Faerie Path 03 by The Seventh Daughter by Frewin Jones

Author:The Seventh Daughter by Frewin Jones [Jones, The Seventh Daughter by Frewin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-12-04T05:29:03.155000+00:00

“How are you going to get down?”

“I’ll tie the end to the bed and jam it against the wall. That should hold it.”

Tania kissed him. “Be careful,” she said.

“And you.” He helped her onto the sill. She edged her shoulders out of the window. The drop made her head swim. She saw the brown rope snaking away from her down the shining gray stone—and there, maybe forty feet below, she could see the foreshortened figure of Cordelia looking up and beckoning. Tania slid one leg over the sill and gradually shifted her weight, holding tightly on to the rope with both hands as she climbed out of the window. She was aware of cold night air all around her and of the precipitous drop to the roadway.

Her heart was beating so loud that it sounded like drums in her ears. She gritted her teeth and struggled to catch the rope between her feet. It took her a few moments to secure it between instep and sole. Then, her heart in her mouth, she began to edge down. She felt Cordelia’s hands helping her down the last couple of feet.

They looked up in silence, holding hands. Edric’s head was showing from the window. Tania watched as he clambered out and began to descend.

He was about fifteen feet from the ground when a new shape appeared above him at the window. A voice shouted: “Halt! Or perish!”

Cordelia gasped. “We are discovered!”

“Edric! Jump!” Tania called. She saw a flash of something white at the window and the very next moment the rope came loose and Edric dropped, the rope coiling over him as he landed between them.

He hit the ground with flexed knees, absorbing the impact and just managing to keep to his feet. “Quickly,” he said. “Off the road.”

He ran to a sheer edge of rock that cut sharp as the stroke of a knife across the mountainside. Beyond it Tania saw only plunging darkness. Edric looked back at them and Tania could see fear in his eyes. “It won’t be easy,”

he warned, turning and letting himself down off the edge.

Tania heard shouting above them. It wouldn’t be long now before the gates of Caer Liel would be thrown open and soldiers would come after them. She sat on the edge of the lip of stone. She could just make out Edric’s shape as he climbed down the rock face. She turned, scrabbling for purchase with her feet. Cordelia crouched above her, ready to follow. Tania caught an outcrop of rock with one foot and lowered herself down. She found a handgrip. Then another. Cordelia turned, her foot groping as she came over the edge. Tania transferred her weight and began the perilous descent.

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.

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