by Paul Glennon
These accusations of incompetence were meant for Norman. There was scorn in every syllable.
“We’re not going over the mountains,” Norman shot back. “We’re going to the Borders.”
Malcolm gave Norman a quick sideways look. This was news to him. They hadn’t discussed a destination. They had just run.
“The Borders, eh?” Simon asked with a sneer. “Well, you’re taking a mighty curious route if that’s where you’re headin.’”
There was no answer for this.
“You’ll set us right though, Whitemitts, won’t you?” Malcolm affirmed brightly. He didn’t care that they had been running the wrong way. His old friend and guardian was here. A human boy might be an amusing companion, but a seasoned tracker and fighter was handier in their current predicament. Even Norman could see that they were better off with the older stoat’s guidance and protection. He just wished that Simon Whiteclaw didn’t look at him that way.
“Shall we check the map?” Norman patted his chest pocket, where he’d safely stowed the tiny stoat chart. He was trying to be helpful. Whiteclaw only scoffed.
“Don’t need no map. Just need a brain in yer ’ead.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out two small chunks of bread. He tossed one to Malcolm, who caught it deftly and set upon it greedily. The older stoat seemed to think for a moment before tossing the second at Norman. It hit him in the chest, but Norman recovered to catch it before it hit the ground. It was a whole meal for a stoat but hardly even a snack for a human boy, yet he was grateful for it anyway. “Thank you,” he said, before popping it in his mouth.
Simon Whiteclaw grunted and bounded off into the forest. It was not the direction that Norman would have taken.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but Norman was certain that the trail became less human-friendly now that Simon Whiteclaw was leading them. Complaining was useless. He was breathing raggedly already and words would only have wasted more breath. He did his best to absorb the trail’s fury and keep up. It seemed to Norman, when he could spare a second to think of it, that they were heading vaguely downhill.
At midday they stopped for a bite to eat. It was literally a bite for Norman. He let the bread dissolve in his mouth so that he could savour it longer, but it did nothing to assuage his hunger. While the stoats chatted, he foraged for something else to eat. His days with the stoats had taught him a few things about staying alive in the woods. Not far from their rest spot he found a stand of blackberry bushes. The berries were plentiful, but the picking wasn’t easy. Still, it was worth the stings and scratches. He ate as he harvested, stuffing the berries hungrily into his mouth. When he had nearly exhausted the bushes, he collected one last handful for his companions.
Simon Whiteclaw could not disguise his surprise when Norman held out his hand. His eyebrows furrowed suspiciously and he motioned Norman’s hand away.
“Let the boy have them,” he muttered ungratefully.
Malcolm winked his funny little animal wink and picked the berries one by one from Norman’s open palm. Malcolm was fearless again now his guardian led the way.
“How far are the Borders?” he asked brightly.
“Three or four days to Edgeweir,” Simon growled in a low voice, “if I were on my own.” His whiskers twitched as he added, “It’ll be a few more days with you lot.”
Norman felt certain that Simon really meant with him.
Little Malcolm’s cheerfulness was unaffected. “Ah, it’ll be nice to spend a few days in the Borders. It’s been months since I’ve seen the inside of a pie shop. Edgeweir is a biggish place, isn’t it? It should have a pie shop or two. Norman, have you ever tried a spiced lingonberry pie? Well, you haven’t lived. When we get to the Borders, we’ll share the biggest lingonberry pie that can be bought.”
“It’s not a shopping trip we’re on here, young pup,” Simon scolded. “Edgeweir is no holiday town. It’s a dangerous place. There’s wolf spies aplenty in the Borders towns near the Wolflands. If we make it to Edgeweir, you’ll be keeping out of sight, my son.”
Simon cast a weary glance at Norman. No doubt he was wondering how a human boy could possibly be kept out of sight.
Malcolm chattered on undeterred. “At least we’ve outrun the wolves,” he said brightly, licking blackberry juice from his paws.
Simon Whiteclaw harrumphed. “Ye think ye’ve outrun ’em, do ye? Don’t you believe it. Wolf hunters won’t let you go that easily. 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.”
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.
“Quit 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.
“Are we stopping?” he huffed.
Norman couldn’t see the older river raider roll his eyes.
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 terrain was 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.
“I’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 s
igns of nervousness in each other, each reassured that he wasn’t the only one terrified of the wolves’ approach.
“Do you think Simon’s missed them?” Norman asked through his teeth when he could hold it in no longer.
The little stoat replied with assurance, “No chance—old Simon’s the finest hunter in these woods. Didn’t he sniff out the long snouts? They don’t even know we’re here yet.”
Norman nodded, tried to believe this, but the image of the three wolf rangers coming ever closer tormented him.
“But how can he take them on alone?” he asked, breaking the silence again. “I mean, one stoat against three wolves. Isn’t that…” He decided not to worry about insulting his friend. “Isn’t that a mismatch?”
Malcolm didn’t turn to look at Norman. As he answered, his sharp eyes remained focused on the forest darkness. “Simon’ll pick his spot. He won’t meet ’em on the ground. He’ll stay up high, in the trees, and keep his distance. That’s why he took the bow. Hand-to-hand, not even Simon is a match for a long snout. But wolves are no archers, nor are they climbers. As long as he’s in the trees, he’s as safe as houses.”
Norman took a serious look at the woods around them and wondered whether they wouldn’t be better up a tree themselves. But the next wolf howl froze his motions and thoughts. It had changed—closer and angrier now, mixed with growls. Neither boy nor stoat spoke as they listened. Both knew that Simon had sprung his ambush on the wolves. Each tried to imagine the progress of the battle from the sounds. The night became filled with fierce wolf cries, bitter barks and every now and then a high-pitched yelp of pain. Only wolf sounds were heard. Simon fought silently; so too would he succumb silently. If Simon fell in battle, there would be no howl of despair or pain. The boys would not know until it was too late.
The sounds of the skirmish may have lasted only a few minutes. Then a silence blew through the forest—no howls, no barks either of victory or of anguish. Could it have been that easy? Had Simon’s arrows picked off all three of their pursuers? If it was that easy, Norman found himself thinking, why hadn’t they ambushed the wolves sooner, rather than blundering madly through the woods? He kept this thought to himself. Even he knew it was too much to hope. Maybe he just didn’t want to jinx it.
After that, the two were more silent than ever, waiting, either for the return of Simon victorious or for the wolf assassins to burst into the clearing and finish the pursuit for themselves. Norman had almost given up hope when they heard the rustle in the trees above them.
“Simon,” Malcolm cried. His relief breathed through his voice. Norman felt it too: so the old warrior had done it.
His relief was short-lived. “Shh,” Simon whispered as he came closer. “It’s not over yet, boy. Get yerself up in the branches, now. Be quick about it.”
Accustomed to obeying battle orders swiftly, the young stoat did not hesitate. He did not seem to think about where to go, leaping immediately into the tallest tree, a thick pine that overshadowed all the rest. He scampered up the trunk effortlessly, chattering as he moved. “Did you get any of them, Simon? Are you all right?”
“Got one,” Simon huffed. “His running days are over. The others scarpered when they saw it was just me. They musta figured who you—” Simon Whitetail did not finish his answer. His breath was ragged. He must have run at full tilt through the forest canopy to reach them before the two remaining wolves did. “You, beast,” he said when he had regained his breath, meaning Norman. “Can you climb?”
Norman eyed the stout pine that Malcolm had scaled. The lowest branches were too high for him to grasp from the ground, and he did not have a stoat’s sharp claws to allow him to just scamper right up the trunk. No other nearby tree offered the same safety. Only a few straggly aspen saplings persevered in the shade of the big pine. Norman wasn’t sure if any of them would hold his weight. Maybe if he looked farther away.
The deep belly howl of a wolf close by decided for him. His body was moving before his mind, hands grasping the likeliest of the nearby aspen saplings, feet scrambling beneath him, snapping twigs. The thin aspen swayed under his weight, swinging like a reed as he climbed higher, until it seemed it would bend right over and deposit him on the ground if he climbed any higher. Norman only hoped that he was high enough. He had no idea how high wolves could jump, or whether they could chop down a tree.
These visions tumbled through his head as the first wolf crept into the clearing. Norman saw only the bright yellow glow of its eyes and heard the low anticipatory growl. A second set of eyes soon appeared beside the first. They kept low to the ground but peered up. Knowing their prey, they scanned the trees and sniffed the air. How is it possible that they don’t see me, Norman managed to wonder, but only for a second.
In another breath, the wolves leapt to action. All snarls and flashing teeth, they assailed the slim trunk of Norman’s tree. The sapling lurched under their weight. Their front paws stretched up higher on the trunk and pushed again, and Norman looked down into the eyes of the animals that hunted him. A horrible, sickening fear overtook him as he gazed into the narrowing eyes. It was as if these eyes had always hunted him. He knew the jagged teeth beneath them, the salivating mouth and the meat-tasting breath. This was the big bad wolf of every kids’ story. It knew him, knew his terror. Norman’s legs went weak beneath him. He hardly felt his feet slip. He only felt himself falling. His hands knew better, grasping the trunk and arresting his fall, but the wolves saw what had happened and redoubled their assault. The big pink creature was afraid, and fear was a wolf’s desire. Norman’s feet dangled just beyond the wolves’ reach now. He clung to the tree with his arms, but without a foothold he was sunk. It was only a matter of time before his strength gave way.
If you died in a book, Norman wondered, did you die in real life, or did you wake up again in your bed?
He did not hear the whoosh of the arrows. Nor did he hear the wounded yelp of the wolf. All he heard was the beating of his own heart, the sound of his terror. He was losing his grip, sliding slowly down the tree toward the gnashing jaws of the hunters below. But arrows were flying now. From high in the pine, Simon unleashed arrow after arrow at the wolves below.
When Norman finally hit the ground, only one wolf remained on its feet, but one wolf was enough. The arrows had stopped flying now, and there was an awful silence in the clearing as Norman shook off the fall and scrambled backward away from the dead wolf’s arrow-riddled body. The remaining hunter crouched low and let out a murderous snarling growl as it slunk toward Norman. Its eyes gleamed cold and angry, imagining its vengeance. So utterly animal was its movement that its speech surprised Norman.
“So this is the fearsome beast of the forest?” The wolf’s voice dripped with disdain. “Big you might be, but clumsy and soft. You’ll make a good meal, you will. I will howl over your corpse tonight, and my murdered brothers will hear their vengeance in the spirit world.”
Norman used his arms to crawl backward as far as he could.
“That’s right, little piglet, squirm,” the wolf snarled. “Try to wriggle away.”
The wolf reared now on its hind legs, an extraordinary pose. He loomed over Norman. Even if Norman could have pulled himself to his feet now, the wolf would have been taller. The wolf now reached behind his back and pulled a long, wide weapon from his shoulder scabbard—the wolflaird’s broadsword. Though Norman had read about this fearsome sword in a half dozen Undergrowth stories, he could not have imagined it to be so deadly looking. The wolf wielded it with two hands, his paws wrapped deftly around the heavy hilt. Twirling it slowly above his head, he stepped closer again to Norman. The sword cut the air, making a deep whoosh, whoosh like a helicopter blade, and then, suddenly, without warning, the point of it was at Norman’s head. The tip of the blade rested on the bone of his forehead, sending a sharp pain through his skull like an ice-cream headache, but the wolf put no weight on it. He did not want it to be over yet.
“That’s a look I know, little piglet.
You’ll be wanting to beg for your life right now.”
Behind the wolf, a sudden movement caught Norman’s eye, then a flash of glinting steel, and the wolf turned, surprised, as if stung by a wasp.
On a tree stump six feet behind the wolf stood Simon Whiteclaw, defiant, with sword drawn.
“Leave the child alone. Avenge yourself on me—if you can.” Even on the stump the old warrior wasn’t even half the height of the wolf. The wolf’s broadsword’s reach was three times that of the little stoat rapier.
“It was me who killed yer mates,” Simon taunted. “I sent the arrows that rid this undergrowth of their filth. You’re next.”
This taunt was too much for the wolf hunter. He let out a mad howl as he lunged toward Simon, hurling himself and the heavy sword with full force at the defiant stoat. But Simon was too quick for him. He leapt gingerly from the stump to the branch of a nearby tree, from there to another, and while the wolf was still pulling the blade of his heavy sword from the stump where it had landed, Simon swept down on a slender whip of pine bough. The bough arced downward, behind the wolf, giving Simon the chance for a quick swish of his rapier. When the wolf turned again, holding a bleeding ear, Simon stood high in yet another tree.
“Try again, you lumbering oaf,” he scoffed.
But the wolf wasn’t going to play by Simon’s rules. The next sweep of his great broadsword sliced the branch away from beneath the stoat, sending Simon tumbling to the ground. Norman stayed long enough to see the brave stoat warrior get to his feet, but then Malcolm was tugging at the collar of his pyjamas, urging him to follow.
They scrambled as noiselessly as they could through the undergrowth, with the sounds of blades swooshing and hacking at branches behind them. At the first clearing, Malcolm jumped onto Norman’s shoulder and they ran through the open land. There was no use being stealthy anymore. The wolf had sniffed them well and could track them easily now. All they could do was get as far away as possible. If Simon somehow won, somehow managed to disable a wolf four times his size, then the old warrior would find them. If he could not, if even his wiles and sword skills weren’t enough, then they were doomed. It would be the assassin who caught up with them, not the crusty old stoat warrior. They did not look back. They dared not. They could imagine the shape of their pursuer well enough.