The Well of Darkness Read Online Free Page A

hands indiscriminately. I ignored the pain of the scratches, the sting as my bloody hands were pressed into the salty sand.
    “Enough, Lonna,” Tarani said at last, and there was silence. The beating wings stilled as Lonna paused and looked questioningly at the girl. The bird’s full weight rested on my outstretched hands, clenched together around the scarred pouch. Lonna rested with her wings folded, but not quite relaxed, her beak parted. She was panting from the effort of our struggle. Tarani knelt by us and smoothed the feathers on the bird’s breast.
    “Why is it so quiet?” I panted.
    Tarani merely looked at me, then coaxed the bird to a perch on her outstretched arm. She stood up. “There is nothing more you can do, Lonna,” she said. “Go quickly, and be safe.”
    The bird launched herself, circled us once screeching her frustration, then flew straight up, her white body disappearing against the clouds.
    “Why is it so quiet?” I asked again, sitting up.
    All of the desert area of Gandalara seemed flat. Its hilly contours made themselves noticed in two ways—first, by the strain in your legs as you walked up and down the mounded sand; and second, when something or someone, hidden by the gentle hills, appeared as if from out of nowhere.
    The dralda appeared now, too excited over the end of the hunt even to howl.

3
    The dralda were dog-like in the same sense that the sha’um were cat-like—they shared qualities I identified with dogs, but there were differences from the animals Ricardo had known. As with every other mammalian creature in Gandalara, the canine teeth of the dralda were longer and wider than those of their counterparts in Ricardo’s world—sharp tusks rather than teeth. This, and a swift impression of the high-shouldered shape of a hyena combined with the size of a great dane, were all I could tell about the animals before one slammed into me, knocking me backward with breath-killing force.
    I threw up my arms to protect my face, but I needn’t have bothered. The dog merely stood with its forepaws pressing into my chest. I could clearly feel each of eight sharp claws pricking into my skin. Its head loomed over my face, its lips drawn back. A soft growl vibrated through its paws.
    I turned my head cautiously. Tarani was pinned underneath the massive body of another dralda. The remaining animals circled us, seemingly frustrated that their prey had already been claimed. Then, from beyond Tarani, one lowered its nose to the sand and snuffled. It lifted its head and howled; the other uncommitted dralda echoed the cry, and the whole pack of them started off running.
    She was right
, I realized, through my daze.
They were following Keeshah
—
until they were close enough to catch our scent directly. And if Tarani was right about that? …
    What
‘
s been happening to me? What have I done to us?
    The long, stout muzzle of the beast turned in the direction the others had gone. The dralda trembled with the conflict— join the hunt, or protect the catch? I held my breath, grasping at the hope that the hunt would win.
    Two men topped the dune, one panting heavily, the larger one lurching, clutching his side, groaning with the need for air. Obilin looked down at us, and smiled. The other man dropped to his knees, gasping.
    The small man came down the shallow angle of the dune to stand above me. He glanced at Tarani, half-blocked from his view by the body of the dralda that pinned her. “The girl is here,” he said. “She’s the one the High Lord wants. Her, and this.” He leaned over and tried to take the pouch; I jerked it away from him; the dralda growled; Obilin drew his sword and put its point to my throat. “Would you like to live a few minutes longer?” he asked.
    I gave him the pouch. He straightened up, and I heard a soft moan from Tarani. It echoed accusingly through my mind.
    My fault. Mine.
    “We have what Indomel wants,” Obilin said again. He pressed the sword’s point