Free Mindbond by Nancy Springer

I could not answer him. But even half-awake as he was, he felt my fear.
    â€œDan!” he cried aloud in horror. I heard him faintly. And then I caught a blessed breath of pure, chill night air. He was straddling me, wrestling the monster back from my face. In half a moment it had slipped out of his grasp and came down on me again with a fishy slap. But I felt a surge of strength, knowing that Kor was with me, and my hand crawled upward.
    Again he was striving to pull the devourer away. I felt the rippling of all its muscles as it opposed him. He could not move it, but it could not utterly smother me, either.
    â€œThe thing is parlous strong,” Kor panted aloud.
    If I can but get my hand free , I mindspoke him.
    â€œIs it close?”
    By my collarbone.
    â€œAll right. Ready. Now!”
    With a warrior’s yell he prized the monster away from me, and though I could not see, I knew he was giving me an effort worthy of mortal combat. The devourer struggled, heaved, and threw him off. I heard him thud into the moss and ferns beside me. But it had been enough—my hand had shot up by my head, and my elbow levered the foul breasts away from my face. Kor was winded, the breath knocked out of him so thoroughly that he could not speak. But in a moment he had crawled to my side, and his fingers curled around mine.
    Now , he mindspoke, we can wait out the night if need be.
    Struggling up, he sat by my head. I lay in perfect ease, full of warmth and strength. Once we had handbonded, the devourer could no longer dismay me, and I knew it—I would indeed have been content to lie under it all night. But there was no need. Within a few breaths, before Kor had ceased to pant, the monster rippled and slithered off me and took to the air, lashing its snakelike tail in what might have been rage.
    Kor gripped my hand hard for a moment, then let go. Dazed, almost disappointed, as if it had been too easy, I sat up.
    â€œAre you all right?” Kor asked me, a catch in his voice as if his breathing still troubled him.
    â€œNot a mark on me,” I told him. “You?”
    â€œBlasted cuts open on my face. Nothing more.”
    We both stank of slime. We washed in an icy cataract, came back and built up the fire, then sat by it, shivering. Kor’s face, the bruise shadowed in the light of flames, looked even worse than it would have in day.
    â€œEven Mahela’s minions did not want you for bedding tonight,” I teased.
    He looked up at me from under his brows, gravely. “No jest, Dan. I have been wondering why I was spared. Perhaps you had better beat my face for me, once it starts to heal.”
    I laughed out loud, but he fell silent, moody.
    â€œYon was the largest, strongest devourer I have ever encountered,” he muttered at last.
    â€œMindspeaking has its uses,” I admitted, and he glanced at me with a flicker of a smile. Can you hear me? he asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut I am not privy to your every thought,” Kor said. “It is only when you wish me to hear. Yes, it has its uses.”
    â€œBut—it was not only when I wished you to hear.”
    â€œThat Sakeema notion of yours? But that is something you wish me to hear, in spite of your promise.”
    Truth, and though I would not admit it to him, certainly I would not argue with him either. “Go to sleep,” I told him. I was weary, but I did not feel that I could sleep again. I settled back against a fir tree to keep watch.
    Kor lay by the fire, but he did not sleep, or not deeply. When I finally dozed, he was awake. We both kept watch, for the most part, until dawn.
    The next day while we rode, the wolf joined us briefly. The mares squealed and bucked and kicked at him—no small matter, as their temper threatened to pitch us into a chasm. We shouted and cursed, more at the mares than at the wolf, but it was the wolf who turned aside from the trail, tail down, ears half-lowered.
    In the days that