buckled, but before he could fall the man punched him again, a hard jab in the ribs, sending the boy tumbling backward. Peter hit the ground in a heap and everything went blurry.
“
Peter tried to suck in a breath but his mouth was full of something wet and warm. He coughed violently, spraying the ground with his own blood. The side of his face had gone numb. Through tears and blood he saw a blurry figure moving toward him.
“I got it!” the youth cried.
Peter cleared his eyes in time to see the youth coming at him with the pitchfork. Dizzy, and slow, Peter made it to his feet.
The youth jabbed him. Peter tried to twist out of the way, but the prongs raked across his side, leaving behind three flesh-deep gashes.
The bald man made a grab. Peter ducked and ran, stumbling at first, but once he got his feet under him, ran, ran like the wind into the forest.
Once within the trees, he collapsed to his knees, clutching his side, his face clenched tight with pain. He let out a loud, hitching sob, then spat repeatedly, trying to clear his mouth of blood.
They were yelling and pointing at him from the field. Several more men and women had come around the stable. They weren’t following him, just standing and pointing excitedly into the woods. He could see their faces, could see the revulsion, the fear…the
Other men came up then. Men with thick, braided beards carrying great, long swords. Peter ran.
PETER’S LUNGS BURNED. He’d been running most of the day and still he dared not stop. He glanced back, eyes wide with terror. He could hear them, their dogs, and the hard clumps of the horses’ hooves. They were closing in.
Peter spotted Goll’s hill far ahead through a break in the trees, and the horrible realization that there was no safety there, that there was no safety anywhere, hit him. Goll couldn’t stop these huge men with their terrible swords and axes. The men would kill Goll. Peter cut down a new path, headed toward the cliffs, leading the men away from Goll’s hill, hoping the horses at least wouldn’t be able to follow him up the steep ledges.
Peter made the cliffs and stopped, listening for the men as he tried to catch his breath. He didn’t hear them. A touch of hope lifted Peter’s spirits. Maybe they’d given up. Maybe he wouldn’t die today after all. Then he saw the smoke and his chest tightened.
Peter ran, ignoring the stabbing pain in his side, the throbbing in his head as he sprinted as fast as he could back to Goll’s hill. He topped the rise and froze.
Smoke billowed out from Goll’s burrow and there, dangling from the great oak, hung Goll. The rope was strapped about his chest, pinning his arms to his side, his feet twitched only inches above the ground. The huge men surrounded him, some on horses, some on foot, all with swords and axes in hand.
The moss man was charred and smoke drifted from his red, raw skin. He had no less than a dozen arrows in him, and yet still he kicked and spat. The dogs bit at him, tearing open the flesh on his legs as the men brayed with laughter.
Peter’s knees gave way and he stumbled against a fallen tree, his fingers digging into the rotting bark as he slid to the ground. He wanted to stop them, do anything to stop them, but couldn’t move, couldn’t do more than stare on in utter horror.
A huge fellow with a thick black beard and long knife walked up to Goll.
Goll stared at the blade with wide, terrified eyes.
The bearded man grabbed Goll by the hair and jerked his head back. He first cut off Goll’s left ear, then the right. As the moss man struggled, the men laughed and the dogs ran around in tight circles, howling.
The man jabbed the blade into the moss man’s stomach. Goll screamed and twitched spastically as the man sawed his gullet open. The man slid the blade into a loop of intestine and pulled it partially out of the wound, then whistled to the dogs. The dogs snatched the loop and pulled Goll’s intestines out onto the dirt in wet, rolling coils, tugging and fighting over them as the moss man wailed.
Peter watched, stone-faced, unable to move or cry, to hardly even blink. He watched. He missed nothing.
After too long, much too long, Goll stopped wailing, his head sagged forward, and he was still.
WHEN THE MEN left, Peter stood and walked down the hill. He didn’t cry, he didn’t feel the cuts in his side, the gash across his head, not even the ground beneath his feet. He did not feel. He moved slowly, methodically.
He found Goll’s bone-handled knife and cut the moss man down. To Peter’s surprise, Goll opened his eyes.
“Be brave, Peterbird,” Goll rasped. “Kill the wolf.” And that was it. The moss man’s eyes glazed over.
Peter slipped Goll’s knife into his belt, gathered up his spears, and headed north, away from the village. He had no clear thought of where he
was going, only that he was going away from the village, away from the men.
It wasn’t long before Peter heard the wolf trailing him. Peter stopped in a clearing, turned, and waited. The one-eared wolf appeared. Its lips curled up like it was laughing at the boy, like it knew it had him.
Peter didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate. He dropped the light spear and hefted the stout one to shoulder level. He slipped the bone-handled knife into his other hand, locked eyes with the wolf, and came at the beast in a dead run.
The wolf looked confused.
Peter’s eyes flared and he let loose a terrible howl.
The wolf fell back.
Peter threw the spear.
The wolf hunkered to avoid the spear, and when it did, Peter leaped forward and drove Goll’s knife deep into its side.
The wolf let out a yelp and took off, but after only a few strides it began to weave and stagger, its hindquarters collapsing, its breath coming out in a harsh, wet wheeze.
Peter snatched up his spear and followed the wolf.
The wolf stopped, unable to do anything but stand and watch the boy coming to kill it, panting as blood dripped from its lips.
Peter’s eyes were hard, without hate nor pity, the eyes of a predator. He thrust the spear into the wolf’s heart. The wolf thrashed, twitched, then lay still.
Peter stared at the wolf for a long time. His eyes began to well. A single tear ran down his bruised, swollen cheek, then another, and another. Peter fell to his knees before the wolf and began to sob. The tears were for Goll, but they were also for himself, a six-year-old boy without a mother, or a friend, scared, hated, and with nowhere to go.
A SCREAM SNATCHED the child thief from his thoughts.
One of the little kids, a boy, lay on the ground in front of the monkey bars. Two older boys stood over him laughing, not teenagers, just bigger boys, maybe eleven or twelve.
The small boy climbed back to his feet and tried to wipe the mud from the front of his T-shirt. Two chubby girls of about seven or eight ran up and stood on either side of him, braids sprouting from their heads.
“Leave him alone,” one of the girls said. She jutted out her chin and planted her hands firmly on her hips. Her friend followed suit.
The handful of children in the playground stopped playing and began to gather around.
“You want me to kick your ass too?” the big boy said and shoved the girl, knocking her to her knees. His pal chuckled.
“Don’t you push her!” the little boy shouted, his muddy hands balled into fists, his face full of fear and hate. Peter shook his head, knowing that soon this little boy would be just as mean as these bigger kids, because meanness had an ugly way of spreading.
“What you gonna do about it?”
