Free Priests of Ferris by Maurice Gee Page A

sides trees stood in black lines.
    ‘There,’ Dawn said.
    A Varg was outlined against the trees. Dawn led them towards the creature. It had blue unblinking eyes, and they saw a wound on its shoulder with blood leaking into the fur. Something, a force, seemed to come from the animal, buffeting them like a wind. It made them shrink and cringe and walk more slowly.
    ‘She is angry,’ Dawn whispered.
    Susan remembered Jimmy’s letter and tried to make a picture of herself in her mind, but she found she was simply saying her name over and over. Yet the Varg swung its head, fixed her for a moment with its eyes. There was no friendliness, no interest there, she felt she was looking into empty holes, and knew that she, and all of them, were in deadly danger.
    Dawn stopped. ‘Wait here. Be still. It’s me she wants to talk with.’ She approached the Varg and stood several paces off, staring in its eyes. She was no taller than one of the creature’s legs, yet watching, Susan felt she was its equal, and the Varg knew it. She struggled to see, struggled to hear, what was passing between them, and glimpsed a jumble of pictures: sea, forest, priests, dogs. The Varg turned its head at her and gave a growl. ‘Don’t, Susan,’ Dawn said. ‘You will make her angry.’ After a moment she walked to the animal’s side and looked at the wound. Blood was dribbling from it, making a track through the fur on the Varg’s leg.
    Dawn turned to the others. ‘Wait here. Don’t move. I won’t be long.’ She turned and ran down the river bank, past the Varg standing there, and vanished in the trees.
    ‘They’ll kill us now,’ Limpy whispered.
    ‘I don’t think so. Not yet. I’m hungry, anyway. I’m going to eat.’ Nick opened his pack and took out the dried goat’s meat the Birdfolk had given them. He was trying to keep their courage up. ‘I wonder if she’d like some.’ He walked up to the Varg and held out meat, but the animal only growled. Then it lay down and closed its eyes.
    ‘It’s losing a lot of blood, I think it’s dying.’ He bent and looked at the wound, but a growl, a bark of anger, came from one of the Varg down the river.
    ‘Come away, Nick.’
    He came back and sat with them. They ate, and drank water from the river. Shadows from the trees crept on the shingle and the face of Mount Nicholas turned pink. Nick looked at the Varg behind them. There were four, only twenty metres away, in a quarter circle, lying with their heads on their paws, like sheep dogs holding sheep. ‘You couldn’t get away from these things.’
    The river was in shadow when Dawn came back. She ran over the shingle and the Varg lifted their heads. ‘Susan,’ she said, panting, ‘come and help me.’ They went to the Varg and knelt beside her. ‘She’s very sick.’ The wound was bleeding steadily.
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘She was catching salmon at the river bar. Priests of Ferris came in a boat. They’re frightened of the Varg and hunt from the sea. They shot at her with cross-bows. One of the bolts struck her in the shoulder. She swam to the forest and escaped. Another Varg tore the bolt out with its teeth. But unless we stop the bleeding she will die.’
    She opened her pouch and took out some yellow fruit and a bundle of leaves.
    ‘I know these,’ Susan said. ‘Breeze used them for my rope burns when Odo Cling tied me up.’
    ‘I hope I have enough. There are not many growng this far south.’ Dawn split the fruit and laid the leaves inside. She left them for a moment, then opened them and took leaf skeletons out. ‘Give me the halves one by one.’ She squeezed juice in the wound.
    The Varg opened her eyes and lifted her head. She gave a grunt of pain as Dawn smeared juice on her fingers and worked it in the cut. ‘If I go deep enough the artery will heal.’
    ‘Have you told her?’
    ‘She knows.’
    The other Varg came close, herding Nick and Limpy. Dawn finished working on the wound. She went to the river and