Read Online Many Roads Home by Ann Somerville - Free Book Online

calf outside. It clearly struggled to breathe, so Raina was probably right, but it was so small and helpless. He’d killed before, but always animals he’d caught hunting. Not creatures lying trustingly on his arm.
    He swallowed. This was a farm, and kardips were food. He still said a quick prayer to the spirits as he killed the calf as quickly and cleanly as he knew. The spurting blood made him want to be sick. This wasn’t like hunting deer in his father’s forests. There was no sport in this.
    He carried the corpse over to the house, around the back to the kitchen or where he thought it would be. Jako’s wife glared suspiciously at him. “Um, Raina had me kill this. Said it wouldn’t live, and to bring it to you.”
    “Oh good, it’ll do for supper tomorrow. Give it here, boy. You can wash up under the pump there. Don’t come into my house in that state.”
    She took the kardip’s body and shut the door in his face. He had no choice but to go off and use the pump, glad to get the shit and the blood off himself, though there was little he could do for his shirt. Maybe he could ask for an overall or something.
    “Ah, silent child, are they working you hard?”
    Hilario held a bone in his hand, from which he tore strips of cooked meat with his strong white teeth. Yveni’s stomach turned. “Yes. I just killed…um, Hilario, what’s the Healing Sight?”
    “Oh, that’s a powerful gift. Not common. Anyone with that knows what’s wrong with a sick person and if they’re going to die. Some say it’s a curse. Where did you hear of such a thing?”
    “A woman here says she has it.”
    “Probably has. I wanted to find you. I’m leaving tomorrow. People here aren’t so friendly, and I want to see my son. Will you be all right?”
    “Of course.” Hilario had taught him a good deal about this land and how to survive, and though it would be hard to say goodbye to him, he had his destiny to follow and Yveni had his.
    “Maybe we’ll meet again, if you sail in another ship and it sinks.”
    Yveni shuddered. “No thanks. There have to be easier ways to meet up with friends.”
    Hilario laughed. “True. Well, we’ll see each other for a little longer. You have to go back to work?”
    “I think so.”
    “Then I have to play and eat, to keep the balance. See you later, silent child.”
    Cheeky beggar. Yveni would miss him. All he did lately was say goodbye to people.
    He returned to the barn, trying to remember where he’d left his shovel. He found Raina slumped tiredly on a straw bale in one of the stalls.
    “I, uh, did what you asked.”
    She glared up at him, but then to his surprise, her expression softened. “I hate killing them. The little ones. The adults? Easy. But the babies…” She bit her lip.
    “You knew it would die? You were sure?”
    “It had malformed lungs. It would only have lived an hour or so, and struggled the whole time. Better to ease its pain and give one of my orphans to the mother.”
    “Your gift works with people too?”
    “Of course.” Her eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “You know our tongue, but you don’t know about the gifts. Who are you?”
    “I’m from Sardelsa, in Tuelwetin. I was travelling with my father to Horches when our ship was wrecked. He…died. I’m trying to finish the journey, to meet his relatives. I mean, our relatives.”
    She didn’t notice the slip. “I wish I could go to Horches and study to be a healer. But Father wants me to go to Grekil and take a husband. I don’t want a husband. I don’t like men at all, great stupid oafs that they are.”
    “Can’t you talk to your father? Don’t you need healers in the village?”
    “Not as much as we need children. I can’t do both. Best I’ll get to do is birth these smelly damn things. I like kardips but they’re not very bright.”
    “Do you like horses?”
    “Never seen one. What are they like?”
    “They’re bigger than a kardip, with short hair. Smart and beautiful animals. We