Stone spring by Stephen Baxter

Author:Stephen Baxter [Stephen Baxter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Roman
ISBN: 9780575089181
Published: 2010-05-20T07:00:00+00:00

The four of them scrambled down the dune slope, slithering, half-sliding to the bottom. But Arga landed awkwardly on her ankle, and cried out.

Down on the plain, Dreamer, gasping for breath, couldn’t run. She couldn’t even lift her feet out of the mud. ‘I can’t - I can’t—’

‘You have to.’ Novu held her arm, urging her on.

‘Let me take the baby,’ Ana said. Dreamer felt hands working at the sling on her back. ‘I can carry her, and run faster than you.’

Dreamer made an instant decision. ‘Go, then.’

Ana held the baby in one arm, and grabbed Arga’s hand with her free hand. ‘Come on, Arga!’ She began to run to the shore, but Arga limped badly, crying out.

Novu said, ‘You too, Dreamer. Come on.’ He pulled at Dreamer, his arm around her shoulders.

They began hobbling towards a shore that seemed a terribly long way away. Ahead she saw people fleeing, abandoning the fish they had gathered, running from the advancing sea.

Novu, trying to support her, tripped and fell heavily in the mud. They had gone only a few paces. He rose, filthy, cursing loudly in his own tongue. And he shucked the bag of stones off his back and dropped it in the mud. ‘There will be other treasures.’ He leaned over, got his shoulder under Dreamer’s belly and hoisted her up, holding her legs.

Her head and upper body flopped over his back. It was shocking, suddenly to be carried like a child.

He began running. His back was drenched with sweat where it had been under the pack. His strides jarred and winded her.

She strained to lift her head. That wall of returning ocean looked terribly close. She looked for Ana - and there she was, cradling the baby, and trying to drag Arga. But the younger girl was crying and stumbling, her ankle obviously damaged. No matter how hard Ana pulled her hand, Arga could run no faster than a hobble.

Ana seemed to be calling to Dreamer, but her voice was drowned by the water’s gathering roar. Then Ana stood still, panting hard. She looked at the baby in her arms, and the limping, weeping Arga. It might only have been a heartbeat. It seemed an eternity to the watching Dreamer.

And then Ana ran, with the baby, abandoning Arga. The girl in the mud screamed in terror. But Ana ran on, fast and sure over the mud, cradling the baby in her arms. Dreamer whimpered her relief.

But now the water was close. The new wave was a wall flecked with foam and laden with debris - with whole trees, drowned and ancient and now ripped out of the earth. The very ground shook under the water’s tremendous tread.

She closed her eyes and tucked her head against Novu’s sweating back.

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