“Oh, this is more interesting. I don’t need to shower right this-”
Avery coughed again and wrinkled his nose. Derec gave his father a surprised little look. “I do?” Avery nodded. “Oh. Well, say, Dad, why don’t you prep Mandelbrot? I’ll just, uh-” He jerked a thumb at the Personal and started backing toward the door.
“Good idea,” Avery agreed.
Chapter 15. Maverick
Maverick pelted hell-for-leather through the underbrush, ears flattened against the side of his head, legs pumping faster than he ever would have believed possible, his tail a bare five steps ahead of one extremely annoyed sharpfang. Spineberry branches raked his face. His breath, spiced with curses, came in raw, ragged gasps.
So what? Feel lucky you’re still breathing!He burst through a clump of sandleaves and nearly ran head-on into a fallen log. No time for finesse, lad, jump! Somehow he cleared the log, although the stump of a branch gouged an angry scratch across the left side of his ribs.
Lick it later, fool!His left rear leg buckled when he hit the ground, but he managed to recover in time to tumble and come up running. “Ki-yii!” he screamed in BeastTongue.
The sharpfang behind him responded with a throaty roar -It was closer now-and even angrier
“Spoor!” Maverick feinted right and then cut sharply left, ignoring the ache in his leg. An instant later the second sharpfang loomed into view dead ahead; with the brilliance of desperation, Maverick darted left again and hurdled the second sharpfang’s tail. The two lizards collided heavily and went down.
Dare I hope?He slowed slightly and looked over his shoulder.
No!Sharpfang minds were tiny things, capable of holding just one thought at a time. Both sharpfangs were focused on the kin; it didn’t occur to them that this was an excellent opportunity to fight. Within seconds, the lizards were back on their hind feet, but now they were both chasing after him.
Well, lad, at least you gained a few seconds’ lead-The thought was cut off by a blood-curdling scream somewhere up ahead-a scream that dissolved into the happy growl of a feeding sharpfang. The third sharpfang! One last incredibly pained yelp slipped out from the sharpfang’s victim.
Maverick’s self-control slipped a moment. I hope that was WhiteTail. Then he felt guilty at that thought. I take that back. Don’t hurt the kid, OldMother. I hope that was LifeCrier!
He swerved left and suddenly found himself charging straight at a yawning gully. Trying to take it in a single bound, he came down a half -trot short and slammed into the edge of the far side. Whining like a pup, he hung on the edge, his hind legs scrabbling for purchase. Curse LifeCrier and his flea-bitten SilverSides nonsense! The two sharpfangs’ feet thudded closer.
Maverick’s right foot found something solid, and he flipped himself up over the edge and hit the ground running. And curse me and my bright ideas! With a clumsy crash, the sharpfangs fell into the gully. One of them roared in distress, and then they began slashing a passage up the side.
Maverick flattened his ears again, straightened his tail, and focused on putting distance between himself and the sharpfangs.
Up to a point, things had been going really well. After the pack had wiped out the WalkingStones, LifeCrier began leading the hunt every day, and Maverick had managed to make himself a permanent part of LifeCrier’ s hunting party. And after a week of practice, LifeCrier’s group was actually starting to hunt like a pack. This morning two of the younger kin had taken down a smallgrazer, and Maverick himself had surprised a smerp that was trying to hide under a log. They’d even managed to handle it intelligently when the point kin stirred up a small female sharpfang. The scouts got out of the way, the stupid lizard charged straight at the main body of the pack, and Maverick had time to draw his knife and try his under-the-chin trick.
It worked to perfection. He dropped the sharpfang with one blow, and for a minute there he’d had the undying admiration of the entire hunting party. LifeCrier even got out one of those stupid amulets and made a great show of hanging it around Maverick’s neck.
Then the pack was jumped by the three full-grown male sharpfangs that had been following the female he’d killed.
A new roar joined the chorus behind him. Maverick looked over his shoulder long enough to see that the third sharpfang, blood fresh on his face, had decided to join the party.
That does it!Maverick decided. If I get out of this alive, I’m going to head west and forget I ever heard the name PackHome. May the fleas of a thousand grazers infest LifeCrier’s ears!
Speak of the FirstBeast and he shall rise. Maverick burst through another patch of spineberries and almost collided with LifeCrier. The old kin pulled up short and gave Maverick a dumbfounded look as he sped past.
Against his better judgment, Maverick barked out a warning.,, Sharpfangs! Right behind me!” All three roared as if to reinforce the point.
“Wait up!” LifeCrier yelped.
Got to give the old boy credit,Maverick thought as he spared a moment to glance over his shoulder, he can really move when he’s motivated. In a few seconds LifeCrier had pulled up along Maverick’s right side and was matching his speed.
“Where’s WhiteTail?” LifeCrier asked between gasps.
“She wasn’t with you?”
“We got separated. ” LifeCrier broke running form long enough to raise his head and take his bearings. “We’ve got to regroup the pack. Make a stand!”
“We can regroup when we’re back in PackHome. ” Maverick closed his mouth as they ploughed into a patch of blooming stinkweed.
“You don’t understand. Three sharpfangs! This must be a test of our faith. SilverSides will protect us!” A limestone outcropping loomed in front of them. “Left! Trust me!” LifeCrier dropped back to cross Maverick’s tail and turn down the slope, parallel to the base of the bluff.
Maverick hesitated a fraction of a second and then followed. “Funny thing,” he called after LifeCrier. “My sire always used to say,” a boulder appeared in his path, but he managed to gauge his lead-in correctly and land on his right leg, “the OldMother helps those who help themselves!”
LifeCrier rounded the foot of the bluff and skidded to a stop. “Drat! We’re here? I thought we were… ”
Maverick followed him around the corner and slammed on the brakes as well.
To their left, the gully he’d crossed earlier broadened out into a marshy delta. Directly in front, there were a few scrubby little nut trees and about a twenty-foot drop into the swamp. Vast, dim shapes moved in the distance, dipping their long necks into the floating mats of vegetation.
To their right, a narrow path skirted the base of the cliff and teetered on the brink of falling into the swamp.
LifeCrier stood at the edge of the drop, sniffing at the water twenty feet below. “I suppose we could swim. ”
“Idiot! There are things in that swamp that eat sharpfangs!”
“Well, perhaps we could-”
A sharpfang roared and rocks came bouncing down the slope behind them, accompanied by the sound of massive talons skidding on loose gravel.
“Right!” Maverick decided. He lit off on the path at a pace that would have scared the scent out of him were he not already terrified. LifeCrier followed two trots behind.
“Do you think they’ll give up?” LifeCrier shouted.
More roars behind them; the thud of heavy bodies colliding and the sharp crack of a nut tree being broken in two, followed by a massive splash. Maverick looked over his shoulder long enough to see one sharpfang slogging along in the mud at the base of the cliff while the other two cautiously, almost comically, slid down the embankment on their hindquarters and tails.