The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [114]
“I’d hoped we could hide in the rain until we reached Pastedion, my turtledove, but such, alas, is not the case.”
“How close do you think our enemies are?”
For an answer he merely shrugged. Although the hills rose steep on their left hand, the road was winding level here along the hp of a canyon to their right. Some fifty yards down she could see the rush of white water among the trees.
“We’ll reach Pastedion on the morrow,” Salamander said abruptly. “If we reach it, that is. I feel danger like a stink around us.”
“So do I. I was thinking, if we could work with Gwin, maybe we could scry our enemies out.”
“I like that ‘we,’ my most magical magpie. Well, perhaps we could, but truly, I rather dread the idea. Opening a link to Gwin’s charming little mind will not be the most pleasant of experiences.”
“Neither would dying at the hands of the Hawks.”
“Um, well, truly. How clearly and succinctly you put things! We’ll see if we can talk him into it.”
“Well and good, then. We should stop for the noon meal soon and rest the horses. The poor beasts have been through an ordeal of their own this past eightnight or so.”
“True spoken, but I want to make another mile or so before we stop.” Salamander looked profoundly sly. “There’s somewhat I want you to see.”
They were traveling here through a huge, V-shaped valley, with the river churning at the bottom point of the V and their road clinging to the left side, about halfway up the hills. After some minutes Jill heard an odd sound ahead, like the buzzing of an enormous swarm of bees, which slowly grew louder and louder as they rode until it resolved itself into the pour of a waterfall. The road made one last twist and came, all of a sudden, clear of the V-shaped valley to end on a flat stretch of ground, the top of a cliff, while farther down on their right hand the canyon it had been bordering merely ended, as abruptly as if a giant had cut the cliff with a spade. Laced with rainbows the waterfall roared and thundered, plunging straight down thousands of feet to a long open valley far below. With a whoop that was half-fear, half-delight, Jill flung up her hand for a halt. Snorting and milling, the exhausted stock came to a stop and at last stood quiet enough to let Rhodry and Gwin ride up beside her. When she twisted round in the saddle, she could see half a hill behind her, the dome sliced through as if by that hypothetical giant’s knife. Across the valley, partly hidden by mists, rose its counterpart, sliced just as cleanly into another steep cliff. Beyond that hill she could see mountains rising into white-glinting peaks that marched off to the horizon.
“What made this valley?” she screamed at Salamander. “Dweomer?”
“Don’t know.” He yelled back. “The Wildfolk say ice did it, lots and lots of ice years and years ago, but that’s impossible.”
Screeching at each other over the thundering water-noise, they dismounted and rationed out the last of the grain to the riding mounts and pack animals while the extra horses had to make do with scruffy grass. Frightened though she was of possible pursuit, Jill decided that they simply had to give the stock a rest, because the only way down the cliff was a switchbacked trail, not more than four feet wide, hacked—and roughly—into the living rock. She hated thinking of the government slaves who’d been forced to cut that trail; some, no doubt, had died in the making.
Munching on a chunk of stale flatbread she walked over to the waterfall and stared down at the veil of mist floating as much as falling down to the valley floor. It fed the continuation of the north-south river they’d been following, which joined another, winding roughly east to west. The valley itself ran along this second river for miles—she could see neither