Read Online Pendragon's Heir by Suzannah Rowntree - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Suzannah Rowntree
Ads: Link
turned it, there was a sudden muted roar and the door fought like a wild thing against Nerys’s hand. Through the narrow opening yellow flames shot out into the hallway, singing Nerys’s hair and licking the wallpaper. She said “Ah,” slammed the door shut, and turned the key again.
“ Heavens! ” Blanche cried, staring at the buckled and blistered door.
“The door is on fire,” Nerys said. “And the key can only be linked to another door from the Logres side.”
“We can’t leave?” Blanche looked hopeful.
“We can and we must. We’ll go out through the orchard.”
“But Morgan is on the other side!”
Nerys went to the doorway again and sniffed the night air. “Such damage is not done in a chamber. She would have done it in the open. Also it is raining in Britain. If we take the horses, we may slip through without being seen and ride away without being caught.”
“Are you positive it wouldn’t be safer to stay here?”
“Waiting to be attacked at any moment? Or leading the hounds of Gore a merry chase around Gloucestershire?”
Blanche bit her lip. For all Mr Corbin’s insistence that she make her own choices, it looked as if she would be forced into Logres, for refuge if nothing else.
“We must go on, and take the adventure that comes.” Nerys went out the door toward the stable, and there was nothing to do but follow.
F LORENCE WAS B LANCHE ’ S HORSE , AN UNINTELLIGENT but sweet-tempered bay. Nerys, who did not have a horse of her own, had taken Sir Ector’s, a retrained grey racer named Malaventure. The pair of them pricked their ears and swished their tails in the face of the wind between the worlds. Blanche fidgeted with the reins.
Nerys had already gone, taking with her a windfall apple. “If all is well, I’ll throw the apple back through the gate, and you’ll know it is safe to bring the horses. If not, ride .”
Then she had stepped through the gate. The quick-falling dusk made it difficult to see what happened next. Only Blanche had blinked, and Nerys was gone.
Deep inside she was panicking again, fearing that the worst must have happened when the apple landed with a plop on the grass at her feet. Then, without a pause to let herself think, she clucked to the horses and plunged into the wind, dragging at their reins.
It was dark beyond the gate, and again she felt that sense of limitless speed. Soon the wind lashing her face had water in it, and as the rain grew heavier, the wind died away and under shadowy oaks Blanche looked down to see that she was standing in a circle of blackened stones. Hurriedly she stepped out of it, with low calm words for the skittish horses.
No one was to be seen. Away to the right the trees thinned and the towers of a castle could be glimpsed rising out of the clearing, black against the dark evening sky. At the sight, Blanche’s scalp prickled and the blood hummed in her ears. She was engulfed, quite without expecting it, in a high and dauntless mood. Here she stood under weeping skies, she, Blanche Pendragon, who bore a name of legend. In that castle, all unaware, lay a witch-queen who desired her death, and echoing in the back of her mind she could still hear the fierce steel voices of swords, harsher and sweeter and wilder in her veins than any other sound on the green earth. And she had been caught and kissed by a brown boy from the woods, and he had paid for the pleasure in blood.
For one titanic heartbeat she felt as tall as the trees.
Then above her a shadow rose with a sound like the tearing of cloth and her heart leaped into her throat before she saw that it was only a black bird beating the air with sharp pinions. The trees bent down over her again, and it was night in Logres and very cold in the rain. Blanche ducked her head and turned up the collar of her jacket. Not until then did she see Nerys coming toward her through the trees from the direction of the castle with a finger lifted to her lips.
Nerys shoved Malaventure’s
“ Heavens! ” Blanche cried, staring at the buckled and blistered door.
“The door is on fire,” Nerys said. “And the key can only be linked to another door from the Logres side.”
“We can’t leave?” Blanche looked hopeful.
“We can and we must. We’ll go out through the orchard.”
“But Morgan is on the other side!”
Nerys went to the doorway again and sniffed the night air. “Such damage is not done in a chamber. She would have done it in the open. Also it is raining in Britain. If we take the horses, we may slip through without being seen and ride away without being caught.”
“Are you positive it wouldn’t be safer to stay here?”
“Waiting to be attacked at any moment? Or leading the hounds of Gore a merry chase around Gloucestershire?”
Blanche bit her lip. For all Mr Corbin’s insistence that she make her own choices, it looked as if she would be forced into Logres, for refuge if nothing else.
“We must go on, and take the adventure that comes.” Nerys went out the door toward the stable, and there was nothing to do but follow.
F LORENCE WAS B LANCHE ’ S HORSE , AN UNINTELLIGENT but sweet-tempered bay. Nerys, who did not have a horse of her own, had taken Sir Ector’s, a retrained grey racer named Malaventure. The pair of them pricked their ears and swished their tails in the face of the wind between the worlds. Blanche fidgeted with the reins.
Nerys had already gone, taking with her a windfall apple. “If all is well, I’ll throw the apple back through the gate, and you’ll know it is safe to bring the horses. If not, ride .”
Then she had stepped through the gate. The quick-falling dusk made it difficult to see what happened next. Only Blanche had blinked, and Nerys was gone.
Deep inside she was panicking again, fearing that the worst must have happened when the apple landed with a plop on the grass at her feet. Then, without a pause to let herself think, she clucked to the horses and plunged into the wind, dragging at their reins.
It was dark beyond the gate, and again she felt that sense of limitless speed. Soon the wind lashing her face had water in it, and as the rain grew heavier, the wind died away and under shadowy oaks Blanche looked down to see that she was standing in a circle of blackened stones. Hurriedly she stepped out of it, with low calm words for the skittish horses.
No one was to be seen. Away to the right the trees thinned and the towers of a castle could be glimpsed rising out of the clearing, black against the dark evening sky. At the sight, Blanche’s scalp prickled and the blood hummed in her ears. She was engulfed, quite without expecting it, in a high and dauntless mood. Here she stood under weeping skies, she, Blanche Pendragon, who bore a name of legend. In that castle, all unaware, lay a witch-queen who desired her death, and echoing in the back of her mind she could still hear the fierce steel voices of swords, harsher and sweeter and wilder in her veins than any other sound on the green earth. And she had been caught and kissed by a brown boy from the woods, and he had paid for the pleasure in blood.
For one titanic heartbeat she felt as tall as the trees.
Then above her a shadow rose with a sound like the tearing of cloth and her heart leaped into her throat before she saw that it was only a black bird beating the air with sharp pinions. The trees bent down over her again, and it was night in Logres and very cold in the rain. Blanche ducked her head and turned up the collar of her jacket. Not until then did she see Nerys coming toward her through the trees from the direction of the castle with a finger lifted to her lips.
Nerys shoved Malaventure’s
Similar Books
