None of this was anything the cousins wanted to encounter, but all were difficult to avoid in making passage below the Rainbow Lake. Any route that would take them above the Rainbow Lake would cost them an additional three days at least and involved dangers of their own. Traveling farther south required a detour of better than a hundred miles and would put them almost to the Prekkendorran, a place no one in his right mind wanted to be.
But the Federation had realized this, as well, during the time of its occupation of Leah and so had built roads through Clete and the Black Oaks to facilitate the movement of men and supplies. Many of these roads had fallen into disrepair and could no longer be used by wagons, but all were passable by men on horseback. Quentin, because he was the older of the two, had explored more thoroughly the lands they intended to pass through, and was confident they could find their way to the Anar without difficulty.
True to his prediction, they made good progress that first day. By midday, they had ridden out of the Highlands and into the dismal morass of Clete. Sun and sky disappeared and the cousins were buried beneath a dismal gray shroud of mist and gloom. But the road remained visible, and they pressed on. Their pace slowed as the terrain grew more treacherous, scrub and tree limbs closing in so that they were forced to duck and weave as they went, guiding their horses around encroaching pools of quicksand and bramble patches, picking their way resolutely through the haze. Shadows moved all about them, some cast by movements of light, others by things that had somehow managed to survive in this blasted land. They heard sounds, but the sounds were not identifiable. Their conversation died away and time slowed. Their concentration narrowed to keeping safely on the road.
But by the approach of nightfall, they had navigated the lowlands without incident and moved into the forbidding darkness of the Black Oaks. The road here was less uneven and better traveled, the way open and clear as they rode into a steadily lengthening maze of shadows. With twilight’s fall, they stopped within a clearing and made camp for the night. A fire was built, a meal prepared and eaten, and bedding laid out. The cousins joked and laughed and told stories for a time, then rolled into their blankets and fell asleep.
Sleep lasted until just after midnight, when it began to rain so hard that the clearing was flooded in a matter of minutes. Bek and Quentin snatched up their gear and retreated to the shelter of a large conifer, covering themselves with their travel cloaks as they sat beneath a canopy of feathery branches and watched the rain sweep through unabated.
By morning they were stiff and sore and not very well rested, but they resumed their travels without complaint. In other circumstances, they would have come better equipped, but neither had wanted the burden of pack animals and supplies, and so they were traveling light. A few nights of damp and cold were tolerable in the course of a week’s passage if it meant shaving a few days off their traveling time. They ate a cold breakfast, then rode all morning through the Black Oaks, and by afternoon the rain had abated and they had reached the Battlemound. Here they turned south, unwilling to chance crossing through any part of the Mist Marsh, content to detour below the swamp and come out to the east, where they would turn north again and ride until they reached the Silver River.
By sunset, they had succeeded in accomplishing their goal, avoiding Sirens and other pitfalls, keeping to the roadway until it meandered off south, then sticking to the open ground of the lowlands as the terrain changed back to forests and low hills and they could see the glittering ribbon of the river ahead. Finding shelter in a grove of cottonwood and beech, they made camp on its banks, the ground sufficiently dry that they could lay out their bedding and build a fire. They watered and fed the horses and rubbed them down. Then they made dinner for themselves and, after eating it, sat facing out toward the river and the night, sipping cups of ale as they talked.