Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  Sarcasm surged and then I bit it back. It might feel good for the moment to lash out, but I was starting to understand I needed to control my emotions. I gave a mental sigh before answering, “There are four wolves where yesterday there was only one. They are all north of us, but they are roughly in a line from east to west. Do they want something from us or are they here for some other purpose? What do we do? Go south, or hide from them and slink back to the north?”

  “Go south,” Zephyr said without hesitation.

  “On the King’s Road? Like they are herding us?”

  Zephyr sighed. “Near the King’s Road. It will be easy to travel cross-country because there aren’t any mountains between here and Falkirk.”

  It might be easy traveling for a wolf, but it took a lot of effort to walk up and down rolling hills. I gave a sigh. “Trey and I will start south rather than joining you at the cave. We’ll join up with you when we get close to the King’s Road.”

  Zephyr sounded impatient. “We have to hurry.”

  “I’m not going to run all the way to Falkirk,” I replied. “But we’ll walk quickly.”

  The intent expression on Trey’s face reminded me he was trying to overhear my conversation with Zephyr. I grinned and said, “Well, did you overhear us?”

  “No,” he said as his expression turned to disgust. “Just because I can’t do it doesn’t mean a wolf or dragon can’t.”

  I held up my hand with four fingers extended stiffly. “There are now four wolves close by.”

  Trey’s head swiveled as he anxiously looked up and down the road. “Where are they?”

  “All north of us,” I said as I magically hoisted the packs. Even though I didn’t plan to run more today, it would be much easier to walk without the packs weighing us down. “We’re going to head south and join up with Zephyr. We can follow the brook for a while and then cut over the edge of a low hill towards the King’s Road.”

  “Where are the new ones?” Trey asked as we started along the bank of the brook.

  I pointed in two directions. “That way. One is still on the other side of Glendale but the other one is closer.”

  “Did Zephyr know they were getting close and then neglect to tell us?” Trey asked.

  “She said she couldn’t feel them, even after I told her they were close by. She said wolves can hide from each other by using magic.”

  There were open spots among the trees and most of the time Trey and I walked close enough together to talk without resorting to using magic. He looked back along the brook just before it disappeared from sight. “Did you ask Zephyr why these other wolves are here?”

  “I did,” I said with a frown. “She didn’t answer. At least not directly.”

  “What did she say?”

  “It was as much her emotions as what she said,” I mused as I tried to think about the conversation. Father had told me many times I needed to see what was going on around me. “She was frightened and irritated. She said we had to hurry.”

  Trey waved his hand at the forest around us. “We’re walking fast, but we’re not running. Is that hurrying?”

  Irritation prickled up and down my back and roughened my voice. “We’re not running all the way to Falkirk.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Trey said with a nervous laugh. After a few moments of silence, he gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “Something doesn’t make sense.”

  “What?” I asked, hoping he could figure out what was happening. Thoughts about murders, magical powers, revelations that Ara wasn’t my sister, circling dragons, stolen and destroyed magical stones, and now an approaching wolf pack mixed together in my mind. Nothing made sense.

  “I don’t know why things are happening, other than magic is involved,” Trey said. He took a deep breath and continued, “Why are all the wolves coming here? Why are they spread out instead of traveling together?”

  “Coming from different places?” I asked without bothering to think.

  “No, no,” Trey shot back. “Except for the last one coming down Quail River, they have had plenty of time to get together.”

  “Oh,” I muttered, disgusted I wasn’t able to understand the clues like Trey seemed to be. “Maybe they are hiding from each other.”

  “Not a chance,” Trey retorted. “They’re driving us and Zephyr toward the south as smoothly as any well-trained farm dog herds cows.”

  “You think so?” I asked.

  Trey gave a long sigh and shook his head. “Think about it.”

  The things Trey said made sense. Maybe the wolves on the Council had learned Zephyr was defying them and they had come to enforce their banishment decree. If so, was the dragon involved? We had just reached the brow of a low hill with large patches of grass among the sparse trees and the dragon was a small pinpoint of color far to the south of us. I pointed in that direction. “Why is the dragon following us?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” Trey said with disgust.

  “No guesses?” I asked.

  “Father once said dragons lived in the mountains far to the west, but they never come here.”

  I ducked under a limb and clutched my hat when a twig caught it and tipped it off my head. “Whatever is happening, magic is involved. The King’s Hunters showed up, magical wolves are crisscrossing the country, and magical dragons are soaring overhead.”

  We walked, drank from the small streams we waded across, snacked on food from our packs, and talked. The sun was low in the sky when we neared the place where we were going to meet Zephyr in a secluded side canyon not far from the Quail River. The river had grown a little larger with the addition of several streams during the day.

  A hint of dark green topped by a small blotch of red appeared in the light green grass ahead of us. “Stop,” I barked at Trey.

  His dark eyes darted back and forth as he froze in mid-step. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Pheasant,” I replied and slowly reached for my sling without taking my eyes off of the bird. It should have already seen us but gave no indication it had.

  “Are we making a fire tonight?” Trey asked.

  One of the stones went into the pouch on the sling and I slowly brought my throwing arm back. I was still carrying the bow, but it took far less time to get the sling ready than to take the cover off the bow, string it, and reach for an arrow. “I’m not eating raw meat,” I responded.

  Two slow steps took me out from under a large oak tree and into the open enough to make a throw without tangling the sling in the branches. I had been using a trickle of strong magic all day to help us hide and I strengthened that activity when the pheasant raised its head and looked around.

  For long moments, the pheasant and I stared at each other. Finally, it turned and pecked the ground as if it couldn’t see me. Quickly, I judged where the head would be when it jerked upright and threw the rock in a blur of motion. I concentrated, guiding the spinning stone to the chosen location. The pheasant moved the way I had anticipated. The stone hit the bird at the base of the skull and knocked it sideways, ending the flurry of wing beats. I rushed over, grabbed it, held it up, and said with satisfaction, “Dinner, tonight.”

  “Good throw. Do you want to clean it here?” Trey asked with an approvingly look at the colorful bird. The body feathers were dark orange with narrow black tips. A bright patch of red surrounded bright yellow eyes. The neck, most of the head, and the small ears were iridescent green mixed with hints of blue.

  “Uh, yes,” I replied. The suggestion made a lot of sense. Scavengers would find the offal here rather than near our camp.

  “I’m already here,” Zephyr said, sounding eager when I was wiping my knife clean after gutting the pheasant.

  “We’re close,” I replied. “We’ll be there before long.”

  We took the game trail to the left when we reached the bottom of the low hil
l. A small stream bubbled cheerfully as we neared the granite cliffs guarding the entrance to the small valley.

  Her hair color made Zephyr almost invisible where she sat on a boulder beside one of the sheer cliffs. “You took your time getting here,” she said.

  I held up the pheasant. “We stopped to get some dinner.”

  “So did I,” she replied and nosed a small object on the rock in front of her.

  When I realized it was a rabbit, I spoke without thinking. “You usually eat them as soon as you kill them.”

  “They aren’t large, so I already ate two. This one is for you.”

  This was the first time Zephyr had offered food and I hadn’t been expecting it. “Oh. Thank you.”

  Trey echoed my words. “Thank you.” He looked at me with a smile. “I’ll gather some wood while you clean the rabbit.”

  He had collected a pile of wood and laid the kindling for a fire by the time I returned with the cleaned rabbit. Two cooking pans sat beside the wood. He held up the flint and steel from my pack and grunted, “I’m not having much success building a fire.”

  “It sometimes takes a while,” I said as I draped the rabbit carcass over the wood he had gathered and held out my hand. “Let me try.”

  Trey sat cross-legged watching as I kneeled and began working with the flint and steel. Sparks cascaded onto the dry grass kindling with each strike of the metal on the flint, but they died rather than bursting into flame.

  After numerous tries, I stopped and looked at the kindling. “This should work. It worked in the past.”

  “Can you give it a boost using magic?” Trey asked.

  “Uh,” I said and then clenched my jaws together. I had started far too many sentences with that inane word in the last couple of days. “I don’t know.”

  Trey hitched closer and pointed at the dry grass. “The sparks are landing right there. If even one of them was hotter or lasted slightly longer, the grass would catch on fire.”

  I was already pulling power from the underground river of magic surrounding the hill, but I reached for more as I focused on the flint and steel. It wasn’t hard to form a picture in my mind of what I wanted to happen. The thought of roast rabbit and pheasant was so intense I could already taste the meat.

  After taking a deep breath, I swung the steel against the flint just like I had done numerous times in the last few minutes. Small sparks showered on the grass—and I scooted back with a gasp as the entire pile of grass and kindling burst into flame that flared higher than my head before dying back down to a low level.

  Trey swung his clenched fist in the air and shouted, “Yes! I knew you could do it.”

  “Thanks,” I said and clamped down on the magic as I reached for several larger pieces of wood. I didn’t want Trey to know I was frightened that all of the wood he had gathered might start burning before I tossed it on the fire. To my delight, the fire behaved like any other campfire in the past. A draft of air swirling dissipated the smoke, another nice trick for me to know.

  “Impressive,” Zephyr commented from her position on the boulder. “You surprised me.”

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling embarrassed by the praise. “Can wolves do the same thing?”

  She licked one of her feet as she replied, “We do not use fire for cooking or heating, and we do not use metal. I don’t know anyone who has tried to start a fire.”

  Trey and I explored the small canyon while the fire was burning down to coals. Even though I still carried several camas bulbs in my pack, I was delighted when we found a small patch of them growing near the stream bottom. We dug a big handful of the bulbs and also picked leaves from a sage plant to help flavor the rabbit and pheasant.

  The meat took a while to cook and we didn’t eat until after sunset. Remembering what Ara had done, I sliced the camas bulbs and cooked them in fat from the pheasant. The camas bulbs reminded me of the taste of a squash variety we had grown, but with a strong hint of garlic. A big handful of borage blossoms went well with the camas, providing a sweet honey-like taste.

  I had intended to try a number of new magical ideas before going to sleep, but a full stomach and the exertion of walking all day made me drowsy. I pulled a sleeping fur from my pack and moved under a low overhang of rock. It wasn’t a cave, but it protruded far enough to keep us dry if it started to rain in the night.

  As I had before, I visualized an enchanted squirrel sitting on the rock beside me with its beady eyes watching for the slightest hint of movement. It would hiss and chitter if anything disturbed it. The thought of the big cat that had once clawed me when I was small came to mind. Soon, a huge enchanted puma sat beside the squirrel, its tail twitching back and forth as it watched the small clearing.

  Sleep came quickly. I roused twice during the night and sleepily checked for problems, but found nothing. Later in the night, the coughing growl of the enchanted puma woke me.

  Chapter 12 – Nocturnal Visitor

  The enchanted puma growled again and goosebumps rose on my arms as I tried to look around without pushing aside the sleeping fur. The middle-sized moon, Lunetta, was high in the cloudless sky and her white light cast faint shadows among the trees. I could see down the valley towards the river from my position, but not far up the canyon. The faint murmur of the water in the nearby stream was about the same volume as the more distant rapids in the river. Nothing moved and not even a cricket chirp disturbed the silence.

  “Wha—” Trey pressed his lips together and rolled up on one elbow. He sounded scared as he continued silently, “What’s happening? What’s growling?”

  “Don’t know,” I replied and then realized I hadn’t answered his second question. “I set an enchanted puma to guard us. It’s growling.”

  “How can an enchanted puma growl? What is it growling at?”

  “Quiet,” I hissed. “It’s magic and I don’t know much about how it works, but something magical must have bothered it.”

  Zephyr was sleeping closer to the opening than Trey and me and her dark outline showed against the night sky when she raised her head and cocked her ears. She sounded deadly serious when she spoke, “Quiet. Silence your guards.”

  The pleasure that my magic guard had awakened me should have brought a warm flush of satisfaction. Instead, I felt cold as I sent a magical command that I hoped would keep the squirrel and puma quiet, but still in position. I pulled the fur closer as the cold intensified. At the same time, Trey pulled his sleeping fur up around his shoulders.

  After a few moments, I sat up and let the sleeping fur slide to the ground. I couldn’t do anything to defend myself while swathed in a leather cocoon. I reached out with one hand in the dark and patted the ground beside me until I felt the smooth leather of the bow case. I pushed it aside because the overhanging rock was so low there wasn’t enough room to hold it. I leaned to one side and jammed my hand in my pocket, feeling for the thongs of my sling before I really started to think. There wasn’t room here to make an overhanded swing. I pushed the sling back in my pocket and untied the pouch holding the small metal balls. The weight of four balls felt comforting in my hand as I closed the pouch and fastened it. My experiment last night with the snake had shown that I could throw it with deadly force without using the sling.

  Zephyr seemed to be looking down the valley so I crawled over beside her, being careful not to drop the small metal balls. I had smoothed a hollow in the dry dirt and lined it with dry grass for my bed. I ignored the discomfort when the small pebbles I had tossed aside earlier poked my knees and palms. Trey silently moved to Zephyr’s other side.

  Using the angle of Zephyr’s head as a guide, I looked in the same direction. For a long time, nothing moved and then a dark smudge appeared among the bright stars. There wasn’t enough light to determine what it was, but my first guess was that it was much larger than a dragon.

  It moved from side to side in the d
istant sky as if searching for something, and at one point it passed in front of the moon. The immense dark wings moved like ripples on a pond disturbed by a thrown rock rather than the strokes used by birds or dragons. The feeling of cold intensified as it slowly approached.

  By this time, I was starting to shiver and I could hear Trey rubbing his hands together. Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t friendly. Actually, given the way I was feeling and the warning from my magical guards, it was dangerous. The guards were not giving voice, but the squirrel bounced up and down in agitation and the puma walked back and forth with quick jerky steps, its tail lashing from side to side. I risked sending one short private thought to Zephyr, “Hide?”

  Zephyr hadn’t moved since first raising her head. She didn’t move now as she sent a dull thought, “Huh?”

  “Should we hide?” I sent the question back as quietly as possible.

  She seemed confused by my question. “Uh, why do you ask that?” At the same time, the immense flying black creature shifted and moved in a direction that would bring it over us.

  Fear overrode the sensation of cold as I considered Zephyr’s strange response. She bowed to no one, not even the full Zviera Council, but now she was acting like a befuddled child. Something was dreadfully wrong.

  “We need to hide,” I said to Trey and Zephyr before I reached for more magic. I was already using a trickle to keep my magical powers active and hide us against anyone capable of using magic. I looked at the sky with just my normal eyes. The black creature was closer, but not over us yet. Possibly my feeble efforts at hiding kept it from determining our precise location.

  I welcomed the feeling as more magical power surged through my body. We needed to hide, and one way to do that was to make the place where we hid look just like any other section of the cliff. One time I had hidden Ara and myself behind a fake tree formed by magic. I focused the power on developing three large boulders and a jumble of smaller rocks in front of us. The sky grew a little darker as the magical images of the boulders appeared.