Mindbond by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page A

result. But stubbornly he continued his attempts to break camp, and when Birc ambled in I was still struggling with him. I had him by the arms, trying to make him sit and listen to reason, and Birc raised his brows at both of us.
    â€œHe’s sick ,” I complained.
    â€œBirc,” Kor demanded thickly, “do Cragsmen come here?”
    Brows still arched, Birc nodded.
    â€œOften?” I put in.
    He shook his head.
    â€œKor ran afoul of a Cragsman two days ago. Have you heard, are they roused?”
    Birc shook his head. The stony-hearted louts were not arming for war? Or he had not heard? He looked somber.
    â€œWe have to go on,” Kor said, though he was staggering where he stood.
    Birc shook his head and gestured at us with palms down, telling us to stay where we were. Then he set off at a graceful, swinging trot. He had disappeared behind trees within a moment.
    â€œKor, truly you are in no fit fettle to travel,” I told him. “Birc wants us to stay, and these woods feel sheltered—do you not sense it?”
    He straightened somewhat and looked about him. We were camped in the hollow of a lee, and spruces ringed it as if to shield us with their thickest needles. As if the place were protected. Even the smoke of our fire seemed to thin before it reached the top of the stunted evergreens, and the horses for some reason seemed content to wander within the woods, pawing for marmots beneath the ledges, though the highmountain meadow with its many voles and lemmings lay scarcely a stone’s throw away.
    Kor gave me an appraising look. “You are not saying that,” he muttered, “just to argue with me?”
    â€œI feel at peril here,” I admitted, “from my own lusts. But it is a peril I can withstand. In a larger way I feel safe, as if in a haven.”
    Yielding, he lay down in his bed again, and I covered him with my blankets as well. I went off into the woods, set snares, ate my wild carrot roots safely out of his sight. When I returned he was dozing, and I did likewise. After halfday I went to check the snares, and gathered far more pika than I expected. I skinned them well away from our campsite, then carried them back and built up the fire to cook them. I would have liked to have boiled broth for Kor, but we had no deer gut to hold the water, nor any cedar box or basket of spruce roots such as his kindred used.
    After the fire had made embers, I scraped a pit to one side and pushed some of the coals into it with a green stick. Then I put in the small carcasses wrapped in leaves. Presently they started to roast, and their aroma filled the air.
    â€œMeat!” I breathed. It seemed the greatest of blessings compared to the seedcakes.
    Kor awoke, stirred, and groaned. Then, catching a waft of the good cooking smell, he turned away his face and tried to vomit, though there was nothing in his stomach, not even water. In compunction I went over and knelt beside him, laid my hands on his shoulders as if that could somehow heal him. “You will feel better soon, Kor, truly,” I assured him.
    â€œSo you say,” he muttered.
    â€œBut I have had this same malady more than once myself. I know you will soon be well.”
    He gave me a look fit to turn a knife between my ribs. I could not keep from smiling.
    â€œHandbond,” I offered.
    He answered only with a fervent curse and a slur on my parentage. I forbore from laughing at him, but only until I was out of his sight and earshot.
    Later I ate, burning my fingers on the hot meat—perhaps there is justice of a sort in such small events. Kor lay still and ignored me, and I sat watching the rising moon, round and orange, like a mushroom cap floating in the twilight sky.
    After dark the naked deer maidens came again, bringing seedcakes, the fire’s glow flashing off their glossy, rippling hair, off their moon-round breasts that swayed softly with their movements.… I was less starved for the