Mother Pig (Houndstooth Book 2) by Travis M. Riddle

Author:Travis M. Riddle [Riddle, Travis M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

19

THE FIRST THING COAL did once he’d recovered a bit was remove his copy of A Popular Bargain from his jacket pocket and set it on a rock to dry out in the sun. The pages were warped, but thankfully none of the ink had run, and it seemed like a few hours in the warm open air would do it some good.

One of the big things that irked him was that somehow his bookmark had gotten dislodged, so now he would have to seek out his place in the book again.

The rest of his possessions were back in his cabin on the Sister’s Diatribe, which was probably now sunk to the bottom of the Lunsk River. Being picked over by those strange not-fishes.

He had floated downriver quite a way, but given his condition at the time, he could not be sure precisely how far he drifted. All he knew was that he needed to head north along the river, and eventually he would reach the town they were planning to disembark at. Though he quickly realized he did not remember which town that was, because he had been relying on Biror’s prior knowledge to guide them. He did not think it necessary to fully grasp the plan, which made him feel like a humongous moron right about now.

Still, heading north was what he had to work with, so once his book was sufficiently dried off and he felt at least somewhat rested, he set off.

Now, a day later, he was still wandering the woods without any sign of civilization. Yet again surrounded by nothing but foliage. An annoyingly familiar sight.

Last night he had gone hungry, subsisting on the enormous meal he’d eaten aboard the riverboat for lunch, but his stomach was reminding him now that he needed some food. Shortly after waking he stumbled upon a blackberry bush, which he’d stripped of its berries. They were jostling around in his pocket, waiting until he was actually hungry to consume them. He grabbed a couple and popped them into his mouth. They burst with a delightfully tart sweetness as he chewed.

The Lunsk was to his left, and he thought it wise to stick close to the river in case he came upon any survivors of the wreck. There was the slight risk of encountering the river beasts that put him in this position, but he could easily retreat into the forest. He didn’t figure the not-fishes could survive for long out of water.

That assumption was based on normal fish, so maybe it was a foolish assumption to make. Who knew how the Houndstooth’s infection was altering their physiology. Their transformation was a lot more extreme than that of the not-ventems and not-retnos, which were mostly the same as their regular counterparts, just…grosser. Melting away, falling apart.

Coal did not find anything on the banks of the river, though. He did not know if that was good or bad. It would be nice to have some companionship, especially if it was Jatiri

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.