Pursuit

 

When Fallon wheezed a grunt, Alithea stopped and turned. Reaching out to touch his arm, she said, “Thank you. Let’s stop for a minute.” She looked past Fallon for any signs of pursuit, then stroked Erthen’s cheek with her finger. He blinked, passive in the swaddle of her sarong. For the first time since she took the sarong off, she felt exposed.

As though reading her mind, Fallon said, “When we get to the crest up there, we can undo the swaddle.” He looked up at the darkening sky. “I’d like to find some shelter before too long.”

As they neared the crest, loose rocks on the steep slope slowed their progress. At the sound of a commotion below, Alithea peered into the hazy shadows but could not see anything that far away.

Fallon urged her to continue and they crossed the crest. “We’re out of their line of sight now.” Scrub bush and a mixture of evergreen and leaf tree dotted the plateau. To the north, the ground rose gradually. That direction would take them back to the forest where they had first camped weeks ago. To the south lay all that had caused them so much sorrow. “We can’t leave the others.”

Alithea unwrapped Erthen and tied the sarong around her, feeling protected by the feel of the cloth on her short fur. A scuffle of sliding rocks on the slope below alerted them to the pursuit.

“Can a wolfbear see in the dark?” Fallon asked.

“No better than we can, but its sense of smell is acute. A Fae warrior will use that to follow our scent.”

“You think a Fae can ride a wolfbear up this slope?” He lifted a fist sized rock in his hand, then discarded it. “We have only rocks as weapons.”

“Quiet!” Alithea urged. “If we can hear them, they can hear us.”

Fallon found a broken tree limb that he could use as a staff. He jabbed forward with it, practicing a stroke against the wolf bear. He glanced down at Erthen resting against a rock that jutted up out of the ground. The boy was too close to the cliff edge for Fallon’s peace of mind. He set the staff down, then lifted Erthen up and handed him to Alithea.

“Let’s go,” she whispered. “Maybe we can find a defendable shelter.”

Fallon picked up the staff, then paused. “Wait.” Squatting down he used the end of the staff to dig a small trench next to the rock where Erthen had been sitting. He turned to Alithea. “Set the boy down over there and help me dig.”

“He’s upset. I’m afraid he’ll cry out if I put him down.”

Fallon had forgotten about the sound of the digging. He would have to chance it. If the wolfbear had their scent, it would follow them to this spot anyway. He used his foot claws to widen the trench, then dug further with the staff, pausing to listen for the pursuit. They were closer now. More than one wolfbear. He heard a Cawthingi guard complaining about the climb up the shifting rocks in the loose soil.

“Shadows!” Alithea whispered in an urgent voice.

Fallon would have liked a few more minutes to dig deeper but he had no choice. Setting the end of the staff into the center of the trench, he leaned back, putting leverage against the rock. As the rock moved within the dirt holding it, Fallon was able to get the end of the staff deeper.

“There they are!” a Cawthingi guard yelled.

Alithea grabbed Fallon’s arm. “We have to go!”

Fallon stepped forward to look down the slope. In the twilight, he saw two wolfbear, the Fae riders leaning close over their backs and two Cawthingi guards behind them. Tightening his grip on the staff, he urged Alithea to stand back, then leaned all his weight on the staff. The rock moved again and slid forward slightly. He set the end in deeper into the soil above the rock and grunted with the effort, hoping that the staff would not break.

The rock slid, then tilted out and broke free from the dirt. Without the support of the rock, the dirt above the rock sagged and Fallon almost lost his footing. Alithea screamed out his name, but he found his center and avoided the fate of following the rock down the slope.

The rock caused other smaller rocks to loosen as it bounced down the slope. One wolfbear scrambled to avoid the large rock, but it struck him in the side and the beast let out a bellow of pain. Its Fae rider screamed with the agony as the beast rolled to its side, crashing into the other wolfbear. They tumbled into the Cawthingi guards whose screams of pain echoed off the cliff.

Fallon turned toward Alithea, realizing that he had hurt his knee. Grabbing the staff to help him navigate the ground, he asked, “Can you carry Erthen for a while?”