Page 51 of The Piper's Pursuit

“Yes, we must go now so the piper cannot get us. Are you ready?”

Dietmar nodded.

She turned and found Verena just behind her.

“Is everyone here? Anyone badly hurt?”

“I counted fifty-two, including Albrecht and me, so that is everyone. No one seems badly hurt. Just a few bruises.”

“Were the guards not able to strike anyone with their swords?”

“The children all attacked at once and stole their swords before they could draw them.”

“Miraculous.” Kat breathed a prayer—“Thank You, God”—as Steffan came up beside her.

“What do we do with them now?” Steffan looked nervous.

Katerina opened her mouth, shut it, then said, “I guess we forgot to talk about that. But we have to get them far away from Hennek.”

“We should take them to Hagenheim. But for now we had better get out of here.” Steffan looked at Albrecht and Verena. “Can you get them to the opening?”

“Of course.” Albrecht turned and spoke to the children. “We’re getting out of here, but we have to stick together, you understand?”

“Yes, we will,” several of them said.

“This is Steffan and Katerina, and they will help us. But we all have to be brave.”

“Yes, Albrecht.” Some of the little faces looked eager. Some still had that dazed, frightened look, but they would feel better, surely, once they were out of this hole in the ground.

They started toward the passage that would take them back to the opening through which they had all been forced to climb down. But this time they were climbing up, to freedom.

***

Steffan hurried to the entrance of the mine so he could help the smaller children climb up the ladder.

The three men Steffan had killed weighed heavy in his chest, but he’d done it so they could escape. They were men profiting off children, and he had little choice. He did not, would not, regret the deaths of these henchmen of Hennek’s... as he had regretted some other men he’d killed.

He hoisted a little girl up the ladder, and an older girl came alongside her and helped her climb the rest of the way. Most of the children scrambled up the ladder without any help at all, but one particularly small girl started crying when she got to the ladder.

“I’ll help you.” Steffan placed a hand on her small, frail shoulder.

The girl only cried harder and shrank away from him.

Katerina came forward and bent down to her level. “I will go with you. Don’t be afraid.”

“I can’t,” the little girl wailed.

“What if I carry her on my back?” Steffan suggested. Nearly all the children were above ground now, waiting for them.

“That might work.”

They continued helping the children up the ladder while the littlest girl clung to Katerina’s side with a tiny fistful of Katerina’s tunic.

Finally the little girl was the last one left. Katerina bent to look into her face.

“I’m going to put you on Steffan’s back. Is that all right?”

The little girl nodded.