"It will," Baldric said in a low voice, "but we will need a vanguard of foot-soldiers to be sure the way is clear. And we will not travel in file, but will spread ourselves out. A file of soldiers traveling through this maze, mounted or no, would be easily overcome and slaughtered."

Visibility was so poor within the forest that it took them five days to cover a distance that should have taken four. For five days they moved by stealth, wary of the deep, concealing quiet that surrounded them, and for five nights they slept in damp darkness, listening, sleeping little, too wary to bring the light and warmth of fire to a place where watchful eyes might take ruthless advantage.

On the morning of the sixth, the ground suddenly rose, and they began to make an arduous climb. By noon they had crested the valley of the White River, and could hear its muted roar below. The trees about them were flecked with white foam from the river, and the air in the river valley was chill.

Baldric was not pleased when he finally laid eyes upon the river. It was still narrow at this point, and churned whitely in its constricted passage. To either side was a twenty foot drop, each bank being sheer-sided and cut into bedrock. Atop each side the land ended abruptly in a layer of topsoil that hung precariously over the river's edge by moss, root and fern.




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