Half Discovered Wings Read Online Free PDF

his.
    Rowan looked again at the hunter. Her eyes followed the rim
of his hat until it disappeared behind the front of his face; he
half turned and she saw the corner of his eye.
    She’d seen him once, in a fight in the town square. He had
knocked a man across the face with the back of his fist and roared
something like, You know why it was
done ! She’d never learned what the
argument was about, nor who the other man was, but – just for a
fraction of a second – she thought she saw Gabel’s eyes spark and
drip red flame. His anger made corporeal.
    Turning her attention to the mysterious magus, she saw that
he was old, but seemed to cope well with the walking. He looked
like a traveller, with his heavy boots and ragged coat; however
she, so many years younger, felt exhausted, feet aching, shoulders
slumping, cold in the lack of sunlight. Time had passed since they
left – more than she realised – and she became aware that she’d
been assessing the two men for some hours.
    She asked if they might rest, and though the magus protested,
Gabel sat down defiantly on a fallen, moss-covered tree. Rowan sat
on the opposite end and looked about herself at the still woods and
their ivy-laced trees.
    Before she had
time to catch her breath, the hunter was sitting next to her. ‘Are
you okay?’
    ‘ I’m fine.’
    ‘ Your feet hurt.’
    ‘ Yes,’ she said.
    ‘ Your shoes aren’t very suitable. We’ll get you some more when
we reach Pirene.’
    ‘ The next town?’ she asked, not looking at him. She had no
intention of making herself seem stupid or inexperienced, but she
wouldn’t always be able to avoid such straightforward questions.
She had never left Niu Correntia, as far as her amnesia allowed her
to remember.
    ‘ That’s right,’ Gabel replied.
    ‘ How long will it take to get to Shianti?’
    ‘ A while,’ he allowed. ‘But once we’re there, we’ll get you
better.’
    ‘ I don’t want to be a burden.’
    ‘ You won’t be,’ he said absently, peering along the path. ‘Come
on. The old man doesn’t want us resting long.’
    They moved until it seemed the forest seemed to grow around
them. Nets of branches parted for them and closed once they had
passed by, and the sparse greenery that sprouted out of the dirt
was either pale as soapsuds or brown as rotten fruit. So little
wildlife, so few birds, as if the giant creatures that roamed the
place had all gathered for a banquet and eaten too much. There
seemed nothing left to refill the desolate burrows and empty
branches.
    It got darker, and she passed the time by counting the
seconds until they were minutes, then counting the minutes away …
The darkness was upon her before she realised. However, this was
nothing to what it became hours later, a pitch blackness in which
she could barely see the moving shapes in front of her. They
stopped, and Gabel said something quietly to the magus. He moved
toward Rowan.
    ‘ Stay
close,’ was all Gabel said, and she had no trouble adhering to this
order; animal voices chattered and barked around them.
    They stopped half an hour later, for fear of losing one
another. They each lay out two thick blankets to sleep between, and
Gabel started a fire in the centre of a small clearing. Rowan could
see the angular shape of something animal-sized near the opposite
edge, and Gabel swore, kicking the crusted thing away. The whole
place smelled of death, liquid yet knife-sharp.
    The magus said nothing
to them before going to sleep. He lay extremely still under his
blanket, aged fingers resting on the frayed edges. The lids rolled
with the movement of his eyes underneath.
    ‘ Is he sleeping?’ Rowan whispered as Gabel kneeled next to her,
tending the fire.
    ‘ I don’t know. He could probably hear us anyway.’
    There was a
crackle as the magus rolled over on the dry leaves.
    ‘ I’m exhausted, Joseph…’
    ‘ Get some sleep,’ he advised.
    She fell
silent and tried to feel comfortable on the itchy blanket. It