As she spoke, Julina noted that Amrhost rode alone, paying little or no attention to his surroundings. She frowned, wondering what was on the northerner's mind. `If it happens that you are plotting against us, Master Amrhost,' she though to herself, `then I shall deal with you personally!'

Late that night they made camp in a field by the river. The sky was clear, the sky velvet black, the stars hard in their brilliance. Bisecting the sky was a bright smear of starlight-- the Milky Way. In that far-off day and age, the stars were enough to illuminate, and to cast pale shadows. Darting to and fro across the green fields in search of insect prey were various nightbirds, now long extinct and once related to the swallow, with the same knife-shaped wings and spectacular aerobatics. Rhia noticed the lights of a town in the distance.

"That is Woodfalen," Nylandor told her. "The road will take us through it tomorrow, and across the bridge which lies just beyond."

The next morning Rhia woke to a day that was chill and cloudy, and there was a dampness in the air, but by late morning the sky was blue again, with white clouds drifting sedately by. Before noon they had passed through Woodfalen and reached the bridge beyond.

Even to Rhia's eyes, Woodfalen had seemed a rustic place. The streets were narrow and rutted, the dwellings thatched and built of field stone, the windows small and shuttered. There were many high fences made of brambles that seemed mainly to line the road, as though to impress upon passersby that the stoic inhabitants had no love of strangers.




Most Popular