Free Glass Swallow by Julia Golding Page A

prize disappearing down the road. He swore, having to choose between the girl and the stallion.
    ‘I’ll get you for this, scavenger!’ he shouted. With another curse, he released the girl and ran off in pursuit, leaping the broken section of bridge. The prisoner crumpled to her knees, hugging a post as if fearing he would return to drag her away.
    ‘It’s all right now. He’s gone,’ Peri called, holding out a hand to her. He didn’t want to step on the bridge in case his weight caused it to collapse but he had to get her off before the whole thing ended up floating downstream.
    She raised a pair of shocked blue eyes to him, round with fear. The words Peri meant to speak froze on his tongue. He’d never seen anything like her. In Magharna, everyone had straight black hair and dark eyes; she looked like one of the fey people from children’s tales, hardly human, with her wild curls and strange-coloured irises.
    He swallowed. ‘Really, it’s all right.’ He dropped his arm, suddenly doubting himself in front of such a perfect creature. Perhaps she did not want to talk to a scavenger, maybe she thought he’d make her unclean? Annoyed by the thought, he strode to the river and salvaged her bundle which was caught on a fallen branch. ‘Here. We’ve got to go. Krital might be back any moment.’
    She still didn’t react.
    He could feel his anger building but he refused to let it show. The foolish girl was going to drown if she stayed where she was. He pointed in the direction Krital had gone. ‘Do you want him to catch you again?’ He made his tone neutral.
    She shook her head. So at least she understood him.
    ‘Then come on.’ With a whistle, Peri summoned Rogue from a nearby tree and crooned praise to the falcon as he replaced the hood.
    Rain made herself let go of the wooden post. She had passed beyond terror and was now numb. She’d fallen out of the clutches of one bandit and into the power of this strange young man with his cruel hunting falcon. What was he going to do with her? At least with Krital she had understood the man’s moods and intentions; this stranger’s calmness, even facing down a bandit twice his size, disguised his emotions from her. His face was made up of angles and planes like cut glass crystal: high cheek bones, hawkish nose, stubborn jaw. He seemed as hard and polished as the bird he carried. Perhaps it would be better not to know what he was going to do.
    Gathering her courage, she stood up and walked off the bridge, her slight weight making no impression on the creaking structure. The falconer did not try and take her hand again, just beckoned her to follow him, speaking too quickly for her to understand his rapid Magharnan. Knowing she didn’t really have a choice, she trailed after him down the road to where a stocky chestnut horse grazed under a tree. The young man busied himself placing the falcon in a travelling basket while she huddled against the trunk, shivering from cold and shock. She felt very far away from what was happening, as if watching herself from a great height. He was talking to her now, opening the canvas bundle and pulling out the first change of clothes he came across. He threw it towards her and gestured to her to put it on.
    ‘W-why?’ she stuttered through chattering teeth, wishing she had learnt more than very basic Magharnan.
    ‘You’ll catch your death of cold if you don’t get out of those wet things,’ he explained, his tone a touch impatient. ‘But hurry, mistress, your admirer will be back at any moment and we must be gone.’
    She couldn’t follow half of what he said: something about death and a threat that she’d be caught again. Feeling horribly powerless, she picked up the dry clothes. He turned his back while she changed. She only realized as her fingers caught on the slashed material that he had handed her the jettana’s robe. She was going to be sick: the woman was dead, lying on the road not a mile away with her cousin, left