Read Online DragonSpell by Donita K. Paul - Free Book Online Page B

skirt felt cumbersome. She had never worn anything but short trousers that hit just below her knee. Granny Noon had given her a long skirt and soft leather boots that came up her calves. Her legs tangled in all these trappings. She constantly tripped. And it seemed she was always clumsiest when Leetu watched.
    Then there was the cape. Kale liked the way the material flowed around her. But she constantly felt the need to gather it close, keeping it away from the dirt and rock walls in the narrower passages. Never before had she been concerned about her clothing getting soiled.
    She didn’t like wearing the new clothes in these awful underground passages. She didn’t like the clammy dirt, the musty smell, and the shadows. She didn’t like not being able to see all the time, and she didn’t like not knowing where they were going.
    To the gateway. But where is this gateway, and how long will it take us to get there? I don’t like being so deep in the mountain at all.
    The bright burrow leading down to Granny Noon’s rooms had been clean and comfortable. Someone had placed large, glistening lightrocks on convenient, man-made shelves. But in these tunnels, light shimmered in uneven intervals along the walls. Embedded lightrocks glimmered in a natural scattering. Some parts of the passage shone brightly where the rocks clustered. Sometimes the travelers walked in deep shadows with only small, faint lightrocks marking the way.
    At first the tunnel had been cool and fresh. Now the hot, moist air stung Kale’s nose and left a metallic taste in her mouth. She thought they might end up clear on the other side of the world if they kept going, down and down, always marching down, deeper into the mountain.
    Dar entered a darker section of the passage, and Kale walked a little faster. She didn’t want to be left behind. Something smacked against her ankle. She whirled around. Snarling teeth flashed close to the ground. She jumped back. A dark animal, no bigger than a rat, skittered into the shadows. She pivoted on one foot and ran after Dar.
    “What is it?” he asked as she came up behind him.
    “An animal.” She panted, not from the short run, but from fear.
    “Dark, quick, ugly teeth.”
    “A druddum.” Dar kept walking, no faster than before. “They won’t hurt you as long as you’re with someone.”
    She pushed her nervousness aside and concentrated on Dar’s thoughts. She didn’t pick up any words, but she got the impression of the doneel chortling.
    He’s teasing me again.
    “Tell me the truth,” she insisted.
    Dar gave her a quick look of mischief over his shoulder. His shaggy eyebrows waggled, his ears perked up and twitched, and his mouth opened in his extra-wide grin. Then he shrugged and turned back down the tunnel, walking steadily on.
    “They don’t hurt anybody,” he said over his shoulder. “However, they do steal things. Food, naturally. But they also take things just to look at them or feel them. They have hoards, and they
will
bite if you try to take something from their cache.”
    Dar adjusted the pack he had been carrying across his chest so that it hung over his shoulder. Another druddum barreled around a turn in the tunnel. Both the small animal and Kale let out a high-pitched squeal. The druddum flipped in the air and took off in the direction it had come from. Dar laughed.
    “I once came upon a druddum’s nest,” he said. “I stopped short before it saw me and watched awhile. It had a piece of smooth cloth and turned that scrap over and over in its paws, stroking it like a pet. Its eyes were half closed, and it hummed one note almost the way a cat would purr. That druddum sat on a mirror, and lots of shiny things poked higgledy-piggledy out of the dried grass of his bed.”
    Kale didn’t care what a druddum’s nest looked like. “They won’t attack?”
    “No.” Dar stepped over a large rock in the path, and Kale followed.
    “They run through these tunnels at great speed and