The Piper of Shadonia by Linda Smith

Author:Linda Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: water, YA, teen, fantasy, boys, magic, conflict, flute, music, activism, water, coming of age, theatre, puppets, empire
ISBN: 9781550507225
Publisher: Coteau Books

~ Chapter Seventeen ~

The sign at the crossroads pointing to Shadon Springs brought back memories. Tobin had scrambled up and down the paths around the mountain resort with another boy, the son of a Forenzian captain and his Shadonian wife. One day, they’d dared each other to climb the steep cliff behind the town. When they reached the top, hearts pounding with exertion and fear, they exchanged solemn glances and made each other swear they wouldn’t breathe a word about it to their parents.

Balm turned the wagon away from Shadon Springs, along a narrow, rutted road. At first, they passed woodcutters’ homes or even small farmyards with chickens scratching in the dirt. But as they climbed, the path getting narrower and steeper, those signs of human habitation disappeared and Tobin gazed at sheer rock faces and walls of dark conifers, or looked up at the snowbound peaks around him. It sometimes seemed to him that they were travelling into an earlier age. A time when people could understand, if they listened hard enough, what the water was saying as it rushed down a cliff, what the wind was whispering to the rocks and trees and earth. Why weren’t there people like that now?

But he was being foolish. There were still people up here, descendants of the Shadonians who lived here before the Forenzians came. And the wagon was following a good trail, even though they had to clear fallen branches from it now and then. Others had come this way. They were going to meet some of these others soon. A group of revolutionaries. At least, he thought they were.

He thought. He didn’t know anything. But he needed to. He especially needed to know whether Balm was truly the rebel leader. If only he could be alone with Gaby. She might tell him. But someone else was always there. Usually Kasper. Today they’d all three been walking until Gaby got tired. Now she sat on the edge of the wagon, as she did so often, swinging her legs.

“Looks like rain,” she said.

Tobin looked around. Heavy grey clouds had moved in and hidden the top of the mountain behind them. Even as he watched, drops began to fall.

“Dobbin won’t be able to pull the wagon if the path gets too muddy,” he said. Thunder growled in the distance.

“I’m surprised he can pull it up these steep hills even when the track’s clear,” Kasper added.

Gaby smiled. “He’s stronger than he looks.”

More drops. Tobin saw the wagon swerve, heard grass swish against its wheels as it came to a stop. A moment later, Balm and Ella climbed in the back and beckoned to Tobin and Kasper to join them. Just in time. Lightning flashed through the sky and tore open the clouds.

“Rain’s good,” Balm said, shaking moisture from his hair. “It’s been a dry spring so far, just like the last three years. Bad for the crops.”

“As long as it doesn’t last too long,” Ella said.

But it did, while they huddled in the wagon and shivered in the damp, raw air.

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