Small but Dense

As we move across the bare field toward the old trail to the river I am keenly aware of how plainly we would stand out against the setting sun as I keep an ear to the wind back toward the farm. I hear nothing but the rustle our own footfalls and heavy breathing among the unnatural silence.

Sensing my fears Rosa squeezes my arm. “To that thing they’re just another farm family. It will have no reason to linger there.” With a tilt of her horned head she adds. “I believe Danae is close to them, watching over them. I think she knows they’re part of your pack.”

“And what’s she going to do if that thing turns hostile?” I ask the question without needing an answer, followed by a real one. “What’s she seeing now?”

“I don’t know.” She says. “She shares her sight when the mood strikes her.”

“When the mood…? Rosa!”

“I know, baby. It’s frustrating. It’s just how it is.”

Just then she stumbles over clod of earth. She would have hit the ground but for her grip on the knotted rope attached to Catalus any my fast reflexes. Without even pausing I scoop Rosa up and lift her up onto the back of our stallion. He huffs in protests but with Cassie holding his lead and pulling him along he keeps stride. Pat his muscular shoulder. “Quit moaning, you can handle her. No more free ride big fella.”

Before long we push through the long grass and bushes that flanked path and turn to follow it, hustling single file with me at the rear keeping an eye over my shoulder. Each time I looked the growing shadows stirred ever more ominously, most likely due to the breeze and an overactive imagination but I couldn’t be sure and so I push us even faster now that we had a proper trail beneath our feet. We raced against the dying light as much as the creature hunting us.

We get a bit of hope when Colly calls back. “Cricket-th!”

It starts with a lone chirp but soon grows into the natural chorus of the gloaming hour. The palpable tension among us relaxes just a little as we assume the song meant we were putting some distance between us and the unnatural thing on our heels. That solace would be short lived.

We break through brush to come out onto the banks of the Alentum river that marked the boundary of my family’s fields. Any other time would have seen me pause to cast my memories back to when my father had taught me far more than how to fish along these muddy banks but tonight we had no time to spare for such luxuries. Rosa remains atop Catalus as the rest of us gather beside her.

“We’ll be running in the dark we continue much longer.” Cassie says, bow at the ready as she scanned the trail behind us. “I still say we ambush the foul thing.”

“We’re still on my family’s land.” I say, my mind running as my eyes dart around to take in our surroundings. “I’d rather that this thing’s trail didn’t end here. That’s assuming we can even hurt it and it doesn’t eat us all.”

“We run!” Colly tugs at my hand. Despite the fear in her voice she keeps her voice low and controlled like the rest of us. “Pleathe, Thir?”

“Danae is on the move.” Rosa whispers, her blind eyes scanning some unseen horizon as her ear tilt and twist to every new sound. “It must have left the farm.”

“That’s good, but it means we don’t have much time until it gets here.” Reaching up I give Rosa’s thigh a reassuring squeeze, she returns a nod to tell me she was okay. “We run for now.”

As I take a moment to buckle my father’s cingulum, wearing it so the belt ran from my neck to the opposite armpit so that I could more easily wear the great blade across my back, thoughts are formulating in my head of maybe crossing the river to a cart path that I knew was just beyond the trees that lined the opposite bank then backtracking again straight to the river to maybe throw the hound off by thinking we’d hopped onto a wagon or something. Though I didn’t want to do it I was even thinking of possibly going as far as setting Catalus free to roam on his own and provide a potential distraction while we fled down river.

Time for planning is cut short as around us the symphony of crickets and frogs begins to fade!

“Into the river.” I say urgently, slinging my pack back over my shoulders.

“Into it?” Colly says, dipping her toe into the water. “Um…my people don’t float like you big folkth.”

“We’re not swimming we’re walking. It’s not that deep. We have to make it past that bend before it’s here to see us. Now move!” I pass Rosa’s pack up to her so I could keep my hands free. Both Cassie and I hold onto our horse’s lead as we carefully enter the warm, muddy water of the Alentum, my other hand being clutched onto tightly by Collywaddle. Thinking out loud even as I turn us to being walking with the current as swiftly as we dared I say. “There is a fork about a mile and a half downstream. We’ll get out in the center between the branches.” My voice is firm and strong, trying to convey courage to my companions even as the night song went completely silent around us. “It shouldn’t know whether we went upstream or down. It shouldn’t know what bank we got out on. And with luck maybe it won’t even realize there is a middle portion for awhile. This should buy us some time.”

“That’s a lot of shoulds, maybes and assumptions.” Cassie says, not as a complaint but an observation. “Fortuna walk with us.”

I free my hand of Colly so I could help guide Catalus over the silty bottom of the river. The current itself was slow enough and only knee high so as not to bother the stallion but the silt covered stones beneath our feet posed a threat with every step. The last thing we needed right now was for him to injure that recovering ankle of his.

“Thir.” Colly whines. “My thtuff ith getting wet. I’m not ath tall ath you guyth.”

“Hang in there Colly.” I say without looking. “Go closer to the bank if you need to, but don’t leave the water. Not even a step.”

“Okay, Thir, but…Ahhh!”

I turn my head just in time to see the splash as Collywaddle takes a tumble.

“Damn it!” I hiss. Pushing off of Catalus I thrust through the water in two great strides. I nearly slip myself as the bottom suddenly dips an extra foot by some channel carved out by a strong undercurrent I could now feel tugging at my legs. Staying focused I am just able to reach her pack before it floated out of reach only to find as I pull sodden weight back that there was no Colly attached to it. With growing urgency I scan about. The brown water was hopelessly opaque, doubly so with only the faintest remnants of sunset still casting a glow to the west. “Colly!” I call, still trying to keep my voice low enough so as not to carry above the sound of the river. Moving with the current my free hand swipes back and forth through the water trying to feel for her. She was tumbling beneath the surface, that dense body of hers keeping her under! “Collywaddle!”

“Quin!” Cassie points out toward the dead center of the river a good twenty feet ahead. “There!”

There I see the silhouette of one Colly’s big tufted ears break the surface followed an instant later by a sputtering spray of water as her mouth and nose momentarily reach the air. “M-MATHTER! MATHT…” One arm flails, desperately reaching for anything to grab onto before being swallowed by the brown waters. All goes calm. Disturbingly calm. Beneath the gently rippling surface Collywaddle was fighting for her life!