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Back Heir to Sevenwaters Save as PDF
Chapters (22)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. CHAPTER 1
  6. CHAPTER 2
  7. CHAPTER 3
  8. CHAPTER 4
  9. CHAPTER 5
  10. CHAPTER 6
  11. CHAPTER 7
  12. CHAPTER 8
  13. CHAPTER 9
  14. CHAPTER 10
  15. CHAPTER 11
  16. CHAPTER 12
  17. CHAPTER 13
  18. CHAPTER 14
  19. CHAPTER 15
  20. CHAPTER 16
  21. CHAPTER 17
  22. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cathal grimaced. “I assessed the situation and acted as I judged best. It seemed to me you might fall. The bags became unimportant.”

“All that in a heartbeat.” He had paused on the cliff’s edge for no longer than that. “You could have been killed.”

“When I couldn’t find you, I thought you had already fallen to your death. Then, when I saw you in the tree, I . . . Never mind that. So, now we’re in a predicament. I should be able to make fire without a flint. We’d best find a place of shelter first.”

We looked toward the forest, dense, dark, forbidding.

“I suppose there will be a path,” I said. “I was forced down here, more or less. The rocks started rolling, and all I could do was run. And fall. So I suppose this is the right way. I hope this is almost over, Cathal.”

But Cathal had nothing to say. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we set off together under the trees and into the darkness.

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 11

We were in nofit state for a lengthy walk. Becan wept. I felt his misery in my heart and could do little to help him. Without the sling, I had to hold him in my arms, and perhaps my unease transferred itself to his small body. Cathal went ahead along a narrow, barely definable pathway we had found, and I followed, knowing it was entirely reasonable for me to wear his cloak, since I had Becan to think of, but wishing there were some way I could share it with him. He couldn’t be warm enough in just shirt, tunic and trousers, all three wet through. He looked wretched, his skin pallid, his features set in a fierce determination that forbade any expression of concern for his welfare. As for me, despite the remarkable fact that all three of us had survived, I was beginning to lose heart. The forest seemed full of menace, a realm of sudden darkness, thorny branches, evil-smelling pools and deceptive slopes. Fungi sprouted among the roots, slickly luminous. Pale, many-legged things crawled in the leaf litter. Becan’s cries lost themselves in the empty spaces between the trees. There was nobody here. We might walk on until we died a sad death from exhaustion, hunger and despair.