The Gold Falcon Read Free

Clae.
    In the morning, Neb woke with a start. A gaggle of gnomes stood around them as if they were standing guard, while sprites floated overhead. The yellow gnome materialized and stood pointing to its stomach.
    “Do you know where there’s food?” Neb whispered.
    The gnome nodded and pointed off into the forest.
    “Can you show me where it is?”
    Again the gnome nodded. When Neb shook him, Clae woke with a howl and a scatter of tears. He slid off Neb’s lap and screwed his fists into his eyes.
    “Time to get on the road,” Neb said with as much cheer as he could muster. “I’ve got the feeling we’re going to be lucky today.”
    “My feet hurt. I can’t walk anymore.” Clae lowered his hands. “I’ll just die here.”
    “You won’t do any such thing. Here, stick out your legs. One at a time! I’ll wrap the swaddling for you.”
    With the rags bound tight against his feet, Clae managed to keep walking. As they beat their way through fern and thistle, the Wildfolk led the boys straight into the forest, dodging around the black-barked pines and trampling through green ferns. Neb was beginning to wonder if the gnomes knew where they were going when he realized that up ahead the light was growing brighter. The trees grew farther apart, and the underbrush thinned. A few more yards, and they stepped out into a clearing, where a mass of redberry canes grew in a mound. Clae rushed forward and was already stuffing his mouth when Neb caught up with him. Neb mumbled a prayer of thanks to the gods, then began plucking every berry he could reach.
    Red juice like gore stained their hands and faces by the time they forced themselves to stop. Neb was considering finding a stream to wash in when the yellow gnome appeared again. It grabbed his shirt with one little hand and with the other pointed to the far side of the clearing. When Neb took a few steps that way, he realized that he could hear running water.
    “There’s a stream or suchlike over yonder,” Neb said to Clae. “We’ll go that way.”
    The gnome smiled and nodded its head. Other Wildfolk appeared and surrounded them as they crossed the clearing. They worked their way through forest cover for about a hundred yards before they found the stream, and just beyond that, a marvel: a dirt road, curving through the trees. When Neb sighted along it, it seemed to run roughly east.
    “I never knew this road was here,” Clae said.
    “No more did I,” Neb said.
    “I wonder where it goes to? There’s naught out to the west of here.”
    “Doesn’t matter. We can walk faster now, and a road means people must have made it.”
    “But what about the raiders?” Clae looked nervously around him. “They’ll follow the road and get us.”
    “They won’t,” Neb said firmly. “They’ve got those huge horses, so they can’t ride through the wild woods. They’ll never get as far as this road.”
    Neb insisted they wash their hands before they scooped up drinking water in them. When they finished, he pulled up a handful of grass, soaked it, and cleaned the snot and berry juice off Clae’s face.
    All that day they tried to ignore their hunger and make speed, but now and again the road dipped into shallow ravines or swung wide around a mound or spur of naked rock—no easy traveling. As far as Neb could tell, however, it continued to run east toward safety. Around noon, the forest thinned out along a stream, where they found a few more berries and a patch of wood sorrel they could graze like deer. Then it was back on the road to stumble along, exhausted. Neb began to lose hope, but the sprites fluttered ahead of them, and the yellow gnome kept beckoning them onward.
    Toward sunset, Neb saw thin tendrils of pale blue smoke drifting far ahead. He froze and grabbed Clae’s arm.
    “Back into the trees,” he whispered.
    Clae took a deep breath and fought back tears. “Do we have to go back to the forest? I’m all scratched up from the thistles and suchlike.”
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