Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier Page A

themselves with tending to their fire and had nothing to say.

    In time the rain ceased, patches of clear sky appeared, and watery sunlight filtered down between the branches of the oaks, where leaves clung in last defiance of the turning season. My clothing dried – perhaps I should not have been surprised that my companions’ little fire did the job so well. At one point Sage went off into the woods, returning some time later with a bunch of the herbs that had eluded me. Red Cap brewed a tea to soothe my aching throat.
    ‘You’ll not get far with that cough,’ Sage observed, watching me drink the draught. ‘If you can’t keep quiet, how can you hide from folk who mean you harm?’
    ‘I’ll keep away from the farms until my cough is gone.’
    ‘There’s not a lot of eatables to be gleaned up the Rush Valley,’ Sorrel said.
    ‘I’ll be all right for a while. You’ve fed me well today.’
    Plain on their faces was the conviction that I would be far from all right, but nobody said a word.
    ‘I can fend for myself,’ I said firmly. ‘You said we could go up and take a look out over the valley. Can we do that now?’
    ‘Aye, we will.’
    They led me to a vantage point shielded by great stones. From here I could look down over the broad valley of the Rush. The river slowed its breakneck pace on this last part of its course, dividing into three separate streams that flowed into Deepwater. And there, on the far side of those streams, close by the loch shore, was Summerfort: a formidable fortress of stone. A wall enclosed both the keep and various other buildings, sufficient to house a large contingent of warriors as well as all the folk required to maintain a royal household over the summer. There was no banner flying atop the keep. I breathed more easily for that, for it meant the king was not in residence.
    When we had first left our home village, or what was left of it, Father and I had fled down the valley of the Rush, up into these woods and away. I had not expected to pass this way again. Stunned by shock and grief, I had thought only of running, hiding, putting as many miles between myself and Corbie’s Wood as I could. When Father and I had looked down on Summerfort, warriors had been performing complicated manoeuvres on horseback, moving across the expanse of hard-packed earth that formed the keep’s practice ground.
    ‘Getting ready for the Gathering,’ Father had muttered. ‘Even that, Keldec’s made his own. Set his stamp on the very heart of us. Celebrations? Games? It’s all blood and fear now, and the sort of games no man would play if he had any choice. Come, Neryn, let’s walk on.’ We had passed by like a pair of ghosts, silent and wary. I had not asked for further details and Father had not offered them.
    Well, Father was gone now, and here I was, on a journey I had never thought to make. There would be no slipping by Summerfort under cover. Some time in the last three years, the area all around the fortress walls had been completely cleared of trees. Where beech and birch had stood, softening the grim stone, there remained nothing but a scattering of stumps. One or two had sprouted hopeful clusters of new leaves, which now shrivelled under autumn’s cold fingers.
    ‘Not a lot of cover in those bittie trees,’ put in Sorrel helpfully. ‘Besides, the water’s up. No getting over the ford, not on foot. You’ll have to cross the king’s bridge up there.’
    It was true. The rain had swollen the Rush. Here and there the flow had broken the banks, and the three streams looked both broad and deep. To attempt to wade across would, at the very least, make me a target for the sentries atop the Summerfort tower. More likely I would be swept downstream and drowned. From where we stood we could not see the king’s bridge, but I knew it was always guarded. When Father and I had come down the valley, the sentries had waved us across. That seemed altogether remarkable to me now, though at the