Read Online The Kingdom of Kevin Malone by Suzy McKee Charnas - Free Book Online Page B

way through it. How would we ever get out of there again, even if we could figure out where out was?
    Not that I was in any great hurry to do that just then. I could hear the Famishers padding around and squealing eagerly outside the brush. As Kevin had promised, they weren’t getting in—a definite plus. But if one more thorn raked me across the neck I was going to scream. I hoped the seelims had run far, far away by now. By the look of those teeth, Famishers could eat anything.
    We scrambled into an open space and both collapsed, spitting out dust and twigs. My skin stung all over. For a second I thought I must have gone blind as well: then I realized that the brush grew so tall here that it closed over our heads, drowning us in brown gloom. We were completely enclosed by interlaced branches.
    â€œI feel like I’ve been through a Cuisinart,” I said.
    â€œWe’re okay,” Kevin said. “Famishers can’t move around in here.”
    â€œWho can?” I said. “I’m bleeding to death. Where are we, Kevin?”
    â€œIn the Brangle,” he said in a tone of satisfaction, slapping dust off his clothes with both hands and coughing. “Anglower’s creatures have burned up whole forests all over the Fayre Farre. Brangle is all that grows back. The thorns hate him and keep out him and his.”
    â€œLucky them,” I growled.
    â€œYou don’t understand.” He had lost his cap and his hair was a dusty tangle, though not as awful as mine. He rubbed at his scratched forehead with his sleeve. “This is where we’ve been heading all morning. See, the Branglemen can talk with the Oldest Ones. They’ll get us the prophecy Sebbian lost, the one we need, if we can find them and get them to cooperate.”
    â€œWe just met one,” I said. “And he took off.”
    â€œHe was just a sentry posted at the Brangle’s edge,” Kevin said. “He’s gone for the others, more important ones. I’m their only hope, they all know that. But I’m no good empty-handed; I need the prophecy that will lead us to the sword. They know that, too. If the White One’s minions chase me to the Black Cliffs and I haven’t got the Farsword when I meet him there, everything’s lost.”
    â€œMaybe your Branglemen don’t care about your sword and your battle,” I said. “I mean, they live in here, right? Then what’s all that to them?”
    Kevin bristled. “Hey, I know what I’m doing, okay?”
    â€œWell, excuse me,” I said. “I’m just a miserable, expendable flunky without whose help you are probably chopped liver, right?”
    â€œSorry,” he muttered.
    â€œSo how do I get home from here once we’ve got this prophecy?” I said wearily. I felt some sneaking sense of embarrassment, which I didn’t want to let Kevin see. Here I was, a lover of Tolkien, living in a magic world that really worked—and all I could think of was getting myself back out of it again.
    Kevin examined his scratched knuckles. “There’s an arch in here someplace that the Branglemen keep. You’ll use that.”
    My eyes were now used to the dimness. I could see that a lot of tunnel-like openings shadowed the walls around us.
    â€œWell, let’s look for these Branglemen, then,” I grumbled, getting up. “We can’t just sit here.”
    Something whizzed past my head and stuck into the brush beyond me. Someone said, “Stand still or you’re food for thorns!”
    It was the Brangleman again—or another one, I couldn’t tell. He was still (or also) shorter than I was, but he had lots of authority. In one hand he held two sticks of polished wood the size of a carving knife: throwing clubs, perfectly appropriate to people low in the pecking order in a sword-and-sorcery world (accent for the moment on “sword”).
    Keeping his eyes on us, the Brangleman