Dreams and Shadows - By C. Robert Cargill Page 0,59
“We’re not going.”
“You don’t have to come with us,” said Ewan.
“Yeah,” Colby agreed. “We didn’t invite you anyway.”
Mallaidh huffed, shooting the boys an icy stare. What do you mean you didn’t invite me anyway? Both boys took one noticeable step back. Ewan had never seen the intimidating Mallaidh before; it was clear she was not to be trifled with.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “We won’t go to the Great Stage.”
“Then what do we do now?” asked Colby.
“Now we find something else to do,” said Mallaidh. “Do you know any people games?”
“Duh! Of course I know people games,” said Colby, rolling his eyes. Stupid girls.
“Oooh! What can you teach us?” asked Ewan.
Colby shrugged. “Do you know how to play tag?”
“What’s tag?” asked Mallaidh and Ewan in unison.
“Jinx!” shouted Colby. Both children stared at him, dumbfounded.
“I don’t get it,” said Mallaidh.
Colby looked at her as if she was speaking Russian. “Get what?”
“You just shout jinx?” she asked.
“Nooooo!” said Colby with mock exasperation. “You said the same thing at the same time and I was the first person to say jinx, so you owe me a Coke.”
“That’s a stupid game,” said Mallaidh. “Why’s it called tag?”
“That’s not tag!”
“Well, what’s tag?” she asked.
“Tag is where I touch one of you.” He walked over to Ewan and tapped him on his shoulder “And say ‘you’re it’ and then you’re it.”
“What’s it?” asked Ewan.
“It is the person who has to tag someone else.”
“So we just stand here touching each other?” asked Mallaidh, not sure where the fun in this game was.
“No, you’re supposed to run and chase each other. You’re not supposed to make it easy to get caught.”
“Oooooooooh!” said both Ewan and Mallaidh together.
“Jinx!” said Colby.
“I don’t understand that game,” said Ewan.
“Neither do I,” said Mallaidh.
“All right,” nodded Colby, “one game at a time.” He pointed to Ewan. “You’re it.”
Colby took off running. Ewan looked at Mallaidh and straightaway made for her. Mallaidh arched her back to dodge Ewan’s incoming hand—his swiping paw passing inches above her shoulder—and then she too took off running into the night. Ewan smiled; he liked this game. He knew that Mallaidh knew the woods quite well and that over uneven ground he had an advantage over Colby, so he scanned the ground for tracks, discovering the direction in which Colby’d run.
“Uuuuhn!” came Colby’s voice through the dark, followed immediately by a thud and the scuffing of a sliding body on soil. He’d tripped, most likely over the loop of a tree root or a dug-in chunk of limestone. This game was too easy, thought Ewan.
But as he rounded a tree, to where Colby should have been scrambling to his feet, he instead saw him sprawled out on his back. Knocks sat squarely on his chest with a large piece of stone held aloft in both hands over his own head—ready to crush Colby’s skull in a single swing. Ewan—with only a second to react—charged Knocks with a flying tackle to the side of his head. Already unbalanced by the rock, the rush sent Knocks reeling into the dirt. Ewan grabbed Colby by the arm, helping him to his feet. “Come on,” he said forcefully. “We need to go!”
Then, a soft grumble came from the dark of the woods, a guttural growl that started out low, then became a bestial bellow that sounded the arrival of the redcaps. First there came glowing eyes in the dark, like embers flickering up from a dying flame; then shadows; then the glint of metal in the moonlight; then chaos. Shrieking redcaps stormed out of the woods, their pikes held high and their slobbering mouths gaping wide.
The hunt was on.
The children ran.
“Craaaaaaap!” yelled Colby, his little legs carrying him as fast as they could.
“Redcaps!” yelled Ewan. “Mallaidh!”
ELSEWHERE, YASHAR AND Dithers stumbled back to camp together, both a little heady from a few too many bottles of wine. Dithers strummed his lute, drunk enough that singing seemed more than appropriate, but not so inebriated as to hamper his skill. Yashar smiled, remembering for the first time in decades why he used to spend so much time with the fairies. The fire was warm, the company warmer, and the night was becoming a blur of fuzzy cartwheeling stars.
But as they walked up to Dithers’s cave, two things sobered them instantly. First, the boys were no longer asleep in their beds—nor anywhere to be seen, for that matter. Second, Coyote sat cross-legged between where the two boys should be, worry painted convincingly on his face.