His eyes rolled backwards into his head. He was dead.

  Freya had no time to think about what the man had told her: a Guard crashed through the trees towards her. Without a backwards glance, she ran, hastily thrusting the object into her satchel as she went. She ran as she had never run before.

  In the distance, the Guard shouted—he had discovered the body of the Watcher. “By the Master, it’s a Transient!”

  Then the crashing resumed, but she was fleeing: fleeing and he couldn’t catch her. She felt powerful, like she could run forever. The Watcher’s words had given her hope beyond wildest hope: he had said Tyrelia! Tyrelia must be a real place—and this other Watcher, Saff, in Elmwood would be able to tell her about it.

  That hope lodged within her wildly thumping heart, as she ran for her life through the darkening hills of the Sentinels.

  Chapter 6

  In the Sentinels

  She didn’t remember stopping, or sleeping. She simply woke up the next morning when a weak ray of sunlight sneaked through the green canopy above and shone on her face. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, wondering why she hurt all over. Then, as the previous day’s happenings flooded back into her head, she lay down again, and involuntarily curled up into a ball, her arms wrapped around her legs. She cried and cried, rocking herself, feeling terribly alone.

  After a time, she grew quiet. Her stomach rumbled gently, reminding her that before she did anything else she would need to find something to eat. Sitting up, she rubbed at her tear­streaked face with her sleeve. Then she set out to see if she could find some berries or nuts. Before long, she heard water. She followed the sound, pushing her way through a thicket and suddenly she was on a grassy bank next to the crystal-clear waters of a small stream. My, she was thirsty. She dropped to her knees to scoop up the cool, clear liquid. There was a bramble growing right there, laden with juicy blackberries, which she picked with care, and ate her fill. After a quick wash, she sat down to think.

  She contemplated attempting to find her way back to Targa—but then what? She admitted to herself that the dead Watcher had been right: she wouldn’t be able to get back to her family and, even if she did, she would probably only be recaptured, which meant certain death. Her only option was to follow her saviour’s advice: find Elmwood and then find this other Watcher, Saff. She racked her brains to try and get the geography right in her head.

  She was pretty sure that the road the Guards had taken to the Pit was almost exactly in the opposite direction to the road to the Golden City. Then, when she had fled, she had run to the left, which would be east. Now she had come to this stream. The one thing Freya could be sure about streams was that, wherever they came from, they eventually all flowed over the edge of the Land into the Chasm. Garret (her throat constricted and she felt sick to her stomach, thinking about how he had betrayed her) had said that Elmwood was as far away from Nob as you could get, and Nob was near the Chasm. Maybe Elmwood would also be near the Chasm? And Elmwood was probably on the banks of a stream—most towns were. She decided that her best bet would be to follow this stream towards the Chasm and hopefully she would find Elmwood.

  It was not easy going. The trees grew right up to the water’s edge and, because the stream forced a natural opening in the otherwise dense canopy of leaves, smaller, bushy shrubs thrived on its banks, crowding each other, their roots reaching into the water, and their branches straining upwards in a thick tangle. It was easier farther away from the stream, where it was darker and therefore had less dense undergrowth. She foraged for food as she went, but found only berries, which, although delicious, were not very substantial. While travelling she thought about how she would go about finding this ‘Saff’ once she got to Elmwood.

  She would need to explain herself—it was, after all, highly unusual for a nearly fourteen-year-old girl to be wandering around alone in foreign parts of Medar. She thought of plan after plan, but each time ended up rejecting them—they were just not plausible, and she was not very good at lying either.

  In the end, she came up with a story that she felt was satisfactory. She had concluded that, while it would never do to tell the truth, she would be best to stick to it as closely as possible. She decided to tell people that she had become separated from her family, who were travelling from Nob to visit her uncle in Elmwood. So now she was following on foot, trying to catch up with them.

  By evening, she was exhausted and hungry. She had no idea how far she had travelled, or how far she had yet to go—the scenery had remained unchanged for the entire day. The only sounds had been the stream, some small forest animals, and insects as they went about their daily business. It was strange: although she missed her family terribly, she missed Nan, her goat, more. Nan had been her constant companion, even in her solitude. Thinking of Nan made her suddenly long for the goat’s delicious warm milk. Her stomach rumbled loudly. Oh well, it wouldn’t do her much good thinking about that. She pushed her way through the dense shrubs to the stream for a drink and a wash, before finding a suitable spot to settle for the night.

  She surveyed her surroundings in the deepening gloom: the ground sloped gently upwards away from the stream—in fact, she noted that the side she was on was much steeper than the opposite bank. Tomorrow she would try to cross to the other side. Despite the fading light, there appeared to be a lighter patch within the forest some distance away, as though there were a clearing. She made her way towards it and, sure enough, she found a group of large boulders clustered together, preventing trees from growing. It was certainly not a large space, but she liked the idea of curling up against some solid rocks, with the shelter of the trees nearby.

  She gathered dead leaves to try to soften the ground at the base of the boulders. She would not risk lighting a fire for fear that the Guards might spot the light or smell the smoke.

  As she seated herself cross-legged on her pile of leaves, the full moon broke through the clouds. Although tired, she was not sleepy, and she suddenly remembered the object that the Watcher had pressed into her hand. At the time, she had shoved it into her satchel. Now, she dug it out again. It was a small, smooth stone, about the size and shape of a quail’s egg. Briefly, she wondered whether it was indeed an egg, but no, it felt completely wrong. It was heavy and solid. In the pale light it looked grey, with opaque streaks running through it, like veins. She turned the object over and held it up to the moonlight. It was really quite pretty. As she inspected it, she thought about the Watcher who had given it to her, and who had died saving her life. Then her thoughts turned to Saff, the other Watcher. She wondered what he looked like, and what he was doing right then. Suddenly, the pebble glowed and grew warm to Freya’s touch. A greenish hue emanated from it, forming a halo the size of a melon around it. Freya stared at it in amazement, holding it in her palm in front of her eyes. But as quickly as it had started to glow, it stopped.

  Excited, she repeated what she had done, hoping that the pebble would glow again: she rolled it around in her palms and held it up to the moonlight—but to no avail. The stone did not shine again. With a sigh, Freya tucked the pebble back into her satchel. As she did so, her hand brushed against a larger, solid object. Her tablet! How could she have forgotten about it? Carefully, she extracted it from her bag and unwrapped the leather covering. She wanted to make sure that it had not been damaged during her flight. Holding it to catch the moonlight so that she could inspect the surface, she gasped as faint writing appeared. Transfixed, she held the tablet steady. Her heart pounded as she realised that the words, now clear and bright, were not the same as before. This time they read:

  Majestic mountains, white with snow

  Their crystal tears to rivers flow

  Splashing sparkles dance up high

  Painting rainbows in the sky

  Swathes of splendid floral hues

  The land with colour do imbue

  The golden sun smiles down from high

  As he marches ‘cross the sky

  Stunned, she recalled the first two verses, which she had by now committed to memory. There had been forty-five words in the first two verses. She quickly counted the next five words to bring her to the first etched number: 50. The fiftieth word was ‘snow’! Beside herself with excitement, she continued counting up to 63 ... and landed on ‘rainbows’. With a shaking finger, she continued counting ... and with disappointment realised that ‘sky’ was the ninetieth word. She was a mere two words short of the ninety-second word.

  Still, it was hard to remain disappointed for long, with this amazing discovery. Thoughts tumbled through her head, so fast that she couldn’t think straight. Lowering the tablet into her lap, with the words still shining bright on its surface, she took some deep breaths and tried to calm her whirling mind. The first time the words had appeared had been in flamelight. This time they had appeared with moonlight. Maybe, maybe, more words would appear with different types of light? Although, she wasn’t sure what other types of light there were, because she had already ascertained that sunlight didn’t work. Maybe it was as simple as finding a rainbow and snow? Maybe it wasn’t light, but different substances? She hadn’t the faintest idea where she would find either snow or a rainbow in Medar, and suddenly wished she knew more about the geography of the Land. Of course, she knew that snow was on mountains, she just didn’t know where any mountains were in this part of the Land. It was so frustrating. She decided that in addition to finding Saff, she would also need to get her hands on a map. Wouldn’t it be amazing, if she put the tablet in the light of a rainbow or in snow and more words did appear?

  After all, if counting words was correct, she still had two more words to find, so it was logical that there were still more verses to the poem. Besides, it didn’t seem like the poem was finished yet. It all made sense. And this Tyrelia place sounded amazing. She hoped she would be able to find it. That Watcher had thought she could. Mulling everything over that had happened in the past few days, anything felt possible to the girl, all alone in the endless night-time woods.

  Chapter 7

  The Cave People

  Freya woke early the next morning, stiff and very hungry. But she was still excited about her previous evening’s discoveries, so it was with a positive mindset that she set off to continue her search for Elmwood. As she had determined the day before, she needed to find a safe place to cross the stream. Actually, it was more of a river now, wider and flowing more swiftly, and she kicked herself for not having thought of crossing sooner. She was not a strong swimmer, and she was not about to let herself be swept downstream and into the Chasm.

  And so, as she worked her way along the bank, she kept an eye out for a suitable place to cross. The morning wore on and it started to rain. After hours of walking, she had still not managed to find a crossing place. A small seed of doubt sprouted deep in the pit of her stomach as the rain intensified. She drew her hood over her head and, suppressing the worry, continued with determination.

  Another couple of hours passed. Her progress was slow. Hunger weakened her, the terrain was becoming steeper, and the rain pelted down, slowly turning the earth into mud so that she slipped and skidded and had to hold on to branches in case she lost her footing altogether.

  She plodded on, and was already quite miserable when, to her dismay, she came to a landslide that would require a big detour to get past. Several large trees had slipped right down the slope into the stream. They were so large that they had fallen right across to the other bank ... that was it!

  Immediately Freya’s spirits lifted. This was the opportunity she had been looking for all day. She made her way over to the fallen trees, but despite her care, the ground gave way underfoot and she ended up sliding most of the way down the bank, where she ended up in a heap against a tangle of roots. In addition to being covered in mud, she was scratched and bruised. She extricated herself from the clinging vegetation and brushed the hair out of her face. Despite the rain, she threw her hood back and tucked her braids into her clothes so they wouldn’t swing into her face. It was bad enough only having one eye without blocking the vision in the other as well.

  She studied the fallen trees and made a plan of attack. First, she navigated the muddy tangle of roots, which stuck straight up in the air, blocking her passage to the trunks. She then eased herself gently onto the broad trunk of the largest fallen tree.

  She turned to face the opposite bank and, sitting down straddling the trunk, she leaned forward until she was lying on her stomach and inched her way across. The river churned and frothed beneath her, and the farther she went, the closer the tree came to the water.

  She was about three-quarters of the way over, with a few metres to go, when the rising waters, pushing against the leafy tangle of branches at the crown of the tree, suddenly shifted the trunk, rolling it and nearly throwing Freya off. She barely managed to cling on and, although she was more in the water than out of it, she clawed her way through the upper branches and finally dragged herself out of the river and onto the opposite bank. She lay gasping for breath, soaked through, and utterly exhausted. She forced herself to crawl a short distance to the shelter of the woods so as to at least obtain some reprieve from the rain. There she collapsed against the nearest tree trunk.

  She didn’t know how long she had lain there, but suddenly she woke. She must have drifted off. Now it was late afternoon and, thankfully, the rain had stopped. She was still wet through, cold and shivering uncontrollably. Nevertheless, she got to her feet, wobbling slightly, and set out again. Numbly, head down, she kept going. She knew she couldn’t stop until she was warmer and drier. At least the ground was not as steep on this side of the river, and the going was easier than it had been.

  She stumbled on and on. There was a dull roar in the distance—the roar of water pouring into the Chasm. She must be getting close now. Surely she would find Elmwood soon? She scanned the depths of the forest, straining her eye to see if there was anything besides the endless trees, but nothing indicated that a village was nearby. As she continued towards the distant roar, the trees thinned out before her, and she realised that she was now very close to the edge of the Chasm. What she had thought was simply dusk gathering was in fact the greyness of the Wall in the distance. There was absolutely no sign of Elmwood. She had been wrong. Devastated, shivering with cold and weak from hunger, she collapsed onto her knees. So this is it: the thought drifted through her fevered brain. I will never see my family again. I shall die here all alone and nobody will ever know. She fell forward into unconsciousness.

  CROUCHED AND HIDDEN amongst the trees, a figure observed the girl as she stumbled and collapsed. When she fainted, he approached her.

  After determining that she still lived, the man hurried off towards the waterfall and called out in guttural sounds. Shortly, three more men, of the same stature and similarly clad, climbed up out of the Chasm and, between them, they carefully lifted Freya and strapped her into a litter. Using strong leather thongs, and calling to more people below, they slowly lowered her unconscious form over the lip of the Chasm.

  SMOKE. SHE COULD SMELL smoke. Not bad, burning smoke, but good, delicious cooking smoke. Warm. She was warm, cosy, comfortable. Voices. There was the murmur of voices. Not shouting, threatening voices, but the safe, quiet chatter of a family discussing everyday business. Hungry! She was very, very hungry. She opened her eyes and attempted to sit up, but immediately collapsed back. She tried to call out, but with days of disuse, her voice only managed a rough croak. It didn’t matter. It was enough to rouse the women working nearby.

  One of them came over from the fire and put her palm on Freya’s forehead. She said something to Freya, but Freya didn’t understand. The sounds she made weren’t like anything she had ever heard. The woman lifted Freya’s head and pressed something wet to her lips. Delicious, warm milk dribbled into her mouth. She gulped and choked, but quickly recovered and, more slowly this time, sipped the remainder of the reviving substance. Satisfied, she sighed and, before the woman had laid Freya’s head back on the furs, she was asleep again.

  The next time Freya woke, there were fewer people in the cave. As before, a woman came quickly to her side as soon as Freya stirred. She brought her some meat stew in a rough-hewn wooden bowl. It smelled heavenly, and Freya savoured every mouthful. Feeling stronger, she remained sitting on a pile of furs and leaned back against the rocky wall to observe her surroundings.

  She was in a cave, positioned along one side, not too close to the entrance, but still a long way from the back. She couldn’t tell how large the cave was. It disappeared into darkness at the rear, and the light from the entrance and campfire were not enough to reveal its full depths. A large fire, with rocks around the perimeter and cooking stones set up over it, was burning near the mouth of the cavern. Sticks and dry moss were piled against the far wall—fuel for the fire. A couple of small women were seated tending the fire and cooking food. Not too far away, some more women were thumping away with mortars and pestles—grinding some grain, she supposed. They were little people, and their skin was darker than hers. If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought they were girls rather than grown women. They were all dressed in animal skins and furs.

  Looking up, Freya thought for a moment that tree roots were growing through the roof of the cave. But no. Above her, all sorts of dried herbs and meats were hanging in bunches, from a series of fibrous ropes strung across the ceiling. Hers was the only bed in this cave—she wondered fleetingly where everybody else slept. Two small children ran laughing past her, throwing curious glances her way as they dashed by. She realised with a shock that, while they were small of stature, they were probably only a few years younger than her and not toddlers as she had first thought.