Darkwood by M. E. Breen

marks?” Chopper asked when they’d finished. The girl shook her head.
    Chopper held up Page’s book. “
The Trap of Vice
, by Chilton Smalle. Serious little thing, isn’t she?”
    Gibbet frowned. “Anything else?”
    Annie held her breath, but the only things Chopper had uncovered were the inedible rinkle nuts and a red leaf she had picked up in the forest. He crumbled the leaf in his fingers.
    â€œThat’s all, sir.”
    â€œAnd no marks.” Gibbet sounded disappointed.
    â€œPut her in with the rest?” Chopper asked.
    Gibbet shrugged and moved off, no longer interested. Chopper started after him. He was still holding Page’s book.
    â€œWait, Mr. Chopper! Please, may I have my book?”
    Chopper handed it to her with a faint smile. “Expect to get some reading in, do you? Think again, kiddie.”
    The two men spoke for some time, or rather Chopper talked and Gibbet listened, his red line of a mouth tightly closed. At length Chopper gave a brief salute and Gibbet walked to a waiting wagon. He had already taken the reins in hand, and Annie was thinking how odd it was that a person of his stature should drive himself, when a young man ran up and spoke to him. Gibbet bent toward him, as though listening attentively. Then casually, without anger, Gibbet raised his whip and slashed it across the man’s face. He drove off, leaving the man rocking on his knees in the dirt.
    The man with the mole said only, “Shouldn’t have done it,” then untied her and brought her over to stand at the very edge of the cliff.
    â€œNow watch.”
    Iron rings had been driven into the rock at even intervals along the top of the cliff. From these rings stretched taut ropes, disappearing over the edge into the bare blue air. Men hung from the ropes at various heights along the cliff face, chipping at the rock with delicate picks. Around their hips they wore wide leather straps fashioned into a sort of seat, to which were attached woven baskets. They filled the baskets with the shards of ringstone they carved from the cliffs. From above the men looked like spiders dangling from silk threads, blowing backand forth across the surface of the rock with each strong breeze. While Annie watched, one man shouted a warning that he had dropped his pick. The pick grew tinier and tinier until it became invisible in the blue air above the blue river sweeping through the base of the gorge. She looked at the ropes straining against the weight of the men and their heavy baskets. Many of them had begun to fray where they rubbed against the stony cliff edge. One of the men hallooed from the end of his rope.
    â€œNumber Four, up!”
    A man crouching at one end of the line of ropes repeated the cry. “Number Four, up!”
    Three stout men appeared from inside one of the tents. Despite the cold morning air, they wore only brief tunics over their pants and no shoes. The muscles in their bare arms looked ready to burst through the skin. One of them wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he had been drinking.
    The men walked to where the ropes were tied off and sat down to put on their shoes. These were no ordinary shoes. Attached to the soles were metal spikes, three or four inches long and viciously sharp. The men stood in line, one behind the other, and began pounding their feet into the hard dirt. Then each man put his arms around the waist of the man in front of him, and the first man leaned forward to grasp the rope.
    â€œReady?” he called out.
    â€œHeave!” The men threw their weight back simultaneously, and the rope inched up the cliff. The first man passedthe slack in the rope back to the last man, who curled the rope around his arm.
    â€œHo!” the first man called, and the three men leaned forward together.
    â€œHeave!” he called, and they all leaned back again.
    In this manner, faster than Annie would have thought possible, they hauled man