Life and Limb (The Ebon Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page A

said nodding, "I've seen them."
    "Not just one dust storm, though," Freezy said in melancholic tones, "The whole land is haunted by spinning monsters fit to drink the ocean.  Can't breathe, can't sleep.  Before it got to its worst, last Spring Pa and me went south to sell a few buckets of grain.  When we came back our home town was gone.  Nothing there but a great big fluffy hill.  No footprints.  It must have happened during the night.  Only my sisters and Pa survived on account of us heading south.  Lots of places went like that.  So we headed back down and this is where we live now."
    "Spinning monsters," I said, "Cyclones?"
    "Cyclones with a mind of their own, wandering the land and fighting amongst themselves for supremacy of their domain, eating one another and getting bigger.  Stronger.  Down here we're scared of ripper dogs, but you never hear folks talking about what those dogs are scared of.  It's the damn sky growing arms and snatching you up.  And it's that hungry dust wind that'll eat the skin right off your body."
    "Freezy," I said hoisting my leg over the side of the cot, "Have you seen the walking cities?  I come from one of them.  I'm out here to pick up something that landed in those hills.  It might help a lot of people."
    She considered me, an enlightened smile twisting her face slowly as realizations compounded one another in her mind,
    "I had a feeling it was something like that.  You're obviously not from around here."
    "I kind of had a feeling you weren't either," I said running my fingers down the rebar lashed to my leg, "This is going to hold well.  I'm going to need a way to get moving again."
    "I don't think so," Freezy said in surprise.  She idly reached down and rapped a knuckle against the bandage sending a sharp pain to grab my spine.  Against my wishes I made a sound, a terrified sound.  She said, "You're staying here for a while.  A broken leg takes around three to four months before you can start thinking about walking on it again."
    "Then I'll need an alternative to walking," I said, "I don't have a lot of time."
    "What's more you're liable to bleed out if those bandages get upset.  And in that dust out there, I promise you will get an infection if you expose it to air.  That's another thing about the North Dust.  It gets in everything.  You sit back and I'll be in to check on you later."
    I leaned back, considering my options carefully.  With my leg broken, even I knew there was no way to ride North now.  But there had to be a way.  They had killed my horse for meat, so I didn't suppose there were other horses lying around.  What's more, even riding with a broken leg was a whole new skill I didn't have.  I laid there looking at the ceiling for the rest of the evening, and that night I slept.
    I don't remember what I dreamed.
    The next morning Freezy came back in alongside Jester and the old woman Anna.  I sat at a small wooden table drinking cornstill water and eating a full pound of horse meat.  Jester brought up a bag with several painted round stones and asked me if I knew how to play a game he called Metago.  The majority of that day I spent sitting with him leaning heavily on the wall while we played, placing pebbles in formations on the dusty wood table.  My mind drifted often, to the land up north, and to Tyche.
    "You're not awful at this," Jester said finally after clearing the board once again, "You just aren't thinking straight.  What's eating you, boy?"  I shook my head, pointing with a weak finger down at the table for Jester to deal out another formation.  With shaky hands I took my share of the pieces and placed the first one, saying,
    "Damn leg."
    The next three days went like that.  Jester did his best during the day to keep me occupied, telling me stories of the great dust storms he still sometimes saw from town up in the distance.
    "Tornadoes three hundred feet tall, and so wide that a man would get tired walking from one end to the