Sky Child by T. M. Brenner Read Free Book Online

front of me, and I stop as we come to the Great Fire. I kneel on the hard stone ground, bow my head and raise my hands up. I say a silent prayer of thanks for protecting Jet, Flot and me, and peaceful sleep for those that we lost to the dragon. I also pray that Cannon's family will be protected and safe, now that they have lost him.
    I bring my arms back down to my sides and stand up. I notice Jet and Flot also praying at the Great Fire. I wait for them to stand up before we walk back to our room.
    It takes us a while to get out of our armor. I have to help both of them undo the straps that hold their armor together. Thankfully, none of us were injured. Aside from a small amount of blood from moving the dead, and the grass and clover we dug up, our armor is still mostly clean. It is not easy to get stains out of leather, so most of them stay on your armor until a new stain takes its place.
    Once we get out of our armor, we each put on our meat cutting clothes. Cleaning our kill is what I hate most about being a hunter. Taking something that lived and making it food. Most of the other hunters aren't bothered by it, once they have done it for a few snows. It bothers me much less now, but it is still something I dread.
    Flot surprises me. He's never had a problem with skinning and preparing meat. It is Jet that seems to hate dealing with dead animals. People are hard to understand sometimes, and I'm constantly surprised by them. No one is exactly what you would expect.
    In our room we have small tables, one for each of us, that we use for cutting meat. There isn't much meat on a wolf normally, because they are hunters too, and they use their speed to kill other animals. A wolf that becomes fat loses its speed, so it cannot catch as much. It seems that the Sky Gods have made it so that wolves will always stay thin.
    The same is true of the hunters of the Crag. We are all lean and strong, for we are constantly moving. Those people that are part of the harvest are generally bigger than us. Especially Chaff. He sometimes has difficulty moving through the narrow tunnels of the Crag.
    I think the reason Chaff's so large is that he only works hard once every snow, when he makes the fruits and vegetables come alive. He also takes more than his fair share of food and beer. Much more.
    Beer is something that helps keep us alive during the snows. It can stay in barrels and buckets for a long time until we need it. Meat is hard to come by during those times, because the animals hide when the snows come. Vegetables are also a problem, because they rot away if they are not eaten quickly. We can also make bread during those times, but it can be difficult keeping the grains dry, especially inside of a cave that sometimes fills to your ankles with water.
    I work on skinning the wolf. We keep the pelts, which can be made into clothes, or blankets, or other things. We throw the bones into a pile on a blanket then carry them to a place we call the boneyard. The meat we put in baskets, which we give to the cooks in the Crag. They will turn what we've caught into steaks, or they will smoke the meats outside so that they become tough. That way, the meat will last longer.
    As I finish, I look down at the bloody cutting table and think back to Lagan dying. I did not see it happen, but for some reason it feels like I did. Like the memory of it happening is somehow in my mind. I start to lose my balance, so I put a hand out, catching myself on the edge of the table.
    I look over at Jet and Flot, and thankfully neither of them saw me lose my strength. I don't want them to worry, so I won't tell them I'm seeing the deaths of the hunters in my mind.
    I finish cleaning my kill, and use a bucket of water to wash away the blood from my cutting table. You can tell that you're standing in the room of a hunter, for when you look down, the stone is always dark red. I hope that someday, Jet, Flot and I will live where our floors are gray.

 

    10
    I carry the wolf