The Luck of Brin's Five Read Online Free PDF Page B

was hard held against a leather breastplate with the Strangler’s device of three knots. I struggled, kicking and biting in blind panic.
    â€œIt’s no devil!” panted one vassal. “Just a child!”
    â€œHold the brat!” said the other. We were halfway between the ruined tent and the open glebe. There was a frightening shout, and Diver came through the breach in the wall. He raised his hand, and a reddish beam glowed in it. The guard on my left was dashed into the snow. Again, with the same glow and crackle the other guard was struck, taking me down too.
    â€œDorn!” It was Diver calling my name. I jumped up and ran to the breach in the wall. Mamor was with Diver, and he dragged me through; we went slithering and bouncing down to the track beyond. We did not wait to see what the search party made of Diver’s attack; in fact it had been hidden from them. They would find two guards flattened, that was all. The Family was waiting, and with hardly a word we went down Hingstull at a breakneck pace. Old Gwin rode on Roy’s back; Narneen was lying on top of the sled, like a package. We raced on down, driven by a rising wind, pressing through the cold scrub and the snow-filled hollows among the stones until at last Brin said: “We must rest now.”
    â€œA few paces more,” said Mamor, whose track it was. “This is Stone Brook. I have a cave.”
    So we came to the cave, jolted and weary, and pressed into it. We laid down the tent fabric and used the light sticks to help settle ourselves. Everyone was bone weary; Diver looked sick again and lolled against the wall of the cave. I did not dare ask him, or try to ask him, what was uppermost in my mind. Were the vassals dead? I asked Mamor, and he thought not . . . the vassals were only knocked unconscious. I was still shaken by the thought of a weapon with so much power.
    Brin sat in our midst, as usual, resting her back and drawing great breaths.
    â€œAll right?” asked Roy. He was concerned for the hidden child; too much running could unsettle it.
    â€œFine,” said Brin. “This one will have an early showing, I think.” As if to answer her, the child whimpered. We all took this as a sign of good fortune. Gwin twitched back Brin’s vented robe to let the air come to the child. Diver, in the light, had a look of extreme bewilderment. We made signs to him . . . child . . . rocking it in our arms, but he still did not seem to comprehend. He signed or said, “Where?” and we pointed to Brin and said, “There, of course,” but he shook his head.
    The child whimpered again, and Brin had to reach down as mothers often did before the showing, to settle it to the teat. Diver’s curiosity overcame him, and he crawled forward.
    â€œWell, you are our Luck,” said Brin, smiling, “so I will show you.”
    â€œWhat’s bothering the Diver?” asked Mamor. “Doesn’t he know where children are nurtured?”
    â€œPerhaps his people are different,” suggested Roy.
    â€œWhat difference could there be?” said Gwin. “Show the Luck quickly, so the child won’t take cold.”
    So Brin, in the magic light, let Diver look into her pouch and see the hidden child, settled into its milky sleep again. She had already given Narneen a look, and I remembered seeing Narneen before her showing. It was the way we were taught.
    Diver learned his lesson and drew back, shaking his head as if he had seen a miracle. He talked in his own language and laughed and shook his head and, for some reason, stroked his chest. Then he made signs to each of us in turn, and guessed, correctly as it happened, which we all were . . . female or male. I was certain, by this time, that Diver was different from us in ways we could not imagine . . . ways that concerned both life and death.
    Our link with him was frail, yet already there was trust between us. We turned back to the Diver and he