Read Red Moon Rising for Free Online

His eyes look like Heetle’s when an electrical storm is coming. “What in the name of the gods have you done?”
    There are no words. They’ve been slapped from my head, sent flying into the scrub along with a mouthful of spit and maybe some blood. I sputter, my face burning not just from the slap, but from confusion, shame. I can’t grasp how I have messed this up. I saved Papa from the dactyl. I protected the family from the Cheese. I did not back down. I showed the backbone of a homesteader.
    The Cheese stands, his hands dripping with blood. It takes me a minute to realize he is not terribly injured, but has harvested the heart of the dactyl. I remember learning of this custom after the Cheese took Rory but left behind a dactyl corpse, lost in the fight. They had taken its heart but left the rest of the dead creature. We ate stringy dactyl for days.
    The Cheese drips slowly up to me, close enough to getblood on my boots. I see the burn mark on his arm where my light arrow grazed him. The metallic paint on his face shimmers in the light of the suns like nothing I’ve ever seen. Prettier than a shine tree. But under the pretty paint is a lined and frowning face covered in scales. His upper lip is bony and pointed, almost like a beak. And with his hair piled on top of his scalp, I see the fleshy ovals on the sides of his head, the skin tight as drums. Cheese ears are like lizard ears, Papa has told us during lessons, even though we are not sure what lizards are. This is the first time I have seen a Cheese this close up. He is much less human than I thought.
    While he is not human, and I might not speak the Cheese language, his pinched and shaking face very clearly tells me he is angry. He shouts something I can’t understand and points a dripping, bloody hand at me. I take two steps back. The Cheese keeps shouting and jabbing his finger at me until Papa steps in front of me and holds out his hands. He says something to the Cheese.
    Papa speaks Cheese?
    The Cheese grabs me by my hair and forces me to my knees. I cry out, my heart banging in my chest. Why is Papa doing nothing to help me? How can he be so calm? Do his eyes no longer function? Can he not see what the Cheese is doing to me?
    Still holding my hair, the Cheese thrusts the dactyl heart so close to my face I can feel its warmth. It smells terrible. I try to turn away, but his grip is tight. He shoutssomething at me and jerks my hair so that I have to face his bloody hand holding the heart. He leans in so close I can see the details in the creases of the scales on his face. I can see the paint cracking from his angry expression. I want to cry out, but I dare not open my mouth. My heart ricochets through my rib cage, a sandmoth caught in a trap.
    The Cheese leans forward, never taking his eyes from mine, and takes a bite of the heart. A fine spray of blood hits my face as the organ bursts between his beaky lips. Blood and viscera drip from the heart, from his hand, onto my skirts. I choke back bile.
    â€œIt is Cheese custom.” Papa’s voice is low and steady. “Each rider shares a special bond with his dactyl, and must eat of its heart when it dies.”
    I am crying now, my tears and snot mixing with the blood spatter on my face, pink ribbons trickling from my chin. As the Cheese chews slowly I can see so many emotions on his strange face. Or maybe I am just feeling them because he is still so close to me. He’s angry and ferocious, but there is such a sadness, too. The sadness seeps into my own heart.
    He releases his grip on my hair. I stand and Papa quickly puts his arm around my waist, pulling me away from the Cheese. He holds on to me tightly and I lean into him, pressing my face into his hard chest, ruining his shirt.
    The Cheese shakes his head and throws the rest of the bloody heart at Papa’s boots.
    Papa keeps one eye on the Cheese as he turns his headslightly. “Get on Heetle and go home as fast as you