Travellers #2 Read Online Free

as they were.
    That afternoon we emerged into clear light from under the ash cloud. The sun sinking, its rays long fingers poking into shadowy gullies. The animals querulous. I kept them moving. At last the tussock rippled, lifted and turned over, pointing north. A southerly carried the sinister cloud away.
    The animals relished the clean tussock. The ground here was sand and ash, like our last glimpse of the Whykatto, but a different ash, as if the soil itself had burned long ago and had been mixed with red and yellow sand.
    The narrow torrents off the mountain had turned sludge-grey. Jak and Jess led east to a clear stream, and we camped there. Next day, the animals fed and slept again, and I was content to lie under tall tussock and scrub and watch the spectacle of the burning mountain.
    The ash-cloud boiled. Sometimes it sprang from behind the peaks, curveting, ripped by lightning, glowing grey-red. Bumps shook the ground. Explosions were a continuous dull mutter.
    The white-wrapped mountain mass was now smeared grey, the tussock gaudy red and gold against it. Lake Top, the Hawk Cliffs, Tara’s grave, the Whykatto – even, perhaps,Orklun – must all lie grey beneath the mountain’s curse. I hoped it would drive the Salt People back behind the burning range east of the Whykatto. Certainly it would cover our tracks, stop anyone trying to follow.
    I spent a day hunting and fishing to renew stores. There were deer and trout, but this high ground would be brutal in winter. I wondered if there was some way my father might know I was doing what we planned all those years ago, looking for the mountain that ate the sun, the land of ice and snow.
    Moonless nights when it was too dark to travel, I stared into the fire, thinking all those people and animals were with me still. Dwelling on the past, I would think about Tara, and that made me cry. Instead, I made myself remember pictures of the Painted Cave. Its cache of tools would be safe, the store of dry food, and the bright paintings that lined its walls, telling the story of the Travellers. And deep beneath its floor, Old Hagar beside the little girl, and Nip, too.
    Then one day I realised the country was tilting towards the south. We had passed through the mountains. They were hills we travelled now, tussock turning to grass, scrub to trees. Any land of snow and ice must lie much further south. There were walls in places, not great ruins like Hammertun in the Whykatto, but people had once lived here, too.
    We needed to find shelter before the next winter. A garden to replace the potatoes I was eating. Somewhere to stop long enough to shear the animals, spin their wool, and weave it into new blankets and gear. And I wondered where I might find people who would swap things for my weaving.
    Winding between trees, we came down one evening into a green valley. Jak and Jess ran along a grassy stretch above a river, dull and thick with sediment. Cliffs along the other bank, white and yellow bluffs glowing amongst darkening shadows.
    Travellers were always looking for firewood. Towards the end of each night’s journey, we would pick up scraps. The donkeys never liked it when they saw us about to add to their loads. We burned anything that was dry. The heavier woods that burn better, we never had time to split and dry. That had been one of the joys of the Hawk Cliffs, being able to dry timber well ahead of its burning.
    Above a dry heap of logs and branches left by an old flood, I pitched the tent and went to light a fire. Amongst the tangle were bright fragments of a resinous wood, good burning. Somebody had split a log with an axe! A chip in my hand, I swung round, looking for smoke, footprints, a track.
    The flitches, tall slabs split and stacked on end for the sun and wind, stood on a higher terrace. There was no other sign, but I felt we were being watched. It was too dark to move on. We’d still have to camp somewhere, and the animals were tired.
    I lit a fire. Het and her