*Oh, my dear,* says Sidney, scowling, *do try to keep up. She isn’t going anywhere, is she?*
Looking closer, I can see why. Her left welly has come off, and under a soggy woollen sock her ankle is rapidly swelling to the size of a football. I hoist her arm over my shoulder, and pull her up. She screams, but grabbing at roots I pull us up out of the ditch and — scooping the General into my pocket — we slither on to the road. I turn back to the cat.
*You have to walk now, Sidney, so I can help Polly.* That tail, whipping the air. *Come on, I know you can do it.*
She can just about, unsteadily, like she’s picking her way over broken glass rather than mud and leaves. I help Polly hobble round as quickly as we can.
*Quick march, soldier, quick march!* shouts the General.
I edge up against the rear of the van. The wheels are raised off the ground and still spinning crazily. There’s a stench of hot metal and a hammering coming from inside the driver’s cab, the sound of a crutch smashing at the van door, trapped shut by a fallen branch — over and over again.
But a fallen branch didn’t stop the van.
Standing just a metre away from the crumpled snout of the machine, his eyes glowing in the headlights, is the stag.
PART 4: WILDNESS
Chapter 22
I look up at the sky to spot some unmistakable grey shapes — and a white one — turning in the air above us.
*We never would,* says the stag, sniffing the air as I approach. *We would never leave you, Kester — not after what you promised.*
A promise.
Before I can reply, something knocks me over, something grey and shaggy. The wolf-cub sticks his muzzle in my face, pressing his claws down into my chest.
*We have rescued you, man-child! Not that you deserve it. Stag ran out from behind a tall-home and made the beast-hunter stop. He has proved he is the bravest and strongest stag in the whole world, so now you must come with us, this instant.*
Polly looks first at the stag, standing tall in the headlights, then at the huge flock of pigeons fluttering in the air and finally at the small wolf proudly guarding them all. ‘What is this, Kidnapper? Are these your friends?’
I just keep pushing her towards the deer. And then he says it, just like that, very simply –
Stopping me dead in my tracks.
*The she-child cannot come with us.* Then, firmer, *No more humans.*
I look at Polly. She’s still just taking in the size of him.
*We can’t leave her here — who knows what they’ll do? And she won’t let us take her cat without her —*
*That is not the concern of my wild. We only asked for your help, and only need your help alone.*
*But she helped me. I can’t leave her here. They’ve taken her parents.*
Polly is watching us both with an uncertain look on her face.
*Wildness,* barks the General, who has somehow found his way on to my shoulder, *I am proud to report that the mission to protect the boy in the human nest was a complete success. Valiantly, I, the noble cockroach, covertly accompanied the deserter — concealed in his skin of cloth — before descending and seeing off a thousand enemies with a single bite of my jaws. Then, carefully equipping the search party with essential supplies of rotten apple—*
*Do you have a point, Cockroach?* asks the stag.
The General coughs. *Of course! I can indeed confirm that the she-child cares for the infected cat — which she treats as her property — and did assist us by supplying a cure for the boy’s fever. She too is separated from the rest of her pack.*
The stag’s soft ears tremble beneath his horns, and the wolf-cub turns his head up at him.
*No, Stag — you can’t! Another human — and a she-child at that! She will only slow us down with her long hair and strange blue feet.* He looks at me. *And besides, she does not have the voice.*
*I will take the cat, but not the she-child,* says the stag. *The cub is right.*
*If you don’t mind terribly,* says the cat feebly, *my full name is Oh Sidney I Could Hug You Forever And You Are My Best Friend, Aren’t You?*
*Yeah, well, you’re just a cat again now,* says Wolf-Cub, sniffing her all over.
*Silence!* thunders the stag.
The cub sulkily backs away, and the deer kneels to let Sidney step on to his back.
Then, behind us, there is the sound of wrenching metal. I turn to see the cab door busted wide open and, sticking out of it, Captain Skuldiss’s crutch waving in the air. Followed by Captain Skuldiss himself, balancing on the edge of the upturned van. He levels the crutch at us.
‘Oh, hello? Hell-o-o?’ he says. ‘Excuse me, please, childrens? So sorry for interruptings, but where do you think you are going with so many dangerous and diseased animals?’
I look up at the stag.
*Please, Stag. She helped me. She will help us. She can talk to other humans.*
Before he can reply, Polly unhooks her arm from around my shoulder and hops over to the stag on her good foot. Reaching his mammoth belly, she just hugs him tight, like they were old friends.
I look at her. She’s small and hobbling, but she pointed a gun in my face at least five times yesterday.
I think we need someone like that.
I can see the deer close his eyes and sigh, but he doesn’t shake her off. So Polly grabs a clump of his fur and hauls herself up on to his back, gathering Sidney into her lap.
*Very well,* the stag mutters quietly, *but only until we are all out of danger from these men.*
My heart does a loop of joy and I start running towards him, but Skuldiss’s voice sings out across the road as I do. ‘I warned you, childrens!’
And then it happens so quickly — there’s a crack –
I turn to see smoke curling from the crutch –
The stag is reeling back –
The tallest tip of his horns shot clean off into the middle of the road. It lies there like a large tooth.
‘That was your so very nice and polite warning shot, childrens,’ says Captain Skuldiss. He fumbles in the pockets of his coat, bringing out a fistful of bullets that he slots neatly into the crutch handle.
*I cannot defeat the magic from that stick,* says the stag. He’s just been shot, but his only reaction is to sniff curiously at the gun smoke coiling in the air. If it hurt, he doesn’t show. *Come quickly, now!*
I take a running jump on to his back. Polly leans forward and puts her arms around my waist, trapping Sidney firmly between us. As we spin round there’s another loud bang and I feel something fly past my ear. The shot is a kick-start for the stag, and he leaps higher than he’s ever done into the air and over the tangled hedge bordering the other side of the road, the wolf-cub yapping at his heels.
We come down with a thump in a grassy field, the stag kicking up lumps of earth as he gallops across.
My thoughts swirl like the clouds above us. I said I would help these animals. I promised to help them. Now they’re being shot at and chased by men with guns — and it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have left them, I shouldn’t have agreed to bring Sidney and Polly — but it’s too late now.
The cullers are clambering over the hedge, Captain Skuldiss leading them. Even on his crutches he is faster than his men, as they stumble in the muddy hoof tracks we have torn up behind us.
‘Please, no waiting!’ He is shouting orders. ‘No waiting at any cost! The deer, the little dog-fox thing, the pussycat and the birdies, please, if you could and quick march about it — I am thanking you!’
Galloping through field after field, the stag jumps over untidy bushes and twisted wooden fences. Despite his size, the wolf-cub easily keeps up, not even out of breath. My knuckles are white with cold from holding on and I pull my scarf up over my face. I focus on the General scuttling back and forth over the stag’s horns, like the captain of a ship tossed about in a storm, barking commands –