This River Awakens by Steven Erikson Read Free Book Online Page A

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    ‘Well, Carl?’ I asked in a hushed voice. ‘What’ll you do when they catch you? Give them our names?’ Tears rolled down his face, but again he shook his head. ‘They’ll call your dad to come get you. What’ll he do—’
    Carl lunged, fists swinging. I caught a single, momentary flash of his face – the spit in the corner of his mouth spinning away as if on a thread – and then he was on me. We fell back, rolling down the three steps to the cabin deck. Fists pounded against my chest. A finger clawed across my jaw.
    He was small. He was weak. Even enraged he struck poorly, and it was only moments before I had both of his wrists in my hands, pulling him to one side then pushing him down and straddling him. I grinned, gripping harder to still his wild thrashing, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. The shock was fading, and in its place came a wave of panic. I didn’t know what to do next, so I just held him until he stopped struggling. We were both gasping. I stared at the tears that streaked dirty trails from his eyes.
    I’d been cruel. The realisation made me hate Carl all the more. I raised my right hand, closing it into a fist.
    ‘No,’ Roland said behind me.
    He knelt at the top of the steps, his broad face – half in shadow – staring down at me. I hesitated, then laughed and moved off Carl.
    Carl scrambled to his feet, pushed past Roland and rushed to the starboard rail. He disappeared over the edge.
    Roland said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’
    I studied his face, the steady gaze, the heavy frown.
    ‘You shouldn’t have said anything about his dad,’ Roland admonished in his quiet, measured voice.
    I straightened my shirt, then looked away.
    Lynk was at the rail. ‘Aw, fuck,’ he muttered. ‘He’s run off into the brush.’ He turned and exchanged a look with Roland. Whatever it was that passed between them made me feel empty inside.
    My voice cracked when I said, ‘He’s run off?’
    Lynk shrugged, a loose jumping of his narrow shoulders. ‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’
    I rose. ‘Well,’ I said quietly, ‘let’s go find him, then.’
    Roland rubbed the back of his neck, a slow, strained gesture. Then he nodded.
    *   *   *
    In silence we pushed our way through the brush. Every now and then the river appeared in patches through the trees off to our right, its islands of ice keeping pace.
    This was my first time downriver from the Yacht Club. The forest was deeper here, wilder. At times we skirted its edge; muddy fields stretched away on our left, broken only by section roads and narrow windrows. We had passed beyond the influences of the city. Here, the flat country was motionless, as if waiting for something.
    Roland led us, sure and confident, as if he knew where Carl had fled. I thought to ask him but I couldn’t break the silence. My thoughts ran in a jumble, pieces and fragments caught in a swirling current.
    From the forest’s edge we entered a trail leading back to the river. Thin, clawed branches wove a net four feet above the path. Hunched over, we broke into a loping jog – half human, half something else, I imagined as I focused on Lynk’s back a few feet in front of me.
    Carl sat on a log at the river’s edge, his back to us, a muddy stick in his hands with its end reaching down into the red-brown water. The log under him was gnawed blunt at one end; the other end disappeared under a mound of intertwined branches and dead saplings. It was a moment before I recognised the hump of sticks: a beaver lodge.
    Roland slowly strode forward, stepping over the log and sitting down beside Carl. He began speaking to him in a low tone. I made a move to join them but Lynk gripped my arm and pulled me back. I twisted his hand from my arm and swung to study the beaver lodge. Most of it was under water, but the flood had been higher; tangled swamp-grass and mud hung in clumps from the highest sticks in the mound. I wondered if beavers could drown.
    I