The Tree of Life (Lost Civilizations: 3) Read Online Free PDF

staggering loads on their backs. Joash had understood Mimir’s cunning. The men would lose from his disobedience, and thus hate him for the extra work. But, maybe the giant didn’t understand his beasts of burden as well as he thought. For the man who was to have been the mount looked on Joash in wonder.
    After several days in the stretcher, the thigh-wound had healed enough for Joash to walk. Now that they climbed steep paths, however—
    “You’re too slow,” Mimir now told him.
    Joash held his walking stick, with blood soaking his bandage.
    “If you cannot walk faster, you will ride.”
    No one had spoken to him since the beating. He’d become increasingly lonely and found himself craving to talk to someone, even a giant. These words now….
    “I’ll be fine,” Joash said.
    Mimir glowered.
    “High One,” Joash added.
    The giant regarded him, brushed his long beard and nodded. “Then bleed to death, and good riddance to you.”
    Before Joash could respond, the giant strode upslope. Testing the leg, grimacing, Joash took a deep breath and increased his upward pace.
    ***
    The next morning, Joash examined the stitches. He wrapped a new bandage around the thigh and put on his bloodied breeches. After a breakfast of hardtack and watery beer, he resumed marching. Fortunately the path leveled out as they trudged along the base of a rugged mountain. They’d left the Nebo forests a few days ago. Grasses waved beside them, and panicked deer bounded for safer feeding. Tarag sent a sabertooth after one. It bounded swiftly, bringing a doe to the ground and beginning to feast. Tarag roared orders and had to cuff it before the sabertooth slunk elsewhere.  A giant with a big skinning knife dressed the slain game.
    Once the march resumed, Joash trudged beside the white-haired servitors. They watched him, as if waiting for him to try to escape. He had the feeling they would try to stop him. But with their heavy packs, how fast could they move? Until his thigh wound healed, they had nothing to worry about, but after that….
    There were other reasons he wouldn’t try to escape yet. Joash needed a water-skin, knife and a good spear. He kept his eyes open, but noticed the giants never left water-skins lying around, and they accounted for every knife. He still had his lion-skin sling wound around his waist. It had helped him against hyenas in Jotunheim, but he’d wanted a good knife and spear, too.
    As he limped behind the giants, Joash heard doves coo from a nearby pine. Joash paused, studying the small birds. One fellow peered at him, and cooed louder, ruffling its feathers.
    Joash remembered the bull mammoth that had trumpeted to him along the shores of the Kragehul Steppes. And he recalled the leviathan. While on the raft he’d seen it pass, and soon thereafter, he’d found needed water-skins. Now, doves watched to see how he was doing. It was a nice feeling, if false.
    Joash kept limping, thinking about it. The feeling was more than nice, and it was true…in a way. Joash shuffled over dry pine needles and listened to them crunch.
    To the right, and before him, towering giants wore polished spiked helmets. Shaggy sabertooths trotted farther a-field. Last night at the fire, he’d witnessed Tarag in his stolen adamant mail. The furry First Born had feasted on raw meat, roaring to his pets. Each of those big sabertooths could have given Old Three-Paws from Jotunheim a hard fight.
    If Joash dwelt on that, on his being alone, outclassed by his enemies, it would continue to drive him to despair. Had the mammoth trumpeted to him? Joash liked to think so. He’d decided to accept his role as Seraph because of it. So the mammoth might as well have trumpeted to him. The leviathan—well, he’d be dead if it hadn’t arrived. The skins that had allowed Herrek, he and his dog Harn to reach land might even have towed to them by the water monster. So why not imagine those doves were Elohim’s spies to see if he was still alive?