By day the dark-haired girl Willow came back to herself a little, although in some ways she seemed so childish that Ferras Vansen wondered if her problems were solely caused by having crossed the Shadowline— perhaps, he thought, she had already been a bit simpleminded Whatever the case, under the small bit of sun that leaked through the clouds she became the most cheerful of the generally silent company, riding in front of Vansen and chattering about her family and neighbors like a small child being taken to the market fair.
“She is so little, but she is the most stubborn of the lot. She will push the other goats away from the food— even the biggest of her brothers!”
Collum Dyer listened to her babble with a sour expression on his face. “Better you than me, Captain.”
Ferras shrugged. “I am happy she is talking. Perhaps after a while she will say something that we will thank Perin Cloudwalker we learned.”
“Perhaps. But, as I said, better you than me.”
In truth, Ferras Vansen was almost glad of the distraction. The land through which they passed was less obviously strange than the previous two days’ stretch of road, deserted and a bit gloomy but otherwise about what he would have expected as they neared the halfway point of the journey, and thus not particularly interesting With the largest cities of Settland and the March Kingdoms several days’ ride away in either direction, these lands had emptied in the years since the second war with the Twhght People, leaving only crofters and woodsmen of various sorts and the occasional farmer. The few small cities like Candlerstown and Faneshill had grown up south of the Settland Road, well away from the Shadowlme (These towns were also too far out of the way to be worth visiting this trip, a fact much mourned by Dyer and the rest of Vansen’s men ) Winters were also milder closer to the water to the east or west few felt the need to live out here in such dramatic solitude. The Settland Road passed through low hills and scrub that were even more undistinguished than the lands where Ferras had spent his childhood.
They could see the line again now, just a few miles away to the north, or at least they could see the breakfront of mist that marked it. It was wearying to ride hour after hour with it hovering so close, hard not to think of it as a malevolent thing watching them and waiting for an opportunity to do harm, but Ferras was much happier knowing where it was, able to see that there was still a crisp delineation between his side and the other.
Willow had moved from goats to the topic of her father and swine, and was explaining what her sire had to say about letting the hogs scavenge for mast—for the “oak corns” as she called them. Vansen, who had spent most of the last ten years of his life trying to forget about raising hogs and sheep, leaned over and asked her, “And what of Collum? Your brother?”
Either his guess was correct or she was madder than he supposed. “He would rather pick rushes than follow the pigs. He is a quiet one, our Collum. Only ten winters Such dreams he has!”
“And where is he now?' He was trying to discover if there was any sense or meaning behind some of the things she had said.
Her look turned sad, even frightened, and he was almost sorry he’d asked. “In the middle of the night, he went. The moon called him, he said I tried to go, too—he is just a little one!—but our father, he grabbed me and would not let me through the door.” As if the subject caused her pain, she began talking again about cutting the rushes for rush candles, another activity Vansen knew only too well.
Late afternoon, with the sun falling fast, Vansen decided to make camp. The road had led them through the low, sparsely covered hills all day, but they were about to pass through a patch of forested ground. The stand of trees before them was not a place he wanted to wander in the growing dark.
“Look!” shouted one of the men. “A deer—a buck!”
“We’ll have fresh meat,” another cried.
Ferras Vansen looked up to see the creature standing just inside the shadows at the edge of the trees, half a hundred steps away. It was large and healthy, with an impressive spread of antler, but seemed otherwise quite ordinary Still, something about the way it looked at them, even as a few of the men were nocking arrows, made him uneasy.
“Don’t shoot,” he said One of the soldiers raised his bow and aimed. “Don’t!” At Vansen’s shout, even though it had been looking straight at them, the stag for the first time seemed to understand its peril It turned and with two long leaps vanished into the cover of the trees.
“I could have had him,” snarled the bowman, the old campaigner Southstead whose grumbling ways had been the reason Vansen brought him instead of leaving him home to gossip and spread dissatisfaction among the rest of the guardsmen.
“We do not know what is natural here and what is not.” Ferras was careful to keep anger out of his voice. “You saw the flowers. You have seen the empty houses. We have enough to eat in our packs and saddlebags to keep us alive. Kill nothing that does not threaten you—do you all hear me?”
“What,” demanded Southstead, “do you think it might be another girl, magicked into a deer?” He turned to the other guards with a loud, angry laugh. “He’s already got one—that’s just greedy, that is.”
Vansen realized that the man was frightened by this journey through lands grown strange.
Southstead’s smile faltered. He licked his lips. “I meant only a jest, sir.” “Well, then Let us leave it at that and make camp. Jests will be more welcome over a fire.”
When the flames were rising and the girl Willow was warming her hands, Collum Dyer made his way to Vansen s side. “You’ll have to keep an eye on our Micka, Captain,” he said quietly. “Too many years of too much wine has curdled his heart and brains, but I had not thought him so far gone as to mock his captain. He never would have dared it in Murray’s day.”
“He’ll still do well enough if there’s something to do.” Vansen frowned. “Raemon Beck, come here.”
The young merchant, who had spent most of the journey like a man caught in a nightmare from which he couldn’t awaken, slowly made his way toward Vansen and Dyer.
“Are you an honorable man, Beck?”
He looked at Ferras Vansen in surprise. “Why, yes, I am.” “Yes,
Vansen raised his hand it didn’t matter. “Good. Then I want you to be the girl’s companion. She will ride with you. Trying to get sense from her is like sifting a thousandweight of chaff for every grain of wheat, anyway, and you may recognize better than I can if she says something useful.”
“Me?”
“Because you are the only one here who has been through something like what I believe she has seen and heard and felt.” Ferras looked over to where the men were gathering more deadfall for the fire. “Also, to be frank, it is better if the men are angry with you than angry with me.”
Beck did not look too pleased at this, but Collum Dyer was standing right beside him, cleaning his dirty fingernails with a very long dagger, so he only scowled and said, “But I am a married man!”
“Then treat her as you would want your wife treated if she were found wandering ill and confused beside the road. And if she says anything that you think might be useful, anything at all, tell me at once.”
“Useful how?'
Vansen sighed. “In keeping us alive, for one thing.”
He and Dyer watched as a chastened Beck walked back to the fire and sat himself down beside the near- child Willow. “Do you think we’re in such danger, Captain?” asked Dyer.
“Truly.”
“Because of a few flowers and a daft girl?”
“Perhaps not. But I’d rather come home with everyone safe and be laughed at for being too cautious— wouldn’t you?'
The night passed without incident, and by midmorning the road had led them so deep into the trees that they could no longer see the dreary hills or the looming Shadowline. At first that seemed a blessing, but as the day wore on and the sun, glimpsed only for brief moments through chinks in the canopy, passed the peak of the sky and began to slide into the west, Vansen found himself wondering whether they would have to spend the night
