Greyfax Grimwald Read Online Free Page B

together again, and they do look like tasty berries.”
    Dwarf started to bluster again, then thought better of it, feeling again the sharp pain he’d felt when he’d thought their little companion lost.
    “Well, hurrumph, just be more careful about how you gather your supper in the future,” he said, only half huffed, and he gravely walked over to the little gray fellow and gave him a quick pat.
    And Otter, always polite where it concerned someone’s feelings, pretended not to see the two small tears rolling down Dwarf’s cheek.
    “But whatever do we do now?” asked Bear, looking about him at the dark, forbidding woods.,
    Broco studied the gloomy clearing, then spoke.
    “First we’ll have that supper Otter brought, then well sleep.”
    Bear woefully eyed the few small berries in Otter’s paw. “Is this the usual fare this side of the River?”
    “Better than nothing, my friend, and unless I’m far wrong, more than we’ll have until I can get my bearings and find help.”
    Bear took one of the purple berries and sucked it ruefully.
    “I suppose it’s meant to be, but I can’t help wondering what the rest of this dreary place is like if a fellow can’t get a decent supper or a bed for himself.”
    He munched silently for a while, trying to make his meager supper last, then looked to his two companions, both fallen exhausted and sleeping by his aide.
    Bear forgot his supper then, remembering how tired he was, and the weariness of crossing Galix Stay descended upon him, and he, too, fell finally asleep, on this, the first night again in the World Before Time.

At
Journey’s
Door

Arrival

    F rom the south a damp wind blew, bringing with it many strange, old, disturbing scents, smells not quite so fresh as even a bright autumn morning could make things, but filled with unknown terrors and sudden danger. There was a strong odor of man, I which pulled Bear from his fretful sleep. He became alert, rising up on his haunches to test the direction and rumbling deep in his throat to warn his friends. Otter slept on, turning one ear back at the big animal’s note of caution, then twisting more closely into a ball of gray fur, falling back into the soft, running tug of clear water where he darted in his dream. Dwarf peeped out from beneath his hat, squinting to see the position of the sun, looking at Bear, back to the overcast sky, then to Otter, now diving deep into a school of trout and almost on the point of racing a large, dark-brown-colored tarnfin.
    Dwarf kicked Otter hurriedly in rising, and stood close to Bear, who had tested all four directions and could make nothing out of the man scent except that they were surrounded, for the lingering wind told him the message from all sides. It was not immediately near them, but it was not so far away.
    “What is it, Bear?”
    “Man.”
    “Are they near us?”
    “I shouldn’t say too far. I can’t hear anything, though.”
    Otter, sullenly rubbing his eyes and trying his whiskers, grumped, “I knew I should have listened to my own better judgment. Not only am I dragged bodily away from my river by an overpuffed knot of a lumpheaded dwarf, carted across all sorts of boundaries that should better be left uncrossed, plumped down square in the middle of a nest of men, but I get kicked for my breakfast.” Otter toppled back ward, covering his eyes with his paws.
    “Shhhh,” hissed Bear, rising up to his full height, ears back, nose searching, great brown hackles bristling upon his neck.
    Seeing Bear upright and aroused, Otter forgot all else and darted beneath the huge animal’s shadow, crouched and whistling low in his throat. Dwarf brandished his rune-covered walking stick, but also moved closer to Bear.
    “The scent is growing stronger. There are many of them.”
    Otter caught the strong man scent now, powerful and disgusting, and every time the wind caught its breath it grew stronger, as if a great horde of Mankind was approaching.
    Dwarf carefully studied the