Riding the Serpent's Back Read Free Page A

me, and then a sharp stab of pain as its beak raked a fine scratch across my bare shoulders and then it was gone.”
    Cotoche had twisted towards Leeth as he spoke, her eyes fixed on his. “Why did it do that?”
    Leeth smiled. “It had no choice,” he said. “When I looked up there was an old man watching me with a peculiar smile on his face. His name was Muranitharan Annash and he had flown coursers for sixty years before his body became too frail. He had seen me before, playing my game, and realised that I had the Talent. That day when he saw me again he decided to train me to refine my empathies. The gannet was his little demonstration.” He paused, then went on. “My parents...my parents didn’t approve at first. They are True Family and bonding is usually a commoner’s Talent.”
    “What happened?”
    “Muranitharan was determined – to save a dying art, he said. He ingratiated himself with my father, convincing him that Annash was derived from the True name Hanesh. Then we put on a demonstration, in which Muranitharan cheated outrageously on my behalf. It’s the only argument I’ve ever won against my parents.”
    Cotoche settled farther back against him and he became aware again of the gentle pressure of her body against his, the smell of her hair, the steady, rhythmic pumping motions of Sky’s flight – even the wind, tugging at their clothes, stirred him. Suddenly he was acutely aware of his own arousal.
    Leeth gasped as Cotoche wriggled a little to get more comfortable. He didn’t know what to do.
    She had to be aware of what was happening to him.
    There was no way he could move to make space between them without endangering their lives, yet he didn’t know what would happen if he stayed like this for much longer.
    He realised he was holding her tight again and he eased his grip. The movement, as he did so, sent a shudder through his body. If she had been unaware of his state before, then she must feel it now, he thought.
    Slowly, she twisted towards him, forcing him harder against her as she moved. She was smiling, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. She put a hand on his arm.
    “Thank you for letting me fly with you,” she said.
    Now, he met her look, and there was no reproach in it, no embarrassment. Just a friendly smile, her cheeks flushed with a deep bronze glow from the rushing of the air. “It’s...my pleasure,” he said, awkwardly.
    She turned away again, the movement of her body giving him another spasm of pained joy.
    “It must be very special,” she said, “to be in touch with another mind.”
    “Hmm.” He tried to focus. “It’s how it is,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like not to be like this.”
    “Yet I don’t know what it is like,” said Cotoche. “There’s such a gulf between us all, don’t you think?”
    “Hmm.”
    Cotoche leaned across Sky’s shoulder to look down. “We’re making good progress today, now the jungle is thinner.”
    The gently rolling hills below them were dotted with scrubby trees. “Why do you have so much ground to make up?” he asked.
    Cotoche’s reply shocked Leeth so much that Sky sensed his reaction and was momentarily confused, her rhythm faltering.
    “Brown Ague,” she said. She paused, as Leeth soothed Sky and their flight levelled again. “Jaryd, Lucy, Digger and Sunshine fell ill. Me as well.”
    Brown Ague was a deadly disease, occasionally reaching plague proportions in some of the poorer districts of the Rift. Its symptoms were a deep fever with intense pains in the joints; its main threat was that it lowered the body’s resistance and in the majority of cases the victim died of some otherwise harmless secondary infection.
    Leeth peered at what he could see of Cotoche’s face from over her shoulder. “No one died?” he asked.
    She hesitated, then shook her head. She lifted one of Leeth’s hands and put it flat on her swollen belly. “Only the little man,” she said. “But Chi woke him up again. He would