Free Saint Elm's Deep (The Legend of Vanx Malic) by M. R. Mathias Page A

its harness rig was left to show that it ever existed.
    Vanx saw one of the other sleds stuck between two trees. The haulkatten hooked to it was pulling frantically, trying to flee, but was making no headway. The sled was wedged in tightly.
    The third sled was bounding steadily away down the tree line, and out of the corner of his eye, Vanx saw one of the Skmoes and Endell redirecting their course to chase after it.
    Pieces of the other sled littered the snow around the huge, gaping hole where the shrew had attacked it. Vanx nearly dove in to look for Poops, or some sign of him. He found part of Smythe’s leg near a bloody gouge at the tunnel’s edge. The amount of blood and gore in the smear that trailed away from the leg left no reason to hope that Smythe had survived.
    Vanx’s heart clenched, and he had to fight back his anxiety. He’d left Poops tied off to the sled like bait. If his little companion had died because of it, he would never forgive himself.
    Throwing caution into the wind, he jumped over the crest of broken ice and snow and went tumbling down into the shaft the shrew had left.
    He didn’t find Poops, but he found the seat brackets to which he’d tied Poops’s tether. The leather line had been snapped. He frantically looked for paw prints down in the tunnel, where it leveled out. The bloody trail left by Smythe’s body was plain, but there was no sign of the dog.
    He back-scrabbled up out of the hole, startling one of the Skmoes when he came up.
    “Help me find Poops,” Vanx said in a harsh, panicked voice.
    The Skmoe nodded and began making a fairly wide circle around the hole. He studied the ground as he went.
    Vanx did the same, thankful for the simple order and thoroughness of the ever-widening circle search. It wasn’t long before he found Poops’s trail. The tracks were bloody, but not anything like Smythe’s deathly stain had been.
    Vanx was starting to follow the trail into the forest when they heard another roaring eruption of snow in the distance. Chelda’s angry voice and Brody’s insistent orders followed the noise; then they were all drowned out by a growling hiss.
    “I go,” the Skmoe said. “Shrew take bait. Skog need help.”
    Vanx looked at him as if he were crazy. Poops was missing. Who cared about the damn shrew?
    He took a deep breath to clear his head and sought out a mental place he had found in his youth. It was a place where the stress and panic of reality could be shed and clear decisions could be rendered. He understood then that the Skmoe was worried about his companion, too. Neither Skog, Chelda or Brody had left the baited area. Xavian was probably still there, as well. They were now fighting the shrew.
    “Go,” Vanx said. He made the easy choice to go after Poops, instead of going to help the others. It was a decision based on loyalty and responsibility. Unlike the others, Poops was just a pup. The others were grown people being paid to be here. They could defend themselves, if need be. Vanx just hoped it was a decision that he wouldn’t regret, for the farther he went away from the battle, the more it sounded like they needed him.

I’m off to make a fool of a fool,
and a fool of a kingdom too.
I might lose my head to the kingsman’s ax,
but I’ll try to fool him too.
-- The King of Fools

Chelda’s first arrow struck the shrew before it had even fully breached the surface. Her shaft was only a splinter in the beast’s thickly furred skin, though. The shrew crunched the staked-out leaper and a wagon-load’s worth of bloody snow in its powerful, toothy jaws, then turned toward her and roared. Seeing this, Brody loosed immediately.
    Brody’s first shaft thumped deeply into the shrew’s neck, causing the huge beast to come completely out of its hole. It thrashed and clawed at the arrow to no avail, but only for a moment.
    Easily fifteen paces in length, not counting a tail half again as long, it looked like some grotesquely malformed prairie dog. Its