Book 1 - Doomstalker Read Online Free PDF Page A

among
themselves by the males she knew.
    All very marvelous, and all beyond her reach. She would live and
die in the Degnan packstead, like her dam, her granddam, and so
many generations of Degnan females before them. If she remained
quick and strong and smart, she might one day claim this loghouse
for her own, and have her pick of males with whom to mate. But that
was all.
    She crouched in shadows with Kublin, fearing her deadly plain
tomorrows, and both listened to inner voices, trying to track their
dam’s party. Marika sensed only that they were north and east
of the packstead, moving slowly and cautiously.
     
    Horvat, eldest of the loghouse males, called dinner time. The
keeping of time was one of the mysteries reserved to his sex.
Somewhere in a small, deep cellar beneath the north end of the
house, reached by a ladder, was a device by which time was
measured. So it was said. None but the males ever went down there,
just as none but the huntresses descended into the cellar beneath
the southern end of the loghouse. Marika never had been down, and
would not be allowed till the older huntresses were confident she
would reveal nothing of what she learned and saw. We are strange,
secretive creatures, Marika reflected.
    She peeped over the edge of the loft and saw that none of the
adults were hastening to collect their meals. “Come on,
Kublin. We can be first in line.” They scrambled down,
collected their utensils quickly.
    Two score small bodies poured after them, having made the same
discovery. The young seldom got to the cookpots early. Oftentimes
they had to make do with leavings, squabbling among themselves,
with the weakest getting nothing at all.
    Marika filled her cup and bowl, ignoring the habitual
disapproving scowls of the males serving. They had power
over pups, and used it as much as they dared. She hurried to a
shadow, gobbled as fast as she could. There were no meth manners.
Meth gobbled fast, ate more if they could, because there was no
guarantee there was going to be another meal anytime
soon—even in the packsteads, where fate’s fickleness
had been brought somewhat under control.
    Kublin joined Marika. He looked proud of himself. Clinging to
her shadow, he had been fast enough to get in ahead of pups who
usually shoved him aside. He had filled his cup and bowl near
spilling deep. He gobbled like a starved animal. Which he often
was, being too weak to seize the best.
    “They’re worried bad,” Marika whispered,
stating the obvious. Any meth who did not jump at a meal had a mind
drifting a thousand miles away.
    “Let’s get some more before they wake up.”
    “All right.”
    Marika took a reasonable second portion. Kublin loaded up again.
Horvat himself stepped over and chided them. Kublin just put his
head down and doggedly went on with his plunder. They returned to
the shadow. Marika ate more leisurely, but Kublin gobbled again,
perhaps afraid Horvat or another pup would rob him.
    Finished, Kublin groaned, rubbed his stomach, which actually
protruded now. “That’s better. I don’t know if I
can move. Do you feel anything yet?”
    Marika shook her head. “Not now.” She rose to take
her utensils to the cleaning tub, where snow had been melted into
wash water. The young cared for their own bowls and utensils,
female or not. She took two steps. Maybe because Kublin had
mentioned it and had opened her mind, she was in a sensitive state.
Something hit her mind like a blow. She had felt nothing so
terrible since that day she had read Pohsit. She ground her teeth,
on a shriek, not wanting to attract attention. She fell to her
knees.
    “What’s the matter, Marika?”
    “Be quiet!” If the adults
noticed . . . If
Pohsit . . . “I—I felt something bad. A
touch. One of them . . . one of our huntresses
is hurt. Bad hurt.” Pain continued pouring through the touch,
reddening her vision. She could not shut it out. The loghouse
seemed to twist somehow, to flow, to become something