[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

spear.
Several things happened at once. A na ran instantly, screaming as if to wake the
mountains themselves. Two of the soldiers fired. One bullet caught Sihun in the chest,
sending her sprawling onto the rocks at the edge of the water. The other took one of the
young twins in the head.
His brother stopped running, staring at the blood. A thin shriek tore loose from his
throat, escalating into a high wail that went on and on.  Damn it! shouted one of the
soldiers. He wrapped one hand about the boy s mouth and used the other to heave him
off his feet.
 What are you going to do with him? demanded another man. The sound of his
voice turned Gwendith s stomach with its familiarity.
Beoch.
 We might need a hostage. That other bitch will have their men down on us
before too long. He kicked viciously at the soldier who had fired, and who was now
standing over Sihun, hands fumbling with his belt.  There s no time for that, you idiot!
 You re supposed to be able to obscure our trail! That s why the colonel sent you
with us in the first place!
 I can t obscure anything if they can see us, fool! Now let s move!
They retreated, dragging the boy with them. In a moment, they had disappeared
into the trees.
Gwendith swore in fear and grief. Then she sprinted from her hiding place,
through the river s shallows. The soldiers might have a Way for covering their trail, but
she had a Way of finding them. And she d be damned if she let them hurt another child.
She paused for a second to snatch a pouch from Sihun s belt. Then she followed
the soldiers into the forest. As she moved, she dipped her hands into the pouch,
covering her fingers with red ochre. Two careful swipes, and she wore the falcon s
marks on her own face.  I am a real falcon, she whispered.  My prey cannot evade me.
I am too fast, and my sight is too keen. Yi! I am a real falcon.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The ghost eater ran.
The ground sloped up beneath his feet, angling towards the peaks above. He
staggered once or twice, the tangled roots of laurel and rhododendron conspiring to trip
him. Branches whipped his face and gouged his eyes, but the bhargha healed the
wounds before they could so much as bleed. It maddened him, a mocking reminder of
how different he was from everyone else.
After what seemed an eternity of running, the trees opened up, and he stumbled
onto the bare gray rock of a bald. The wind was strong here on the heights, whipping
his hair into a black storm cloud around his face and arms. He was far up on the
mountain now, in the domain of ravens and thunder. In the domain of the ghost eaters.
A shiver went through him, and he wrapped his arms around himself, even
though the reaction hadn t been born of any outside chill. The tall conifers edging the
bald hissed and whispered among themselves. Perhaps they commiserated with him, or
perhaps they simply laughed. Here, where the ground sloped up sharply to the ridge,
where the trees grew close along the edge of the bald, half-concealing a deep split in
the rock& here was where he had been born, a thing of earth and stone in the stolen
body of a man.
 It was badly done, he whispered. Then he raised his voice to a shout.  It was
wrong!
There came the sound of hoof clicking on stone. He turned to discover Little
Deer, Vulture, Owl, and Rabbit, all staring at him solemnly.  What was wrong, ghost
eater? Little Deer asked. His voice was deep, wild, as if the mountain itself had spoken.
 The old one should not have made me. I am flawed, no matter what Gwendith
says. He should have let me pass on to the Darkening Land and found someone else.
 Tell me why are you so unfit, ghost eater.
 Because I cannot bear this existence. Before you came to me, I was so
miserable I thought of casting myself on the fire. I watched everyone I had ever loved,
and I couldn t speak to them, couldn t share their joys or sorrows. Some of them feared
me, who would never have believed Tamaugua capable of harm. I told Sihun that
Tamaugua didn t die, but it was a lie. His own friends and family killed him bit by bit,
every time they turned their eyes away, until there was nothing left.
 Maybe it would have been different if I d felt I had some kind of purpose. But we
hadn t fought anyone in hundreds of winters. There was nothing to do but sit in the rain
and feel sorry for myself. That changed once you came to me. I felt like I had a purpose
in life again, like I could still be of use to my people. But somehow, when I left the
Ahkan it, I forgot what I was supposed to be. I pretended to be alive again, when I
should have been using the time away from my friends and family to put emotional
distance between myself and the world. He shook his head.  I was a mistake. I can t do
it. The old one should have chosen someone stronger than I.
The moonlight caught in Little Deer s eye, making it glow with cold fire.  And do
you think our judgment so poor?
That stopped him, caught his next words in his throat, so that he had to draw a
second breath to speak.  Your judgment? But the old one told me he had decided to go
on to the Darkening Land. He chose the first unmarried young warrior that he had an
excuse to take.
Rabbit laughed, long teeth gleaming in the night.  And how do you think he knew
to find you, fool? You were out hunting you weren t exactly marching down the middle
of Bird Creek Town, proclaiming that the Rhododendron Clan was about to kill you.
 But& the old one never told me& .
 The old one never knew, Little Deer said scornfully.
 Then I don t understand. Why me, of all those you might have taken? If you
wanted Bird Creek Town to have a new ghost eater, why not pick someone who could
be all that a ghost eater is supposed to be? Shame suddenly bit into him.  Or have I
been that much of a disappointment to you?
Little Deer snorted, his breath making two white puffs even though the night was
warm.  You do not even understand yourself, ghost eater. How can you then hope to
understand us? He fixed the ghost eater with a piercing gaze.  The ghost eaters are all
but immortal, unless they choose to die. And yet the oldest of your kind is but a newborn
babe to us. For as long as the Ahkan it and the other peoples were here before the
Rhylachans came, we were here a thousand, thousand, thousand times longer, before
ever a human stepped on this earth. Why do you think that humans alone can die at any
time and are not be reborn to live out your natural span? At one time, even you were
invaders here.
The ghost eater felt cold. If Rabbit had spoken the words, he would have doubted
their truth. But coming from Little Deer, they held an awful certainty.
 We are not human, Little Deer continued,  but we have had a long time to study [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]