Raven Speak (9781442402492) by Diane Lee Wilson Page A

heels.
    â€œRune!” He flicked an ear but reared up again, striking relentlessly at the skald. She’d never seen him in such a rage. “Rune! Here!” He turned his head then, giving the skald a free opportunity to deliver the death blow. “Here!” she yelled at the top of her voice, and the horse lunged toward her as the knife swept the empty air. She raced ahead of him through the doorway and darted aside, crouching slightly. The moment he shot through, she leaped for his mane and pulled herself across his back. Barely holding on, she urged him toward the black shore.
    The skald’s anguished howl echoed in their wake.

ÁTTA
    If not for the giant silver brooch of a moon pinned against the night sky, they might have tumbled over rocks or tangled themselves in the ocean’s debris. But with it they were able to mark the shoreline by its undulating ribbon of moonlit waves.
    Was it just yesterday they’d galloped here? It was too much to ask of an old horse, especially after Jorgen’s attack, so when they were safely around the first finger of land and alone with the sea, Asa tried to coax Rune to a walk. Clutching his thick mane, she thrust her heels forward and fought the pounding momentum. “Whoa.” That got her nothing but jounced off balance, and for a few dizzying heartbeats the ground rushed perilously close. “Whoa!” she hollered again as her knee sought a grip. She managed to right herself, but Rune kept charging along the shore, carrying her with him. The gray-whiskered prankster was taking full advantage of galloping bridle-less!
    Again she tugged on his mane, nearly yanking the hairs from their roots, and this time she stretched her leg all the way to the point of his shoulder and thumped hard. “Whoa!” she demanded. Rune sank to a halt. His immediate and indignant snort, though,which he trumpeted through the dark, denied his submission. He pranced sideways, swished his tail, and shook his head in defiance. He could go on, he seemed to claim, even with his breath coming in roaring gusts like the waves at his feet.
    Feet that were limping. Now that fear no longer buoyed their flight, she detected the unevenness in his gait and hastily slid off him.
    Blood splattered his shoulder and forelegs and oozed, glistening, from two gashes along his neck and a deeper one under his chest. Cupping a hand beneath his jaw, she coaxed him to take a few steps. His wincing effort showed it was the chest wound that hurt the most. But he wasn’t trembling, wasn’t dropping to the ground and giving up. This was Rune, after all. Between his labored breaths, he managed a soft nicker, a depositing of his trust in her.
    She needed something with the healing color of black—a raven’s feather or a polished stone or … even a simple black thread.
That
she had in her tunic. Admittedly it was more of a woody brown, but in the moonlight the piece of wool she was working free of its woven pattern would serve as black. She picked the thread loose, in and out, in and out, until she could snap off a length with her teeth.
    â€œBone to blood,” she chanted as she tied the thread around Rune’s foreleg, as close to the chest wound as she could get. “Blood to sinew and flesh to hide. Odin, I call to you! Heal!” Rune worked his lips across the top of her head as she repeatedthe chant a second and third time. Already the deepest wound seemed to be dripping less. Satisfied, she rose.
    What were they going to do now? Where were they going to go? She looked up and down the strip of shoreline, and for the first time she became aware of the stinging pain in her neck. Running a hand behind her ear, she felt a stickiness that could only be blood—
her
blood. She’d narrowly avoided being killed herself. With a renewed sense of danger, she looked behind to make sure Jorgen wasn’t following.
    The frosted light of moon and stars revealed no