The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) Read Online Free Page A

voice at his side. Javor jumped, but it was only Hrech.
    “ I’m going after Elli and Grat. Are you coming or not?”
    “ Are you crazy ? Are you trying to get killed? Do you even have a weapon?”
    Javor took out the fish-handled dagger. Hrech goggled. “Where did you get that?”
    “ It was my great-grandfather’s. Come on.”
    “ Javor, you can’t,” Hrech sputtered, arguing what would become for him a refrain for the day. “You can’t catch up with mounted men when you’re on foot. And even if you do, what could you do by yourself?”
    “ I have to do something . No one else is.”
    “ No one else is stupid enough!” Hrech felt more afraid now even than when the raiders were in the village. “You’re one boy against 10 armed men, and all you have is a fancy knife!”
    Javor took long strides into the grass the horses had trampled. Behind him, the adults argued and cried and whimpered, oblivious to the two boys leaving. “They’ve got to stop to rest sometime. I’ll keep going and sooner or later, I’ll catch up with them. Are you going with me?”
    Hrech scrambled to keep up with Javor’s long strides. Poor guy never has been able to see straight, he thought. “The only thing you’re going to accomplish is to get yourself killed.”
    “ I don’t care. If Elli’s gone …” What ? He did not think past that. “I’ve got to do something,” he repeated. He started to run along Avars’ trail.
    Hrech knew he could not stop Javor, but he also knew his friend would not be able to survive on his own. Javor was bigger and physically stronger—he didn’t know it, but he was the strongest bachelor in the village—but Javor acted very young, like a child. “I’m with you,” Hrech panted. “But I’ll need a weapon, too.” He ran as fast as he could back to the village and found Swat’s axe beside Javor’s hut. By the time he had caught up to Javor again, he did not have enough breath to argue anymore. So he had followed Javor. By noon, his throat was parched.
    He finally made Javor stop to drink at a clear stream. Javor hadn’t realized just how thirsty he was, even though the sun was high and hot. He touched his hair: it was hot on top, wet in the back. He drank some more, then splashed water over his head. Hrech did the same.
    “ I don’t care what you do. I’m taking a breather,” Hrech said. Javor said nothing, but sat beside his friend in the shade of a birch tree. Hrech looked up at his friend. He could see Javor withdrawing into himself. His jaw went slack, his lips parted slightly. He stared at the birch tree as if he were trying to count its leaves, but his eyes were not focused. Hrech knew he had to say something to bring Javor back to the here-and-now. “So, what now?”
    Javor looked up the stream bank, where the Avars’ trail led into the trees. “Our only hope is that the riders are not too worried about putting much distance between themselves and us, and that they’ll stop soon to rest and eat. But then, they’ll probably rape the girls.”
    Hrech winced. It was another trait of Javor’s to say out loud exactly the thing you didn’t want to think about.
    They hadn’t taken any food or anything for the night. But Javor remembered Elli screaming as the rider dragged her by her long hair. And he thought of all the men of his village, waiting for someone else to make the first move. If we had all rushed them when Mladen did, we would have saved the girls. But who else would be dead?
    “ I hate to repeat myself, Javor, but we’re two kids with a knife and a wood-axe, and there are ten of them with armour and swords and gods know what else,” Hrech argued. “We won’t stand a chance.”
    “ We’ll catch up with them at night, sneak into their camp quietly, free the girls and steal the horses,” Javor replied, surprising himself. “The moon will still be pretty big tonight,and the sky will be clear. We’ll have enough light.”
    “ There’ll be at least one on