Brotherband 4: Slaves of Socorro by John Flanagan Read Free Book Online

him, pulling the other way, shaking her head in an attempt to break his grip.
    ‘Let go, you fool!’ Hal yelled and she finally did, sending him staggering back, tripping in the sand and falling full length. Kloof stood, wagging her tail, eager for another game.
    ‘Orlog blast you!’ Hal shouted. ‘You did that on purpose!’
    Kloof! said Kloof. Her paws and jowls were covered in the thick grease. Hal grabbed a cleaning rag and wiped most of it off. Kloof tried to pull away from his ministrations.
    ‘Look at you!’ he said angrily. ‘And I’d just got you cleaned up!’
    ‘Maybe Ingvar could throw her in the water,’ Stig suggested, straight-faced. Too straight-faced. Ingvar, who had returned to the ship, leaving Stefan floundering in chest-deep water, cast an appraising eye over Kloof.
    ‘Don’t think even I could lift her,’ he said, smiling. ‘She is a big one.’
    ‘Thorn says she’s a mountain dog. They use them to find people lost in the snow,’ Hal told them.
    ‘And then, presumably, they ride her home,’ Stig said. He held his hand down to Kloof and she whuffled at it, then allowed him to scratch her ears. ‘She’s a good dog.’
    ‘Trouble is, she chews things,’ Hal replied and Stig looked at him in mock disbelief.
    ‘She does? I hadn’t noticed. I thought that brush just wore away, I was scrubbing so hard with it.’
    Hal ignored the sarcasm. ‘She’s going to be our ship’s dog,’ he said. ‘She can keep guard when we’re in foreign ports.’
    ‘Not a bad idea. Where did you get her?’
    ‘I found her on the mountain yesterday. She was pretty scruffed up and had obviously travelled quite a distance. I took her home and cleaned her up.’
    ‘And your mam let you keep her?’ Stig said, his eyebrows rising in surprise.
    Hal put his hands on his hips and faced his friend, irritation showing in every line of his body.
    ‘Why do people immediately assume that I need my mam’s permission to keep a dog?’ he said belligerently.
    Stig gave him a thin smile. ‘Because I know your mam, remember?’
    Hal relaxed, letting the tension drain from his body. ‘Yeah, well . . . she said I could keep her. But I think it’s best if I keep them apart as much as possible.’
    ‘I would,’ Stig said. ‘Particularly if she chews things.’
    ‘That’s pretty much what I thought,’ Hal said. He glanced at the rudder fitting Stig had been working on. ‘Are you done with that?’
    Stig nodded. ‘I was going to give the boys a hand tarring the standing rigging,’ he said, but Hal made a negative gesture.
    ‘They can look after that by themselves.’ He paused as Stefan squelched his way up the beach past them. The mimic gave Hal an aggrieved look.
    ‘I’m going home to put on dry clothes,’ Stefan said. ‘If that’s all right with you, skirl?’
    ‘Don’t be too long. I’ve got a feeling we need to get this work done as soon as we can.’
    Stefan gave a surly wave as he squelched off towards the town.
    Stig looked curiously at his skirl. ‘Something in the offing?’
    Hal nodded. ‘I think so. Erak asked me to drop by today – said something about a job for us. Want to come along?’
    Stig was already wiping his hands on a spare rag. ‘Any idea what he wants?’ he said eagerly. Like Hal, he had been chafing with the recent inactivity and the boredom of short patrols. Hal shook his head.
    ‘That’s all he said. Let’s go and find out what he’s got in mind.’ He paused, looking uncertainly at Kloof. ‘Think I should take her along?’
    Stig considered the idea for a few seconds. ‘You’d better. If you leave her here, she might eat the ship.’

‘I thought you were up in the mountains, hunting?’ Karina said. Lydia was sitting on the workbench in her kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee and watching as Karina deftly boned out a leg of mutton.
    ‘I was. I only stayed one night,’ she said.
    Karina looked up curiously. ‘You usually stay out a bit longer than that,