Chapter 151

The flag went in at the crossing an hour before noon, between two of the old ford stones, on an ash pole Corwin had cut that morning and peeled white.

There was no wind in the Reach to lift it. The beechwoods stood up on both sides of the river so steep and grey and close that the valley felt roofed, and I could not see one elf in them, nor smell one, though I knew to the file where four hundred were lying. The woods smelled of beech and snow and nothing else. Lucien had done his work.

Above the crossing, for two miles up the Reach, the river lay under ice. Here, where it spread wide over the stones, it would not freeze; it went down over them black and quick and talking, with a skirt of ice along each bank. Mist stood with her forefeet on the first stone and blew at the water.

Caspian stood at Mist’s left shoulder, on foot. He had said a horse would only be one more thing to watch. His arm was out of its linen, carried a little crooked still, my knot showing at th