The Margrave by Catherine Fisher Read Free Book Online Page B

a wash, maybe even some extra sleep. From its wry grin he guessed the Sekoi had too. But both of them knew Galen had made up his mind.
    They left the dilapidated farm within minutes, Alys and her daughter waving them off, after cramming the packs with all the food they could spare. Galen had given them the Blessing solemnly, as if he sensed the old woman’s disappointment; she kneeled in the mud to receive it, tears running down the wrinkles of her face.
    “When you find the girl,” she called now, “give her my thanks.”
    Raffi turned, walking backward. “We will. Take care of yourself.”
     
     
    GALEN WAS SILENT. All the way back to the road he went at a ferocious pace; Raffi scrambling after him, too breathless to complain. The Sekoi strolled behind, its long legs keeping up effortlessly. “Our friend is troubled,” it said after a while.
    “Guilty,” Raffi gasped.
    “Indeed? About what?”
    “I don’t know what. And he can’t forget . . . about Solon.”
    As they climbed, the Sekoi was silent. Then it said, “Raffi. Did you believe what I told you about Carys?”
    “No.” And he threw himself up the slope, bending back the thorns. He didn’t want to think about Carys. Not now.
    For hours they climbed into the Broken Hills. The air grew colder and the road narrowed to a track winding along mountain ledges, skirting dizzy drops into the green valleys below. Finally they were so high, the mist closed in, slowing them; once Raffi only realized he was too close to the edge when his foot dislodged a stone that rattled over into silence. The wind whistled strangely, and the broken rocks confused the sense-lines; in all the ravines and arches he had the feeling of silent movements, as if the hills were busy with sly gatherings, watching eyes. His legs ached with the long effort; his lungs were raw with the damp.
    Night was falling before they saw the castle. It loomed up suddenly, a blackness in the mist.
    Galen stopped, then crumpled onto a stone, white-faced. He eased his stiff leg with a hiss of pain.
    The Sekoi flung itself down on its back and dragged in breath, its whole body quivering. When it could speak it gasped, “Even if Carys is in this place, Galen, we cannot just walk in and ask for her. We must not rush headlong into danger. We need a plan.”
    “The Makers will send a way in,” Galen growled.
    The creature’s mew of impatience was slight but audible. “Maybe. But we need—”
    “We need to trust them.” The keeper turned to Raffi. “Did you feel that?”
    “Someone’s close by.”
    “More than one.” Galen stood wearily. “Let’s get closer. Keep as quiet as you can.”
    The Castle of Halen was a great black wall in the dark. A deep ditch had been hacked outside it from the rock, and the Wall rose out of that, built of strange shiny black stone, glossy and volcanic, buttressed by wedges, each block as tall as Galen and smoothly fitted. Vast towers swelled out along it. Far above, linking them, a wooden palisade rose against the stars.
    “Unclimbable.” The Sekoi squirmed under a yewberry bush and looked up. “Unless you’re a suck-foot rat.”
    “Perhaps we should work our way around to the gates,” Raffi whispered. Familiar as his own smell, fear was churning in him, the ominous black hulk of the castle hanging over him, heavy as dread.
    But then the Sekoi’s fingers closed on his arm. “See there,” it hissed.
    A movement. Up on the parapet. Something rippling, rattling, unrolling fluidly down the Wall; two of them, no three, four, the end of the nearest flapping to and fro just in front of where they were hiding.
    Ladders? Rope ladders?
    It was the Sekoi who broke the astonished silence. “If this is luck, I don’t believe it.”
    “I told you.” Galen’s voice sounded choked. “You should trust Flain.”
    “Galen, this has to be some trap!”
    “Does it?” The keeper turned. “Look.”
    Suddenly the night was alive. Men were running from the rocks,