Foundling by Julian Barr

Author:Julian Barr [Barr, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Julian Barr
Published: 2019-04-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9: Ravens

I’M NOT SURE WHETHER the emptiness of my stomach or the fullness of my bladder woke me. The woods were clad in a chilly grey light and thin trailers of mist clung to the pines. Anskar snored by the smoking pile of ash which had been our fire. So much for keeping watch. I yelped as I stretched muscles unused to riding, then tiptoed into the woods to relieve myself. A quick check of the wound on my leg showed it was healing. Afterward it took eight attempts to tie the cord around my waist properly, but I managed.

The rumble of my belly was like the clash of frost giants. It needed some real food, not that horrid mush Anskar had made. Just the thought of him was enough to make me prickle with irritation. No way was I ready to speak to him again. I bent low to the ground and kept my eyes open for any sign of a rabbit or vole, anything to fill me. And then perhaps I would just keep walking, let Anskar find his own answers.

As I searched through the woods for prints, I relived last night’s argument with Anskar. He hadn’t asked me what I wanted to do, just assumed. And he’d given me a fight when I said I didn’t want to kill Grethor and that wasn’t fair. But was it a fight, really? It wasn’t as though he’d struck me. When the anger filled him, Anskar hadn’t let it spill over. More than that, though. He’d promised that we’d talk more in the morning. He was softer than Módor or Grethor and that’s what humans were like.

No, Anskar wasn’t softer. He was gentler.

I shook off the notion and went on with my search. Something big had passed by this way not too long ago, to judge from the broken stalks of grass here and there. I spied a footprint in the soft earth up ahead. My quarry walked on two feet and had five toes like a man, but the print was bigger than that of any human, or so I gathered from the humans I’d seen. Only one creature was so massive.

Grethor.

Could he be watching me even now? I peered closer at the footprint, decided it was unlikely. The footprint was half-full of water and it hadn’t rained yesterday. Grethor had come here perhaps the day before, the same day I’d found my amulet. That made sense, he’d gone above to hunt. What had he said? That the farmers had given him more fun than he expected. I knew Grethor came above to raid the farms and steal livestock. That’s where he got my sheepskin. But yesterday he had wanted to slay Anskar and not just to prove something. Dread surged through me. What lay at the end of the trail?

Then I took a breath to gird my strength and stepped forward. Fate had led me this far. Only a craven would turn from the path now. The signs of Grethor’s passage grew clearer as the trail extended.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.