The Dread Hammer Read Online Free Page A

come—”
    He bared his teeth. “Oh, I want you. Very much.”
    She shivered, but when he turned to go she yielded and followed meekly after him. What choice did she have? Better to go with the mad Hauntén than wait for the wolves to find her.

    The Wild Wood was an old, old forest. Perhaps as old as the world, though Smoke rarely paused to consider such things. Bright green ferns grew in the gloom beneath the trees, their fronds hiding a clutter of fallen branches. Looking less happy than the ferns, azaleas and berry bushes bided against the day a storm might bring down an elder tree and open their dim world to light.
    It would not be this day. Above a scaffolding of old branches the trees still held on to their summer leaf. The canopy shuffled and swayed, sending random glints of light tumbling to the forest floor. The glittering was quenched occasionally when clouds passed over the sun, but it was still a fine day, one of the last of summer. Smoke thought there might be a fog that night and rain tomorrow, but he didn’t fret on it. Tomorrow would take care of itself. Today, his only concern was to bring Ketty to his holding.
    Of course they had to go on foot and this annoyed him. He hated walking. Why bother with it when he could slide with great speed along the threads beneath the world? But Ketty couldn’t follow him on that path so he was forced to walk with her.
    It was a very long way. He hadn’t realized how long, since he’d never walked it before. The farther they went, the farther it seemed they still had to go and so, frustrated, Smoke went ever faster. He was sure that as soon as he brought Ketty to his holding, as soon as she saw the pretty cottage he had built, the last of her doubts would be chased away and she would confess that she did indeed love him.
    “Smoke!”
    Her distant cry startled him. He looked back to find that she had fallen behind yet again, and so again, he waited for her. He was already carrying her sack. She’d been willing to let him do that, though she insisted on keeping her staff.
    “You should be better at walking than I am,” he said as she came huffing up.
    Her temper flashed. “You are taller than me, and you haven’t been walking for two nights and a day without rest, and you are Hauntén.”
    “I am a man.”
    “How much farther?”
    He thought on it, feeling the pull and stretch of the threads. “Some while yet. But there’s a brook not far from here. It’s a good place to rest.”
    Far off through the trees there came the sweet wail of a wolf’s howl. Another answered it, and then many took up the song. It was a misty sound, floating down from the tree tops. Smoke closed his eyes, the better to listen, until he felt Ketty clutch his hand. She was trembling. “Are you afraid?” he asked with an amused smile.
    “They are wolves!”
    “Of course they’re wolves. I like to follow them sometimes when I’m hunting.” He laughed. “It annoys them when I take the fawn they wanted for their own dinner.”
    “They do not hunt you?”
    “Why would I let them?”
    She looked up at him with her dark eyes. Such pretty eyes. “And the bears?” she asked. “Are you afraid of them?”
    “No, nor the lions. And you don’t need to be afraid either while you’re with me. Now come.” His hand tightened on hers. “The brook isn’t far, and you’ll feel better in the sunlight.”
    But to his exasperation she shook off his hand, and insisted she would follow two paces behind.

    In unnumbered spring floods the brook had polished clean a field of smooth gray stone that now, at summer’s end, flanked its glistening water. Ketty lay back, her head pillowed against her sack and her eyes closed as she basked in the golden light of afternoon.
    Smoke stood gazing at the pretty turn of her face. He did fancy her. He truly did. Never before had he felt this way about any woman. But he was discouraged. Why would she not admit that she cared for him too?
    The song of wolves