Diana Jones - The Crown of Dalemark

“Well, you are,” said Mitt. “All runabout and talk and do nothing when a crisis happens.”

“Not when it matters, though,” said Rith. “And?”

And he went on coaxing Mitt until Mitt at last came out with the real cause of his disappointment with the North. “They told me it was free here,” he said. “They told me it was good. I was badly enough off in the South, but beside some here I was rich – and idle. People are no more free here than – than—” He was trying to find a proper description when they came round a bend to find the road blocked house-high with earth and boulders. A stream sprayed from the top in a raw new waterfall and ran round their horses’ hooves. “This just about sums it up!” Mitt said disgustedly. “And your roads are all terrible!”

“The Southern roads are, of course, all perfect,” Rith said.

“I never said—” said Mitt.

Rith laughed and dismounted. “Come on. This is hopeless. We’ll have to lead the horses uphill and come back to the road where it’s clear.”

Mitt slid down from the Countess-horse and discovered he was more than a little saddle-sore. Ow! he thought. I wonder my pants aren’t smoking! But he did not like to confess this to Rith, who had ridden all the way from Dropwater and was obviously a seasoned hearthman. A small, tough boy, Rith. When they were both on their feet, Rith only came up to Mitt’s shoulders. Makes me look a big booby if I moan , Mitt thought, and he set off dragging the Countess-horse up the hill after Rith. Both horses were huge, heavy and reluctant. Their hooves slid in the slippery grass. Mitt’s horse put its ears back and tried to bite him.

“Stop that!” Mitt slapped its nose aside. “You Countess, you!”

Rith broke into a panting laugh. “What a name! It’s a gelding. O-oh! Piper’s pants !”

Mitt dragged his horse up beside Rith’s. The hill, in the mysterious manner of hills, was twice as high as he had thought. Beyond and above them, it was a huge triangle of earthy boulders and trickling water, which had slid down across the road, blocking it for as far as they could see. At the lower edge of it, the sea twinkled, flat and impassable.

“We’d better go up over the hill,” Rith said. “I know the way. It’ll mean fording the Aden after we cross the green road, but it won’t be deep this high.”

So they struggled on upwards, about twice as high as they had already come, until they left the landslip behind and reached a squishy yellow-green shoulder, where Rith said they could ride again. Mitt nearly yelled as he kicked his way into the saddle. He was raw. But he did not like to mention it. He simply bore it, all the way through a long, marshy valley and then up an endless firm green slope, where they came to one of the things the Northerners called waystones. It was round, like a roughly shaped millstone set up on one edge, with a hole in the middle. Rith leant over and slapped the thing.

“For luck,” he said, grinning. “I’m a superstitious Northerner. I may ask the Wanderer’s blessing too, just to annoy you. There’s the Aden down there. What do you say we stop for some lunch?”

Mitt was only too glad to get down. He helped himself off by hanging on to the waystone, which was a way of touching it without seeming to. He knew he could do with some luck. And once he was down, he was so sore that he had to concentrate on small things, like stripping off his gloves and tucking them into the proper place on his belt, and hitching his horse to the waystone, where someone had tied a piece of red twine through the middle for the purpose. Then, moving in a careful, stiff-legged way, he unbuckled his baggage roll and got out the food they had given him. By then the agony had gone off enough for him to sit down beside Rith, bat the Countess-horse’s nose aside as it tried to eat his bread, and look at the view.

There were hills all around, yellow and green, with sunlight scudding over them in patches. The green way stretched from the waystone, very level and firm and dry, leading south into the mountainous heart of Dalemark, and the Aden rolled parallel with it about a hundred yards downhill from where they sat. It was a fine big river, wider than any Mitt had seen, and the way it rolled quietly along among all those reeds and willow trees suggested that it might be pretty deep. Mitt hoped Rith knew what he was talking about when he said they could ford it. He leant back and sniffed the smell of the river and willows mingling with the damp wild smell of heather and rock, the smell of the North, which Mitt still thought of as the smell of freedom in spite of his disillusionment with the North. Perhaps, he thought, not very hopefully, he would be stuck this side of the river and never get to Adenmouth at all. But that would be the worse for Hildy and Ynen.

“You look pretty gloomy!” Rith said, laughing.

“Just thinking,” Mitt said hurriedly. “What are these green roads? Who made them – really?”

“Kern Adon,” said Rith. “King Hern. They’re the roads of his old kingdom. That’s why they don’t go to places where people live any more. They say that Kern Adon set up the waystones and told the Wanderer to guard the roads, and if you follow them right, they say you arrive at King Hern’s city of gold.”

“I heard them called the paths of the Undying,” said Mitt.

“Oh yes. They’re called that too,” said Rith. “My old nurse used to tell me that the Undying sit in the hole in the waystones. What do you think of that?”

“They couldn’t!” Mitt said unguardedly. “Not unless they shrank.”

Rith got very interested in this idea. “Then how big do you think the Undying are?” he kept saying, in the same coaxing way he had tried to get at Mitt’s opinion of the North. “I’ve never been able to decide. Do you think they’re made of something that isn’t as solid as we are, so that they can be of any size? Or what?”

These Northerners! Mitt thought. Rith was laughing, but he was serious too. They finished eating, and Mitt got up, rather reluctantly, to untie the Countess-horse.

“What size do you think?” Rith said, leading his horse downhill to the river.

“If you must know,” Mitt called over his shoulder, “they’re people-sized. It stands to reason.” He dragged the Countess-horse round to follow Rith. “How could—” He stopped and blinked.

There was no wide rolling river any more. Rith was on his way down to a sunken crease in the hillside that was choked with small oak trees. Mitt could hear water rushing among the trees.

“You’re probably right,” Rith called back, “though some of the things they do make them seem smaller. Come on. It really is quite shallow here.”

Mitt slowly followed him down among the oaks, wondering just what river it was that he had seen. There was no question in his mind that the real Aden was the yelling, stony stream in front of him now, glinting bright coins of sunlight under the trees. Rivers in the North always seemed to crouch like this one along dips in the hills. And he had not seen a single willow tree since he left the South. Shivers ran down his back, and he approached the brawling little Aden very cautiously indeed.

So did the Countess-horse. At the edge of the water it put its ears back, braced its hooves, and refused to move. Mitt called it names.

“I’ll give you a lead,” said Rith. He stepped into the shrilling water, which proved to be only a few inches deep, and waded carefully, watching the stones in the bottom, until he and his horse had become dark shadows, patterned with sun between the oak leaves.

At this point the Countess-horse found it preferred not to be left behind and took off suddenly after Rith, dragging Mitt in sheets of bright water. Mitt kept hold of the reins and managed to stay on his feet until he was halfway across, where his foot turned heavily on something that flashed in the sun.