Dragon Heart Read Online Free PDF

rocks.
    She rolled over, her whole side throbbing, her hair plastered to her face. I can’t do this, she thought. I can’t do this. The water pounded her. She stood again, filthy and soaked, and looked up. Knowing better what to look for on the rock, she picked out a seam where she could put her fingers. A bulge below that where she might be able to get a foothold. She leaned up, bent her hands into the niche, and stretched her leg up and got her foot on the bulge, and pushed up, hard, lunging toward the top. With her free foot she scrabbled at the curve of the mossy wall, and for an instant got enough hold to lunge higher. Her head and shoulders burst up out of the waterfall and she stretched her arms across the ledge.
    Her feet lost their grip. She was sliding back again. Her hands rasped helplessly over the bare rock of the ledge. She pumped her legs, and jamming one knee against the rock she got an unexpected purchase and lurched up and forward again and got most of herself onto the ledge.
    Stretched on her belly on the warm stone, she closed her eyes. Her knee burnt with pain and her hands were numb. She wanted to rest, but she could not stay here, she was still too near the beach, and she got to all fours.
    The ledge ran crosswise of the cliff, but up there, several body lengths above her, was another such shelf, bigger. She ran her eyes over the stone before her. From below the rock face looked blank, but now she could see the little fissures and edges and seams. She started cautiously, sliding one hand up above her over the rock, finding something to hold on to, moving each foot until she was sure of its grip.
    A roar from below shook her. She nearly fell. Pressed against the stone, rigid with fear, she sobbed for breath.
    â€œNo! Come down! Come down now!”
    Her heart was banging against her ribs. He could burn her here, cook her like a fish. She thrust her hand into a crevice of the rock, and with her feet paddling at the wall she dragged herself up. If she fell he’d kill her. In a rush she scrambled over sheer rock to the next ledge and crept out onto it. Panting, her whole body trembling, she could not move for a moment. The muscles in her calves jerked.
    â€œCome down!” he shouted. “You’re making me angry! Don’t make me angry!”
    She licked her lips. He might do anything now, if she went back. She got to her knees, her gaze sweeping the rock. There seemed no way up, except, to the right side, a nearly vertical gulley, a runoff channel, full of pebbles.
    She began to creep up along it, her face to the cliff, her hands groping along. Under her feet the pebbles rolled and slipped and her ankle began to throb. Her arms felt heavy and limp as water and it took all her effort to reach up. Her body ached all over. Her face was inches from the black rock; her nose banged it, more painful each time.
    â€œI’ll never let you go!” he roared, and a wave of heat flared over her feet and legs. “I’ll hunt you down until I find you.” Her heels felt scalded. She smelled burnt hair. She could not go back now, ever.
    Yet he had not killed her: she had gotten out of reach of the edge of his flame.
    Below her he raged and bellowed up and down the beach, threatening and pleading with her and howling out blasts of green flames. Her dress was soaked with sweat, the late sun burning on her back. Her fingers bled so she could not grip the rock. She rested, pressed to the cliff face, panting. She dared not look down.
    She found a toehold on the rock and pushed herself up, her hands sliding up over the surface. The palisade wall changed abruptly from black rock to deep-packed dirt, hairy with roots. Nothing to hold on to, only loose dirt. She tasted dirt. She got one foot on the ridge where the rock ended, and pushed herself up. Slipped, and for a sickening moment was sliding; the rock ledge against her stomach stopped her hard. She hung there. She was too tired. Her legs