The Goblin Wood - By Hilari Bell Page 0,3

every dawn when old Haren hitched the oxen to the wheel. The noise of the pump, pulling the night's seepage back up to the lake, was as much a part of the dike as the scent of mud - its absence made her feel like a stranger in an unfamiliar place. She'd thought she and her mother had a place in the village. Friends. It was dangerous to disobey a priest, for the teachings of the Hierarch's church were backed by the swords of the Hierarch's guards. But the villagers could have warned them!

Not one had. So much for friendship.

With the hatchet, it took only a few minutes to reduce the pump's cog pins to splinters. They would never get it working in time.

She turned off the road before reaching the dock, for she knew she couldn't face the sight of it, and cut across a field of new corn, carelessly trampling the tender shoots. It was a hard scramble up the dike, for the sluice gate was set where the land was lowest. At the top, the fresh wind that blew off the lake struck her like a slap. The sound of the waves lapping the shore brought everything hurtling back.

She had watched them from behind a screen of brush and grass as they dragged her mother, struggling now, over the dock's rough boards. It took two men to carry the heavy chains and shackles. They always drowned a sorceress, so she couldn't use the power of her dying breath to summon demons or to curse.

As soon as the last man had moved onto the dock, Makenna scrambled underneath it and ran forward. By now the men who held her mother had reached the end. She heard the thudding of their feet as her mother fought.

The water met Makenna halfway. She was in it up to her knees before the thought struck her - what was she going to do? She couldn't fight. Then the scream rose, a terrible, wavering shriek, and her mother's body flashed down, wreathed with chains, her face mindless with terror, like an animal caught in a trap.

A tremendous splash and a swirl of bubbles cut of the sound.

Makenna was swimming then, hearing the feet tramping overhead, not caring anymore if they heard her. When she reached the end of the dock the water was stil , and she stared helplessly at its softly heaving surface. What could she do? She could dive for her mother, but the water was deep here. Even if she reached her, she had no way to break or unfasten the chain. And no swimmer could haul up that weight.

The desire to scream rose in her, to scream and scream and go on screaming until the world was blotted out by the sound. It took al her wil to suppress it.

Screaming was useless. Her mother was dead.

She moaned, clinging to the rough wood pil ar that supported the dock. Then some instinct for survival stirred and, though she clung there, drifting in the light wash of the waves for a long time, she made no further sound. Makenna shuddered, pulling herself out of the past, and went to the wheel, that twisted the screw, that lifted the sluice gate. It took all her strength, but once she got it turning, it spun easily. The dike shivered under her feet with the violence of the current surging beneath it. Only when the screw reached the top of its length and jammed did she look down at the water shooting out, rushing through the ditches, already swamping the low end of the fields and covering the base of the pump. The sight gave her intense satisfaction, and she realized that, for the first time that day, she felt no desire to cry. Looking carefully at the thick wooden screw, she decided the saw would be quickest. She set the blade as low as she could, where the screw vanished into the gate mechanism. At first, the saw jerked and buckled, but she struggled on, and soon each thrust bit deeper into the wood. When the saw broke through, she twisted the top part of the screw free and threw it into the pond, which was deepening rapidly at the base of the dike. It already stretched over several fields. Makenna could no longer see the water spurting in, but the surface beneath her feet roiled furiously. Good, the gate was underwater. With the screw cut, they wouldn't be able to get it