Mother Bears by Wendy N. Wagner

Author:Wendy N. Wagner [Wagner, Wendy N.]
Language: por
Format: epub
Published: 2012-10-06T22:18:20+00:00

Chapter Three: Fires by Day

Jendara followed Tam’s light, feeling the cave’s blackness like velvet pressing against her skin, her nostrils. She wanted to run outside before the cave smothered her. But she couldn’t stop thinking of that horrible wail. It wasn’t Kran—he could make a few sounds, but none so loud or carrying. She reminded herself of that fact again and again.

It still made her skin crawl.

“Remember,” Tam called over his shoulder. “Keep an eye on the person ahead of you. The floor of these places isn’t always—”

His voice cut off in a scream and his light disappeared.

Jendara darted forward. “Tam!”

“Jendara, stop!” Vorrin shouted.

She froze. By the glow of her lantern, she could see the sudden drop Tam hadn’t. The tunnel opened into great mouthing darkness that her lantern barely began to light. “Are you all right?”

“My arm’s caught.” Tam grunted. “Caught bad.”

Vorrin knelt beside her. “I can wrap a rope around this bit of stalagmite, lower you down. Be some work getting the two of you up again, but I can manage it.”

Jendara held her lantern over the cliff’s edge, getting a glimpse of Tam’s red hair about seven feet below her, just above the floor of what must be a vast cavern. The cliff broke up into long fingers of rock at the bottom, and he hung from the crotch of the two tallest. Jendara shook her head. “Damn, that’s ugly. Let’s do this fast before he loses an arm.”

Somewhere in the darkness, the wail sounded again. Jendara felt gooseflesh prickle as she passed her length of rope to Vorrin.

“Make a good knot when you join those.”

He brushed his fingers down her cheek. “The best.”

She didn’t watch him tie the two ropes together or wrap the rope around the rock, just moved her lantern out of the way and rubbed dirt into the palms of her hands. She didn’t need any sweat to make climbing harder.

Vorrin wrapped the rope around her waist and tied it tight. She clambered over the cliff edge, and after only a moment’s climbing could hear Tam’s pained breathing below her. He was too much the islander to groan or whimper—the raw rasp of his inhalations was as bad as a scream. But there was no way to climb faster. No light, no ladder, just her fingers and toes searching out purchase on the cracked rocks.

Suddenly Jendara’s palms went sweat-slick. Her fingers slipped off the narrow handhold, and for a sickening second she swung from the end of the rope, her face scraping the cavern wall.

“Jendara!” Vorrin yelled.

Then her foot found a hold, a rock spur of some kind. “I’m okay!”

And wished she’d been quiet as a frenzied barking sounded out in the darkness.

“Gods,” Tam groaned. Jendara could see what he saw, a brightening in the distance like flickering torchlight. She thought of the goblin dog scat on the boat and climbed faster.

The bottom of the cliff came as a surprise. Now that she was down, Vorrin’s hands were free to hoist the lantern, lighting up Tam and the rocky ground.

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