The Iron Breed Read Free Page B

cage door, was feeling for footholds below. She wondered if she could reach him, but was sure she could not. Not when, as her pains hit once more, she could only cling with a death-tight grip to her own hold.
    The cage was going; Jony knew it. He allowed his hold on the wire to loosen and, as he slipped, grabbed desperately. A slime of mashed leaves made the handfuls he grasped slippery and treacherous. Finally he thudded into a mass which swayed but did not spill him over. The cage fell, and Jony had all he could do to keep his small hold from being torn away by the resulting flailing of the broken brush.
    He was shaking so hard now, not only from the chill of the beating rain, but also from the narrow margin of his escape, that he dared not move. But he screamed as something closed tightly about his ankle.
    Just before he kicked out wildly and disastrously to free himself he heard Rutee: “Jony!”
    With a cry he lowered himself, felt her chill flesh against his as she held him tightly to her. They were closer than they had been for a long time. Close—and safe! He said her name over and over, burrowing his head against her shoulder.
    But Rutee was not the same—she was hurt. Even as he clung to her, her body jerked and she cried out. He could again feel her pain.
    “Rutee!” Fear was so strong in Jony it was as if he could taste it, a bitter taste in his mouth. “Rutee, you are hurt!”
    “I—I must find a place, Jony—a safe place.” Her voice came in small spurts of words. “Soon—Jony—please—soon . . .”
    But it was dark. And where were there any safe places in this Outside? Jony knew about the Outside, but only because Rutee had told him before the Big Ones had pulled him away from her long ago and put him in a cage by himself. The strangeness of Outside itself began to impress him as it had not when he had been so intent on finding Rutee.
    “Jony—” Rutee's arm about his shoulders was so convulsively tight it hurt, but he did not fight against her hold. “You—you will have to help—help me—”
    “Yes. We have to climb down, Rutee. It's hard . . .”
    Jony could never remember the details of that descent. That they made it at all, he realized long afterwards, was a wonder. Even when they stood together on the muddy ground they were not safe. It was so dark that any distance away there were only thick shadows. Also they had to go slowly because Rutee hurt so. When those pains came, she was forced to stop and wait. The second time that happened Jony held her hand between his two.
    “Rutee—let me go over there. You wait here. Maybe I can find a safe place . . .”
    “No . . .”
    However, Jony broke her attempt to hold him and ran across a small open space to the shadow he had chosen. He did not know just why he had picked that particular direction, but it seemed of utmost importance.
    In the dusk he blundered into a dry pocket. Sometime in the far past a very giant among trees had fallen here. Its upended mass of roots towered skyward; and the cavity which held those was a deep hollow over which vines had crawled and intertwined to enmesh some nearby saplings, forming a roof, which, while not entirely waterproof, kept the worst of the wind and rain away. Drifted into the hollow was a mat of leaves, deep with numerous years of accumulation. Jony's feet sank almost ankle deep in their softness, as he explored swiftly with both hand and eye.
    Rutee could come here; he would bring her. And . . . he was already running back to where she stood as a pale figure in the dusk, to catch her hand.
    “Come, Rutee—come . . .” He led, half-supported her with all the wiry strength of his small body, toward the rude nest he had found.

TWO
    Rutee lay moaning on the leaves. Jony had tried to heap them up over her body, to keep her warmer. But she shoved them off, her swollen body twisting with each new pain. Jony crouched beside her, not knowing what he could do. Rutee—Rutee was hurting! He needed to