Read PROLOGUE for Free Online

them moved in close by Four Houses two winters ago. They come out of west country."
    "What does it matter to the Cursed Ones whether they kill Red Deer folk or White Deer folk?" Beor had a good anger about him now, the kind that stirred others to action.” We're all the same to the Cursed Ones, and once they've killed and captured Red Deer folk, who's to say they won't come after White Deer folk next? I say we must fight together, or we'll all fall to their arrows one by one."
    People muttered in agreement. Young men looked nervous or eager by turns.
    "What does the Hallowed One say?" asked Orla with deceptive softness.
    Everyone fell silent as Adica considered. The Swift finished the mead and gratefully started in on a bowl of porridge brought to her by one of the boys she'd beaten at the races the summer before. He eyed her enviously, her lean legs and the loose breechclout that gave her room to run. He looked as if he wanted to touch the amber necklace and copper armbands the girl wore to signify her status. At the Festival of the Sun last year, when all the villages of the tribe met at the henge to barter and court and settle grievances, this girl had won the races and with that victory the right to the name "Swift," one of the favored youths who carried messages between the villages of the White Deer people.
    "Already the Hallowed Ones of the human tribes work in concert, and we count as our allies the Horse people. Yet the Horse people are less human than our Red Deer cousins, and we accept their alliance gladly." Adica paused, hearing their restlessness.
    The Swift finished off the porridge and hopefully held out the bowl, in case she could get another portion.
    "In this next sun's year is the time of greatest danger. If the Cursed Ones suspect that we mean to act against them, then they will send their armies to attack us. We need every ally we can find, whether Red Deer, or White Deer, or Black Deer. No matter how strange other tribes may seem to us, we need their help. If you are still alive after the next year's dark of the sun, you will no longer have to fear."
    Orla made the sign to avert evil spirits and spat on the ground, and many did likewise, although not Beor. The younger ones withdrew to get on with their work or to check their bows and axes. As the villagers dispersed to their tasks, only the elders and the war captain remained.
    "I will go with the war party," Adica said. They had no choice but to agree.
    She went to her old house to gather healing herbs and her basket of charms. Inside, the small house lay musty, abandoned. She ran her fingers along the eaves. One of the rafters still leaked a little pitch, and she touched it to her lips, breathing in its essence.
    Outside, Beor waited with a party of nine adults whom he trusted to stand and fight, should it come to that. They walked armed with bows, carrying spare arrows tipped with obsidian points, and axes of flint or copper. Agda had a stone ax, and Beor himself carried the prize of the village: a halberd with a real bronze blade fixed at right angles to the shaft. He had taken it off the body of a dead enemy.
    As they set out, the Swift loped past them with her dog at her heels, but she took the turning that would lead her on to Spring Water: Dorren's village.
    No need to think of Dorren now. Adica could enjoy, surely, this transitory peace, walking under the bright sun and reveling in the wind on her back. It wasn't as hot as it had been on Falling-down's island home. She walked at the back of the band, keeping an eye out for useful plants. When she spotted a patch of mustard and stepped off the path to investigate, Beor dropped back to wait for her. The others paused a short way down the path, out of earshot but within range in case of attack.
    She ignored Beor as best she could while she harvested as much mustard as she could tie around with a tall grass stem and set into her traveling basket. He fell in beside her as soon as she started on down