Willow Read Free Page B

Brook was only lightly patrolled. Just twice that night the goat paused, and Ethna heard the distant howling of Death Dogs and the clatter of hooves in the valleys below. Each time she muffled the laughter of the child against her bosom until the dread sounds faded.
    At dawn they reached the brook and bade farewell to the goat, who pushed up its muzzle for the child to touch. Ethna waded into the cold water and turned south. For many nights she persevered, taking shelter by day, accepting the succor of shy animals who came to the need of the child, and in time the brook deepened into the river and the river broadened into the fens. Bog people found her drifting half-dead, clinging to a floating log. They took her into their huts, and warmed her, and nursed her back to strength.
    Even here in the depths of the marshes, where fogs hung like drapes and the swamp gasses sometimes gleamed like spectral lanterns, the oarlocks of Kael’s boats creaked in the darkness. Death Dogs clambered into stilted huts. Women shrieked. Men cursed and died, throats gone.
    Cautiously, always by night, the bog people moved Ethna and the child south into the safety of their small fortress. Thence, cavalry escorted her west across the River Troon and a few leagues beyond. Alone in the wild, their food exhausted, Ethna and the child once more relied on the kindness of animals, who succored them and guided them along secret paths. At last, when they reached the headwaters of the River Freen, Ethna rejoiced for she knew that only a few leagues beyond, high in its lush mountains, stood their destination—the sanctuary of Galladoorn.
    But here the brave midwife’s good luck ran out. Here roaming Death Dogs chanced upon her scent and bore down upon her fast, long frustrated and eager for blood.
    She had only a little warning, only time enough to bind together a makeshift boat of driftwood, using vines and strips of her clothing. She had time enough to spread a little cradle of soft reeds inside, and to wrap the child in her shawl and lay her in. She had time enough to kiss her, and just time enough to launch the frail little craft into the waiting arms of the current.
    Then the first dogs were on her.
    Bavmorda swept into the conjuring room at Nockmaar that dawn to find her three priests ecstatic. Robes high, they were prancing skinny-legged around the vision-bowl. Caught up in their mirth, even the tower-trolls were chortling and swatting themselves.
    “Oh, Your Majesty,” the chief priest greeted her, “what a vision we have for you! What a vision!”
    “Look!” said the second, stepping back.
    “Behold!” said the third.
    Staring suspiciously, pulling her cloak tight, Bavmorda drew close.
    Milky fluid cleared in the crucible. Bavmorda saw a thinly wooded riverbank. A knot of Death Dogs ripped and tore at a corpse, while several more raced to join them. A squad of Kael’s cavalrymen followed, with a few wiry dog-trainers loping beside them, clinging to their stirrups. When they reached the corpse, one of these trainers ordered the dogs back, and with a few lance jabs at the torn throat, severed the head from the body. He lifted it by the hair, high enough for the troopers to recognize Ethna. The troopers uttered a ragged cheer, fists raised. The man dropped the head back onto the bloody corpse, and the dogs swarmed in.
    Bavmorda granted in brief satisfaction. “And the child?”
    “The child,” said the first priest, clearing his throat. “Yes. The child.”
    “The child.” The second priest turned to the third. “Did you notice what happened to the child?”
    The third priest sighed. “The fact is, Your Majesty, we don’t know. But now that they’ve found the midwife . . .”
    “Fools!” Bavmorda murmured. But she did not fly into a rage. She kept gazing into the bowl, beguiled by what she saw.
    Even feeding, how magnificent were the Death Dogs!

I I

UFGOOD REACH
    F rom the mountains of the two High Kingdoms, the River Freen