Shadowcaster by Cinda Williams Chima

Author:Cinda Williams Chima
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2017-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

24

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

Once Breon agreed to go back to Baston Bay, Aubrey insisted that they travel straight east to the coast and take ship from Chalk Cliffs. She argued that would be safer than traveling on the main road through the high passes to Delphi and then east to the sea. No doubt those borders would be watched.

Maybe it was safer, maybe not. It meant traveling through the Fells, where Breon felt like he had a huge target on his back.

Besides, it was a hard road they’d chosen. People called it a road, but that was putting a bright polish on it. It was more of a trail that went straight through the mountains. He and Aubrey were city bred, not accustomed to roughing it in the countryside.

It had taken four days to travel from Baston Bay north and west to Fellsmarch in the fishwagon. Though Chalk Cliffs was closer, as the crow flies, it took a lot longer to get there. Or maybe it just seemed longer because Breon had passed much of the first trip in a pleasant haze of leaf. Now that he was hoarding and conserving, and walking most of the way, it was an ordeal.

He fingered Her Highness’s locket. It still hung from a chain around his neck, next to the pendant his father had left him. He knew he should pitch it over a cliff along the road, but he didn’t. He told himself maybe he’d find a way to send it back to her family.

Now and then, he wondered what it would sell for, and how much leaf that would buy. And how quick that would bring the bluejackets down on him.

The road between Fellsmarch and Chalk Cliffs offered few chances for a lift. There was little traffic this time of year save soldiers and bluejackets riding to and from. He guessed they’d be glad to pick him up, but they probably wouldn’t take him where he wanted to go.

At first, Breon and Aubrey stayed at inns, but at the last two, he’d seen his image posted up over the bar, on a poster offering a reward for his capture alive and warning that he was desperate and dangerous.

The sketch didn’t do him justice—it made him look like a shifty-eyed backstreet rusher—but the drawing of his jafasa was amazingly detailed and true to life. Aubrey had tried to make him dump the jafasa then and there. Aubrey could usually talk him into anything, but not this. It had belonged to his da, though how he knew that, he couldn’t have said. That and a broken pendant were all he had to remember him by. Not that he remembered him.

Breon had traded his fancy clothes to a sheepherder who needed something posh for the holiday. In return, he got a thick wool jacket and breeches and cap that were better suited for winter travel but made him look like a farmer who’d lost his herd on the way to market. He still gimped along with the walking stick, hoping that would get them more rides.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.