Bec by Darren Shan Read Free Book Online

if he can tell us his people need help, he must be able to tell us his name — but he won’t!”
    “The heads of the touched are hard to fathom,” Goll says, rustling Run Fast’s hair. “My second wife had a brother like this. He couldn’t dress himself, wield a weapon, or cook a meal. But he could play the pipes beautifully. In all other ways he was helpless — but set him loose on the pipes and he could play any man into the ground.”
    “What happened to him?” I ask.
    Goll shrugs. “He went wandering one day and ate poisoned berries.”
    “Berries!” Run Fast shouts, rubbing his stomach. He picks up on certain words every so often and repeats them.
    “It’s not that long since we last ate,” I tell him. “Wait until dinner.”
    “Berries,” Run Fast says again, sadly this time. Then he stamps his right foot several times and looks at me hopefully. “Run fast?”
    “No,” I groan. “Not now. You have to stay with us.”
    “Run fast,” he sighs, stamping the ground one last time, letting me know that he could race up a storm if I gave him the go-ahead.
    Goll laughs. “He’s a lively one. You’ll have your hands full looking after him!”
    “I might just push him into Sionan’s river when we cross,” I huff.
    “We wouldn’t be able to find his village then,” Goll says.
    “I’m not sure we’ll find it anyway,” I grumble. “How do we know he’s leading us the right way? He could have come from a southern tuath for all we know.”
    Goll squints at me with his good eye. “You’re in dark spirits, Little One. Are you tired?”
    “No.”
    Goll tickles me under the chin until I laugh. “Tired?” he asks again.
    “Aye,” I sigh. “I’m not used to all this walking. And you go so quickly! I’ve only got short legs.”
    “You should have said.”
    “I didn’t want to look like a...a...”
    “A child?” Goll smiles. “But you are. And a tiny wee bec of a child at that.”
    “Just because I’m small doesn’t mean I can’t keep up!” I fume, quickening my pace. But I haven’t taken five or six steps when Goll wraps a burly arm around my waist and hauls me off the ground. “Hoi!” I cry. “Put me down!”
    “Stop struggling,” Goll says and settles me on his shoulders, my legs on either side of his head. “We might have need of you later. You’re no good to us fit for nothing but sleep.”
    “I’m fit to turn you into a frog if you don’t put me down!” I grunt. But secretly I’m delighted, and after struggling playfully for a minute, I settle back and let Goll be my horse for the rest of the afternoon. I admire the view from up high and save my strength in case I’m called upon to fight demons in the dark.
    We come to the crossing point of Sionan’s river late in the evening. The river’s narrow here, easy to ford. This is the joining point of two tuatha. A large cashel once stood here, the largest in the province. A couple of wooden roads lead up to and away from the place where the impressive stone fort stood. Many carts used to travel this way and the roads were carefully tended. But the cashel’s a pile of rubble now and the roads are in disrepair. We’d heard the cashel had been overrun by demons but hoped the reports were wrong. This would have been the ideal place to shelter tonight.
    “What now?” Connla asks, studying the untidy mound that was once the pride of the province. “Cross the river or camp here?”
    “Cross,” Ronan and Lorcan say together.
    “There’s no safety here,” Ronan says.
    “Where demons attack once, they’ll attack again,” Lorcan agrees.
    “And many can’t cross flowing water,” Ronan says. “We’d be safer on the other side.”
    Connla nods but looks uneasy. There was never a fort on the opposite side of the river, just some huts where folk of the neighboring tuath dwelt. They used to greet those who crossed the river and either grant them the freedom of their tuath or turn them back. The huts are still