The Sea of Trolls - Farmer Nancy (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений .txt) 📗

Jack immediately grabbed his stubby wings and pulled him off—fortunately, the creature was far lighter than he looked—but, to his horror, he saw Thorgil clawing at her face. Some of the dragonlet’s blood had splattered onto her and was raising blisters. He washed her frantically with the bag of drinking water and wiped her with his cloak. It seemed to help. She had blisters on one cheek and on her lips, but her eyes, thank goodness, had been spared.

Thorgil looked stunned. Her eyes were wild, and she seemed hardly aware of things around her. But after a moment she rallied and, clinging to Jack, hobbled out of the nest. He took her behind a boulder and ran back to retrieve what supplies he could find.

Her crutch had snapped in two in the dragon’s talons on the trip up. His staff was still intact, and he still had the gold chess piece, sun stone, and poppy juice in a pouch around his neck. The food was ruined. The water bag was empty. His cloak had gaping holes from where he’d dropped it in the dragonlet’s blood. So did the bag he’d used to carry Bold Heart. Jack decided to abandon them. He wanted to pull Thorgil’s knife free, but it was covered in gore and he was afraid to touch it.

Bold Heart, meanwhile, had hopped onto one of the stones encircling the nest. “You were wonderful!” Jack cried. “I had no idea you could talk Dragon.” The crow burbled, and Jack flinched and looked behind him. “All right, all right. You really cantalk Dragon.”

Bold Heart strutted up and down as if to say, I am the greatest! I am the greatest! I’m the toughest crow in Middle Earth, and in Jotunheim, too!

“Yes, you are,” agreed Jack, “but you’d better hop aboard. We’ve got to find a hiding place before the dragon returns.” He lifted the crow to his shoulder and hurried back to Thorgil.

They squeezed between boulders, working their way back from the cliffs. Jack searched anxiously for a cave or a hole—anything that could conceal them from the dragon. He found nothing but a confusing jumble of rocks. Thorgil was tiring rapidly. It was amazing that she’d had the energy to kill the dragonlet. Now her strength flagged, and she leaned more and more on Jack.

Jack, too, was exhausted. Thorgil was hanging on to one shoulder and Bold Heart clutched the other. The wind on the high cliff was fierce, freezing, and continuous. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to walk.

Odin must really love me,Jack thought. I’m suffering enough for six Northmen.They staggered into a narrow ravine and concealed themselves as best they could in the shadows. The shadows, of course, were especially icy.

“We have to rest,” Jack whispered. “ Ihave to rest. You were magnificent, Thorgil. I never dreamed anyone could be that brave.”

She said nothing.

“It’s all right to enjoy praise,” he said. “Olaf loved it. I can tell you, if we survive, I’ll make you the best poem a warrior ever had—you and Olaf, of course.”

Thorgil made a choking sound. Jack bent down, squinting in the shadows. Her lips were badly blistered, and he had a horrid thought. “Thorgil, open your mouth.” She did, and he saw, to his dismay, that her tongue was blistered too. She didn’t talk because she couldn’t.

“Oh, no, no, no,” Jack whispered, holding her. It was a sign of her utter weakness that she didn’t push him away. “I don’t have water, but I’ll look for ice.” He searched along the rocks until he found a pocket of snow. He brought it to her. She ate it, little by little, and it seemed to reduce the swelling of her tongue. At least she wasn’t choking anymore.

Jack leaned back and gazed at the strip of sky over their hiding place. He had no idea what to do. Out of habit, as he did whenever he was upset, Jack clutched the rune of protection around his neck. It was barely warm. Even it had little encouragement to add to their desperate situation.

Bold Heart crouched and moaned. It was unlike any sound he’d made before. Jack looked up and saw a blob of snow at the top of the ravine. Where had that come from? A second later it was joined by anotherblob, and another and another. Hooo-uh, hooo-uh, hooo-uh, wuh-wuh-wuh,said the first blob.

The other blobs responded with doglike barks, cackles, shrieks, and hisses. Hooo-uh! Hooo-uh!the first blob said emphatically. It was hard to see against the bright strip of sky, but Jack made out a huge, round head with yellow eyes. It was an enormous owl, big enough to carry off a lamb—or attack a pair of desperately weak humans. Bold Heart hid behind Jack.

Hooo-uh wuh-wuh-wuh!yelled the first owl. The others replied with a variety of indignant cries, working themselves into a frenzy. They fluffed their feathers, hunched their shoulders, and spread their wings. Krujff-guh-guh-guh!they shouted. They danced back and forth on fat, feathery legs.

Jack looked down to see Thorgil staring at them with a look of utter terror on her face. Thorgilscared? She’d stood up to dragons!

A terrible, wailing scream echoed over the cliffs. The owls exploded from their perch in a flurry of wings. Jack heard an ominous creaking. The dragon had discovered the destruction of her nest.

“I don’t think she can see us,” Jack whispered to Thorgil. “Stay still. We should wait until she gets tired of hunting.” But the dragon didn’t get tired for a long time. Back and forth she went, searching the cliffs. Her shadow passed overhead several times as the sun slowly worked its way across the sky. The shadow in the ravine became deeper.

When it seemed the dragon was far away, Jack crept out and filled the water skin with snow. He trickled it into Thorgil’s mouth and a little into Bold Heart’s beak. He himself sucked on fragments of ice he found on the rocks. It was all they had and all they would have.

At last the dragon appeared to settle down. They heard occasional outbursts of grief, but the position of the creature didn’t move. “Mm,” said Thorgil, grasping Jack’s hand.

“What is it? Do you want water?”

“Mm!” the girl insisted. She still couldn’t talk. She pulled at Jack and pointed down the ravine.

“That’s not the way to the ice mountain,” he said, “but I suppose it doesn’t matter. We can’t get down the cliff, and we’ll freeze to death here.” With afternoon, the wind had picked up and was whistling through the ravine. Jack lifted Bold Heart, who seemed noticeably weaker. None of them had eaten much for days. The bird’s injured wing drooped and his feet were clumsy. He didn’t have a covering of feathers on his legs like the owls.

Jack’s body ached with tiredness, but he put one arm around Thorgil and used the staff to steady them both. Bold Heart clung to his shoulder. The ravine was full of loose rocks, and their progress was slow. They went down and down as the cliffs towered up and up until it was almost dark at the bottom. They came to a place where the trail—if it was a trail—divided. Jack stopped. He was so exhausted, he couldn’t make up his mind.

Thorgil, however, had no problem. She firmly steered him to the left. They came to more divides. Each time, Thorgil chose a direction, almost as if she knew where they were going. Jack didn’t care. At least someone was making decisions.

To his very great surprise, they came out into a little valley full of trees. A stream chuckled down the middle, and on either side were bushes full of raspberries and blueberries. The ground was covered with tiny mountain strawberries. The air was warm and sweet.

“Oh, Thorgil,” murmured Jack. He sat her down on a bed of clover and hurried to gather fruit. All three of them feasted, though he had to squash the berries and drip the juice into Thorgil’s mouth. Bold Heart gorged himself.

Jack hid two more drops of poppy juice in the berries he fed the shield maiden. He wasn’t sure if this was wise, but it seemed she would never survive if she didn’t rest. Soon she was stretched out on the clover, snoring. Her face was more peaceful than it had been since… well, since forever, Jack thought.