Clan of Three Staffs by Chloe Garner EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Chloe Garner
- Language: English
- Genre: Gaslamp Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Clan of Three Staffs
“There are wolves out with the horses.”
Rock was off of his pallet before he was even fully awake,
finding his sandals and reaching for his cloak. In the corner of his
tent, there was a spear and a staff, and he grabbed both of those, going out
into the dark and following the sound of Edwin’s footsteps.
Normally, he wouldn’t have worried all that much about wolves out
with the horses. With the sheep, every day of the week. With the chickens,
he might not have gotten out of bed because the damage was likely to be
already done by the time he got there, and the perpetrators long gone. The
goats could hold their own, and the cattle knew how to handle big
predators, too, but he would have gone to do his part in keeping the herds
safe, there, as well. But the horses? It was a fool of a wolfpack, likely halfstarved and desperate, that would intentionally go out among the Hill
Chargers.
And Rock was hardly impartial, but he would tell anyone listening that
his Hill Chargers were the least likely to lose in a fight with wolves among
any of the clans. They were bigger than horses anywhere else, and wise to
the ways of the mountains, fast and smart in ways that put hillfolk boys to
shame until they reached a certain age and maturity. Some of the young
stallions would invite such an opportunity, Rock thought, to test themselves
against something other than a trainer’s hand.
But it was spring foaling season, and the Clan of Three Staffs was
stopped to let the foals get their legs under them before they went on again.
It was a predictable season each year when the clan would seek out a wellsheltered spot where the herds could graze without running risk of eating
the grasses down to dirt and where the boys could hunt and fish as they
liked and the mares could take to the woods for a time to drop a foal on
their own, bringing back the spindly-legged creatures when they were a few
days old, and then be ready to move on with the herd again within a few
days after that.
Paterack would protect the mares and the foals with his life, but he was
at a disadvantage with newborn foals at his back who wouldn’t know how
to flow with the herd and keep themselves out of harm’s way. And they
were in close to the mountains, here. There was every reason to expect this
was a mountain pack, down looking for easy prey in the cold, dry season.
They were big animals, themselves, with canine teeth the size of Rock’s
thumb, and they knew how to take down the biggest animals with careful,
patient, sapping ploys that exploited every mistake until someone went
down.
There were footsteps around him as the other men followed the noise of
the boys who were shouting at each other and lighting and staking the
sentry torches.
Once again, the treatment here was different than normal.
Any other time, Paterack would run the herd and, once the men arrived,
simply keep the herd moving and under control while Rock and the rest of
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