The Golden Enemy Read Online Free PDF Page B

bleated.
    â€œEh? Did you say protection?” said Emmon, who could understand only with great difficulty. “Talk to him, Boy Jaim. Find out what this is all about.”
    Boy Jaim asked, “What are you afraid of?”
    â€œThe Golden One. You’ve heard of him?”
    â€œI—I’ve heard of him,” Boy Jaim admitted, and felt a knot of coldness tighten in his stomach. “Why do you call him the Golden One? Have you seen him?”
    â€œWe have not seen him,” Old Man replied. “But others have, and we have been told. He is huge, and his hair is the same pale shining color as the hair of the woman where you live.”
    â€œLike the hair of Tira, my aunt?”
    â€œYes. There is nothing else like it. And he is greatly to be feared, this Golden One. We demand that you give us protection.”
    â€œYou—you really believe that because he hates man you’re in danger too?”
    The old billy stared back at him with cold unblinking eyes. “We have had too much business with man, far too long. With the taint of man on us, we cannot escape him.”
    Emmon said querulously, “Does something hate man? What is the trouble?”
    Boy Jaim took a deep breath, then told him.

T he stars winked out with dawn, and again the youngest herder faced the reality of day. Suddenly, thinking of his lost dog, his hands clenched in rage at the beast that had killed it. Where were the hunters? Were they still after the thing?
    He stood listening, hoping to hear the hunting horn. No sound came to him from over the hills. Then he thought of what the oldest herder had said about the star he’d been watching, and he shook his head. He’d done more imagining than wondering during the night, and no answers had come to him.
    But questions were tumbling through his mind … questions about man and beast …

3
    TIME OF TROUBLE
    D oubtful’s frenzied barking awoke Boy Jaim sometime during the night. As he sat up, he became aware of the frightened bleating of goats all around the house. He sprang from bed and rushed to the window. One quick look out over the moonlit valley was enough. shock went through him. The goats had fled their distant pastures and now were crowding madly down the valley paths, breaking open the gates and even, in places, scrambling over the walls into the imagined safety of the enclosures. They were already filling the garden, and they were probably down in the fields as well, trampling out the beans and corn.
    He pulled on his trousers and boots and dashed down the stairway, shouting as he ran. As he reached the kitchen behind Doubtful he heard Andru’s voice raised in alarm, but he did not wait. The damage that was being done to the gardens around the house was bad enough, but if too many goats got into the lower fields it would be a calamity. Most of their food for the coming year would be destroyed.
    Outside, he raced through the courtyard, lined with sheds, storerooms, and greenhouses, and jerked open the door in the rear wall. The path beyond was jammed with moving goats, and he saw with dismay that they had already broken through the second gate and were streaming into the lower fields.
    For a moment he stood paralyzed with indecision. How do you stop a goat invasion? Nothing like this had ever happened before. As far as he could see and hear there were bleating goats, with more pressing in behind them. Emmon had been upset when he’d heard of the great bear—badly upset, really—though he hadn’t seemed to think the goats were in any immediate danger. The Elder had told Old Man to give him a little time and a solution could be worked out.
    Only, Emmon admitted later, there wasn’t much anyone could do to protect the goats. “Unless,” he added, “Andru can think of something.”
    Andru, last evening, had been inclined to laugh at the whole thing.
    â€œDid you actually see this fabulous creature?”