Free Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier

forest would no longer provide safe concealment. I was wood wise; I had learned the skills I needed while Father and I were on the run. What I had not been taught by Grandmother about foraging and making shelter, I had worked out for myself as Father and I criss-crossed the highlands, always keeping one step ahead of trouble. We stayed no longer than a night or two in any single place, fearing our presence might bring unwelcome attention on those who sheltered us. We never talked about why the Enforcers might be interested in us. Often enough they came close to us, covertly, thinking we would not know them in their plain dark clothing, without their silver brooches and their jingling harness. But we knew: their ill deeds hung over them like a bad smell. We used what skills we had to vanish into the forest; we let Alban conceal us.
    Once or twice folk had whispered that the king’s men were asking after a traveller in the north, a fellow with a good hand for stanies, wandering with a daughter who was somewhere between girl and woman. Had anyone seen this pair? If they did, they were to report it straight away to the nearest Enforcer. Lie about it and the punishment would be grievous indeed. Nonetheless, some folk had been brave enough to warn us. Not of recent times.

    I walked for one day, two days, three. I developed a cough that would not clear. Each night in the forest the spasms kept me awake longer and hurt more. Each morning as I awoke to another day of chill and damp, I found it harder to catch my breath. There were herbs that might have eased the symptoms, but they did not seem to grow here, and even if I had been able to find them, I could only have made the simplest of infusions.
    Hope is easy enough to find on a sunny day, when a person’s clothing is dry and her belly is full and the prospect of a good night’s rest lies ahead. It is much harder to keep that flame alight when autumn closes in and the rain falls in sheets, drenching every tree and bush and turning the ground to a treacherous quagmire. It is still more difficult when the wind gets up, chilling the air and sending every creature scurrying for what meagre shelter it can find.
    Staring into my little fire one night, I acknowledged that I would soon be in serious trouble. I was dizzy with hunger. My chest ached. I always felt cold, even though I spent all day on the move, climbing rock walls, making precarious crossings over gushing streams, darting into cover if I saw any sign of human activity. For even here, up in the woods, there were tracks used by local cottagers, places where pigs were driven out to forage for nuts and roots, signs that folk had been burning charcoal or gathering firewood. The closer I came to Summerfort, the harder it would be to stay unseen.
    I reached a place where the track dipped down to run along a lower part of the hill, a stone’s throw from the broader way that followed the loch shore. This was a hard-packed earthen road suited to carts and riders, and it was busy. Among those who passed along it were groups of Enforcers, most of them heading eastward. They were riding to Summerfort, I guessed. Perhaps they would report the progress of the Cull to King Keldec, if he was still in residence there. He would be proud of them.
    It made me sick to see them ride by. I kept well clear of the road and moved as quietly as I could. One wrong step, one cracking twig or sliding foot, and I would be in custody in the blink of an eye, forced to answer hard questions about what I was doing out here on my own.
    Four days, five days, and still no sight of Summerfort. The leaves fell all around me; the branches above me grew bare and stark. This was taking too long. What if I could not reach the pass before the winter snow came? But I couldn’t press on today. Riders had been going by since early morning. If I came too close, my coughing would give me away. I found a hollow barely big enough to accommodate a fox and crouched there in