[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Father Dragon and Keman as if they didn't belong there.
Everyone ignored the human cub lying quietly in the dust, as if she
didn't exist. No one would ever have guessed she had been the object of so
much contention a few moments earlier.
Keman crept closer to the tiny, fragile-looking creature, wondering
what he should do about it. Mother had said she wanted Keman to help her take
care of it, but it was really hers, wasn't it? Should he just take it, or
should he wait for her to say something?
He paused, paralyzed by indecision. He knew she might be until dawn
or later in giving birth to his new sib. But if he waited, the cub could be
dead. It had to be hungry by now
As if in answer to that unspoken question, the little thing mewed and
turned its head blindly. Keman put a knuckle which seemed enormous, compared
to its head to its mouth and it sucked fruitlessly, then cried.
If he didn't take care of it, it was going to die, he decided, then
looked to Father Dragon for help.
"If you know what needs to be done, Keman, you must do it," Father
Dragon rumbled. "Especially if you know it is theright thing to do."
For one moment longer, Keman hesitated. What if Lori found out he
took the cub? She backed down from Alara, but she wouldn't pay any attention
to him. And if she ate the cub he wouldn't be able to stop her.
But if nobody knew he had the cub until after Alara was better and if
he put the one-horns in the same pen as Hoppy
That's what he'd do. Not even Lori wanted to get past four one-horns.
Once he'd made his decision, he didn't hesitate. Althoughhe couldn't
shift shape yet to something that could carry the little one in its arms, his
foreclaws were certainly large enough for him to carry the cub in one with
room to spare.
Provided he could avoid nicking her with one of his talons. He hadn't
the least notion how to medicate her if he scratched her, and if he hurt her,
she'd have to wait for his mother's recovery to be tended.
He'd just be really careful. Hehad handled babies before.
He put his right foreclaw over the cub, like a cage, and slowly
worked the talons under her, a little at a time, trying to dig through the
dirt under her rather than actually touch her. When all five talons met, and
there was about enough space between each of his fingers to insert a human
hand, he raised his arm, slowly.
The cub lay cradled securely in a basket of talons, without so much
as a scratch on her.
Keman breathed a sigh of relief, and headed towards the lair, limping
on three legs. He looked back once, to see if Father Dragon was going to come
with him, but the shaman had silently vanished while he'd been trying to pick
Page 61
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the cub up. And the others had long since taken his mother away.
Well, that was all right. Keman knew exactly what he needed to do
now, and he figured he'd be able to take care of it without any help from the
adults.
The menagerie lived just inside one of the lair's many exits, with
the paddocks for the larger grazing animals located right outside. Keman was
very tired by the time he made his way through the living caverns to the exit
tunnel; he hadn't realized that hobbling along on three ' legs was going to be
so hard. He hadn't noticed before that there were so many uneven places to
scramble over, so many protrusions of rock to get around. It was one thing to
blithely hop over them with all your legs intact; it was quite another
proposition carrying something you didn't dare drop. And his foreclaw was
beginning to cramp.
He wished profoundly that he was old enough to shift shape, or use
some of the draconic magics. His mother could melt rock when she bothered to
think about it. If he'd been able to work magic, he could have had his path
cleared by now.
It was a very weary little dragon that clambered clumsily out over
the rocks into the paddock area. The two-horns, gentle and unable to defend
themselves, had the paddock nearest the cave mouth, with a little shelter he'd
made of rocks piled together and a fence of more rocks ringing the paddock. He
was entirely glad to put the baby down in the straw beside Hoppy, who was
nursing her own kid, lying down on her side. Hoppy was a very gentle two-horn,
even for her mild breed, and Keman had fostered many orphans on her before
this.
He flexed his claw with relief. It had felt for a moment like he was
never going to get it uncramped! He checked the cub; it seemed perfectly all
right, cushioned with straw, and Hoppy was apparently ignoring it.
That was fine; that was exactly as he expected. He got up, and
started back towards the exit, and the little side cave where he stored the
supplies he needed to care for his animals. First he needed the mint-oil and a
rag, then he would take Hoppy's kid away from her. He would rub all three of
them with mint, and Hoppy wouldn't know which baby was really hers, so with
luck she would nurse both of them.
It had worked before. Keman figured it should work this time, too,
even though this cub was a great deal more helpless than the orphans he'd
usually given Hoppy to nurse, and certainly wasn't shaped anything like a
two-horn. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

glaz.keep.pl