The Salt-Black Tree by Lilith Saintcrow EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Lilith Saintcrow
- Language: English
- Genre: Action & Adventure Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
ENTIRELY DIFFERENT
The ride back to Ranger’s was a bone-jarring gallop, the black horse
slipping and sliding, melting into a motorcycle at odd moments, throwing
itself across small streams once the desert faded and they were back in
rolling winter prairie again. The sun was a low bloody coin disappearing
behind distant bruise-shadows of western mountains, and Nat Drozdova
was fully occupied clinging to reins or clutching handlebars, her shoulders
aching every time the big beast veered. Sparks struck from its iron-clawed
shoes sent up tiny acrid puffs—very possibly brimstone, though she’d never
smelled it before—and she was sure it was doubling back once or twice,
running alongside a deep, swift, cold stream chuckling with sharp menace.
Just waiting for her grip to loosen. Just waiting for her to fall.
Sheets of icy water thrown up on either side, her tailbone bruised as the
beast landed stiff-legged, bolts of pain zipping up her back, her teeth
clicking painfully together over and over again—even the worst bus ride
was a cakewalk compared to this. No fluid union, no sense of connected
togetherness, just an endless rattling, jarring, thumping as her head bobbled
and she clamped her knees to elastic, heaving sides.
Finally, the song of hooves rang on concrete instead of dirt and rock; Nat
was almost tossed from the saddle as the horse shook himself angrily,
shrinking into a motorcycle again. His whinny became a scream of
defiance, but Nat’s fingers had cramp-tangled in the reins and her knees,
while numb, still stuck like glue to his sides. He rattled over washboard
road at a punishing pace, pavement breaking away on either side in great
frost-heaved chunks; nobody had driven here for a very long time.
Icy wind roared, stinging her face, and instead of too hot and sweaty in a
magical desert, she was now miserably cold. The motorcycle-horse
screamed, shaking his head again as his mane whipped, stinging her hands,
but Nat held on.
There was no other choice.
Finally there was a long rubber-smoking howl as he swelled into horseshape once more, a jolting as if the entire motorcycle would shake itself to
pieces as it shifted back, and a billow of nasty black smoke. The world
shuddered to a stop and Nat let out a surprised cry, saved only from a girlish
scream by the fact that there was no air left in her lungs to fuel it. Westering
orange sunlight escaping under a long low band of snow-bearing clouds
filled her eyes, and there was a shout.
“Hi there, you bastard!” It was Ranger in his fringed dun rancher’s
jacket; the Black man darted close and grabbed at the horse’s bridle. “Ain’t
no way to treat a lady, you just mind yourself now.”
Oh, thank goodness. I’m back. Nat couldn’t make her fingers unclench.
The reins swelled and stiffened into handlebars once more; the engine’s
choppy growl smoothed out and died with a resentful rumble. Fitful warmth
returned, her entire body ached, and she couldn’t wait to have her boots on
solid ground again.
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