Vagrant by Hayley Lockwell EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Hayley Lockwell
- Language: English
- Genre: Popular
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
I HAD NEVER BEEN CONSIDERED a heroine, and today confirmed it.
I doubled over clutching my hand, knife and half-skinned rabbit
tumbling to the ground. I shook my fingers with a grimace, sending a trail
of red droplets hissing into the fire.
That rabbit was a stroke of luck I hadn’t expected: a flash in the
woodland, and my arrow was fitted – and fired – before my heart finished
its beat.
I allowed myself two breaths with my eyes shut before I brought my
hand up to look.
My palm gaped open. Whether it was down to my blunt knife – in
desperate need of sharpening – or fingers too frozen to work properly, it
was a costly mistake.
I hesitated, wondering what to do, blood dripping from my fingers. I
looked down into the valley at the circle of huts and bit my lip. I tucked the
rabbit inside the door of the hut and set off reluctantly towards the tribe’s
camp, the icy morning air biting my cheeks, my breath coming in puffs of
cloud. Out of habit, I scanned the horizon, then caught myself and shook
my head.
Not yet.
I trudged down the hill, blood dripping steadily onto the ground leaving
red dimples in the snow. The worn soles of my leather boots slipped on the
ice as I walked down to the meadows past the river, which snaked along the
landscape like a massive grey serpent writhing through what would become
lush, green pastures in spring. For now, the skeletons of trees stretched out
on silver grass, rigid with ice, as far as my eyes could see.
Somewhere in that direction was the next tribe’s camp, our closest
neighbours. Not that I’d been. There was too much to do here. I couldn’t get
it all done as it was.
I reached the outskirts of the village and picked my way through the
round stone huts of the camp, their roofs low to the ground, like a giant ring
of stocky grey mushrooms.
The tribe leader, the warriors, the families of importance, all held the
coveted inner-circle status. Then came the craftsmen, the blacksmith, the
farmers. On the outskirts of the ring were the ones just getting by, the ones
clinging to the tribe for protection.
Our tiny, solitary hut was a very long way away.
I kept my head down as I passed women and daughters sitting in their
doorways chopping roots and meat for supper. I ignored the whispers, the
sly looks. I had heard it all before.
I stopped outside a squat hut with cooking smells wafting from the
doorway. ‘Craven?’
The chink of cutlery. A long-suffering sigh. ‘Enter.’
I ducked under the doorway and stood awkwardly in his round hut.
Our camp healer was an old man with fat, sweaty fingers and breath that
smelt of old beef. He sat at one end of a large person-sized oak table, halfeaten dinner and a tankard of ale in front of him. At the other end of the
table, his surgical tools, saws and knives were laid out – some clean, some
not.
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