The Seventh Daughter by Frewin Jones

Author:Frewin Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

XVI

The sun rose in an eggshell blue sky, lifting above a breathtakingly beautiful landscape of rolling heather-clad hills and wide stony valleys. Tania, Edric, and Cordelia had stopped to rest by a rushing rivulet of water that tumbled down a stony gully. Tania sat with her cloak wrapped around her. The view was glorious, but the early morning was gnawingly cold. She looked nervously over her shoulder every few seconds, convinced that she would see horsemen bearing down on them, with Gabriel Drake at their head.

The tall dark mountains of Weir were at their backs now. They had made their way through the hostile night to these tumbled foothills, afraid at every step that they would be tracked down. But the only time they had seen their pursuers was at a distance: a line of horsemen bearing red torches, moving rapidly along a ridge half a mile away.

During the night, the storm clouds had crept away into the west, and now the sky was clear and bright. Tania looked over to where Edric was standing on a raised hump of land, his arms folded against the cool wind, staring northward where the hills became blue and indistinct. Cordelia had picked up a shard of flint sometime in the night and she was now sitting at the waterside, whetting the edge of the flint on a stone. She looked up, as though sensing Tania’s eyes on her.

“I will not go unarmed into the wilds,” she said. She lifted the flint, gripping it like a dagger in her fist. “Let them come, sister—the first to find us will regret their impetuosity.”

Edric walked back to where they were sitting.

“So, Master Chanticleer,” said Cordelia, squinting up at him with her head cocked to one side. “Can you lead us true?”

“I think so, my lady,” he said. He pointed into the north. “Do you see those two hills: the big one with the smaller one at its side? They are Great Erl and Lesser Erl. The Grantor Pass runs between them. If we go that way, we’ll come to Whitewater Fells and Skarnside Fells and the River Lych.”

“You know this landscape well,” Cordelia remarked.

“Actually I don’t,” Edric said. “I’m much more familiar with the countryside north of the Erls. These aren’t hills I know very well. As children we were always warned away from them.”

“Why’s that?” Tania asked.

“This is where the wild unicorns of Caer Liel roam, is it not, Master Chanticleer?” said Cordelia. “I have seen their tracks and traces aplenty.”

“Wild unicorns?” Tania said. “Are they dangerous?”

Edric nodded. “Very. They have vicious tempers and they’re totally unpredictable. They attack with hooves and teeth and horns. And their horns are like skewers—they’d go right through you.” He looked at Cordelia. “Have you seen signs that there are any nearby, my lady?”

Cordelia smiled grimly. “Oh yes, they are close.”

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