The Fire Sisters (Brilliant Darkness 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

unless we have no other choice.”
    “The fleshies are surrounding us. That’s them giving us no choice,” Moray says.
    “They are not threatening us. They are hungry,” Amarina says. “We can each spare a little food for them.”
    “I’m not giving them my food ,” Cuda says.
    I feel for the brothers in a way. Feeding the Scourge still feels bizarre and wrong on some basic level, but it’s no longer new to me. I’ve fed them several times now.
    I shrug my pack off. “I will.”
    “Put your spear down, Moray,” Peree says. “You don’t need it. Look—they’re just standing there. They aren’t attacking us.”
    “So we… what? Feed ‘em and hope they go away? No way,” Moray says. “I don’t care if I changed or they changed or the whole damn world changed, a fleshie’s still a fleshie as far as I’m concerned.”
    He grunts, and a moment later, there’s a wet-sounding impact. One of the sick ones screams. Cuda or Conda must have thrown his spear, too, because another sick one wails right after the first. The other creatures cry out.
    “Do… not… hurt… us,” a feeble female voice says from a few paces away. “We… will… go.”
    I grimace. As always, hearing them speak drives home how human they still must be. I yank out my food bag and step toward them.
    “Fenn, that’s too close! Come back.” Panic strangles Bear’s voice.
    “I’m fine."
    I hold out a loaf of bread to the sick ones. Their fetor at this distance is almost unbearable. How can they live like this? Can they live any other way? The bread is taken, delicately, from my hand.
    “I’m sorry it’s not more,” I say.
    “I don’t believe this,” Cuda mutters.
    Amarina speaks from beside me. “Remember that your meat must be cooked. You will become ill if it is not.”
    Kadee told us the sick ones eat raw meat—including human flesh if they’re desperate—because the poison causes them to lose the ability to care for themselves. Can they even start a cooking fire? Do they remember that vital skill?
    Someone else moves to my other side. I assume it’s Peree or Derain, but when she speaks, murmuring to the sick ones, I realize it’s Kai.
    I turn to her, curious.
    “What?” she asks me. It’s a challenge, not a question.
    I go back to the group, and Amarina and Kai follow a minute later.
    The sick ones tear noisily into the bread and meat. If they notice or care about the dying of their number, I don’t hear any sign of it. They don’t move to attack us, either, something that must be confounding the brothers. The rest of us, at least, have experienced it before.
    What we gave the sick ones couldn’t be enough to feed a large group of them. Where will they find more food? Where will they spend the night? How do they really live? Fear and pity tangle in my gut.
    “Will they go soon?” Bear still sounds shaken.
    “They would have gone if we had asked them to,” Derain says. “ Lorinyas, in Koolkuna, we do not kill the runa unless we must, as I told you.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind the next time one is chasing you down,” Moray says. “Let’s go get our spears, Cuda.”
    There’s a repugnant tearing sound and another moan before the brothers return. We back away and hurry down the night-draped trail, leaving the sick ones behind.
     
     
    We travel as far as we can in the gathering dark. By the time we stop, there isn’t enough light to gather wood and kindling for a fire. Amarina and Derain choose a spot beside the burbling stream and urge us to eat and rest.
    I refill my water sack and throw down my bedroll. Peree lays his out beside me; I catch the familiar scent of our home as he spreads it out. Groping around in my sack of food, I find more dried meat and hard bread. Not appetizing, but edible. I take a few bites, a couple of long drinks of water, and slip inside the folds of my bedroll. Even though I haven’t had a full meal today, I don’t have much appetite.
    I’m not crazy about the idea