As the day wore on they saw smoke from other burning homesteads rising into the deceptively calm, blue sky, and once they heard the sound of fighting coming from far away, somehow made more terrible by the fact that it was just barely audible in the still air. They heard snarls of rage and wild, bestial laughter. The clash of steel on steel and the shrill screams of children. Tak's father, after pausing to guess the direction from which it was coming, turned the wagon in the opposite direction and whipped the horses into a gallop.

     None of them said a word, but they carefully avoided each other's eyes as if afraid of seeing their own shame and guilt mirrored there. There was nothing they could do to help the stricken homesteaders and they all knew it, but it wasn't easy to just leave them to their fate. Mercifully, the thundering hooves of the horses drowned out the terrible sounds, and when Tak's father slowed them to a walk again they were too far away to hear it. By unspoken agreement, none of them spoke of the incident, although it was a long time before any of them could find the spirit to speak of anything at all.

     The yellow sun set and they spent another sleepless night in the wagon. The next day, though, the land began to change, the level ground beginning to rise and fall in wide, shallow ridges and valleys. Tak's father kept them in the valleys as long as he could, although it took them a little out of their way, and when he had to cross a ridge he whipped the horses into a gallop, cursing the need to expose themselves to every eye within a dozen miles.

     As they crested one ridge, the wheels bouncing with dangerous force on the uneven ground, Tak looked back the way they'd come and saw a group of tiny black specks on a hilltop far behind them. He mentioned this to his father, who cursed and took the steep way down into the next valley, almost overturning the wagon in the process. Then he leapt out and ran back up the ridge, dropping to his belly as he neared the top. He wriggled the rest of the way up, then spent some time watching what Tak had seen.

     "Shologs?" asked his wife when he returned.

     He nodded. "Following our trail. The forest's our only hope now. We may be able to lose them there."

     "Can we make it in time?"

     "We'll have to, but we can't afford the luxury of carrying all our worldly possessions with us any longer. From here on we leave behind all unnecessary weight."

     He unhitched the horses, his fingers flying across the buckles and straps. "Hurry up!" he cried, beckoning for his family to jump down, then helping his wife to climb up onto the horse's back. Laira sat behind her, and Tak sat behind his father on the other horse. Riding bareback and without reins was tricky and dangerous, and his father yelled at him to hold on tight as he kicked his horse into a gallop, looking over his shoulder to make sure his wife and daughter were keeping up.

     Without the wagon they were able to make good speed, and Tak's father kicked them to a full gallop, gambling that they would reach a place of safety before the horses collapsed from exhaustion. At around midday the land began to drop away as they left the high plateau on which the children had lived their whole lives. The land became rugged and uneven, forcing them to slow again or risk a horse going lame, an occurrence that would almost certainly mean the end of all their lives.

     They began to see the occasional stunted, windswept tree, which cheered them enormously, but just when they began to think they'd almost made it they topped a rise to see a wild, raging river ahead of them, the water roaring as it was broken into white foam by jumbles of jagged boulders. "We've come too far north," cried Tak's father grimly, turning his horse to follow the bank. "We've got to follow its curve around to the south. Drass! We didn't need this!"

     "How far out of our way are we?" asked his wife anxiously.

     "I don't know. Hopefully no more than a few miles. At least the ground's harder here. The snouts'll have a harder time following our trail."

     "How well do you know this area?"

     "Passed through this way a couple of times when I was with Harry's Hardnuts. There's some real rough country north of here. With a bit o' luck the snouts'll think we went that way."

     As the miles passed the river widened and slowed, although it was still too wide and deep to cross, and it turned until it was running eastwards. When it began to curve back towards the north they left it and struck out towards the forest again, which Tak's father insisted was now just over the next hill. Sure enough, as they topped the next ridge there it was, a line of darkness on the horizon, but when Tak's father returned from peeping back the way they'd come he leapt onto his horse and kicked it into a gallop, his wife riding close alongside him to hear what he said. "They're close behind us!" he gasped. "No more than a couple of miles and closing fast."

     They didn't spare the horses after that but kicked them to as much speed as they were capable until they were foaming at the mouth. Even Tak knew that they wouldn't be able to maintain that kind of speed once they were in the forest, though. They had to get as much of a lead on the shologs as they could before they were forced to slow down.

     The last few miles of open ground were flat and level, and they were all looking behind them for any sign of their pursuers as they sped across it. For most of the way they saw nothing, but as they were getting close to the trees they gave a collective gasp of horror as a line of tiny specks appeared at the top of the last ridge, then moved slowly down it. It was hard to get any real idea of their speed, but Tak had the idea they weren't running as fast as they could. They were trotting. Maintaining an easy gait rather than running full out. Tak was terrified. If they weren't in any hurry, that implied that they weren't afraid their prey might escape them. As far as the shologs were concerned, they were as good as in the cooking pot already.

     Then there were trees around them and Tak's father let the horses slow to a gentle canter, not wanting to risk one of them breaking a leg on a fallen log. Even so, though, Tak could feel the horse labouring with fatigue, could hear its gasping breath and feel the heat in its sweat soaked flanks, and he wondered how long it could go on. He'd heard that horses pushed beyond the limits of their endurance sometimes just dropped dead, although he had no idea if that was really true or not.

     His father was prepared to sacrifice them if necessary, though, and used his heels to kick them mercilessly to as much speed as they were capable of in the drifts of fallen leaves of the forest floor. They didn't head directly towards the centre of the forest, a direction the shologs might anticipate, but at an angle to the edge of the forest, changing direction as often as they dared. Even Tak could see that they were leaving a trail a blind man could follow, though. If they wanted to escape, they were going to have to leave the horses.

     They came to a place where a stream carved a channel through the hard brown soil and Tak's father brought the horses to a stop beside it. When his wife and daughter had also dismounted he smacked the horses' rears to send them off, then ordered his family into the stream. The shologs would, hopefully, continue following the horses, although a good tracker would be able to tell that they were now carrying less weight. The family, meanwhile, would leave no trail through the waist high water, but they all knew that it was an obvious ploy. A ploy that the shologs would soon see through. The advantage they had gained was that the shologs wouldn't know in which direction they'd gone or, if they were careful, where they left the stream.

     The water was icy cold and Tak was soon shivering in misery. He was following close behind his father, while Laira and his mother, hand in hand, brought up the rear. The forest was alive with birdsong and the rustlings of small animals, and the yellow sun sent shaft of golden light through gaps in the overhead canopy to illuminate carpets of merrymaids and bluebells. It was a beautiful place, the first forest Tak had ever seen. It was full of wonder and mystery, and he cursed his luck that he couldn't have come to this place under happier circumstances. It was a blasphemy that foul shologs should be allowed to desecrate such a wonderful place, that this place of peace and beauty should be witness to acts of savagery and brutality. It was nothing less than an affront to the Gods Themselves.

     A sound made his father freeze in place, and then he grabbed his son and pulled him to his knees so that they weren't visible above the three foot wall of hard earth that was the riverbank. Behind them, Laira and his mother also dropped to their knees. Tak's father grabbed his son's head in both hands; one on the back of his neck, the other clamped hard over his mouth. The noise turned out to be just a deer, though, and after waiting a few minutes more, just to make sure, they got back to their feet and carried on.

     They left the stream a few hundred yards further on, where a great old ceenar grew right on the riverbank, its thick roots standing in the water allowing them to climb out without leaving any telltale footprints in the soft earth. Tak had by then lost all sense of direction and so had no idea what direction his father was leading them, but the trees and undergrowth were dense all around them, hiding them from anyone more than thirty yards away.

     They crept through the forest, all of them alert for the smallest sound, obeying father's instructions to leave no sign that could be followed. They heard nothing but the natural sounds of the forest, though, and it was easy to imagine that they'd lost their pursuers, that the shologs had just given up and gone away. Could they have given up? wondered Tak with desperate hope. Could the danger be over? It would be wonderful if it were so, but something inside warned him that the danger still lay ahead.

     Their wet clothes clung uncomfortably to their bodies and Tak found himself shivering with cold. He wondered how they were going to spend the night. If they tried to sleep in wet clothes they'd be no good for anything the next morning, but they had nothing dry to change into. He found himself sinking into misery and self pity and made a conscious effort to cheer himself up. They were still alive and they were going to stay alive. One day they would look back on all this as a great adventure. The miserable bits would be forgotten, and their memories would all be of how exciting it had been. They'd amaze their friends and neighbours with the tale of how they'd weathered the great sholog incursion of '48 and their listeners would gasp aloud at their courage and bravery.

     He was so lost in his own thoughts that he lost all track of time, and so had no idea how far they'd gone when the gentle touch of his father's hand on his chest made him stop. They'd come to a hollow, almost completely surrounded by bramble and bracken, where a giant ceenar had fallen some years before. The thick tangle of dead roots formed a natural roof over a small earthen cave where the four of them might be able to huddle unseen unless bad luck brought the shologs right on top of them. His father carefully picked his way through the surrounding undergrowth to examine the hollow, and a moment later emerged to guide them all in.

     "If the Gods are with us, they should have lost our trail," he whispered. "They'd find us if they searched long and hard enough, but shologs are impatient creatures and if we can elude them long enough I think they'll give up and go away."

     There was just room for them all to squeeze in, huddled together among the roots, and the shared bodily warmth allowed them to get through the night in relative comfort. Tak was asleep long before darkness fell and he awoke only once before sunrise as his father's hand slipped quietly across his mouth again. He woke with a start and his father held onto him tightly, preventing any sound or motion that might have given away their position.

     No more than a dozen yards away, a dark shape was creeping furtively among the trees. A shape roughly the same size as a man but broader and more massive, with rounded shoulders and a head whose shape was all wrong. Tak saw a sloping forehead, massive brow ridges and what looked like tusks protruding from an outthrust lower jaw. The creature shuffled through the undergrowth, uttering snuffles and low grunts, and for a moment the four cowering humans thought it would just pass them by, but their hearts froze as it paused and turned in their direction, sniffing the air in great bubbling snuffles.

     Tak's father slid his hand slowly down to rest on the shaft of his spear, but in the confined space it was doubtful he'd have been able to make much use of it. Tak heard a whimper and turned his head to look into Laira's wide, frightened eyes, glowing in the moonlight. He took her cold, clammy hand in his and felt her squeezing it in terror. Go away, he thought, as if he could drive the creature away by willpower alone. Go away! For the love of the Gods, get out of here!

     Maybe the creature picked up the mental command because, with a snort, it turned and shuffled away, but the family remained tensed up in fear for several minutes longer until they were sure it was gone.

     "Was that a sholog?" whispered Tak when his father had removed his hand.

     His father just shushed him to silence and pulled his head down onto his chest, stroking his mud splattered hair, and within a few moments he was asleep again.