Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
He had protected her for twenty years, come full summer, and he asked no odds of any. His eyes were like Tharon's blue and changing, with odd little lines that crinkled about them at the corners, elongating them in appearance. He was a big man, vital and quiet. The girl took her stature from him. Her flashes of fire came from her mother, of whom she knew little and of whom Jim Last said nothing.
El Rey's silver ears lay back along his neck, the mane above them was like a cloud, his long tail streamed behind him like a comet and forgotten was his singlefooting. He ran, his great limbs gathering and spreading beneath him gathering and spreading with the regularity, of clock-work. Tharon's blue eyes were narrow as her father's, the little lines about them stood out.
So, with the sun shining in the cloud-flecked heavens and the little winds blowing up from the south to ruffle the hair at the girl's temples, these two sat by the Silver Hollow and talked of a thousand things, after the manner of the young, for Kenset found himself reverting to the things of youth in the light of Tharon's grave simplicity.
The boy shook his fair head hopelessly at the sliding floors. For all perfection there must be sacrifice. He was the sacrifice for Tharon's perfection a willing one, so help him! That they had found the Secret Way across False Ridge was perfectly plain, for here in the living rock before them were marks, the first marks they had found in the Cañons.
He had never before lost sight of the sky, never felt other breath in his nostrils than the keen plain's wind. Now he shook himself and halted, went on again, and again halted, to be urged forward by Tharon's spurred heels in his flanks. Up through the eerie pass they went without speech, for each heart was filled to overflowing with thoughts and fears.
And as she worked she sang, wild, wordless melodies in a natural voice as rich as a harp. That voice of Tharon's was one of the wonders of Lost Valley.
Yeeoo!" she cried, a high, exciting note that keened in the singing wind. And El Rey, ever keen to run for no reason, finding himself called upon, stretched out his great body, dropped low to earth and began to run. The wind cut by Tharon's face like a knife in the first few leaps. It shut her eyes in a dozen. She rode and laughed with a half sob in her throat.
The light on the table under the swinging lamp with Tharon's face therein, the murmur of the stream through her garden, the whisper of the cottonwoods, these had been sufficient. He had, subconsciously, thanked his Maker for these things, had served them with a whole heart. They had been his all, his life.
This thought brought a frown to Tharon's brows, and it was there to greet the stranger when he rode up to the step and halted, his smart tan hat in his hand. The morning sun burned warmly down on his dark hair, which was brushed straight back from his forehead in a way unknown in those parts. His dark eyes, slow and deep but somehow merry, took in the pretty picture in the door.
How long he stood there he did not know. His heart was dead, like the weathered stone country about him. He knew that he heard Tharon's voice after a while, that golden voice which had been the bells of Last's, in rapid question and answer and Kenset's voice, too, weak and slow, but filled with joy unspeakable.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking