Silvermoon. A Tale of a Young Werewolf. A YA Novel. 12-18 (12 page)

“What did you learn from your father?”

“He taught me everything about farming, milking the cows and the sheep.”

“You have a small herd of alpacas now, from the circus that went bankrupt, don’t you milk them too?”

“We’ve only just started, they are rather snobbish creatures, and you should see the facial expressions after they have been sheared. They are really affronted.”

“Yes, I heard something of the sort. What’s Jessie like with them?”

“Hopeless.”

“Really?”

“I remember one time when dad tried rounding up the alpacas for the first time for shearing. We had tried penning them using Jessie, but try as I may, I could do nothing to help her. After enough encouragement she would spring onto the Alpaca’s backs, regardless of whether they were standing, walking around or just lying there. But these strange beasts with their almost snobbish attitude would just ignore her. They’d stare at her with an,
‘Oh it’s you again,’
look on their haughty faces. She would bark at them and if they weren’t busy chewing and they would rise up and challenge her authority with a,
‘Who are you to disturb me at rest?’
or a
‘You don’t actually think I am going to take any notice of you, do you?’
sort of look, and if that didn’t work they would spit at her, a fine spray that could reach anybody and drench them, man or beast, from a distance of two to three metres.”

She giggled. “I would have loved to have seen that.”

He grinned at her then continued. “So we tried another way, the lasso, something the Alpaca’s didn’t take kindly to, and it was a long and messy process.”

“Didn’t you find an easy way?”

He nodded. “Dad did. A couple of months later, we were expecting the vet the following day and Dad said he was going to try a different approach,
‘Most animals will do anything for food, Jason, it’s an instinctive reaction, for they wish to survive.’
I asked him what he had in mind and he smiled and said,
‘Wait and see’
. So mum and I watched him at work the next morning - as he’s a very inventive fellow when he puts his mind to it. He walked amongst them with the feed bucket, they followed him around the field and when he had them all trailing behind him, trying to get at the oats in the bucket, he walked into the pen we had erected. They hesitated at first, but after mum came out with more feed the weaker ones gave way and entered the pen. Then the rest of them came charging in, after which dad dropped the bucket and nipped smartly out through the gateway - as nobody stands in the way of a hungry alpaca. After that it was easy for Doctor Jameson to examine them and give them their jabs.”

She stopped and picked up several small branches. “I miss the river.”

“I miss the sun,” he said.

“I bet the trolls don’t, they can only go out at night, the poor miserable creatures, they say the sun is very unhealthy for them.”

“They must be happy then for we haven’t had sun for years.”

She nodded, her eyes suddenly misty, “Yes, soon after you left. Then the drought that carried on through the autumn, then the cold, and now the snow. Who would have thought, Jason, snow in the summer.”

“It’s the same the whole world over.”

“It’s astounding, even the northern seas are frozen, we could actually walk over to
Sweden
if we wanted to, or
France
even.”

He watched as she added a bunch of twigs to her bundle. “Tell me, Jennifer, do goblins like cold weather?”

“Not really, it makes them sluggish and sleepy and they have difficulty retaining their human shape.”

He stopped and looked round at her, his eyebrows slightly raised. “If this creature Reega is alone, as you intimated, she won’t be making good time will she, we might even catch up with her?”

She faced him, her face alight. “You may be right, she came with a troll. She would have used it for transport. She may well be alone now, so she will be looking for a place to rest.”

“How did they cope in the dead of winter, I mean, when winter was winter?”

“They would hibernate, just like bears do.”

“Bears only hibernate when food is scarce.”

“That’s true,
” she said. Her brow creased as she said, “B
ut
something tells me things have
changed in the goblin world.”

They walked on in silence for a while. Jennifer added more sticks to her pile and said, “Well there’s no scarcity of wood here, let’s tell the others.”

The smell of food greeted them as they approached the camp. They saw John and Ingrid talking quietly as they sat beside a raging fire.

Jennifer dropped her bundle. Jason laid the log on the fire and they sat on the ground in front of the blaze. Yvette distributed the food, which consisted of tinned baked beans and dumplings in tomato gravy, backed up with whole-wheat bread, cheese and the last of their milk.

After the meal they said their ‘good nights’ and retired to their individual tents.

Jason lay there listening to the wind, he could smell lavender and he knew she was thinking of him. His mind wandered to the future, he imagined himself and Jennifer. Could they have children, she looked like a human being and he imagined the elves reproduced in the same manner so why couldn’t they try. Somehow he knew that his dreams were not pure fantasy; there must be a way they could stay together forever.

Then he heard her voice, a soft and gentle tone that caressed his mind, calming him,
“If there is a way, then we will find it, now go to sleep, Jason, my love.”

Chapter ten.

Reega’s bane.

He caught her scent, despite the driven snow. He was surprised, he had imagined she would be home by now with her father, and then he realized.
She has probably lost the troll, they must have killed it.
Fear and uncertainty gripped his heart.
What if she’s failed in her task, what if it’s safe? Now they will move it to somewhere else.
But then again, are we in search of it? That cannot be, they would send an army, but then again, they don’t know where to send it; I wonder.
He snarled in anger and took in the air once more through his nostrils. He tasted the foul odour, it was stronger, he rejoiced,
She approaches, I must go to her.

She cursed the weather, she cursed the werewolves and she cursed the elves, as they had deprived her of her transport. She clutched her prize closer to her as she struggled through the snow. Her memory told her she was heading in the right direction and that she didn’t have far to go.

She paused in her endeavours, breathing heavily. She took several deep breaths and then took the last piece of dried meat out of her pouch. She chewed ravenously and washed it down with a handful of snow. She struggled onwards, the thought of food, raw red meat and some fresh blood kept her going.

She stopped as a figure, its outline blurred by the snow, appeared befo
re her. Having not far to go,
she hoped this was her brother and a couple of trolls. She called out, “Jorgul, is that you?” and hid her disappointment with a look of surprise as
he
came to her, she hid her disdain and said, “How thoughtful of you to come to my assistance, where is my brother, does he not know of my success?”

“No, he knows nothing yet, I have lost contact with him otherwise he would be here. So tell me, do you have it?”

She saw his eyes widen as she opened her furry mantle and then looked down. “Yes, I have it here.” She looked up once more and the lightning flashed before her eyes, then it turned to blackness and she felt herself falling, falling…

The next day Jason and the others found a road that had been cleared once, probably by the sheep farmers. Snow lay over it, but it was only ankle deep and they followed it as it took them north-west. After an hour’s brisk walk they came to a frozen river. They crossed at the ford and kept to the road. To their left below them lay a broad flat, expanse of white. Jennifer pointed. “That’s the reservoir. We are getting closer.”

They continued through falling snow, and turned north at an inlet. They left t
he road and climbed higher, and
the light snowfall increased to heavy and
quickly
changed to a blizzard as the wind rose.

They struggled on, blindly, staying close together. The wind tugged fiercely at their clothing as if demanding they should give it up as a gift of appeasement.

Jason turned to Jennifer; he could see no-one behind her. He called out above the howling wind, “Ingrid, John, where are you?”

Jason looked ahead; he could hear Yvette, but couldn’t see her. “Yvette,” he shouted, “Stop, stay were you are, I think we have lost Ingrid and John.”

Yvette appeared before him suddenly, “I can hear her-” she faltered and said, “But not any more.”

Jason listened, “I did hear something but now it’s gone. Something must have happened to them.”

Jennifer came to them and said above the howling wind, “The others have fallen behind, we must search for them.”

Yvette said, “Yes, I know. I’ll find them. You two wait here. Get a tent out, stay inside it.” She spoke with such authority that they felt compelled to obey, and they watched as she ploughed her way energetically through the snow.

After quickly clearing an area big enough t
hey extracted one of the tents and unfolded it with both of them hanging onto it and secured it with spikes in the hard-packed snow. They left their rucksacks by the doorway and crawled inside. Jennifer pulled off her snow mask and goggles and threw them into the corner, “How could they wander off like that, they could die out here?” Then she tossed her head in the direction Yvette went. “And she thinks she’s going to find them.”

Yvette ran in their tracks, she came upon signs of a struggle, slowly fading as the snow drifted over them. She saw the tracks leading away from t
he trail and she could sense its
scent, the scent of a goblin, on the wind.

She stopped as she saw more signs of a struggle, this time more vigorous, and then deeper tracks. She ploughed through the snow, sinking thigh deep, she had to find this goblin devil. How could she have been so naive?

A cold blind fury fed her energy as she surged on with murder in mind. Suddenly, she saw a form on the ground, half-covered by the snow. She moved nearer and saw Ingrid lying on her side. She removed a glove and felt on her neck for a pulse. She found it easily.
Still alive, thank goodness.

She pulled her to a sitting position, squatted down and pulled her onto her shoulder. She rose up and paused as she was about to turn back. A faint odour caressed her senses, sheep dung and cooked food. She turned fully and continued back, following her tracks, hurrying before they disappeared.

Jason pushed his goggles back and undid his mask. “Yes, Yvette is quite surprising, a real bundle of energy. I feel though that she knows what she was doing, and she said she was an experienced climber.”

Jennifer’s brow creased, “Just a second, how could Ingrid get lost, John was behind her.”

“They might have changed places
or he got lost and she went after him
.”

“Then why didn’t
s
he say something?”

“You don’t like John
do you?”

“I don’t trust him,
”
she said.