Page 34 of Blacktail

“How did you know the drifts were deep enough?”

Slipper grinned wickedly. “I didn’t.”

Thunder cracked out across the valley. Blacktail saw another little puff of snow rise up a pace or so behind Slipper.

“You’d think he’d give us a moment to collect ourselves,” Slipper said sourly. “I’m heading for the tree line, O large one. Come along when you’ve a mind.”

Blacktail dug himself out of the snow as fast as he was able. He took off after Slipper. There was enough of a coat of ice that Slipper could mostly walk along the surface, but Blacktail was reduced to bounding through snow as deep as his chest. It slowed him, sapped his strength.

The two-legs stopped peppering the snow with gunshots after only a few leaps. Blacktail’s spirits rose at the sweet silence, and he felt a flicker of hope. Then he heard an unnatural buzzing in the sky. He twisted his neck to look behind him and saw an enormous flying beast bearing down on him at great speed.

They’re not done yet.

He turned back and began bounding again, feeling slow and silly in the deep snow.

“What the hell is that thing?” Slipper screamed.

“How should I know!?” Blacktail screamed back. He imagined it swooping down to carry him off in its claws.

“Run!” Slipper screamed.

Blacktail ran. Over and over again he arched through the deep snow, like a salmon straining its way upstream. But even at his best speed, with his heart hammering in his chest and his lungs aflame, the sky-thing had no trouble keeping up. It hovered just overhead, the beat of its enormous wings whipping the snow into a small blizzard. Slipper beckoned him from under the cover of the trees, tantalizingly close.

Blacktail looked over his shoulder. One of the men was leaning out of the body of the great bird. Hmm, he thought. There’s something you don’t see every day. A gunshot rang out. The bolt struck well in front of him. Then came another, still far off to the side…. Then suddenly he was under a canopy of trees.

The snow was thinner in the forest. After a few paces he could abandon the exhausting bounds and simply run. In just a few steps his speed tripled. The great bird could not see him so well with branches overhead, however sparse and barren. After a series of turns and double-backs, it lost sight of them. They were able to put a little distance between it and them.

Slipper ducked under a bush, panting great clouds of breath into the cold air. “Quick…breather.”

“Fine…idea.”

Not far away the sky beast circled, back and forth, round and round.

“Well, that was exciting, wasn’t it?” Slipper said, catching his breath. “Quite a different experience on this side of the hunt, no?”

“Hmm. I prefer things the other way ’round.”

Slipper laughed a little and licked him on the muzzle. “That’s the spirit! You are loosening up a bit.”

Blacktail smiled wanly.

“Just beyond the ridge lies a cluster of dens of the two-legs. We can hide in the forest until sunset, then make our escape through the heart of their land.”

“Are you mad? We’ll be killed!”

“No, no, no. I’ve done this many times. After dark the two-legs never venture far outside, especially not on a cold night like tonight. There’s another patch of forest on the far side; we can easily make it by daybreak. I’ve never been there, but I know a few who have. I’m nearly sure they won’t be looking for you that far away.”

“Nearly sure?”

“Have you any better ideas?”

“I suppose not.”

Together they moved through the woods that lay below the southern ridge. By now the hunters had made their way through the pass into the valley and, guided by the sky beast, were closing in behind them. Blacktail could hear the baying of hounds off in the distance.

“It’s a race,” Slipper said.

“Eh?”