The Iron Breed Read Online Free PDF

food or they would starve. And she still had enough desire to live to make her take one of the fruits from Jony and bite into it slowly.
    Sweet, and full of moisture which was even better for her dry mouth than the rainwater Jony had brought her. This was like—like what . . . Her mind summoned up dim memories of that life long ago. No, she could find nothing there to compare this to. The fruit appeared to have no pit or seed, was all edible. She swallowed and reached for more, the need in her very great.
    Together she and Jony cleaned the branches of all the fruit. It was only when Rutee was sure that the last globe was gone she remembered the giver. The strange, heavy-looking creature still squatted there watching them. The rain had stopped; there was further lightening of the world without.
    Jony straightened out one leg and gave a little gasp. Rutee saw the raw gouge in his skin; blood stood out in new drops when he moved.
    “Jony—” She tried to lever herself up on her hands from out of the leaves. As she moved one of the babies wailed loudly. Rutee found the world swinging unsteadily around her dazed head.
    She saw a large hand (or was it closer to a paw?) reach within their small shelter. The hand closed firmly about Jony's ankle and drew him away from her side.
    The boy did not fight. Even when he lay across the outstretched arm of the creature, Jony had no fear. Nor did he experience the instant revulsion which had always arisen in him when he had been handled by the slimy hands of the Big Ones. He did not struggle as the stranger straightened out his leg, sniffed along the broken flesh as it had along Rutee's body.
    But he was surprised as that long tongue came forth and touched the torn skin, rasped over his wound. Jony was held firmly so that his start did not send him rolling away, but kept him just the proper distance from the probing tongue. As the creature had earlier licked the babies from head to foot, so now it washed the gouge. Nor was Jony released at once when the other raised its head, snapped its tongue back between its jaws.
    Instead he was held against a broad, furry chest, one massive arm both cradling and restraining him, as the stranger got to its feet, strode away from the tree shelter. Jony squirmed and would have fought then, for his freedom, to return to Rutee. But there was no way he could break the grip which held him prisoner.
    They had not gone far before the stranger paused, reaching out with its free hand to tear up from the ground a long-leafed plant. The muzzle above Jony's head opened; teeth worried the top-most leaves free of their parent stem, chomped away.
    Jony smelled a queer scent—saw a little dribble of juice at the corners of the full lips. Then the creature spat what it chewed into the palm of its hand as a thick glob of paste.
    With the tip of its tongue it prodded what it held, seemed satisfied. Swiftly it applied the mass to the tear on Jony's skin. The boy tried to evade the plastering, for the stuff stung fiercely. But the stranger held him tightly until there was a thick smear covering the whole of the gouge. Now the stinging subsided, and with it vanished the smarting pain of which Jony had been only half-aware during his anxiety over Rutee.
    “Jony—Jony—what has that thing done!” Rutee had somehow reached the edge of the shelter, was looking up and out, her face very pale under the leaf dust. “Jony—!”
    “It's all right,” he roused to reassure her. “The good one just put some chewed leaves on my leg. See.” He moved a little so he could show the plastered leg. “It hurt a little, just at first, but it is all right now.”
    Gently the stranger lowered Jony to the ground. He limped a little when he walked, yes, but the wound no longer smarted. Now he turned around, still favoring his leg, and looked all the way up to the muzzled face above him.
    “Thank you . . .” Because words probably did not mean anything to the stranger, Jony