Free The Harvest Tide Project by Oisin McGann Page B

won’t, thanks. You don’t understand, Panch. These men have all been taken from their homes, so the soldiers know just where to find them again if they escape, but it’s not just that …’
    â€˜That’s enough games!’ the Convoy Commander bellowed . ‘Release the skacks and be done with it!’
    Hilspeth leaned past Groach, closed the door to the cage and snapped the padlock shut. He gaped at her and tried the door as if he could not believe what she had done. She took his hand in hers:
    â€˜Believe me, Panch. It’s for the best.’
    Forward-Batterer Wulms gave the soldiers some time to apply skack-repellent ointment to the bare areas of their skin, before taking a short, stout oak staff in one hand andunlocking the door of their van. The pure hate Taya had sensed, only minutes before, hissed and growled from within. Creatures, the like of which should only appear in nightmares, struggled with each other to get out. Wulms beat them back with the stick, screaming hysterically at them in a beast-like tongue.
    Skacks were predators about the size and weight of an adult man, but there the resemblance ended. Native to Guthoque, an area of Noran infamous for its dry, rocky, almost lifeless landscape, they had evolved to survive by being more savage than any other form of life. The area’s only feature of interest was its range of volcanoes, which regularly wiped out most of the animal life in their vicinity. From this unforgiving environment was born the skack. They were as quick and agile as cats, more intelligent than dogs and hardier than mountain goats. Their skin was purple and grey to camouflage them against the volcanic rock. Instead of eyes, useless in the poisonous gases of Guthoque, they had deeply ridged foreheads that could sense vibrations in the air, enabling them to find and identify their prey in daylight, fog or absolute darkness with equal ease. Short, blunt snouts carried heavy jaws, poisonous fangs and nostrils that could track better than a bloodhound.
    A skack’s legs were short, and had the extended shins of an animal born to run at speed. It had big, ropey arms at the ends of each of which hung a single, serrated claw, nearly the length of its shin. This would be tucked up while running , but could be unfolded for digging, climbing, or tearing its victims limb from limb.
    The Noranian nobles had captured and bred these creatures for hunting, only to find that even the best-trainedskacks ate everything they caught, leaving little to hang on a wall as a trophy. The breeding of the animals had been handed onto the army.
    Wulms loved his skacks. He loved their savagery; he loved the way the soldiers were scared of them (and therefore, of him) and he loved their simple language, having only about sixty words, most of which referred to prey, and how to catch and kill it. He batted them back, slamming his staff down on any head that poked though the doorway, and threw in a tuft of hair that he had pulled from the Myunan boy’s head. There was a moment’s silence as the skacks sniffed this. Then Wulms stepped out of their way. The vehicle bounced on its suspension as each creature leapt from it, bounded over the grass and disappeared off into the night towards the forest.

5 T HE N ATIVES OF G UTHOQUE
    Lorkrin ran as he had never run before, weaving between tree trunks and springing over brambles and ferns. He knew that this time, he and Taya had got themselves into a predicament that might well be the end of them. For the first time in his life, Lorkrin wondered if he was going to die. He did not know where his sister was, and he was terrified that she might already have been caught. His legs pumped hard and his heart pumped harder. His breath was coming in gasps, and he could just hear sounds of pursuit over the beat of his pulse in his ears. There were high screeches coming from the things that were chasing him, things he knew were not soldiers. At