“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a low ranker who wants to capture the cub and get rewarded. Either way, there’s only one reason I could guess why it hasn’t attacked yet. It waits for an advantage, a moment when I’ll leave the cub alone.”
Dumpster twitched his whiskers. “Then I scratchin’ suppose you’d better go ahead and do just that.”
Casseomae nodded. “Tonight, after the cub is asleep, I’ll move away from him … not too far, but enough to lure that wolf closer. You’ll have to help me keep watch.”
“Ugh, I’m barely getting any sleep as it is,” Dumpster complained. “Out here with all this … Forest. I miss my cozy sewer pipe back in the city.”
“Your what? No, never mind. My head can’t hold another new word.”
That evening they reached a place where the highway split and one part rose to curve around the other. Because the overpass had collapsed, it formed a sort of concrete cave underneath. With only one way in, Casseomae felt she would have no trouble smelling when the wolf arrived and defending the cub.
“Keep your nose high,” she reminded Dumpster as the child lay down to sleep.
The rat scrambled under a bit of rocky debris. Casseomae waited until the cub’s breathing grew heavy and then crawled up to the uppermost recess of the cave. It was cramped, but the narrow space, along with the peculiar odor of the cub, would mask her scent from anything outside. Once the wolf entered, she could easily descend upon it.
She waited with painful anticipation. Several times her eyelids grew heavy, but at the first sound of sniffing, she was awake, all her senses honed. The creature tramped on the highway overhead. For a moment Casseomae thought it had missed them entirely, but then the snuffling returned, and she heard the creature coming down through the brush.
Casseomae waited, letting the creature get closer. As it slunk through the entranceway, she realized something didn’t smell right. This wasn’t a wolf. But what sort of canine was it?
A sharp screech erupted, and a shadow flashed up from the ground at the intruder. The vora yelped and spun in circles. Whatever it was, Dumpster had locked on to its muzzle.
The child woke with a shout. Casseomae bounded down to block the cave entrance as the cub slid behind her. The creature shook its head until Dumpster came loose, flying over to land at Casseomae’s paws.
Casseomae peered through the shadows at the cornered vora pacing back and forth. “What is it?” she asked the rat. “Can you tell?”
“Yeah, I can spittin’ tell. Got its Faithful stink all over my tongue.” Dumpster slashed his tail angrily. “Vilest of vile. Can’t you see, Cass? You’ve trapped a cur!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The creature made to dash around her, but Casseomae swiped a paw. “Stop!”
Having come into the glow of the moonlight, the cur was visible now. Its coppery-red fur was shaggy and bramble-knotted. One ear was missing entirely. Flattening itself, the cur panted, “Pray, bear, let me pass. I mean you no harm.”
“Why are you following us, dog?” Casseomae demanded.
“I haven’t been following you.”
“Liar!” Dumpster squeaked. “We’ve smelled your stench for two days now.”
The dog bared his teeth at the child hiding behind Casseomae. “What is that? What is that creature?”
“Don’t even look at him,” Casseomae warned.
“It’s true!” The dog rose and stepped forward. “It’s one of the—”
Casseomae roared, raking her claws across the hard earth, sending the dog back.
“He’s here to take the pup,” Dumpster said. “Probably wants to offer him to the Ogeema as a tribute.”
“Why would I do that?” the dog barked.
“Tired of being despised by every vora in the Forest,” Dumpster said. “Desperate to win favor and make amends for the sins of your scratchin’ kind. Old bear, you know what you have to do.”
“Shut your squeaking, little mouse!” the dog snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mouse? Did you just call me a mouse?” Dumpster’s tail lashed furiously. “Oh, that’s it! I’m ripping off that other ear—”
Casseomae dropped a paw in front of Dumpster. “Stay where you are.”
“You don’t get it, Cass,” Dumpster cried. “That cur’s a Faithful. He’s just found his new master. He won’t stop until he can steal the pup away for his pack.”
“I have no pack,” the dog said bitterly.
Dumpster clicked his teeth. “Liar.”
“They were killed,” the dog said. “By the Ogeema’s guard. Only I survived. I have nothing left. Just let me go.”
“Don’t look for pity from us, cur.” Bristling his whiskers at Casseomae, Dumpster whispered, “He may not seem it, but that cur’s dangerous. My da always said, ‘Desperation makes killers of katydids.’ There’s no telling what he’ll do or when he’ll be back for the pup. Best finish him and rid ourselves of the worry.”
The dog dashed, but Casseomae cut him off again. The dog lowered his head, looking up at her with piteous eyes. “Please, let me pass. I mean no harm to any of you.”
Casseomae heard the desperation in the dog’s whine. He had to fight simply to stay alive, because his kind were hunted and despised by all the inhabitants of the Forest. This dog was an outcast. Casseomae knew what it meant to be an outcast.
She backed onto her haunches, opening a passage. “Go.”
Dumpster squeaked, “No, you idiot bear!”
She put her paw down on his tail, holding Dumpster in place as she addressed the dog. “But if I see you again, dog, I’ll figure you’re here to hurt the cub—”
“I’d never hurt a Companion!” the dog barked.
Casseomae glared at him. “Go before I let the rat loose on you.”
With a quick glance at the child huddling behind Casseomae, the dog scampered out from the cave with his tail tucked and disappeared into the night. The child ran to the entranceway. He called out and then turned back to Casseomae, chirping rapidly.
“Probably mad we drove off his slave,” Dumpster mumbled.
“Come back in here, cub,” Casseomae said. She nudged him gently with her snout. The child stared out into the dark for a few moments before lying down.
Casseomae plopped to the ground, blocking the entrance.
As Dumpster shuffled under the debris, he said, “I’ve got a bad feeling that cur will be back.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They traveled along the highway through the morning with no scent or sign to suggest that the dog was following them, but Casseomae could not get him from her thoughts.
A Companion. That’s what the dog had called the cub. Before the rat and the cub, she’d never known what it was to have companions. Except for the spring feasting, the fall matings, and her time spent rearing Alioth many summers ago, she had lived a solitary life.
Bears did not enjoy the tribal companionship that viands like deer and rabbits shared. But the dog was not so different from the wolves or coyotes, who stuck together in packs. With his pack killed, did the dog think he could form a new one with the cub?
“Why are the curs considered the Faithful?” she asked Dumpster.
The child was ahead of them, swinging a thin metal stick he had broken from a car and hopping around like a frog from one side of the highway to the other.
Dumpster trotted beside Casseomae. “Because they served the Old Devils.”
“I know that,” she grunted. “But I’ve heard that hogs, for instance, were servants to the Skinless Ones back in those days. They’re not hated like curs or even called Faithful.”
“It’s different,” Dumpster said. “Those clans were captives. They were slaughtered for meat. But curs lived with their Skinless masters. They ate their food. They helped the Skinless hunt the rest of us down.”
Watching the child playing ahead, she said, “Any signs of your mischief?”
“Not yet,” he panted.
“Sure I’m sure. They might be traveling out in the Forest beside the highway. Stormdrain would know better than to risk being in the open. Too easy for voras to sniff his mischief out. They’re out there. We’ll find them.”
Casseomae heard the hesitation in his voice but decided not to say anything.
At midday, she foraged chickweed, while the child ate more of his food, tossing the wrappings to the ground. Dumpster was nosing through the leaves for seeds when he scared up a bright green anole.
Dumpster chased the lizard around the underbrush until it disappeared through a crack in the side of a car half-buried under a fallen tree. As the rat barreled through the narrow gap to follow it, the side of the car moved in a squeal of rust and shut. A moment later, Casseomae heard the muffled cries of the rat, and she lumbered over to investigate.
Through an unbroken square of glass, she could see Dumpster batting his nose against the surface, his eyes wide with panic.
“What’s the matter?” Casseomae snorted. “Where’s the lizard?”
“Scratch if I know,” he squeaked. “I’m trapped! The door … it closed.”
“The what?”
Dumpster gave her a venomous look. “The door. That … Just get me out already.”
Casseomae sniffed at the car, searching for a way to get to the rat, but somehow the relic had sealed Dumpster inside. She pressed her paws against the glass and pushed. The clear surface bowed a little under her weight but didn’t break. “I can’t open it,” she said.
Dumpster scampered back and forth inside. “There should be a latch. A metal part that you can turn.”
“A latch?” she said.
“Yes, a latch, you idiot! I don’t have time to explain about these Old Devil devices. Just look. Right down there somewhere,” he said, jabbing his nose to the bottom edge of the glass. “Don’t you see it?”
Casseomae sniffed along the frame. There was a part sticking out, not nearly as rusted as the rest, but she didn’t know what to do with it. She bit at it, like she was prying the shell from a turtle, but nothing happened.
She backed up in frustration as Dumpster lashed his tail angrily at her. “I don’t know what you want me to do,” she said.
“I want you to get me out of here!”
The child came up beside Casseomae, putting his hand on her back. He chirped something at her as he grabbed the part with his delicate fingers and gave it a turn. She heard a click, and then the child tugged open the door with a screech of rust. Dumpster dashed out as the child held it open. He wiggled his whiskers at the cub and then ran from the car.
“Don’t you want the lizard?” Casseomae called.
“It ain’t worth it,” Dumpster said, licking his front paws and shivering.
Casseomae looked over at the grinning child and gave a snort. The child plucked another package of food from his side, broke off a piece, and tossed it down to Dumpster.
Dumpster eyed the lump and then nibbled gingerly at it. “Not lizard, but it’s not bad,” he murmured before finishing it off.
The air was still and muggy as the three began a hard climb up the highway.
“That vermin-ridden Faithful is following us, you know,” Dumpster said, scampering up beside Casseomae.
“I know,” Casseomae grunted. “I smell him.”
“The cub likes him,” the rat said. “That’s not good.”
Casseomae grunted.
“You are trying to figure out a way to get rid of that cur, aren’t you?” Dumpster said.
Casseomae grunted again. She wasn’t sure what to make of the cur. He was a Faithful, and that meant he was a traitor to the Forest. But she was protecting the cub, so what did that make her? She knew she couldn’t have the dog continuing to follow them. It would only bring trouble. But she felt a certain pity, admiration even, for this tough and lonely creature.
As they reached the top of the climb, the cub wiped his brow. The tuft of hair atop his head was wet and dripping down his face. Casseomae didn’t remember the child dipping his head in a stream, and it certainly hadn’t rained. “Why is he so wet?” Casseomae asked.
“Got me.” Dumpster rose on his hind legs and sniffed. “We’ve got to run that cur off—” He began waving his long nose back and forth more vigorously.
“What is it?” Casseomae asked.
Dumpster scampered a few steps, sniffed, and then ran rapidly toward an overturned car. “Look! Look!” he cried.
Casseomae came over. “What?”
The rat was sniffing at a scattering of black pellets hidden among the weeds. “They’re droppings. From my mischief!”
“Are you sure?”
“I know!” the rat said, his black eyes bulging wide. “I know my own mischief. They came through here. Not so long ago. Come on.”
Dumpster ran ahead down the highway, dashing from bush to relic and keeping close to cover as he went. Casseomae and the cub followed him toward a collapsed bridge over a creek, where Dumpster stopped with a shrill curse. There was fur everywhere and black spots speckling the grass.
Casseomae sniffed. “Blood.”
“They were attacked here,” Dumpster said, his teeth chattering with fright. “I smell weasel all over this place.”
Casseomae lifted her nose. “It’s not here anymore.”
The rat followed a faint scent trail into the underbrush off the highway. He had just disappeared in a thorny cane of blackberries when he gave a cry. Casseomae trudged around the bramble with the child at her side until they were on the bank of the creek. Dumpster backed out of the blackberry cane dragging a rat with his teeth.
“Is he alive?” She snorted. But the rat was stiff and crusted in blood.
Dumpster let go of the rat’s scruff and bumped noses with him once. “Tarmac was our best scout. One of Stormdrain’s sons. Probably fought off the weasel while the rest of the mischief escaped. Oh, poor Tarmac. You’re in Lord Murk’s den now, brave buck.”
The child knelt over the dead rat and touched a finger to his tail.
“At least the others got away,” Casseomae said.
Dumpster sniffed. “Yeah.”
“And we’re on the right path, so—” she began before hearing panting and running paws coming from the highway. She rose quickly on her hind legs as Dumpster disappeared into the brambles and the child got behind her. “It’s him again,” Casseomae snorted.
The dog yipped as he went into the cane and then rustled his way around.
Dumpster poked his head out, clicking his teeth angrily. “What’s it going to take to get rid of that Faithful piece of mite-infested cur?”
As the dog appeared, Casseomae growled, “I thought I told you—”
“A patrol of coyotes,” the dog barked rapidly. “Just over the hill.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Are they coming up the highway?” Dumpster asked, springing out from the brambles.
The dog cocked his head. “Highway?”
“The trail! The spittin’ trail back there.”
“No,” the dog said.
The child seemed oblivious to their urgency and squatted to pet the dog’s head, clearly happy to see him again. The dog licked the child’s hand, giving Casseomae a cautious look. He then pointed his nose with a front leg cocked. “They’re out in the trees. Over that way.”
“Did they smell you?” Casseomae asked.
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure. They were distant still and I had the high ground.”
“Let’s move,” Dumpster said, his shock over finding his dead mischief mate giving way to action. “We’ve got to get away from the highway. Follow the creek bed. It’s an old mischief trick. ‘Stay in the puddles and the voras it muddles,’ as my old da always said. They’ll have a harder time picking up a scent in water.”
Casseomae snorted. She wasn’t feeling as concerned as the rat and dog seemed. These were only coyotes, after all, not the Ogeema’s wolves o
r his cougar.
The dog began splashing downstream and the child followed him. Casseomae lumbered after them in the creek with the rat leaping behind her from rock to rock. When they got farther from the highway, Casseomae rose on her hind legs.
“Anything?” Dumpster panted.
“Hard to say,” she replied.
The creek twisted and turned until at last it ran through a section thick with laurel. A covey of quail took flight from the trees ahead and flew toward them.
The dog stopped in the creek. “The coyotes scared up those birds,” he whispered.
“They’re up ahead,” Dumpster said. “I don’t know if they’ve smelled us or not, but they’re up there.”
Casseomae wasn’t sure how to proceed. She wasn’t used to hiding from other voras. This was not part of her instinct.
The dog held his nose high, sniffing, while the child kept one hand on the dog’s back, looking around wide-eyed and seemingly more aware that something was amiss.
“How many were they?” Casseomae asked.
“Five, I think,” the dog replied.
“I’ll fight them,” Casseomae said. “Five coyotes are nothing to me.”
“You old fool bear,” Dumpster said. “Quit thinking with your claws! It’s got to be Rend’s rout. If those coyotes see it’s you, they’ll know sure as scratchin’ that the pup is near.”
“I can drive them off,” Casseomae growled.
“They’ll split up,” Dumpster said. “And most likely send back word of what they’ve found. You might bust noses on a few coyotes, but you can’t take a whole patrol of wolves!”
She knew this was true. While her every muscle craved a fight, she realized the rat’s approach was more sensible. “So what do we do?” she asked.
“We just need to hide somewhere they can’t smell us,” the dog said. “Follow me.”
He trotted into the thickest part of the laurel grove.
A yip sounded from over a rise: the unmistakable call of a hunting coyote. The child looked up at the sound and then over at the dog crouched down in the laurels. When the dog gave a pleading whine, the child got down on his knees and crawled to him.
The Prince Who Fell from the Sky Page 6
