{"id":11987,"date":"2012-03-05T06:30:15","date_gmt":"2012-03-04T17:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=11987"},"modified":"2012-03-05T07:48:03","modified_gmt":"2012-03-04T18:48:03","slug":"22-days-counting-down-to-the-gathering-of-the-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/03\/05\/22-days-counting-down-to-the-gathering-of-the-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"22 Days — & Counting Down to “The Gathering of the Lost”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

US cover<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

UK cover<\/p><\/div>\n

Only 22 days left now to release day for The Gathering of the Lost<\/em>, The Wall of Night Book Two.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To mark the countdown, I am posting a series of excerpts from the book, and on Thursday 30 I featured an excerpt from the Prologue.<\/p>\n

Today it’s an extract\u00a0 from the opening of Part 1, The Festival of Masks:<\/strong><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

from The Gathering of the Lost<\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

(c)\u00a0 Helen Lowe<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chapter 1,<\/strong> The Road to Ij<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

Spring came to the River in a flurry of blustering winds and driving rain that turned the local roads into quagmires and hurled the first fragile blossoms to the ground. Two heralds were blown out of the city of Terebanth with the weather and turned east toward Ij, following the great Main Road that had endured since the days of the Old Empire. At any other season a river passage would have been faster, but the combination of contrary winds and spring floods, fed by snowmelt in the headwaters of the Ijir and the Wildenrush, would keep the merchant galleys in port for at least another month. And unlike the adjoining local roads, the Main Road was well paved and drained and would not turn to mud in the spring rain.<\/p>\n

Even so, it took the heralds the best part of a chill and dreary month to complete their journey. The rain continued, steady and unrelenting, and they slept in small wayside inns or camped in the leafless woods. Both heralds were swathed in thick gray cloaks, but they and their horses were equally sodden by the time the first watery sunshine appeared, just before the toll bridge and the great Patrol fort at Farelle.<\/p>\n

The bridge, with its seven great arches spanning the river, was a relic of the Old Empire. Together with the fort, it marked the last stop before Ij, which lay an easy, two-hour ride away. The floodwaters had finally begun to recede and the riverbank was lined with barges, while mules, wagons and foot travelers crammed the bridge. The heralds stood up in their stirrups, trying to make out why flow of people and goods had slowed to a trickle.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething on the far side,\u201d the first one said, while his companion angled her horse toward a solitary traveler coming toward them. His garb and the lute on his shoulder suggested a journeyman minstrel and his progress was steady despite the crowd, although he seemed glad to stop in the lee of the herald’s great, gray horse.<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018The whole world comes to Ij in the springtime\u2019<\/em>\u2014isn’t that what they say?\u201d He addressed the gray-clad rider cheerfully.<\/p>\n

\u2026 “<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only 22 days left now to release day for The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two. To mark the countdown, I am posting a series of excerpts from the book, and on Thursday 30 I featured an excerpt from the Prologue. Today it’s an extract\u00a0 from the opening of Part 1, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11987"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12147,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11987\/revisions\/12147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}