A Gift of Dragons Read Online Free PDF Page B

hard, of course,” Aramina answered before her weary father’s short temper flared.
    “Oh!”
    “And we’ll live by ourselves and thrive on the provender that woods naturally provide us,” Aramina went on, “for we’ll have all the wood we need to be warm, and nuts and roots because we know where to look for them, and berries and roast wherry . . .”
    “Roast wherry?” Pell’s eyes widened with delight at such a promise.
    “Because you fashion such excellent snares . . .”
    “I always caught more tunnel snakes than any one else at Igen,” Pell began. Then, remembering that this helter-skelter trip was due to his boastfulness, he covered his mouth with his hand and huddled into a tight ball of remorse.
    “Any of the forest caves ought to have lots of snakes, shouldn’t they, Mother?” Aramina asked, wanting to lighten her mother’s sad face as well as her brother’s guilt.
    “They should,” Barla agreed in the absent way of parents who have not really attended to their children’s conversation.
    Dowell called them to order, and they continued on their way until Nudge refused to go farther and, when Dowell took the stick to him, sank resolutely to his knees. Unhitching the recalcitrant brute, they forced Shove to haul the wagon into the brush at the side of the trace.
    “Nudge has got sense,” Pell muttered to his sister as the weary children gathered enough branches to screen the wagon.
    “Father has, too. I certainly didn’t want to help Thella or,” and Aramina shivered with revulsion, “that dragonless man, Giron.”
    “They’re as bad as Fax.”
    “Worse.”
    Although Barla roused herself sufficiently to hand out dry rations, she found that Aramina and Pell had fallen asleep.
    Only when they had put four mountains between themselves and Igen River did Dowell let up on the pace he had set. On the narrow traces, more logging tracks than proper trails, there were none to witness their passage as they climbed higher into the vast Lemos range.
    They were not quite alone, for dragons passed overhead on daily sweeps and Aramina reveled in their conversations. She made her reports amusing, to liven evening campfire—for Dowell had conceded that a careful, smokeless fire would not be easily seen in the thick woods.
    “It was green Path again today, with Heth and Monarth,” Aramina said on the tenth day after their exodus from Igen Cave. “Lamanth, the queen, has clutched thirty fine eggs, but Monarth says that there are no queen eggs.”
    “There aren’t always queen eggs,” Dowell reminded Aramina, who sounded unhappy.
    “That’s what Path said. I don’t know why Monarth was upset.”
    “I didn’t realize that dragons talked to each other,” Barla remarked, puzzled. “I thought they only talked to their riders.”
    “Oh, they do,” Aramina assured her. “Heth talks constantly to K’van when they’re doing the sweep alone.”
    “Why are there three today then?” Pell asked.
    “Because Threadfall is imminent.”
    “Why didn’t you say so?” Dowell wanted to know, exasperated with his daughter’s diffidence.
    “I was going to. They think Threadfall will come over Lemos tomorrow late afternoon.”
    “How can we survive Threadfall out in these woods?” Dowell demanded, angry with apprehension.
    “You said there were lots of caves here in Lemos,” Pell said, grimacing his face into a tearful expression.
    “We’ll need one!” Dowell said grimly. “We’ll start first light tomorrow. Aramina, you and Pell will search ahead. On the upper slope. For there is bare cliff above us and somewhere there must be a cave for shelter.”
    “And we’ll need more roots and anything else you can find to eat,” Barla added, showing the empty stewpot as proof of the need. “There’s naught left of the dried meat and vegetables.”
    “Why is it Thread always comes at times like these?” Pell asked, but expected no answer to his plaint.
    He had occasion to repeat much the same