“They are guarding the bridge.” Barda gritted his teeth in frustration. “What will we do?”
“One of us must lead them away, so that the other two can slip across,” said Jasmine. “I will —”
Barda shook his head firmly. “There are far too many of them for that trick to work, Jasmine. Some will give chase, some will stay. And now I come to think of it, there were many water birds roosting on the other side of the bridge when I passed it on my way to the coast. More Ols, no doubt, though I did not realize it at the time. And surely they will be there still.”
“Then we must go on,” muttered Lief. “Move around the bridge, so that the Ols do not see us. Find another way across the river, farther upstream.”
“But there is no other way!” hissed Jasmine. “I cannot swim, you know that. And even if I could, the killer worms —”
“We cannot swim, but there are such things as boats,” Barda broke in calmly. “We have money to pay for a crossing. Or we will make a raft. Anything would be better than fighting twenty Ols.”
As silently as they had come, they crept away from the river and continued upstream, making a wide arc around the bridge. Now and then, through gaps in the trees, they caught glimpses of the goats still waiting, unmoving, in the moonlight.
When dawn broke, the sun struggling to shine through a blanket of cloud, the village and the bridge were far behind them. They stopped to eat and rest, huddling together beneath a group of ragged bushes. Kree took flight, to catch insects and stretch his cramped wings.
Lief had first watch. He wrapped his cloak around him and tried to make himself comfortable. His eyes were prickling, but he was not afraid that he would fall asleep. His body was jumping with nerves.
Time crawled by. Kree returned, and went to roost low in one of the bushes. Sulky dawn gave way to dull morning. Clouds hung low above Lief’s head, thickening by the moment. We will have rain, he thought dismally. Scuttling animals had made narrow paths through the greenery, but there were no animals to be seen now, and for this Lief was grateful. Every living thing was suspect, in a place where Ols prowled.
And Doom claimed that there were Ols who could take the form of things that were not living — Grade 3 Ols, the perfection of the Shadow Lord’s evil art. If the tale was true, and such beings really existed, the very bush on which Kree perched, or the pebble at Lief’s feet, could be a secret enemy. At any moment a horrible transformation could begin. At any mo-ment a white, flickering specter with the Shadow Lord’s mark in its core could rise and overwhelm them.
Nowhere was safe. Nothing could be trusted.
Lief licked his lips, fought down the dread that clutched his heart. But still his flesh seemed to tremble on his bones. He slipped his hands under his shirt and felt for the Belt of Deltora, heavy at his waist. His fingers moved to the sixth stone, the amethyst. As they rested upon it, as its magic flowed through him, the trembling slowly ebbed.
Somehow we will find a boat, he told himself. We will cross the river. Our quest will continue. We will survive.
But still he could not rid himself of the feeling that they were caught in a net. A net that the Shadow Lord was slowly, slowly drawing in.
Late in the morning Barda woke and Lief took his turn to sleep. He opened his eyes in mid-afternoon to find the sky leaden and the earth breathless. His head ached dully as he sat up. His sleep had been heavy, his dreams confused and disturbing.
Barda and Jasmine were strapping up their packs.
“We think we should move on, Lief, as soon as you are ready,” said Barda. “It is almost as dark as night as it is, and if we wait for true darkness we will cover little distance before the rain sets in.”
“The other village we saw on our way down to the coast cannot be far away,” Jasmine added, turning away to peer through the bushes to the land beyond. “If we reach it before nightfall we may be able to persuade someone to row us across the river.”
Lief felt a spurt of anger. They had been talking while he slept, making plans without him. No doubt they had been impatiently waiting for him to wake, thinking he was a sleepyhead. Did they not know how tired he was? He had slept for hours, yet he was still very weary — so weary that he felt a week of sleep would not satisfy him.
Almost at once, he realized that his annoyance was a result of that very tiredness. He looked at Jasmine’s heavy eyes, and the deep, grey lines on Barda’s face. They were as exhausted as he was. He forced a smile, nodded, and began pulling together his own belongings.
By the time they reached the next village, it was even darker, but night had not yet fallen. The companions moved cautiously through the open gate in the wall.
The place was a ruin. Everything not made of stone had been burned to cinders. The familiar names “Finn,” “Nak,” and “Milne” were scrawled on the walls left standing.
“They wrote their names here in triumph, thinking they were kings instead of thieving, murderous pirates,” Jasmine muttered savagely. “I am glad they died screaming.”
“And I,” said Barda, with feeling.
Lief wanted to agree. Once, it would have been easy for him to do so. But thinking of how Milne, especially, had met his terrible fate, gibbering with terror in the Maze of the Beast, somehow he could not. Revenge did not seem sweet to him any longer. There had been too much suffering.
He turned away, and began searching the ruins. But there was nothing to find. There were no people, no animals left in this dead place. There was no shelter.
And there was no boat.
With heavy hearts, Lief, Barda, and Jasmine moved slowly on.
The rain began at midnight. At first it pelted down, stinging their hands and faces. Then it settled into a steady stream that soaked them through and chilled them to the bone. Kree hunched miserably on Jasmine’s shoulder. Filli, bedraggled, hid his head inside her jacket.
They plodded through mud and darkness, trying to keep alert, watching for anything that would help them cross the river. But there were no trees — only low bushes. There were no logs or planks washed up on the shore. Nothing they passed could be used to make a raft.
At dawn they rested fitfully, finding what shelter they could under dripping leaves. But after a few hours the ground on which they lay began to run with water. They staggered up, and began to tramp again.
And so the time went on. By the beginning of the third night of rain, they had stopped looking for a way across the river, now swollen and overflowing its banks. The rain screened their view of the other side, even by day, but Lief and Barda knew that by now they must be opposite the great reed beds that had stopped their progress on the way downstream. It would be no use crossing here, even if they could find something to carry them. They knew, from bitter experience, what it was like to flounder through that oozing mud.
“Is this fiendish river forever to bar our way?” Jasmine groaned, as they stopped to rest once more. “And will this rain never stop?”
“If we can keep going a little longer, we will be opposite the place where Broad River joins the Tor,” Barda said. “I know that there are trees there, at least. We can make a shelter, and rest until the rain stops. We might even keep a fire going.”
On they walked, in a dream of wet, cold darkness. Then, after what seemed a very long time, Jasmine abruptly stopped.
“What is it?” Lief whispered.