Read Rigante Series 04 - Stormrider for Free Online Page B

Taking a deep breath she whispered a Word of Power. The air around her grew still. A shadowy figure began to form upon the bough. The Wyrd looked into the frightened eyes of the young boy sitting there. 'It is time to come down, Basson,' she told the child's spirit.
    'The bear will get me!' he said.
    'The bear is gone, boy. He cannot hurt you now.'
    Basson shut his eyes tight and ignored her. Wearily the Wyrd walked away, entering the trees, and standing upon the bloodstained ground where the remains of Finbarr Ustal and his wife had been found. 'Finbarr!' she called. 'The Dweller needs you. Ural! Your son is frightened. Come to me now.' A mist seeped up from the snow, surrounding her. She felt a presence to her right, just outside her line of sight. Then another. 'Follow me, Rigante,' she whispered, and walked back to the tree. The mist flowed with her.
    At the tree she called out again. 'Look who I have with me, Basson,' she said. 'They have come to take you home.' The boy opened his eyes. All fear fled from him. 'I thought it had killed you,' he said. He began to climb down. As he did so his form grew paler, the lines increasingly indistinct.
    By the time he reached the ground he seemed little more than wood smoke. Ignoring the Wyrd the child's spirit flowed and merged with the mist, which then rolled and moved back towards the trees. The Wyrd spoke the words again.

    'Seek the circle, find the light, 
    Say farewell to flesh and bone. 
    Walk the grey path, 
    Watch the swan's flight, 
    Let your heart light 
    Bring you home.'

    Suddenly her legs buckled and she fell to the snow. Rayster, watching from the ruined doorway, ran to her, lifting her into his arms and carrying her back to the cabin.
    'I will be all right,' she told him, as he laid her by the fire. 'I will be fine. As long as I do not sleep.'

CHAPTER TWO
    Kaelin Ring slept fitfully, waking often to feed the fire. Little Feargol, exhausted, lay in a deep and dreamless sleep. Smoke drifted lazily to the ceiling of the cave, then out into the night. Rising, Kaelin moved to the cave mouth. The night sky was clear of clouds, and he gazed at the bright stars. Moonlight gave the snow-covered landscape an ethereal quality, and he shivered, partly from the cold, but mostly from the awesome beauty of the land.
    A bitter wind whispered across the cave mouth. Kaelin returned to the fire, and wrapped himself in his cloak. He had told the child he would lure out the bear and shoot it, but he doubted Hang-lip would be foolish enough to stand around and be repeatedly shot. At some point he would have to go out and meet the beast with musket and spear. The thought was not a pleasant one.
    Chara had urged him not to travel to Finbarr's cabin. 'The weather is too fierce,' she said. 'It is foolishness.'
    'Perhaps so,' he admitted. 'Yet I need the walk.'

    'Then hold your son for a moment,' she said, her voice angry. 'And when you are lying in a snowdrift, and your life is slipping away, think of how you will never see him grow.' With that she had stalked from the room.
    'Aye, you're a fool right enough, Kaelin Ring,' he told himself, as he added another chunk of wood to the flames. 'There's no denying it.'
    Hunger gnawed at him. There was a little meat left, but no cheese and he had finished the last of his bread yesterday morning. The meat he decided to leave for Feargol. The child would need all his strength for the walk to Ironlatch. The fuel store was low now - enough perhaps for half a day. They could not wait out the bear.
    Kaelin gazed around the cave, focusing on the jumbled stand of broken rocks that made up the western wall. Maybe men were sleeping here at the time of the roof fall, he thought. Perhaps their bodies are buried beneath those rocks. Cavemen dressed in furs, or ancient hunters sheltering from the snow.
    'There are spirits of heroes wandering every forest and mountain,' Jaim had told him once. Kaelin wished it were true. Then perhaps he could talk to Jaim