Children of the Dawn Read Online Free

still might want to kill him.”
    “What kind of people would kill children?”
    “Tlikit people.”
    Ashan sighed. “Oh, Tor… how will this ever work?”
    “I know another way,” he said. “I will go alone.”
    “No.”
    Ashan would not send her beloved mate into the village of savages with no magic to protect him.
    “If this is not work for a Moonkeeper, what will ever be? When the sun rises, you and I will go together.”
    The round moon crept up the sky and began its descent. The long night was silent, but for the keening wind and the distant
     cries of a coyote.
    Ashan could not sleep. Warm under bearskin, she snuggled against her mate, enjoying the firmness of his muscles, and the way
     his backside fit the curve of her stomach—feelings to make her forget almost anything.
    But not tonight. Worries about tomorrow crawled through her mind like cave bugs through bat dung.
    She could tell that Tor was awake by his uneven breathing.
    “Sweetmate?” she whispered.
    “Mmm?”
    “You say it isn’t far, this Tlikit village?”
    “No, it’s not.”
    “Could you and I walk there tonight?”
    “We could.”
    “Can we see where they live without them seeing us?”
    “Yes. Do you want to?”
    Tor waited for her answer, but the word “yes” stuck in her throat.
    The
Moonkeeper
must protect her tribe, and it might helpif she could see what they faced. But it troubled the
mother
to leave her son… her baby, she still thought of Kai El, though he was five summers now.
    We were away from people all that time; everything to each other; never apart I would die without him.
    Ashan knew she shouldn’t worry. The Shahala valued and protected little ones above everything, because they were the future.
     Out here in the tabu land, they slept in a cluster at the center of camp surrounded by their elders. But still… she would
     never be comfortable with Kai El out of sight, had come too close to losing him.
    Ashan pictured the heap of little ones: tangled arms and legs, some heads showing, some hidden under sleeping skins.
Like the litters often coyotes, she thought No telling which pup is mine.
She took a deep breath and sent a thought to Kai El:
Amah will be back soon.
    “I want to go,” she whispered to Tor.
    “Make yourself warm,” he said
    She looked at the moonbright sky. In autumn and winter, clear nights were the coldest.
    “I will,” she said.
    Under the cover of the bearskin, Ashan pulled on leather moccasins and leggings, and a rabbit pelt robe with the fur inside.
     She had to get out to lace and fasten, and nearly froze by the time she finished. The wind snatched her hair, so she tied
     it with a thong and tucked the ends into her robe. She wrapped a fox pelt around her head and neck. Finally, she was warm.
    She gazed at the tribe.
    “Look at them: Unmoving mounds. How can they sleep with tomorrow’s unknown hanging over them?”
    “People have a Moonkeeper to do their worrying for them,” Tor answered, fastening his bison robe.
    The Moonkeeper and her mate left the camp and headed in the direction Warmer. They hadn’t gone far when moonlight fell on
     a path.
    “Right where I remembered,” Tor said.
    “I guess they still live here,” Ashan said, looking at trampled grass.
    “I never doubted it. Why move? As I told you, everything is here that could ever be needed.”
    Holding hands, they walked along the path, absorbed in their own thoughts. Aromas of water and fish grew stronger. Ashan sniffed
     for smoke, was glad not to find it… a good sign the Tlikit were sleeping.
    The wind died suddenly, as if speared. It had been with them for so long that its absence was eerie, a silence broken only
     by the occasional barks of a coyote. They crested another hill like the rest—except that Ashan saw no hills beyond. The moon-washed
     grass of the plateau gave way to flat, rock-strewn ground. They walked on, and suddenly they were standing on a cliff—
    —
at the edge of the world!
    Ashan