’ll not talk back to me nor grumble one bit. Don’t forget that only I can get the King his Needle back. Without me, all your plans are worthless, and the war is doomed to fail. Do you hear me, cinder-mouth?’
The squat ugly man seemed to pained even to answer him. The strange boy bent nearer over him, and gave the collar another half a turn.
Prince Corbluncz groaned and whimpered like a dog. His boots scratched at the chair seat, as though he would claw his way through it to get away.
‘And now,’ said Yellow Socks – but that was the last Hans witnessed of that struggle. All at once something gripped his left ankle and he was dragged backwards under the canvas.
Back outside in the Night, Hans was swung up in the air and dangled head over heels.
‘Oho! Gather round my boys, and take a look! I think I caught me a rabbit!’
Hans could make out very little in the darkness, all blurs and upside-down. A belt studded with spikes swung before his face, or he before it. Knives were stuck in the belt across the fat hairy belly of the soldier who held him.
‘That’s no rabbit,’ said another gruff voice. ‘It’s a spy, I call it.’
And ‘A spy, a spy!’ was shouted all about the back of the great tent.
The tatters of his nightshirt fell over his head. All the blood rushed into his face. He was swung back and forth and all around. Through the nightshirt folds he saw the legs of the man holding him. Hans clawed at the legs and with his free foot kicked the man’s face as hard as he could.
‘Ow!’ the man said, and dropped him.
Hans hit the ground head first and rolled aside.
‘He kicked me! Little beast kicked me!’
The soldier roared and hopped about with one hand on his face. The other soldiers pointed at him and laughed. For a moment they had forgotten Hans while they mocked the misery of their comrade.
Hans crawled to the side of the great tent and worked his way around it, slipping into every pool of shadow that came.
‘Hey now! Where’s the little spy got to?’
Other shouts sounded. By then Hans had got part way around the tent. Few soldiers were in sight. He took a chance and ran straight from the tent toward the outpost-fires.
Soldiers came rushing up to grab him but he ducked under their arms and got past. At the last fire a knot of them rushed at him but Hans had played Bump-the-man long enough to know the game. He ran headlong into the midmost soldier, turning his shoulder into the man’s chest and knocking him headlong. Then he was through.
Shouts and clinking armor sounded on his heels. Hans never ran so fast in all his life. He flew up the ridge away from the camp.
He ran and ran. The Charcoal Burners were short men, no taller than Hans, and their legs were stubby and bowed. They made for slow runners but Hans feared they would be tireless. He could outrace them in a sprint but in time they would gain on him and overtake him.
A gabble of shouts echoed across the hayfields behind him. They grew fainter and more scattered as Hans ran on. He flew straight up the dale, then swerved to the left, then the right. He still held his speed but breath was beginning to fail him.
How could he keep free of all the soldiers? Where could he hide in the open fields?
He looked into the sky. Was it brighter to the East? If only he could keep out of their clutches until day broke, he would be safe. They would have less power under the Sun.
If he could only find a farmstead! They were few and far between in the valley bottom. He knew the dozen or so farmers hereabouts by name. But where was he? He had gone so far, and taken so crazy a path, that he hardly knew. But he thought he had come higher up the valley, and farther to the West. Somehow he had to make his way back East and find the Road. The soldiers were likely thicker along the Road, but the main farms lay along it also and Hans knew them for he had gone up the Road all the way to Mutterbad town with Father twice in the past two years, trading faggots for town-goods.
The shouts echoed across the night, oddly twisting in the night-fogs. Hans loped along. He hardly went faster than a good brisk walking pace now. His lungs and throat ached. And then he felt a hot pinch at his foot and he was down.
He fell heavily, turning over twice before he stopped. His left foot was throbbing. It had caught in a rabbit- or badger-hole and twisted under him.
He felt it gingerly. He did not think it had broken. It was only a sprain but it was a bad sprain. Already the ankle was puffing up.
The wicken-soldiers’ shouts came nearer. Hans tried to stand. Resting on his right leg, he shifted a bit of his weight over to the left. The pain bloomed in his ankle, hot and throbbing, but he didn’t fall. He tried a few hobbling steps.
He limped away, unsure what way he had been heading, unsure if it mattered. The shouts came from all sides. He couldn’t manage more than a halting pace. ‘I might as well lie down and wait for them to find me,’ he thought.
Before him in the fog loomed a high dark shape. ‘A house at last!’ he thought, but it was only a haystack. He tumbled against its side. He leaned on it gasping and spitting. His ankle was on fire. He didn’t think he could go any farther.
He calmed his breath and listened to the Night. Would it never end? It seemed that it had been several hours ago when he had deemed the Night had only one hour left before the dawn. But the dawn had not come. It seemed the dawn would never come.
The shouts grew louder, sharper. They were closing in on him.
