Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Nghi Vo
- Language: English
- Genre: Fantasy Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
“—and that was how we got the moon back up the mountain and into the
sky, and no one was ever the wiser. You can tell it was us because when you
see the moon’s face turned out fully, the dark marks are where the youngest
sister kissed her before she said goodbye.”
The woman steering the cart winked and tapped her lips, painted a dark
and shiny green-black, and Chih made another note in their book, both the
end of the story and that the woman’s lip paint hid darker marks
underneath, visible only when one was close enough to see.
Tattoos, maybe, or very fine scarification? Is there a good way to ask
without being rude?
Chih was still pondering the question when the woman nodded, pulling
her team of oxen to a halt.
“And here we are, cleric. This is where I turn north, and you shift for
yourself.”
“Oh, thank you! I’m sorry, I was listening to your story, and I missed the
signs.”
Chih climbed down from the wagon, dragging their pack with them and
settling it on their shoulders. They turned to bow their thanks formally, but
the woman peered over their shoulder towards the path behind them, less a
road than a foot-track into the sparse woods.
“I would have missed it myself if the road hadn’t widened to a
turnaround. This is some desolate country you all have here in the west.
Where did you say you were headed again?”
Chih couldn’t help smiling, not when they were so close, when the earth
smelled right and the cicadas filled the air with a thunderous buzz. In
another few weeks, the cicadas would all be dead, and the novices would
sweep up drifts of golden husks to be crushed and added to the compost
bins.
I made it back in time for the cicadas, they thought.
“I’m going home to the Singing Hills abbey,” they said.
From the Red Road, it was another day’s walk to the abbey gates. Properly,
it was closer to a day and a half, but Chih knew that there was a warm bed,
food, and family waiting for them at the end, and they pushed on through
the thinning light. They knew these woods, and while there was no such
thing as a safe wilderness, they knew its dangers: candle ghosts and echo
spirits that would lead them in circles, shy wolves that could grow hungry.
Cleric Pan would say that this is exactly how you get led into the woods
and eaten by a wolf, but Cleric Pan also told us that the castle at KephValee can lift from its foundations and fly. It probably can’t, and I probably
won’t be eaten by a wolf either.
Still, it had been four years since they had last made this trip. Once they
almost mistook a deer track for the path, and once they heard the voice of
the Divine calling to them for help. Home was still home, they thought as
they walked, and it was a mistake to let nostalgia convince them that it was
completely safe.
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