The Burning Shadow by Michelle Paver Read Free Book Online Page B

the Outsider, not Flea the slave.
    Despite the fear, he was growing almost accustomed to the mines. He knew that overseers were called “guts,” the girls who tended the lamps down the pit were “sparks,’” and the small children who sorted the greenstone were “moles.”
    Apart from Spit, he got along all right with his fellow spiders. Bat was cheerful and keen to help. Beetle remained silent and fearful underground, but was friendly above, although he’d been more subdued of late. Zan was clever and resourceful, and he never pried. “We all got secrets,” he said with a shrug.
    One night, Hylas stole a joint of smoked hog from a gut and they sat munching in the dark, swapping their stories. Zan said he was the son of a horse-breaker from somewhere called Arzawa, far to the east. Bat had been born at the mines: He
thought
his mother had been a slave and his father a gut, but was hazy on details. Beetle’s father had been a rich Egyptian merchant.
    â€œSo he says,” said Zan, rolling his eyes. “But then he wants us to believe that in Egypt they got horses that live in rivers, and giant man-eating lizards!”
    â€œWe do,” said Beetle. “They’re called crocodiles, they—”
    Zan grinned and pelted him with pebbles.
    Beetle sprang to his feet and went to stand at the mouth of the den.
    â€œWhat’s got into him?” said Hylas.
    Zan shrugged. “What about you, Flea? You got any kin?”
    Hylas hesitated. “My mother left me on a mountain. That’s all I know.” It wasn’t. He knew she had cared about him and Issi, because she’d wrapped them in a bearskin and stroked his face; but he didn’t want to tell Zan, or reveal that he had a sister.
    Two days later, they were crawling down to the seventh level to pick up another load when his sack snagged. By the time he’d freed it, the others had gone ahead.
    As he hurried around a bend, he made out a couple of pit props a few paces in front. Between them crouched a small murky figure, gripping a hammerstone with both hands.
    It took Hylas a moment to grasp that the figure was pounding at one of the props, trying to dislodge it. “Hey, you!” he yelled.
    Whoever it was flung down the stone and fled, with Hylas scrambling after him.
    Several frantic twists and turns later, Hylas crashed into Spit. Grabbing him by the hair, Hylas wrenched his arm behind his back. “Knocking out a pit prop?
Why?
You could’ve killed us all!”
    Spit wriggled and squealed. Hylas jerked his arm higher.
    Zan and Beetle arrived and hauled him off.
    â€œHe was trying to bring down the roof!” panted Hylas.
    â€œIt wasn’t me, I swear!” whimpered Spit. “May the Lady of Fire strike me dead if I lie!”
    â€œLeave him alone, Flea,” said Zan. “He says it wasn’t him.”
    â€œBut I saw him!”
    â€œI said leave it!”

    A few days later, Hylas jolted awake from a bad dream.
    It wasn’t yet dawn, and on the furnace ridge the smith’s hammer had fallen silent. Hylas lay listening to the crows cawing around the stronghold. Kreon had discovered what people called his clan, and he
liked
it. He’d ordered carcasses flung from the walls to attract the birds.
    Hylas got up and started putting on his rags. These days, he moved in a fog of dread. There was something terribly wrong with Thalakrea, and it was getting worse.
    It was whispered that the snatchers no longer stayed underground. Someone had glimpsed a shadow emerging from the pit and slipping downhill. A boy had woken from a nightmare and felt something squatting on his chest. And last night, a hammerman had rushed screaming up the slope and thrown himself down the shaft. Even the animals had sensed that something was wrong. The pools had fallen silent: The frogs had gone.
    Some said the Mountain was angry because they were digging too deep, while others blamed