Read Online Mindbond by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online Page B

gracefully than the cascades.
    â€œBut for the mien, you and Ytan might be twins,” Kor said.
    That troubled me strangely. My hands faltered as I washed his wounds.
    â€œLet them be, Dan.” He gently pushed me away, got up. “They’re scarcely more than scratches.”
    â€œLucky to be alive, you are,” I grumbled at him.
    â€œI! Who was it that blundered up here? Mahela take your cock, Dan, what a leap! You must be mad.”
    It was a touchy business, getting the horses down to the trail again. Boulders give poor purchase for hooves. After we had accomplished it, with some swearing, I went back and found Ytan’s bow, broke it, took his arrows for my own. The dead Cragsmen wore nothing worth looting. Kor and I rode on, shaken, alert for danger.
    â€œLook,” I whispered once. Off to one side I had seen a flash of swift, bright gray. The wolf journeyed with us.
    In my vision of Sakeema, months past, I had seen him ride a great stag into battle while the wolves followed at his heels. Now wolf and harts had fought side by side to aid us. It was of all things most wonderful, most unaccountable. There had been too many unaccountable happenings in the day.… A prickling feeling took hold of me, and I looked at Kor, his bruised face, his changing, sea-colored eyes. Sakeema, I thought, nearly shivering.
    â€œStop that,” Kor snapped.
    I believe my heart held still, and I stared at him.
    â€œYou’re the one who summoned up yon wolf! And I daresay Birc sent the deer.”
    â€œAnd you’re the one who has taken to hearing thoughts,” I said, my voice shaking.
    He drew Sora to a halt and looked at me, his irritation gone. “Dan, you are so much a part of me …” His voice trailed away helplessly. “It frightens you,” he muttered at last. “Well, this ‘Sakeema’ nonsense frightens me.”
    I kept silence. We went on in silence.
    â€œIt began only today, the mindspeak,” Kor said after a while. “It fills me with wonder. Does it trouble you so much?”
    The thought of Sakeema filled me with wonder. I had to smile. “We seem fated to be always at odds over something,” I said.
    â€œYes.” His voice, low, told me he was thinking of Tassida, as was I.
    â€œAnd it has served only to make us stronger. I daresay I shall get used to it, Kor.”
    We camped that night in an island of fir trees amid cascades. The place smelled of green, even in autumn, but the ferns made a yellow blanket under the trees, and the night was freezing cold—we built a fire. We spoke of keeping watch by turns, against Ytan, and decided against it, for every night has its dangers, perils of enemies, perils of wild beasts, perils of devourers. There would be no proper sleeping for anyone who thought always of the dangers. Moreover, we had journeyed far enough so that we judged he could not have followed us. We both lay down, and I slept soundly, under furs.
    Sometime after the fire had burned down to embers I was awakened out of dreamless slumber with a jolt. Something was crushing down on me and encasing me, taking me into a smothering embrace before I could so much as shout an alarm. The night was all darkness, cold paplike swellings against my face and the feel of slime. A devourer had me in its clutch. Once again my arms were pinned, though this time less shamefully, against my chest. And the skins under which I slept protected me from its teeth, at least for a time. If only I could wriggle my fists up toward my face, even just a little, to make a space near my mouth—
    The thing tightened on me when it felt my struggles. I truly could not breathe.
    Kor! I shouted within my mind. Surely one of the monsters lay on him as well, so I expected nothing of him—it was my terror that spoke. I called upon him as one might call upon the god, Sakeema, when in trouble. But at once I heard his drowsy reply.
    What is it?
    Confounded anew,