Chapter
2
A young vixen and a young ferret, barely out of Dibbunhood, stood shivering in the frozen dead grass that frosted the hilltop. They clung to each other for warmth, the chill winds blowing straight through their thick woolen cloaks as though they were made of gauze. The pair was lost and alone. The Silverstar squirrel tribe that had cared for the duo since they had been found as babes whimpering in a shallow den at the edge of Mossflower Wood was far away, much farther than either of them could walk without collapsing from hunger or exhaustion.
The fox stamped her paw angrily, wincing as the tiny sharp ice crystals cut into it, leaving the brown grass speckled with blood.
"Sharno, I knew we should have stayed with Maiko, sacred blademark quest or not. Now we're going to freeze to death out here in the middle of nowhere, unless you can come up with one of your brilliant ideas."
The vixen, Keeva, firmly believed in Sharno's "brilliant ideas", more than Sharno himself did. But now, for the first time in his life, stranded on this desolate freezing hill, which was, truly, as Keeva had said, "in the middle of nowhere", no spark of genius came to Sharno.
He tried to quell the despair that began to fill him by thinking back to what had brought them to this stark place. When he and Keeva had heard that Maikolar was going on her blademark quest, they had begged to come along. Keeva had even forgotten that she was now a responsible member of the tribe and dropped into Dibbun slang, declaring, "We wan' an a'venture!" They had sat for hours discussing good reasons for coming along. Finally Maiko, being rather softhearted, had consented, on condition that Keeva and Sharno only came with her to the very edge of Mossflower. Then they were to go back a little ways until they met a squirrel who would be waiting to bring them back to the tribe. That was where things had gone wrong. Somehow, when they went back they had gone in the wrong direction and ended up here, in the freezing northern reaches of the Eastern Hills.
"We could follow our tracks back to Mossflower, then try to actually go east this time," Sharno suggested timidly. Keeva could get into a rage at anything when she was scared.
But apparently the numbing cold had extinguished Keeva's angry fire, because she only sighed and replied wearily, "That's not brilliant, it's obvious. The ground is too hard for us to have left any tracks. I suppose we'll just have to wait for a search party to find us, if we don't freeze or starve to death first."
Both creatures were sure search parties would be sent out when the two of them didn't return. If any tribe member went missing, most normal duties would be called off immediately to search for them. The tribe would continue searching determinedly until the missing one was found.
The two creatures snuggled closer together, their cloaks flapping in the wind like tattered flags on an ancient deserted battlefield. They were the only living things in leagues of a maze of snowy hills.
A young vixen and a young ferret, barely out of Dibbunhood, stood shivering in the frozen dead grass that frosted the hilltop. They clung to each other for warmth, the chill winds blowing straight through their thick woolen cloaks as though they were made of gauze. The pair was lost and alone. The Silverstar squirrel tribe that had cared for the duo since they had been found as babes whimpering in a shallow den at the edge of Mossflower Wood was far away, much farther than either of them could walk without collapsing from hunger or exhaustion.
The fox stamped her paw angrily, wincing as the tiny sharp ice crystals cut into it, leaving the brown grass speckled with blood.
"Sharno, I knew we should have stayed with Maiko, sacred blademark quest or not. Now we're going to freeze to death out here in the middle of nowhere, unless you can come up with one of your brilliant ideas."
The vixen, Keeva, firmly believed in Sharno's "brilliant ideas", more than Sharno himself did. But now, for the first time in his life, stranded on this desolate freezing hill, which was, truly, as Keeva had said, "in the middle of nowhere", no spark of genius came to Sharno.
He tried to quell the despair that began to fill him by thinking back to what had brought them to this stark place. When he and Keeva had heard that Maikolar was going on her blademark quest, they had begged to come along. Keeva had even forgotten that she was now a responsible member of the tribe and dropped into Dibbun slang, declaring, "We wan' an a'venture!" They had sat for hours discussing good reasons for coming along. Finally Maiko, being rather softhearted, had consented, on condition that Keeva and Sharno only came with her to the very edge of Mossflower. Then they were to go back a little ways until they met a squirrel who would be waiting to bring them back to the tribe. That was where things had gone wrong. Somehow, when they went back they had gone in the wrong direction and ended up here, in the freezing northern reaches of the Eastern Hills.
"We could follow our tracks back to Mossflower, then try to actually go east this time," Sharno suggested timidly. Keeva could get into a rage at anything when she was scared.
But apparently the numbing cold had extinguished Keeva's angry fire, because she only sighed and replied wearily, "That's not brilliant, it's obvious. The ground is too hard for us to have left any tracks. I suppose we'll just have to wait for a search party to find us, if we don't freeze or starve to death first."
Both creatures were sure search parties would be sent out when the two of them didn't return. If any tribe member went missing, most normal duties would be called off immediately to search for them. The tribe would continue searching determinedly until the missing one was found.
The two creatures snuggled closer together, their cloaks flapping in the wind like tattered flags on an ancient deserted battlefield. They were the only living things in leagues of a maze of snowy hills.
