Lionclaw: A Tale of Rowan Hood by Nancy Springer

Author:Nancy Springer
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2022-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

"Wuff."

Lionel groaned, keeping his eyes closed—they felt frozen shut. If I can feel this cold and still be alive, I'd rather be dead. Something was breathing in his face, warm breath that stank like rotten meat. It just made the rest of him feel more frozen. Very well, if there was a wolf standing over him, it could just go ahead and eat him.

Blast. It was licking his face.

Groaning anew, Lionel turned his head away. But moving was a mistake. It started him coughing, and coughing took over. Spasms of coughing shook him worse than the river, lifted him off the ground, then brought him to his knees and tried to turn him inside out. On his hands and knees in icy mud, Lionel coughed until stuff ran out of his eyes and mouth and nose, until his aching ribs couldn't take any more. Still heaving weakly, he gasped for breath.

"Wuff." Meat Breath licked his ear.

Lionel cleared one eye with his fist and peered. Damn, it was Tykell, which meant that Rowan was not far away, which meant that everything had gone wrong. "Tykell," Lionel begged, "go away!"

"Lionel," said a low voice he had heard a few times before. A husky voice. Perhaps a bit huskier than usual.

Lionel reared to his knees, still trying to catch his breath and equally trying to catch hold of his situation. Freezing mud. Icy gray water flowing close by. Gray clouds scudding in a cold sky, gray oaks swaying

in a cold wind. Sound of his own teeth chattering. Wild boy, standing there.

"R-R-Rook?"

Half naked as always, panting, Rook looked wet. At first Lionel thought that somehow Rook must have taken a dunking in the river too. Then he realized that the wild boy was wet with sweat.

"Get up," Rook said.

"C-can't." Lionel could barely speak, which was annoying, there was a great deal he wanted to say to Rook. Good gracious, my dear fellow, have mercy, I'm half dead from that dreadful river; did you see? Did Tykell pull me out? What are you doing here? He wanted to tell Rook to wrap him warmly, give him food, then go away, but he could only gasp out, "Need—fire—“

Rook shook his head. "Get up, hurry," he said, and yes, his gruff voice was grainy with some emotion Lionel had not heard in him before. "Rowan's caught. Man trap."

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