Free Priests of Ferris by Maurice Gee

But I think the Vargs will find you before you have travelled far.’
    ‘No man –’ Yellowclaw began.
    ‘Hush!’ She turned back to Susan. ‘Trust your friend, Jimmy Jaspers. I have heard a Woodlander’s tale that he walked with a Varg.’
    ‘He did,’ Dawn said. ‘We’re not afraid.’
    They ate a last meal with the Birdfolk. Then Susan said to Silverwing, ‘I would like to take a feather. That way you can travel with us.’ Silverwing plucked one from her wing without a word. Yellowclaw gave Nick a feather, and other Birdfolk gave them to Dawn and Limpy. Then the four shouldered their packs and said goodbye and started down the hillside to the creek. Susan turned before she had gone far and looked at the Birdfolk. They stood without moving, tall and lonely; like Easter Island statues, she thought. And she thought how sad they were, creatures so brave and strong and beautiful, yet trapped inside a wall by ancient crimes. She raised her hand in farewell; then went over the hill and out of sight. Later she saw them far away, floating like eagles in the sky.
    Dawn took the lead going down the pass. The snowgrass and thorn trees gave way to bush. As they went lower it grew with a tropical lushness and the air seemed warmer.
    ‘It’s like a jungle,’ Nick said, twisting through creepers and giant leaves. ‘I can’t see bears living in this.’
    But the river was ice cold. They stopped on a shingle fan where the stream from the pass flowed in and looked across the braided water at the bush, grey and misty, on the other side. Mount Nicholas took up the sky. Nick found himself grinning with pleasure as he looked at it. He felt sorry for Susan. Jimmy had promised to name a waterfall after her, but it could never be as impressive as this.
    ‘We’ll go up the river to the glacier,’ Dawn said. She led them on the shingle bank at the side of the river. Several times they crossed creeks flowing down from the hills. Nick stopped to listen.
    ‘Plenty of birds. No animals,’ he said.
    ‘I can smell Varg,’ Dawn said. ‘They’re not far away.’ She gave a curious smile, a little nod, as though she heard something the others could not hear. A moment later she stopped and smiled again. ‘One is in the forest. He is keeping pace with us. Two are coming behind. And the fourth is on the other bank. If you look you will see him in the trees.’
    They stared across the river and saw a movement in the bush; something white or blue. It vanished as they looked.
    ‘They will kill us,’ Limpy said.
    ‘Perhaps. I don’t know. I know they are hungry. Their minds are full of thoughts of meat.’ She gave a troubled smile. ‘There’s another one ahead. Something hurts her.’
    ‘Can you see into their minds?’ Susan said.
    ‘I catch their thoughts. I don’t know whether I see or hear.’
    ‘What do they look like?’
    Dawn stopped again. ‘There,’ she said. ‘See.’
    One of the Varg trailing them had come out of the bush and was ambling up the shallows, with water splashing about its legs. It stopped when it saw them and returned their look indifferently, then lowered its head and drank from the river. Sunlight sent blue ripples up its neck, along its back.
    ‘Huge,’ Nick whispered. It was as large as a rhinoceros, but there was no mistaking its bear shape. It seemed a forest and an ice creature both, with its sleek fur and grizzly head. ‘Will it attack?’
    ‘No,’ Dawn said. ‘They’re herding us.’ She pointed at the Varg across the river, standing on boulders, and the blue/white gleam of the one in the bush.
    ‘Where to?’
    ‘I think towards the leader up ahead.’
    ‘Jimmy said not to be scared of them,’ Susan said.
    ‘Jimmy’s not here,’ Nick said.
    They started off again, on pebble beds, and when they rounded the next bend saw the wall of the glacier. It rose as high as a ten-storey building, with a broad melt-lake at its foot. The river escaped in channels through the valley. Along both