Saga of Menyoral: The Service by M.A. Ray Read Free Book Online Page A

seem to be able to see what he was. Then again, dilihi was about as rare as fox teeth in a sheep’s mouth. “I’m not one.”
    “Well, you look like one,” Wallace said, with a grin.
    Dingus had to admit, “I guess I do a little. I’m, uh, I’m half human.”
    Wallace paused in his skinning to look at him. Dingus dropped his eyes and put them tight on his work, and then the other boy rasped something thick and guttural.
    “Huh?”
    “Sorry.” Wallace blushed a red so dark it showed through his beard. “It means ‘a bird under mountain.’ Like me. I’m a MacNair, but I’ll never be a whole MacNair.”
    “That’s a Bearded name.”
    “Aye, that it is. Mam found me on the mountain, didn’t she? They love me, but it’s hard, so ’tis, always grow too fast, get too tall, and never enough hair to suit! You don’t fit.”
    “Or grow too fast, get too tall, grow a little too much hair,” Dingus said, thinking about what Aust had said after pantsing him that one time.
    “See? A bird under mountain.”
    “We’d say ” Dingus put the saying in hituleti , and then translated for Wallace.
    “ Same old thing in a different tongue,” Wallace said, nodding sagely, and went back to work. “Was I ever glad when Evan said he wanted to take me! Had a time of it convincing Pap, but it’s better this way.”
    “I had to leave,” Dingus blurted. “Otherwise—” But he broke off, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe he’d started to talk about that, and he didn’t know what he wanted to say, either.
    “Otherwise, what?”
    He swallowed, then raised his chin to show his throat, where he still carried a grayish-pink trace of ligature scar. He gestured along it with his pinky. “See this?” When Wallace nodded, he lowered his voice. “It’s from the rope.”
    Wallace’s eyes went saucer-huge. “That’s a shit send-off!” It startled Dingus into laughter, and Wallace grinned cheekily. “My mam’s idea was a box of cookies. A small box. I thought nothing could be worse than not enough of Mam’s cookies.”
    “Well—”
    “Are you two hens planning to cluck all day?” Pearl asked. “Bright Lady’s rolling along, boys, and you started out behind.”
    “We’re getting there,” Wallace protested, while Dingus flushed. He’d never been told he was talking too much, not once before now.
    “Get there faster.”
    “I could probably pull it.” Dingus laid Vandis’s knife next to the leather roll and went around the back. “I think we got it down far enough. Can you winch it up for me?”
    “If you think you can do it. I can’t.”
    “Probably.” He’d done it on deer plenty of times. Wasn’t easy, but it was a lot quicker. When Wallace had the carcass high enough, he grabbed two fistfuls of the hide and put all his weight into it, peeling it slowly down until it came free.
    “Well done! ” Wallace exclaimed. Dingus dropped the floppy hide into the tub with the hooves. When he looked up, he saw Arkady scowling at him, but he found he didn’t much care.
    After they finished up with the hog, Wallace clasped wrists with Dingus and went off with Evan and Henry. Dingus walked back to the campsite with a couple of the kidneys, settled himself on the same fallen tree, and , since he was alone, people-watched while he cooked and ate. He saw a lot of kids, from about Kessa’s age on up, with their Masters. The same way he’d seen down at the hoists, they talked and laughed, kids and adults together—easy, natural, like he could talk with Vandis. Felt good to realize he finally had something normal.
    It seemed as if the whole world walked through that forest: mostly humans, from every corner of Rothganar, and some who weren’t from Rothganar at all. There were men from Rodansk, as tall as he was or taller, wearing long beards with charms and fetishes braided in; men and women from the Monmouths and Kirun whose skin was every shade of brown, from tea with cream to almost