The Seer by Rowan McAllister (reading comprehension books .TXT) 📕

over again, the only thing keeping him from surrendering to the darkness that threatened at the edges of his vision, but he couldn’t seem to manage much more than that. He couldn’t make himself stand up again.

He huddled in misery against that tree until a new sound intruded on the constant but slowing patter of rain and rush of the river, a snort and the dull thud of hooves on wet ground. Fear and uncertainty spurred him unsteadily to his feet as he peered through rain and growing mist. The hoofbeats drew nearer. Drawing on what little strength and courage he had left, he stepped around the tree and searched the woods until he spotted a decidedly equine-shaped blurry blotch of white.

Whether friend or foe, Ravi couldn’t huddle out there alone forever. He had to take a chance whoever was riding that horse would be willing to help. He stumbled toward the shape as it continued to approach him. When he could finally see the animal clearly, he blinked several times and shook his head, thinking surely his mind was playing tricks on him.

“Horse?” he called, still not quite believing it.

The stallion snorted and trotted the rest of the way to him. Ravi nearly wept when he put a palm to the animal’s snout and Horse nuzzled him.

“How?” he croaked.

He glanced back at the river through the trees in confusion. What he could glimpse of it showed it flowing in the direction he remembered. He was on the opposite bank from where they’d started that morning. He was in Samebar. So how the hells did the animal get there? He had to be Horse, though—their packs were soaked and dripping water, but still tied to his saddle.

“Oh, Horse,” he cried, burying his face in the stallion’s damp neck and letting a few tears fall. “I don’t know how you got here, but I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”

Before he could truly give in to his feelings and bawl all over the beast, Horse side-stepped him and started walking.

“Hey!”

Ravi tried to grab the halter, but Horse dodged his grasp and kept moving. Ravi went down several times in his attempts to follow the animal on exhausted and shaking limbs. Each time Horse would pause, as if waiting for him to get up, before he would start walking again.

“Please,” Ravi rasped, almost sobbing with fatigue. “I have to stop.”

Horse let out a whicker, flaring his nostrils before angling toward the river, and Ravi whined in the back of his throat and stumbled after him. They’d almost reached the bank before he spotted what Horse was headed for through the thinning rain. A dark shape with bushy hair was hung up in the branches of a downed tree, bobbing in the shallows. Ravi let out a hoarse cry and stumbled into the water.

“Daks! Daks, can you hear me?”

Daks only continued to bob in the water, and Ravi’s throat closed. Struggling through the muddy shallows, he finally managed to reach the man. Daks’s eyes were closed, and a bloody lump marred the side of his head.

“Daks? Wake up. Come on, wake up.”

His hands shook as he patted the man’s cheeks gently, but Daks’s eyelids didn’t so much as twitch. The sound of a large body splashing into the water next to him made Ravi jolt. Horse closed the last few feet, breaking dead branches along the way until he dipped his head and gripped the collar of Daks’s shirt between his teeth and started backing up, dragging Daks toward the shore.

“Careful,” Ravi said somewhat unnecessarily, as all he could do was watch for a few beats before dragging his own battered body after them.

When Horse stopped, Ravi dropped to his knees in the mud next to Daks’s prone form and rested a palm on his chest. The first signs of movement beneath his palm almost had Ravi in tears again, but he swallowed them back.

“Thank the gods,” he whispered.

Horse snorted again, startling Ravi into glancing at him, but the beast just eyed him calmly.

“Thank you too,” Ravi said with a weary smile. “Now what do we do?” He searched their surroundings but saw nothing beyond trees, mud, and more rain. “I need to find help. We need to get him dry and warm somewhere and find a priest or herb woman or something, whatever they have for a healer in this kingdom. Come on, Daks, you gotta wake up. I don’t know anything about this place. I can’t do this on my own.”

Daks’s face was so pale and his skin so cold Ravi’s stomach hurt every time he looked at the man. Just as Ravi was trying to decide if he had the strength to drag Daks deeper into the woods, out of the worst of the rain, Horse moved in close and laid down next to them. When Ravi just gawped at him, Horse swung one disapproving pale blue eye in his direction and stared.

“Uh. Okaaaaayyyy.”

Ravi struggled to his feet and eyed the animal in confusion until Horse let out another whicker and nudged Daks’s body with his muzzle.

“I guess if you stay like that, I could try to get him draped over you.” He worried his lip as he eyed Horse skeptically. “Then I can try to climb on, maybe?”

Plan made, Ravi began the agonizing process of trying to pull Daks’s heavy, inert body over packs. At one point, he was tempted to leave the packs behind to make the process easier, but he had no idea if he’d need their contents. He was sweating and panting by the time he got Daks in place and had to take a break to catch his breath.

“And he said I was heavy,” he gasped.

Before Ravi could muster the energy to secure Daks somehow or climb on himself, Horse apparently decided he’d had enough and got to his feet, with Daks slung precariously over his back. Ravi yelped and lunged to keep Daks from sliding off, even as he scowled