Chapter 21

While it munched the brittle grass and rolled, he lay at the crest of the low slope, staring eastward. Far away to the northward he could see the road he had left, streaming like a white ribbon over a distant rise. No black dots moved along that glistening ribbon. There was no sign about the castle in the distance to indicate that the keepers had noticed the lone wayfarer. An hour later the land still stretched bare. The only sign of life was a glint of steel on the far-off battlements, a raven in the sky that whee…