The Naming The Riddle The Crow The singing

The Naming: The First Book of Pellinor

Excerpt

In the cowbyre she leaned her forehead into the warm flanks of a dark-eyed cow, who stood patiently chewing cud as she kneaded its full udder. The milk splashed rhythmically into the pail. Maerad was on the brink of sleep when suddenly the cow almost kicked her and then tried to rear. Maerad started awake, rescuing the pail—spilled milk would mean a beating—and tried to calm the animal. Normally a word would do, but the creature kept snorting and stamping, pulling the chains that held her hind leg and head as if she were distressed or frightened.

The hair on the back of Maerad’s neck prickled. She had a strange, taut feeling, as if there were about to be a storm and the air was crackling with imminent lightning. She looked around the byre.

A man stood there, not ten feet away, a man she had never seen before. For a moment, shock stopped her breath. The man was tall, and his stern face was shadowed by a dark, roughly woven woolen hood. She stood up and reached for a rushlight, uncertain whether to shout for help.

“Who are you?” she said sharply.

The man was silent.

She began to feel afraid. “Who are you?” she asked again. Was it a wer out of the mountains? A ghost? “Avaunt, black spirit!”

“Nay,” he said at last. “Nay, I am no black spirit. No wer in a man’s skin. No. Forgive me.” He sighed heavily. “I am tired, and I am wounded. I am not quite—myself.”

He smiled, but it was more like a wince, and as the rushlight fell past his hood and illuminated his features, Maerad saw that he was gray with exhaustion. His face was arresting: it seemed neither young nor old, the countenance of a man of perhaps thirty-five years, but somehow with the authority of age. He was high-cheekboned, with a firm mouth and large, deep-set eyes. He held her gaze. “And who are you, young witchmaiden? It takes sharp eyes to see the likes of me, although perhaps my art fails me. Name yourself.”

“Who are you to ask me?” said Maerad pugnaciously. It occurred to her, with a pang of surprise, that she didn’t feel afraid—although, she thought in that split second, she ought to be.