Kiteman of Karanga Read Free Page A

smoke in a steep spiral, plummeting downward. All at once Garth righted his wing so violently that the action was immediately followed by the unmistakable sound of splintering terry bone. Now, with his wing crippled and barely controllable, Garth fluttered deeper yet, and crashed onto a tiny ledge jutting out from the crater wall. A curtain of smoke hid him as he yelled to his companions to save him.
    Karl kept climbing. By the time the hunters had come around the column of smoke, he was well above them. Although they had stopped chasing him for the moment, he knew that they would resume their hunt soon. Skimming over the crater rim, Karl flew north, paralleling the edge of the desert. He would put as much distance between himself and Garth's band as he could.
    A feeling of confidence came over him. If he could evade a dozen of Karanga's best flyers inside the crater of Angastora, he could survive on the desert. Now, however, he needed a hiding place and food and water for his journey.
    Presently Karl landed on a ridge overlooking the desert. He tied his kitewing tightly to some shrubs so that an unexpected gust wouldn't lift it up and smash it down again. Then he scouted the slope on foot until he found a small cave hidden among the rocks. Hiding his belongings in the cave, he took just his spear and knife and returned to the top of the ridge. He strapped himself back into his kitewing. One of the short-horned antelope that ranged in Karanga's valleys would provide him with all the meat he would want.
    Taking a few steps down the back side of the steep ridge, Karl dove into the air again. As he glided out over the grassland, he scanned the valley floor for game. A half mile away he spotted three antelope grazing, so he shifted his weight forward to steepen his descent and pick up speed.
    Karl could not imagine hunting on foot. Because of their kitewings, Karangans hunted over vast distances and never knew hunger. There were tales, though, of the times before they had wings, times when the people often went hungry. But they paid a high price for their easy hunting; they had to hunt the terry. Only terry skins would make a kitewing. Other animal skins were too small and far too thick and heavy. Only the terry's bones would do for the framework of a kitewing. Terry bones were hollow and light and springy, and they did not become brittle when dry. No other kind of bone nor any kind of wood was strong enough or light enough.
    The terry! Karl thought. But for the terry, he would have become a great hunter, so nearly perfect was his skill with a wing. Why had he panicked at the terry hunt? Why had he been unable to keep his courage up and just hang onto the stick? Why? He had no answer, even though the question went round and round in his mind and made him feel rotten and sick. Perhaps it would be better to be dead than to feel like this.
    But the nearness of the antelope pulled him away from his gloomy thoughts. He was coming up fast on them now, and as his shadow fell across them they looked up and bolted. Karl chose the middle animal and tracked it as it streaked across the flat terrain.
    In a moment he was directly over it. Diving steeply, he rammed his spear down into the animal's neck. The antelope stumbled and fell as Karl pulled his wing up into a climbing turn to work off his excess speed. Then he glided to a gentle landing a few feet away, slipped out of his harness, and ran to his quarry. Stepping on one horn, he cut the antelope's throat with a quick motion. In a few minutes it had stopped kicking.
    As he skinned the antelope, Karl felt lucky for having found game so close to his temporary camp. While he was waiting for the meat to dry, he would make a water sack out of the terry leather he had brought with him. It would have to be a large sack, almost half as tall as he was, but he knew that the terry leather would hold the weight and that water would stay fresh in it for days.
    Karl cut the meat into thin strips for