Read Online The Wittering Way by Nat Burns - Free Book Online Page B

you want me to heal that?” Yewsy said, staying my hand as I wrapped the scarf. “I know it must hurt.”
    “It’s fine,” I said, tucking the cloth in neatly. “Let’s get moving before they come back.”
    “I think they’re done,” Saffron said, laying one hand over my bandaged wound. I felt the healing energy seep through, making the wound throb. “They got what they wanted.”
    I nodded and sighed. “Yes. I just hope we won’t encounter them on the way back.”
    Yewsy looked over my shoulder and I turned to see Talew and RoseIII returning.
    “Did it awaken on its own?” I asked.
    “No. I had to work a revival,” RoseIII said.
    I nodded and we moved west. “Good. But let’s put some distance between us and the river, just in case.”
     
     

Book Thirteen
     
     
     
    IF LORE ABOUT Brinc history was true, the land inhabited by the Brinc clan had deteriorated rapidly during the past century. Sorrow filled my heart when I spied the lanes filled with dirty, downtrodden Lutis who had been enslaved to provide Brinc with the metal ores required to construct their machines. Lutis were short, stocky earth sprites with dark heavy beards and wide, square feet shod in black boots. They had a very proud kingdom in the village of Earste in the Hites, so obviously they had been bound by very strong magic to be enslaved here. Or by very strong threats.
    For Luti or Brinc, it was a horrible way to live. Obviously, the Meab people of Brinc lived quite differently, by very different principles, than my more forest-based clan.
    Opening a hole in the new magical barrier the Morri had constructed against the Brinc was an arduous endeavor. It had eaten most of our afternoon, forcing yet another night on cold ground. This time beneath the diamond-like lights of the Brinc border instead of the usual stars in the sky.
    A disgruntled, sleepy group of wit had greeted the dawn sun. Now we stood just past the small opening we’d created by combining our working skill the night before and stared at the destruction of the Meab way of life.
    “Tsisi never came back,” Capel said, her voice petulant.
    “Janas are wind sprites. They are not dependable, you know that,” I responded absently.
    I was trying to decide the best way to approach the citadel, which was located in the center of the village. There was a wide, hard-surfaced lane that began a short distance away from us, but walking along it would leave us too exposed. I wasn’t sure what Signe’s men would do to us, but after seeing my parents’ brutal murder, I was taking no chances. I consulted with Afton and he agreed that we had to be covert and find a way in without being seen. I looked right and left. Lanes stretched in both directions, with many small, seemingly deserted homes lining both sides of the lanes. Strange belts or cords strung each of the homes together then stretched off until they went out of my sight.
    The surroundings were so very different from what I was familiar with. There were no plants, no Mother Trees at all, just periodic stacks of fallen wood at the end of each house-crowded lane. Tears framed my eyes as I surveyed the inhospitable landscape.
    “This is not happening,” RoseIII spoke my own thoughts mournfully. “Please tell me they don’t really live this way.”
    I could only shake my head, unable to formulate words of comfort.
    “Is this the way the Milesians live?” Memo mused aloud.
    “This is what the legends say. The Humans’ silver ships came from the sky to our Mother Earth. They used the wood to heat the metals they found here,” RoseIII replied.
    “How can we hide?” I asked, moving tentatively along the lane that stretched to our left. “There are no branches, no trunks, no vines.”
    Yewsy sighed loudly as she followed. “Maybe we should come back at night.”
    “But the lanterns...did you see the lights they have here? It makes it like day,” Capel said. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
    “Let’s walk