The Wicked Day Read Online Free Page B

can’t remember. Whining boys give me a headache.”
    Jute, groping around in his knapsack, found an overlooked piece of bread. It was stale, but it tasted wonderful.
    The hawk coasted by on motionless wings. Raindrops glistened on his feathers. The air rustled with the sound of the rain on the grass and the wind blowing across the treetops. After a while, the ground descended and they found themselves on the uppermost slopes of a valley. Far off at the bottom of the valley, a line of trees was visible.
    “The Rennet River,” said Declan.
    The valley floor looked as if it was heavily farmed. Stands of cornstalks stood in shabby graying yellow, stripped of their produce and ready for the fire. Stubbled fields of cut hay alternated with plots of recently plowed earth turning to mud under the rain. Here and there, hedgerows and stonewalls straggled between the fields. Declan halted at the edge of a grassy field. The grass was trampled flat before them and in the middle was a large scorched area.
    “What happened here?” said Declan. “A fire blazed here so hot that it devoured the grass and blackened the wet earth. And, unless I’ve forgotten everything my father taught me of tracking, this is where our strange creature’s trail ended. It seems as if it was burned in the fire.”
    “You’re right,” said the hawk, landing on Jute’s shoulder.
    “But what happened to my sister? A company of people camped here, with tents and horses and even some wagons. A wealthy party, for these were large tents with heavy carpets put down on top of the grass.”
    “There’s a road beyond that rise,” said the hawk. “The old road that runs west to Hearne through the Rennet Valley. The king’s road, as it was once called. Many travelers use this road—anyone journeying between Hearne and the duchy of Mizra, or any of the villages in between.”
    “Perhaps she fell in with some kind folk,” said Declan. The rain dripped off the end of his nose. “Who would want to harm a poor girl?”
    “If you ask me,” said the ghost, peeking out of Jute’s knapsack, but the hawk glared at it and the ghost shut its mouth.
    Jute stood in the rain with the hawk perched on his shoulder. The ghost peered over his other shoulder. All three of them watched Declan crisscross the field. He walked back and forth, his head bent toward the ground. Sometimes he halted and crouched down, his nose twitching like a dog’s. He circled the field in wider and wider sweeps until he made his way back to the other three.
    “She went with them,” said Declan. “I’d bet my life on it. On a horse or in one of their wagons. East on the road.”
    “East,” said the hawk. He shifted uneasily from claw to claw on Jute’s shoulder. “The land east of here isn’t such a safe place, until one gets to the duchy of Mizra.”
    “I know,” said Declan. “I’ve heard the stories.”
    “I haven’t,” said the ghost, perking up. “Or perhaps I have, but I’d like to hear them again.”
    “But we have no choice,” said the hawk, his voice reluctant and resigned. “We must find her.”
    They followed the road because, as Declan reasoned, the travelers that had so kindly taken his sister under their wing would probably leave her in the care of the first habitation they came to. And, as far as he remembered, there was a village several miles down the road.
    “Ostfall, I think it’s called,” he said. “I’ve never been there myself, but I think it’s the last village before the foothills. Perhaps they left Giverny there.”
    “Perhaps,” said the hawk.
    Twilight had fallen and it was raining hard by the time they saw the lights of the village. Jute smelled wood smoke in the air. The sides of the valley had been growing higher as they walked, higher and closer together, as the valley narrowed and deepened at the same time. The road angled up a rise and, at the top, they found themselves looking down at the gleaming lights of what was undoubtedly a