Battlesaurus Read Online Free Page B

had seen, whatever they had done, it had driven one of the brothers closer to God, and turned the other from His sight. The sons follow their fathers. Fran ç ois is a pious and committed Christian, while Jean is a Sunday worshipper and in great danger of going to hell, according to his cousin.
    They are different in other ways also. They both brandish mustaches; however, Fran ç ois’s is soft and thin, like the saplings of the ridgeline, while Jean’s is thick and coarse, like the old oaks of the forest. The cousins are both strong, but Jean is the taller and brawnier of the two, despite Fran ç ois’s many hours swinging the ax. Their fathers being so similar, that difference may have come from their mothers’ sides, for Jean’s mother is a large and sturdy woman, robust in body and tongue, while the preacher’s wife is a delicate flower given to long sullen moods and bouts of inexplicable anger and tears.
    Willem was not always friends with the cousins. They are Walloon. Within a few weeks of his arrival in the village they waylaid him on the river path, simply because he was Flemish. They were big, strong boys even then. They beat him bloody, then dragged him to the riverbank and held his head under water until he blacked out. He was six years old.
    He did not make it easy for them though. He fought back, hard, kicking and biting, leaving Jean with a permanent scar on the corner of his mouth. Nor did Willem cry. Not once.
    It only happened twice more before he earned their grudging respect, and that slowly turned into friendship. That stopped the other beatings too. Once he came under the wing of the Lejeune cousins nobody else dared to touch him, not even the older children in the village.
    Willem does not have the height nor the breadth of the other two, yet there is a wiry strength about him, and a cunning that would win games and fights that strength alone would not. He is also quick of hand and fleet of foot, and can step and run his way out of trouble if it comes to that—and it often does.
    For although Willem, Jean, and François are the closest of friends, there is a rambunctious nature to the two cousins, and brawling usually only ends when there is blood.
    â€œHow is Mademoiselle H é lo ï se this morning?” Jean asks. “Did she try to eat you again?”
    â€œMaybe we should have brought her with us.” Willem laughs. “In case we do find this saur. It would surely run from her.”
    â€œFran ç ois would have liked that,” Jean says. “He yearns for more time alone with the wild girl.”
    â€œI think you dip a brush in your own heart and paint me with it,” Fran ç ois says.
    â€œAh, cousin, but I am not the one who dallies by her gate, or feigns illness to gain her attentions.” Jean laughs.
    â€œIt was a gash from a falling tree,” Fran ç ois says, fingering a long scar on his forearm. “You would rather I bled to death?”
    â€œIt was but a scratch from a twig,” Jean says.
    â€œI saw this wound after it became infected,” Willem says. “Without Madame Gertruda’s poultice, you would have lost that arm, or your life.”
    â€œTrue, but my cousin is always correct, even when he is not,” Fran ç ois scoffs. “I should take his counsel and seek H é lo ï se’s hand in marriage without delay.”
    â€œYou would not survive the wedding night,” Jean says. “Your skin is not thick enough for her claws.”
    â€œThere are ways to tame the wildest of beasts,” Fran ç ois says.
    â€œNot a saur. No one has ever tamed a saur,” Jean says.
    â€œWillem has,” Fran ç ois says.
    â€œPieter? That is but a dog without fur,” Jean says. “Even I could teach tricks to a microsaurus.”
    â€œThen why have you not?” Fran ç ois asks.
    Jean does not answer that. Instead he asks, “And what tricks would you teach