Redheart (Leland Dragon Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

pitiful as the forest of her home village. But, growing saplings meant there was water somewhere. She pushed to her feet, determined to find the water before dark.
    Her battered boots rubbed and pinched. Perspiration tickled like crawling spiders down her back. She tried to twist her matted hair around her head, and even speared it several times with twigs to hold it, but it sagged and clung to her neck anyway.
    She searched on, and found herself circling paths she was sure she’d already seen. She veered toward promising low spots, but all she found were puddles of crunchy leaves. As the day wore on, her hungry stomach twisted angrily, and she felt as though she had a fat stick in her mouth where her tongue was supposed to be.
    And there was no water. Hours of searching left her legs trembling. Finally, they refused to move. She wanted to collapse, or at least sit, but she was too afraid she might not get back up again. She hugged a gray oak, instead.
    It was then she realized the sun was fading. An unfamiliar fear slithered across her skull and crept, whispering, into her ears. It was almost dark .
    She tried to think past the welling panic. She’d spent many a night in the forest before, and the darkness was a little unnerving sometimes, but nothing she’d ever been afraid of. There was nothing in the dark that wasn’t there in the daylight.
    Except now there was. Now the night held memories of monsters. Monsters with lecherous grins wet with saliva, and cold hands that gripped and pinched, and eyes, so many of them, that buzzed and hovered like black bees against a black wall and festered with death.
    “Stop it!” Riza shouted, and slapped her hands over her face. She had to stop thinking like that, and get moving again. She would just have to find the pebble trail back toward the cave, and beg another night’s stay with the dragon. It would be fine. Everything was going to be fine.
    But when she began moving again, she realized she’d lost the direction of the pebbles. A few steps this way, and a few that way only led her back to the same gray oak. She followed an upward tilt of the land, but it leveled out again. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know where the dragon was.
    Were the trees getting thicker as the light got smaller? She spun around, searching for an opening. She eased between two thick trunks, and, just as she was about to give in to her panic, a wide path rose up and parted the trees. She threw herself toward it and ran.
    She came to a stop in a small field. She could see the dark outline of a lumpy house in the near distance, with windows ablaze with torchlight. The sight calmed her, and she took a minute to catch her breath.
    Porkers grunted close by. She followed the sound. They were nosing the dirt of their sty, ignoring her, and weren’t even using the box of straw in the corner. She considered climbing in. Compared to the dragon, the pigs smelled springtime fresh. Then she spotted a small, lopsided barn just a few feet away.
    She ran for the stone wall of the house, and, pressing against it, she snuck toward a corner and peeked around. A rectangular patch of light streamed to the ground through a front window. She avoided it, and dashed for the barn.
    The barn door was ajar. She moved to ease herself through it, but a water trough caught her eye. She dropped to her knees, and dipped a hand into the water. It tasted of dust. She was briefly glad for the dusk, so she couldn’t see the water as she cupped it again and again to her mouth, barely breathing between swallows.
    It wasn’t enough. She leaned over the side of trough, and with a splash, immersed her whole head. She shook her hair, and blew bubbles that tickled her nose. Then she withdrew with a gasp. She probably smelled like a pig, and looked like one, too, but she didn’t care. She felt immensely better.
    “What do you do there?” said a man’s voice. She shrieked and dove through the barn door, tripping on her own