"Tara K. Harper - Wolfwalker 1 - Wolfwalker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harper Tara K)

was worse than she had imagined in her nightmares. Even with acupuncture, some of the pain gates were
never completely closed, and with her needles scattered like the bones of the dead, she could not even
think about closing her nerve gates before dealing with her wounds.

Rhom's wounds . . .

Desperately, Dion pushed the thoughts of her twin aside to deal with the pain of the present. Yet her
eyes took in the empty forest first, and her heart almost stopped as his burly form jogged around the rise
until she recognized the heavy biped bulk of a timin instead. She closed her eyes tightly and tugged at
the leather on the other side of the gash.

It took another gasp and a half-sobbed groan to split the leather from the jagged flesh while the sweat
broke out on her forehead.

WOLFWALKER 7

It took almost all her nerve not to flinch each time the sledgehammer crushed her veins with her
heartbeat as she peeled the leggings back. But the pain stalled her grief, and the woman was grateful for
the respite. Leaning back against the tree, she took a deep breath to calm the trembling hi her hands, then
shook her head to throw off the drop of sweat that clung to her nose. She was not yet ready to touch the
raw gash that had split her leg so deeplyтАФit had been all she could do to get her pants away from it, let
alone start clearing the dirt and twigs that clogged it from her fear-fed flight. But the longer she waited,
the more the drying blood from the reopened wound would add to the problem.

Blood. The color was red, bright red. How much blood had spilled from her brother? A deep sob
climbed up in her throat and choked her, and this time she did not fight it down. "Oh, Rhom," she said,
clenching her fist against the tears till her knuckles were white and bloodless.

The wolf, regarding her with eyes as yellow as the second moon, nudged her hand. Be strong, Dion.

It was Hishn who spoke but Rhom's voice she heard, as clear as if he were standing beside her. She
squeezed her eyes shut and denied the agony again. That was what he had told her the first time she had
run the Crush River with him and felt the white water from the uncertain seat of a kayak. It was what he
had whispered when she had faced the weapons masters for the Challenge and Test of Abis those two
long years before. And it was what he had told her when they had clung to the Randonnen cliffs and dug
their fingers into the rocks after the stone had broken off and she had fallen on that last tragic climb.



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Be strong, Dion. Be strong.

"Damn you," she cried out to the ghost, pounding her fist on the soft earth. ' 'Damn you for dying on me
after everything weVe been through. How could you?" She nibbed angrily at her face, drawing her hand
away wet with tears and blood and welcoming the fresh rage of pain that swept her head.

Just nine days earlierтАФonly one ninanтАФthey had left home, eager for the Journey, impatient to test
themselves against the world. Rhom had stood so tall and straight before the elders, their father ready to