Read A Hero's Curse for Free Online

during a hunt. Not that I make the kill. That’s Tig’s expertise. Tig sneezes. He’s a few feet ahead of me and a little to the right. “When do you think we’ll hunt again?” I ask, breaking the silence that has only lasted a couple of minutes.
    Tig grunts in response. “Maybe tonight. I don’t know about taking you along, though. You made so much noise last time.”
    I grip my stick a little tighter. “Oh really? I wasn’t the one sneezing every few seconds.”
    “Well, I wasn’t the one kicking up dust everywhere,” Tig retorts.
    I stop in my tracks. “Excuse me? You were upwind. I had to sift through the smell of cat during the whole hunt.”
    Tig stops, too. “You mean the wonderful smell of Tigrabum? Lucky you. I wondered why you were hanging out back there,” he says, ending with the “rrrt” that I know is his chuckle.
    That makes me grin inside, but I keep my voice dry. “You think pretty highly of yourself for a little guy. Conceit is a weird disease—you’re the one who has it but it ends up making me sick.” It sounds like he wants to respond, but he sneezes again instead. “You should grow some legs and get up out of the dust,” I say.
    “Grow some legs? What if they get too long and gangly like yours?” he asks in mock horror.
    I poke toward him with my stick, but he has already moved to the other side of the trail. It’s true that I am tall and a little on the bony side. I’m not clumsy—but it is one more thing to make me feel self-conscious around others.
    “Wish it would rain,” Tig says in a muffled tone that tells me he is rubbing his nose with a paw.
    “Really?” I ask, my tone incredulous.
    “Yes,” he says, “as long as I’m inside and there’s no chance of getting wet.” I start up the rise in front of us again, feeling the crunchy gravel turn to swishing sand and then back to bigger stones.
    “Oh, it doesn’t have to rain for you to get wet. I could always throw you in the river . . .” Tig lets out a low yowl. My mouth twitches. He hates wet. I guess I don’t blame him. His coat is full of rich, thick fur—the kind that gets completely waterlogged, adds ten pounds, and feels like a big lump of living slime.
    With my stick I consciously brush the coarse sage that clings to the side of the trail ahead of us. Assassin vipers like to crawl under the sage during the day, and they can strike if they’re startled. If they’re around, I like to let them know I’m coming. I top an embankment and get a blast of dust in my face. I splutter and rub my eyes. My eyes run and the dirt cakes around them on dusty days like today, which is most days. It doesn't seem fair that even though they don't work, they still sting like crazy when dust gets in them.
    The trail finally curves sharp to the right, leaving the Mar and following the pipeline Dad built to bring water to our holding tank. We have followed the pipeline in silence for a moment when Tig utters a low growl and bounds off to the right. He does that a lot. Sometimes he’s gone for minutes and sometimes hours. It bugs me when we’re doing something and I don’t have his eyes to guide me, but he is a cat after all.
    Something interrupts my wandering thoughts. I freeze, my stick hovering in the air. I push my senses out around me, listening, feeling, smelling . . . A change has made me pause. I grip my stick tighter and adjust my feet to a more balanced stance. I try to identify what it was.
    Grasshoppers—they had been singing off to my left. Now it’s quiet.
    Tig. I whirl and swing my stick in a low arc, but he has already pounced on my shoe. I shout and kick out, mostly as a surprised reflex, but he’s gone.
    “Nice one, but you have to admit you messed up by letting me hear you before you were ready to spring,” I say.
    Tig answers from behind me. “This. Little guy. Just. Killed. Your. Shoe!” he says in short breaths. He’s probably licking himself.
    “Fair enough,” I say. “Watch out for those