Children of the Dawn Read Online Free Page B

dies!
    “No!” he shouted at the voice inside. “Moonkeepers go to the spirit world many times before they die for the last time!”
    Tor went after her. Like a six-legged beetle, he scrabbled down the dark, steep canyonside. He saw nothing but a picture in
     his mind—
Ashan
—the one he couldn’t live without—though Amotkan knew, he had tried.
    Down, down, with his hands and feet doing the thinking—
    His moccasin nudged something soft—
    Flesh—
    Tor jerked to one side and stepped onto a ledge, mumbling thanks that it had stopped her fall halfway to the bottom. Still—he
     swallowed, staring up at the clifftop, black against the starry sky—she had fallen a long way, must be a crumpled heap of
     broken—there was her robe, he’d have to get it—
    He smelled her blood, made himself look.
    Ashan lay in deep shadow on a narrow shelf of rock. Her back was bent over the edge, head and arms hanging, long hair adrift.
     A puff of wind or a bug landing on her chin would snatch her from the ledge and send her flying again.
    Tor crept out and pulled her to safety. Blood from the back of her head slicked his hand and oozed through his fingers. She
     was limp. He couldn’t tell, and feared to know, whether she was breathing. He held her to his chest, moaning, “Oh Amotkan,
     oh Ashan,” because he knew his mate was
dead.
No. Terribly hurt. Her skin was so cold. He got her robe and bundled her up. She didn’t move.
    Tor prayed for spirits to help him, and they did. Carrying her in his arms with his back to the rugged cliff, feet lashing
     out blind, stumbling and sliding, he reached the riverbank. She never moved. He laid her on moonlit gravel and smoothed her
     blood-matted hair. His tears splashed her face. He stroked them away, murmuring, like a song or a prayer:
    “Ashan, my love, after all we’ve been through, you cannot leave me now. I need you. Kai El needs you… your baby, think of
     him. And the people… with no Moonkeeper, Shahala and Tlikit will fight like black and red ants who live too close. Oh please,
     Ashan—”
    You ’repleading with something that isn’t there,
said a pain-sick voice in his mind.
She’s dead.
But he refused to believe it, though her eyes were closed, her lips were slack, and she was limp as soaked moss.
She’s dead.
    “You’re alive, Ashan. You are.”
    Tor’s voice connected them. His voice would keep his love alive. He wouldn’t stop until…
    “I will
never
let you go.”
    Surrounded by sleeping little ones, Kai El lay awake, gazing at his favorite star group, Soaring Hawk. He was worried. Amah
     and Adah had gone somewhere. Amah had thought-spoken: They would be back soon. But the boy was young, only five summers, so it was hard not to worry. Why would they leave
     in the night? What if they never came back? Kai El, who had grown up without a tribe, loved them more than other little ones
     loved their parents. Especially his mother. What if—
    He heard screams far away—Amah! He shook the boy next to him, who was older and smarter.
    “Wake up!”
    “I heard!” Elia said. “Let’s go!”
    Wriggling from the pack of sleeping little ones, Kai El and Elia dashed toward the memory of the scream. By the time Kai El
     realized he should have gotten warriors instead of another boy, it was too late to go back.
    They found the path, and ran along it until the ground plunged away. Kai El dug his toes in. He stood at the edge of the world,
     shaking his head, staring down—
way
down—at what? He squeezed his eyes shut, opened one—but it was still down there—a monster with no end—flat, dark, shiny—
    Kai El gulped. “Blood.”
    Elia chuckled, forgetting the terrible reason they were here.
    “Water. Great River. I live here before.”
    A sorrowful moan rose from below.
    “It’s Adah!”
    “Tor need us!” Elia said, going over the edge.
    As Kai El followed in darkness thick as face paint, fear chewed his guts. He hugged smooth stone with the whole front of