Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles by J.D. Lakey Read Free Book Online Page A

older girl said but Soral made sure the
sound of the last word carried to her ears. It sounded suspiciously
like babysitting .
    Connor snarled and forgot
what he was about. Luckily Kite Wing did not need instruction. She
surged forward to follow Meshel’s mount, very nearly unseating him.
Cloud Eye hissed and reached out to take a nip out of Red Claw’s
tail. Cheobawn pounded her fist into the animal’s shoulder,
distracting her for a moment before kicking her into motion. It took
a few strides to catch up and get back into position, the bennelk
behind her grumbling loudly.
    Naughty, Cloud Eye. No
biting the other sisters, Cheobawn said, adding a forbiddingly
stern tang to the emotions of their exchange as she settled her mount
into place.
    You wanted to bite ,
Cloud Eye said, I heard you .
    Yes, but I showed
restraint. I did not even bare my teeth at her though she deserved
it, Cheobawn said, sending a cold stare at Soral’s back.
    Next time , Connor’s
finger sign said, let her bite. Just aim higher .
    Careful , Cheobawn
signed with a quick shake of her head. Do not rile the animals .
But the sign for animal included a modifier that meant young
Mother , an obvious reference to Soral. Connor laughed, perhaps a
little too loudly. It wasn’t that funny. Meshel flicked him an
annoyed glare.
    Connor rolled his eyes in
her direction. Cheobawn buried her face in her mittens to keep from
laughing. Older kids were always so deadly serious.
    The column turned left just
out of the gates and followed the well-trampled road around the base
of the dome. Vinara walked the mounts for a handful of minutes,
letting the animals work the kinks out and warm their muscles before
she kicked her bennelk into a ground-eating lope, Herd Mother and
Sybille close to her side. As Herd Mother’s trumpet of joy echoed
down the line, Cheobawn smiled. It had been a long, hard winter. Herd
Mother was not the only one glad to be out and running.
    Here in the lee of the dome,
the wind-driven snow collected in great drifts that, in some spots,
towered high over their heads. By accident or design, the same forces
that built the drifts also kept the verge of the dome clear. Vinara
led the herd into this sheltered canyon and kicked her mount into a
gallop over the dry ground. The column sorted itself out and followed
single file behind her. The sandy ground was kept free of snow and
ice by the heat from the dome, held close inside this small pocket of
air, insulated from the more bitter temperatures out in the open
fields.
    It was a landscape that
encouraged imagination. Ice giants walked this fairytale land
carrying their clubs made of stone on their shoulders, covering the
trees in the forest with hoar frost with every breath. If you wished
it, the steaming breath of bennelk might become the fiery breath of
dragons, this fortress of ice, their eyrie. Cheobawn leaned low over
Cloud Eye’s shoulders as she followed Connor into the tunnel and
let the ambient of the world seep into her mind for the first time in
ages.
    It was such a strange thing,
she mused. At night, when she was alone in her room in Mora’s
house, the ambient seemed overwhelmingly big; one could listen too
hard, filling your brain full of the thoughts of things that were
stranger than human, immense things, sentient things, whose
motivations were darkly primordial. Yet surrounded by the herd, she
became buoyed up by the delight they took in the everyday acts of
living. She felt brave in their midst. Perhaps it was just that she
was less alone.
    Winter ambient was normally
a sleepy ambient. The short, cold days under leaden skies slowed
everything down. Even the humans under the dome moved at a slower,
gentler pace. Winter was the time of quiet industry for the tribes.
    The tedious tasks, the
crafts that took days to finish, these were saved for the forced
confinement in the long winters days under the dome. The bins of
wool, linen, and silk, the skeins dyed with bark, roots,