Darkthaw by Kate A. Boorman

Author:Kate A. Boorman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2015-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

THE WOODS WE REACH AT DUSK HAVE BEEN RAVAGED by fire; skeletal trees and bright purple fireweed remain in the tall grasses.

It’s eerie quiet. We press through as silent as we can, Isi carrying Daniel and me trying hard not to hobble on my bleedin’ bad foot. Soon we can hear the rush of a river—probably the headwaters of this little creek we’ve been following—and the forest starts greening again. The grasses are long, hiding the deadfall and making it tricky to traverse.

Isi puts up a hand to stop us. As our noise quiets, I hear something new: sawing, pounding. Like back at the settlement when we’d replace parts of the wall or build a new shack.

We move forward cautious-like and soon can see the forest emptying out to a flat area near the rushing river.

My eyes widen. I’m staring at the fortification.

Except different: new. The walls aren’t weathered posts; they’re gleaming flat boards, planed and standing tall. Sounds of construction come from within. There is a scattering of several large white tents outside the walls, and a dozen or so people mill about, too far away to see clear. A fire roars in the center of it all. Half a dozen horses are tethered to trees at the outskirts of camp, toward the river.

Isi touches my arm and tilts his head, telling me to retreat.

We take Daniel back several dozen strides and set him on the far side of a fallen log.

“Stay with him,” he says. He begins to check his pack, taking stock of his knife and slingshot.

I ignore Isi and say to Daniel: “Wait here. Be silent as a field mouse.”

He grasps at my arms. “What if it’s scary?”

“Remember? You have the rabbit song.”

“But I thought you told me to be quiet?”

Almighty. Couldn’t I have given him a pinecone to hold or something more practical? I grit my teeth and force a reassuring smile. “You hum it inside, all right?”

Daniel nods up at me, his eyes wide.

“I will go alone,” Isi tells me.

“No,” I say.

He crosses his arms. “You’re slow and loud,” he says.

“And you’re bleeding,” I say, pointing to the pool of crimson staining the side of his shirt.

Isi looks down, swearing in his language, and I take my chance, spinning around and striking off ahead of him. He catches up to me in a heartbeat, giving me a dark look and tugging me off to the side so we cut close to the river. When I turn a questioning look on him, he makes a circle with his finger. I’m guessing this means he wants to see the camp from all sides.

We position ourselves so that we have sight of the riverbank and the tents. It’s difficult to hear anything with the river rushing past in a torrent, but the sounds of sawing and pounding have stopped. It’s getting too dark to work.

At the fire in the center of camp, a dark-haired woman tends a spit, roasting what looks like a dozen small animals.

Isi’s eyes scan the banks, the camp.

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.