The Erth Dragons Book 1: The Wearle by Chris D'Lacey Read Free Book Online Page B

skalers put up with it, never mind the Kaal – and suddenly, there it was: a way of reaching the mountains again, a way of getting close to the beasts.
    Use dung .
    It would be dangerous. Ridiculously so. One mistake and Ren would be black specks floating on the wind. But the challenge burned so brightly in his mind that he could not resist exploring it. Early the next morning, he crept back toward the mountains and waited until the skies were clear. Then he ran across the scorch line in search of what he needed – a fresh heap of skaler dung.
    The heap he found was fresher than fresh, steaming black, still red with cinders. It almost boiled away the mitt he’d made for his hands. Turning his face aside, he smeared the dung over a robe he’d brought with him. Oh, it smelled bad. Worse than the innards of a dying mutt. But he stuck to the task and when it was done he undressed and put the dung robe on, over an undercloth he’d stolen from his mother’s things. She would roast him like a snorter if she ever found out, but Ren had taken note of Utal’s suffering and knew he must keep the dung off his skin. Thankfully, the extra layer worked, but the stench was just as bad as ever. Every time Ren drew breath, the reek almost tore the nose off his face. But the deed was done and there was no going back. Two beasts had appeared above the shoulder of the mountains. He was over the scorch line, inside their territory. Now he must hide – or die.
    Throwing the clean robe aside, he sank into a small depression in the rocks, drawing up the bare parts of his legs and covering his face with a shallow-rooted thicket he’d ripped from the ground. The beasts soon saw the robe he’d discarded. One of them, a bright green monster identical to the one that had maimed Utal, dropped with a heavy thump beside the cloth while the other glided in circles overhead. The beast picked up the robe and sniffed it. It turned its incredible head both ways, staring left and right along the hillside. The eye that Ren could just about see rolled suspiciously in its socket, the inner layers moving like ripples on a pond. Ren steadied his breathing, praying he hadn’t left a toe exposed. He thought about his hair, which was lighter than the colour of corn, and hoped the thicket had covered it well. Lay still , he told himself. Still as the dead . If he rattled the thicket or made water down his leg he would know in an instant what it felt like to be a log on a fire.
    But the beast didn’t come for him, and its friend in the sky was growing impatient. It gave a grating call. The one on the hill gave a sharp call back. It took off with a whumph! , trying to shake the robe from its claws. It was several wingbeats clear of the hill before the robe came sailing back. It landed beside Ren’s hiding place, ripped but still wearable.
    When he was certain the skalers had gone, Ren carefully changed back and hid the soiled robe beneath the thicket, keeping it separate from the undercloth. A flush of boyish pride ran through him. He had accomplished something no one else in the tribe had ever done. He had walked across the scorch line and back again, unburned.
    He had fooled the beasts.

6
    Ren hurried back to the settlement and washed for some time in the river which ran behind the shelters, treading water in the shadow of an overhanging tree to avoid inquisitive eyes. Very little of the dung had got onto his hands (one slight burn on a fingertip) and mercifully the smell stayed in the water. He walked home fresh of body and mind, bristling with the need to tell someone what he’d done. Wisely, however, he kept it to himself, mainly because he returned to find the settlement veiled in sadness.
    Utal had developed a fever. No one would speak any details of it, but Ren heard his father saying to his mother that Utal’s arm was being chewed by a wound the colour of grass. None of Targen’s herbs could cleanse it. Two days later, Utal died. His wounded eye was