Free Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) by Jonathan Renshaw Page B

long axe buried in it, chips of wood scattered around. It didn’t
take much imagination to see the axes put to another purpose.
    “They will search here,” Aedan said, gasping for
breath. “We need to circle round to the forest on the other side of the manor
house.”
    Emroy remained where he was. Aedan knew that waiting
here would destroy any chance of sending for help. There was no time for
argument.
     “Stay if you want,” he said, “but I’m leaving.”
With that he ran out along the track that led down, away from the manor house
and towards the homesteads. It wasn’t long before he heard Emroy’s heavy
clumping behind him. The ground was hard-packed here and took little
impression. It was the perfect place to depart from the track.
    As soon as the houses came into view, Aedan
stopped and turned to the deep strip of plane trees that edged this side of the
farm. Keeping his feet together he sprang as far as he could into the grass,
then repeated the procedure in a zigzag, haphazard fashion until he reached the
dry forest floor.
    “What are you playing at?” Emroy said. “This is no
time for games.”
    “Something my father taught me. These marks don’t
look like people walking. If they follow us, they will ignore this and think we
went down to the houses. Do you think you can land where I did without touching
anything in between?”
    Emroy snorted but did as Aedan suggested, surprise
showing in his face at how much ground the smaller boy had covered with each
bound. He looked more than a little pleased with himself when he was able to
match the effort.
    “Keep off the soft ground,” Aedan said, picking a
path that threaded over as much rock as he could find. By the time they had
walked a few hundred feet, the track they had left was hidden by a screen of
undergrowth and tree trunks. Aedan changed his direction and headed towards the
farm gate, picking up the pace to a brisk jog, but he had to slow down again because
of Emroy’s blundering tread. The boy crashed his way over the ground like a
blindfolded colt on jittery legs. In his defence though, plane trees made for a
noisy floor with big flakes of bark and dry twigs aplenty. Moving in silence
required quick eyes and quicker feet.
    After a few hundred yards, Aedan heard shouts in
the direction of the track they had left. He stopped and waited for their
pursuers to move out of earshot – it was not worth giving Emroy the opportunity
to plant one of his hooves on a nice thick branch and announce his presence. Overhead,
a starling raised a raucous alarm. Aedan hoped these men were not attuned to
such clues. The shouts dwindled away towards the homesteads and the two boys
moved on, picking up the pace.
    They jogged now as the trees began to thin and the
gate came into view. Dropping down, they crawled over the road – a double
groove carved by a thousand cart journeys – and slipped into the forest on the
other side. The cover here was far thicker. Dark oak leaves still held night’s
shadows under heavy boughs.
    Emroy was peering into the dimness with
undisguised fear.
    “Wait here,” Aedan said. “I’m going to get a
better look. I need to see where they are being taken.” Emroy did not object
and showed no desire to move an inch further into the forest. This was Nymliss.
His big eyes made it clear that he believed all the stories.
    Aedan thought of saying something to reassure him,
but then remembered how Emroy had treated him earlier and decided against it.
He slipped into the shadows, quickly found a deer track and padded away. He
knew this particular track. It branched ahead. The left branch ran close to the
forest edge and at one point gave a view of the manor house. When he reached
the spot, he crawled forward until he could see between the leaves of a dense
bush. Earlier, the details had been hidden by distance. Now he saw the blood,
the torn and soiled clothes, the looks of disbelief, pain, and horror, the way
in which people had been