Free Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier Page A

the hope that the way would clear and let me move on. As I waited, the sky opened, releasing a downpour that dwarfed the previous rain. I huddled under Flint’s cloak, watching the road, where the deluge had slowed but not halted the stream of riders travelling eastward. Water dripped from the foliage to pool around me. My bones ached with cold.
    There was no making fire. I had neither heart nor strength to look for food. I could not remember how it felt to have a full belly. It seemed to me I would never be dry and warm again. I cursed Father for dying; I cursed him for believing he could change our world with a wager.
    ‘If only you were here,’ I whispered into the chill as the light faded to dusk and the endless curtain of rain turned all to shadowy haze around me. He couldn’t have made the rain stop; he had no canny powers. He couldn’t have conjured supper from nowhere or stopped the Enforcers from riding by. But if he had been here I would not have been alone.
    I stayed where I was for a night and a day. On the second night the rain stopped and I risked moving on in the dark. My limbs were like an old woman’s, stiff and cramped. I crept through the woods, struggling not to cough. Each furtive footstep sounded to me like an intrusive crash, alerting the whole world to my presence. Perhaps Keldec had sentries right here on the hill. Maybe the Enforcers who had ridden past yesterday were waiting just around the next corner. When an owl flew out from the trees ahead, my heart jolted in fright.
    The walk felt endless. It felt pointless. Why in the name of the gods had I promised to fight? I could hardly manage to put one foot in front of the other. Remember the song, I told myself . But that seemed a long time ago, and I was too tired to remember.
    At last came a watery dawn, and there, a hundred paces or so before me, was the broad valley of the Rush, the river that cut through the mountains on its headlong progress to Deepwater. Once I reached the crest of the hill, just over there, I would be looking down on the stone keep, the wall, the hard-packed practice areas of Summerfort. There would be guards everywhere.
    A voice spoke right behind me, making me jump in fright. ‘You’ll be wanting a wee sit-down and maybe a brew.’
    I whirled around and there, standing quiet as shadows amid the damp ferns of the forest floor, were two small figures. The little woman in the hooded green cloak: Sage. The odd creature with the leafy pelt: Sorrel. He extended a fronded hand, beckoning. I did not move.
    ‘A brew?’ I croaked, thinking how good it would be to wrap my hands around a warm cup, to soothe my aching throat with a hot drink. ‘You can’t make fire here. We’re too close to Summerfort. They’d see the smoke. And we should keep our voices down.’
    ‘Still heading north, are you?’ Sage’s eyes were fixed on me in piercing question.
    Had I told them this? ‘Up the valley of the Rush.’
    The little woman looked at her companion, then the two of them gazed at me. ‘You’ll not get far in that state,’ she said. ‘A few steps out from the forest, just far enough for king’s men to catch sight of you, and then you’ll collapse in a dead faint. If you won’t accept help when it’s offered, you’re more fool than I took you for.’
    ‘I must go on,’ I whispered.
    ‘Not without a brew and a warm-up,’ said Sorrel. ‘Come this way.’
    ‘I told you –’
    ‘Aye, we heard you. They’d see the smoke. From your fire, maybe. Not from mine.’
    ‘Come on, lassie,’ Sage said, reaching up to take a fold of my cloak between her bony fingers. ‘You’re all shivery-shaky. It’s not far.’
    Their fire was a little higher up the hill, in a depression between great rocks. It was so tiny I doubted it would warm so much as a beetle. There was no smoke at all. On the flames was a small pannikin, and there was Red Cap, stirring the contents with a long stick. He still wore the sling. I could see the