Face wounded and bleeding, the man snarled like a combatant animal. Huffing, he flung Maren against the alley wall to his left. The girl hit the wall hard with her back, then dropped to the ground, partially buried under rotting papers.
Maren coughed, trying to breathe, but was only able to exhale. The alley felt as if it were spinning and she was sure that, if Kugun didn’t kill her, she would die from not being able to inhale. She forced herself onto her hands and knees and groaned as tears filled her eyes and panic clutched her body. From the corner of her eye, she could make out the man’s lumbering movements toward her. She took the smallest of breath, and then another until she could stand up and face him. When she did, she noticed that his movements seemed strange.
Kugun took a small step forward, then another back again. His face looked as if he might vomit again, and he clutched his arm. He moved his mouth and Maren thought he was trying to say something, but he dropped to his knees instead, then onto the ground, and rolled onto his back, now grabbing at the front of his shirt. Finally he released a gurgling sound, and he just laid still with eyes wide open.
Maren ran over to the broken mop handle and clutched it tightly. She then walked over to the large, lifeless body of her owner and stared at its face. The alley felt like a tomb, and the still silence seemed unnatural. She reached down and closed Kugun’s eyes, then quickly retracted her arm. Massaging her ear with her free hand, she stared at the man’s face to make sure he wasn’t going to move again.
“Hey, poop-snot,” she whispered to see if he would respond. “I don’t want your pie.” She then gave him a whack across the face with the broom handle. She jumped back, just in case he revived suddenly.
Wanting to make doubly sure that Kugun wasn’t going to move again, Maren hit him again, this time causing a tooth to pop out and stick to his lip. Surprised by the sudden appearance of the yellow tooth, she dropped the makeshift weapon and ran out of the alley as fast as she could.
As Maren approached a familiar open area amidst the many alleys, she could hear men shouting to each other as they finished emptying a wagon.
“She got you good,” she heard one of them say.
“If I see that brat again, I’m going to whoop her!” the other man yelled back.
She paused for a moment, considering her next move. Her hand shook as it reached for her ear, and her heart refused to slow down. Though she saw Kugun die, she possessed a lingering fear that he was slowly trudging behind her, still wanting to strangle the life from her.
She made herself small and watched, trying to make no sound. When all the men had gone inside the shop, she darted across the opening and into the alley that she believed led toward her owner’s shop.
Zigging and zagging around crates and rubbish, Maren ran as fast as she could without looking back. Eventually, she came to another familiar open area. She saw her cage sitting next to the back door of Kugun’s shop. Running through the still-open apartment door, she grabbed as much food as she could carry in a bindle, then dashed back out.
Still panicking, she ran down the alley that had brought her to the shop days before, and found herself out in the open street.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Road is Long
Maren squinted as her eyes adjusted to the daylight. The hard, gray sky was clearly visible now and the world around her felt raucous and manic.
Knowing that the street ran uphill as it moved toward the city center, she turned left where the alley spilled out and made her way down, hoping it would lead her to the gates, and out toward the countryside.
Clutching her bundle of supplies from Kugun’s apartment, she walked deliberately and swiftly along the narrow sidewalk, often stepping around other walkers, forcing her to travel in the street at times. As she did, the mixture of voices and activities toyed with her thoughts, causing her chest to tighten and her hands to tremble.
“She’s a slave!” she swore she heard a beggar woman call out.
Passing a shop, she was certain that the merchant standing in the doorway was the man who had visited Kugun the day before. “Where’s your owner?” she thought she heard him ask.
Avoiding eye contact, and any questions, Maren willed herself to keep moving forward. Moment by moment, her disdain for the great city grew, and she felt she needed to reach the outside of its walls or it would pull her in and consume her like quicksand.
Somewhere in the commotion, she thought she heard a voice shout, “There she is! She killed Kugun!”
The girl bit down hard, catching her cheek, and the taste of blood filled her mouth. A feeling, like a blow to her lower back, struck her, and she ran.
As her strides grew longer, the downward pitch of the road caused her to move through the air as if she were taking leaps rather than steps, and she narrowly missed a cart full of vegetables that was parked in front of a pub.
Eerily, a voice rang out above the crowd, “Get back here, girly!”
Maren glanced back as she fled with all of her might. No one seemed to be paying attention to her. Almost running directly into a large man sweeping the front of a shop, she weaved just in time and leaped into the street, coming face-to-face with a pony, then ducking and continuing her descent.
Many more leaps, a tumble, and a mad sprint later, she reached the
