Matilde

There were two steps left to dig out when the cavern began to collapse around them. Only Eudora’s forethought had gotten the majority of their camp already packed in preparation for completing the staircase that day.

The excitement was heavy in the air around them, hovering like a thick scent. They hurriedly dug away at the last stretch of wall. Their freedom seemingly so close, they allowed it to cloud their judgement. Five of the women were digging at the same time at the peak of their enormous staircase, driven by desperation to finish. To break free of their dirty prison.

Dani and the younger girl, Lowri, were on the ground, preparing what they expected to be their final meal and packing away their things.

It began from the wall adjacent to the section they were carving into, the strain causing a crack that snaked from their top step and around the room. Then the tunnels leading into their cavern started to rumble, each of their ceilings falling in chunks until they were filled with large clods of earth.

Matilde barked at the women digging beside her to scale the wall any way they could. They would not be finishing the steps. Eudora screeched down to Dani and Lowri to get up and run, then she began running back down the steps. Although her first instinct was to follow, Matilde knew it would not aid them for more weight to be applied to the disintegrating steps. She would wait at the top instead.

Dani was laden like a donkey in the desert when she appeared beside Eudora and then swiftly passed her to get to Matilde. They did not need to exchange words. Matilde took two packs from the four she had piled onto her shoulders and acted as a propellant to shove the small yet stocky woman as far up the lumpy wall as she could reach. The other three had reached the ground above already, and Blaire and Kali dangled an arm each to pull Dani the rest of the way by her armpit and armour. The packs were not excessively heavily, and Matilde quickly strapped them to her back while she watched Dani’s kicking legs disappear over the lip of the wall. The straps crossed over her chest tightly.

A third of the way down the steps, Eudora hesitated as she awaited her youngest member’s ascent. But it would not be wise to stay in her position much longer. The steps themselves fell away in sheets of brittle mud.

“Hurry, Lowri! You are almost there!” Eudora called down, stepping backwards slowly as the young woman approached, struggling to keep her balance against the wall the stairs clung to. Her farm life had raised her with impressive natural strength. Matilde had been especially surprised at the girl’s distended and defined back muscles she kept hidden under her light leather armour. But she did not have the agility of a warrior just yet.

The disintegrating steps chased her, and Matilde realised with alarm that they would soon overtake her. The girl was panic-stricken when the ground crumbled beneath her very feet and let out a strangled yelp. Thankfully, she did not halt her attempts to keep climbing the avalanching earth. Matilde heaved herself back down the steps between them, gripping Eudora’s arm and shoving her behind her towards Blaire and Kali’s waiting hands. Eudora had the arms of the archer she was: toned and strong, but only for certain motions. When it came down to raw strength, it was Matilde who needed to take charge.

The girl let out a chilling scream as she lost her stability in one foot. It dangled freely to the side as she scrabbled against the dirt.

Matilde reached her as the opposite wall crumpled inwards, and Lowri’s tear-streaked face disappeared below the cliff-like edge. She threw herself flat to the step she stood upon, chest hanging over the edge and snatched the girl by her bicep. She would most likely develop a bruise from the rough handling she received as Matilde dragged her back to solid ground, and then refused to release her until they had scaled the remaining steps to the peak. What was a bruise when you had your life?

With all of her might, Matilde launched the girl up into Eudora’s arms and then began to climb the wet wall, her fingers sliding over the few handholds she could find until she finally dragged herself over the lip and onto the grass that filled the small grove tucked between Baby Sylvester and its brother mountain.

She leapt up as quickly as her winded body would allow and let herself be led in a triangular formation of sprinting women with Blaire at the helm. They staggered away from the large hole that had been their only source of light and water for what felt like weeks.

The ground continued to cave in beneath them, and so they kept running in a pack of flailing limbs and panting breaths. A jolt ran through the ground, knocking them forward and sending them tumbling down the steep drop of the smallest mountain in the Sylvester range. Their descent was less than smooth, and Matilde tucked her head inwards with arms braced over her hair as rocks and bumps and sudden plummets threw her around, up, and mostly down.

They finished their fall in bog-like mud. Multiple slap-like splat sounds surrounded Matilde as she landed painfully in a thick puddle.

As Matilde raised her head, scraping mud from the side of her face which had landed in the slop, she realised with disbelief and relief that they were not far from the entrance to the mine, the border of Celandine’s forest, and the trees they had tethered their horses to. She let her limbs go limp in the dirty water and silently prayed to any gods that were listening that no one had stolen her precious Alina, a horse of immense strength and bravery, her most prized possession, and her longest friend.

Prayers and desperate thoughts over with, she sat up. Everything ached, but nothing felt broken. She pried herself out of the mud to her knees, then her feet with a groan.

Kali was flipped onto her stomach, face down in the soggy mud with blonde hair splayed around her in chunks where it had ripped free of her twin braids. The crazy bitch was cackling.

The youngest girl had fallen fairly close to Matilde. She grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and heaved her to her wobbling legs. Her fingernails were filled to the beds with mud from her desperate clinging to the steps and her cheeks were wet with tears. But as long as Matilde could hear her blubbering breaths, she knew the girl was fine.

“Th-thank you,” she gasped.

“You are fine,” Matilde said, a reminder for both of them.

“Lowri!” Eudora gasped as she stumbled on her way up from the ground and flung her arms around the girl. “Thank goodness. I was so- I could never forgive- I-” Her hands patted over Lowri’s face, neck, shoulders, and arms, as though checking every part was still in place. All it truly did was coat the girl in more sludge, but Matilde did not wish to ruin the emotional moment by pointing that out. Eudora was happy, that was what mattered.

“I am fine.” Lowri sniffed and looked to Matilde as though to double-check she had her facts straight. Matilde gave her a small nod.

Eudora turned slowly to follow her gaze, her lips slightly parted and her own eyes watering. “Matilde,” she said so softly and yet it prodded so hard at Matilde’s chest.

“It was nothing.”

“I cannot thank you enough,” Eudora continued, her tone still so sweet and gentle and awful.

“Then do not thank me at all,” Matilde said as dismissively as she could manage. “It was nothing less than what we should expect from each other. We are a team, are we not?”

“We are,” Eudora agreed. And she smiled.

It was the smile that told Matilde she was in trouble. Smiles are not supposed to warm your face like a hearth when they are directed at you.

Terrible, terrible trouble.