Bookweird by Paul Glennon Page A

won’t let you go thateasily. They’re still out there sniffing us out. It’s not like we didn’t leave a trail.”
    With this dour pronouncement, he rose and shouldered his pack. “We’ve tarried too long,” he declared. “Let’s be off.”
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    If it was possible, the terrain became rougher and the woods thicker when they resumed. The forest was a solid wall of pine needles and branches. Norman covered his head with his arms and used it as a battering ram, charging, sometimes just stumbling forward. Only Malcolm’s merry chatter kept him on track. His eyes were useless in the dense woods.
    Occasionally Simon tried half-heartedly to keep the young stoat quiet.
    â€œQuit yer chatter, will ye,” he ordered, finally losing his patience with his young ward. “Ye want the entire wolf horde to hear ye?”
    At that moment, Norman came crashing through the forest behind them, snapping branches, crunching twigs and grunting.
    â€œAre we stopping?” he huffed.
    Norman couldn’t see the older river raider roll his eyes.
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    It was the wolf howls that finally silenced the ebullient little stoat. Near dusk on their second day out from Scalded Rock, they heard the first one, a distant cry somewhere in a valley behind them. Nothing was said between the stoats and the human boy. They merely quickened their pace. They heard the howls intermittently through the night while they tried to sleep, and again the next morning—hollow, hungry cries from the valleys behind them. More often now one cry was answered by a second.
    By noon on the third day it was impossible to deny that the wolf calls were getting closer. The fleeing stoats and boy did not stop to eat that day. Simon handed out what morsels he had left in his satchel and they consumed them on the trail. The ordeal was taking its toll on Norman. His entire body ached and he found his mind drifting, imagining that he was back home again. The terrainwas smoother and the trees more sparse, so he could walk upright and unimpeded now, but they were moving faster to keep ahead of the wolves. The pace aggravated Malcolm’s injuries and he had to be carried again. Norman didn’t mind. The stoat hardly weighed anything, and he was happy to be of some use. It focused his mind, reminding him where he was and why.
    A few hours after nightfall they stopped. If he had been alone, Simon would likely have carried on through the night, but he could see that both the human boy and his stoat ward could be pushed no further. It would be dangerous to keep going in such a state. He guided them to a half cave beneath an overhang of rock, completely concealed from the path—you would have to know it was there to find it. Norman threw himself down thankfully. For the second night in a row, there would be no fire. Norman rubbed his arms and legs as much for warmth as to smoothe out the bruises and aches. Even in the cold it was not long before he was asleep. His young friend curled up beside him for warmth and they were both asleep in no time.
    The moon was high in the night sky when Simon Whiteclaw startled them awake.
    â€œI’m taking yer bow,” he told Malcolm in a whisper. The young stoat did not protest. “The three hunters have joined up again. They have our scent. I’m going to double back and see if I can’t slow ’em down a bit.”
    He was gone before either Norman or Malcolm fully appreciated what he was saying. Rubbing the sleep from their eyes, they didn’t speak for a long while, only listened to the forest. Soon enough they heard the high, hollow howl of the wolf call. The predators called in unison now, egging each other on, sensing that their prey was near. The closer the cries came, the harder it became for Malcolm and Norman to remain quiet and still. They fidgeted and looked for signs of nervousness in each other, each reassured that he wasn’t the only one terrified of