Raven Speak (9781442402492) by Diane Lee Wilson Page B

shadows slipping along the path leading from the fjord. They were alone. Safe for now. But where were they going to pass the remainder of the night? Such exhaustion gnawed at her bones that she felt she could very nearly make a bed atop the shore’s mosaic of rocks. As she stroked Rune’s face a blast of sea spray reminded her they needed to find some place more sheltered. Hating to push him on, she nonetheless whistled her command, and they turned away from the familiarity of their fjord and began walking. The unnatural sequence of crunching steps punctured by a sudden grunt and thud marked Rune’s hobbling progress. Each snort of pain stung her afresh.
    The sheer cliffs on their right offered no shelter whatsoever. When the two followed the shoreline inland, poking along the base of the ridged fingers, the steep forests loomed so dark and forbidding that they stuck to the narrow strip between mountain and water rather than risk their lives on those precipitous blackslopes. The moon lit their way for a while, but when it finally slipped behind the mountains, taking its icy light with it, the boundary between water and land bled into shadow, and Asa, at least, walked blindly. For comfort she slipped her hand through the coarse fringe of Rune’s mane, resting it lightly on the warm crest of his neck. He was moving more steadily now, and though she had to hunch her stiffening shoulders against the frigid gusts hurled from the ocean, they went on searching for shelter without mishap.
    It was when they were trudging around a shadowed cove lying deep between two craggy, rock-strewn knuckles that an eerie whine sounded above them. Rune stopped, ears pricked toward the darkness. Was something stalking them? Had Jorgen somehow gotten ahead of them? She listened harder. Only the innocent splashing of water against the rocky shore broke the silence. But as she hesitated, frozen in place, she realized the damp cold was seeping through her clothing. She envisioned her mother curled beneath the sheepskins and feather quilt. If she hurried, if she turned around right now, she could be back in the longhouse lying beside her mother before she awoke.
    But Jorgen would be there too.
    Rune’s sudden snort and shy from underneath her hand shot her through with alarm. He stood tensed, ready for flight. What? What was out there? As hard as she tried, she couldn’t see anything. Yet every nerve in her own body screamed at her to go back.
    No. She couldn’t—she
wouldn’t
—risk Rune’s life by returning totheir clan. They’d have to sacrifice her first, because if they killed her horse, well … Odin himself would have nothing on her fury. Though her heart drummed in her ears, she disguised her fear with murmurs of soothing nonsense and sidled over to Rune. She scratched his withers and, after a few more snorts followed by another long stretch of silence, he relaxed.
    Side by side they continued, finding nothing more dangerous than additional dark shore stretching ahead. Like the walking dead they plodded, step after numb step, mindlessly retracing yesterday’s gallop—or was it the day before that the
Sea Dragon
had sailed? She shook her head. When was the last time she’d slept? Her mind tried to sort the events, but images of Jorgen leered through the haze. His hungry, heavy-lidded stare. The pale brown mole at his temple. The cheese crumbling in his hand.
    He wanted to be clan leader, she knew that much now. Which, she realized with the sudden clarity of a light beaming through a cracked door, was completely different from wanting to lead the clan. Jorgen wanted the power that came with being first, of being on top. He coveted the seat of honor. But leading the clan meant putting everyone else’s needs ahead of your own. That’s what her father had done. His trip into the storm was foolhardy in so many ways, but he’d done it for the good of the clan.
He
was a true