DragonSpell by Donita K. Paul Read Free Book Online

shell, inflicted grievous wounds on the ogres, Leetu peppered them from above with arrow after arrow.
    The rock-hard pine cones Kale threw bruised the ogres but did not impede their attack. Nonetheless, the cones stuck, and Kale saw that was a good thing. Most of the hairy grawligs carried the extra weight of ten to twenty rock cones. She thought the beasts were incredibly stupid. Their focus remained riveted on the doneel they thought they had trapped on the ground.
    Eventually, the assault from above bothered some of the grawligs enough that they stopped to gawk at the trees. Leetu took advantage of the upturned faces. Her skillful aim sent several grawligs howling into the woods, pulling at arrows embedded in their flesh.
    Kale marveled over each direct hit on a grawlig’s ear. They reacted with shrieks of anger and pain. Often the wounded ogre left the foray with a massive hand covering the side of its head. All the grawligs were limping painfully from the wounds inflicted to their feet by the doneel.
    She redoubled her efforts to make a bull’s-eye, then laughed to herself and corrected the phrase. She wanted to hit a grawlig’s ear, not a bull’s eye.
    The skirmish was soon over.
    Dar was right. They’re leaving! And none too soon. My arm aches from throwing all those heavy cones. I must have thrown a couple hundred. And my hands feel like I’ve been squeezing pincushions.
    She reached inside her shirt and pulled out the red pouch to cradle between her palms.
    For a moment Dar, Leetu, and Kale remained still, listening to the grawligs scrambling through the forest, howling and snarling and making just as much noise in their departure as they had in the attack. As the sounds faded, Dar released the protective shell. It vanished. He stood and sniffed the air.
    “They’re gone,” he announced. He cleaned his bloody daggers, wiping them on the trampled grass. They disappeared into his sleeves, and the fussy doneel inspected his spattered knickers.
    Leetu slithered from branch to branch and landed lightly on the ground.
    “Messy work,” she commented and began to pick up arrows that had bounced off the grawligs’ hard heads or been pulled out and thrown down by the angry beasts.
    Kale came down from her tree more slowly. She’d been in a battle! If she wanted to believe it a dream, she couldn’t. Splashes of grawlig blood spotted the little clearing. She crept to the far edge to sit apart from her companions. Her stomach felt queasy, and she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
    Dar had already pulled off his boots and socks and had one of his bags open, looking for clean clothes.
    “It’s all right.”
Kale heard Leetu’s calm voice in her mind but could not bring herself to look up at the emerlindian’s serene features. Instead she studied the twigs, dirt, and pebbles between her feet. An insect crawled across an open space and then disappeared underneath a trang-a-nog leaf.
    Kale deliberately answered Leetu with her thoughts.
One of the fighting mariones from River Away had been to the borderlands and fought blimmets. He said killing blimmets was no more bothersome than swatting flies.
His
stomach didn’t turn at the sight of blood. If Paladin expects me to fight in battles, maybe he picked the wrong o’rant.
    Leetu’s voice penetrated her mind.
“Don’t feel bad about being sick over this sort of thing. Don’t ever get used to killing. If you do, then no matter how high you were born in the seven races, you’ll slip down to the level of those born of Pretender’s evil mind.”
    Paladin approves of killing?
asked Kale.
    A long pause followed.
    “Paladin believes in protecting his people.”
    What does that mean?
    “It’s better you wait and see.”
    Kale growled under her breath and heard Leetu’s answering chuckle in her mind as well as in her ears.

          7          
    G RANNY N OON
    After Dar changed his clothes, they resumed their journey, Leetu in the lead, Kale trailing