Parkour rolls will only get you so far, and that meant Peter hit the tree fern on his shoulder like a rugby tackle. The fibrous trunk of the fern bent, then exploded, as it broke into pieces. Peter ended up face down in the spongey ground where tree ferns liked to grow.

He had just a moment to take a breath before foot hit the ground beside him, he rolled on his back, arms up ready to fight off a ravening beast but instead looked into the concerned eyes of Girl.

At least she seemed concerned to Peter’s addled wits. Girl placed another foreleg the other side of him and roared. Peter raised himself to a crouch and looked around. Five of the thraqanonkra beasts circled the huge predator.

‘Peter, where are you?’ called Tiz.

‘Under Girl. She’s protecting me. Where’s the back pack?’

‘It’s on the left. One of those things is sniffing at it.’

‘Why is it important? Why would you jump like that?’ said Walt.

‘It’s got more chocolate. But the important thing is the gun. We need it.’

Girl screamed and took a step towards the main group of thraqanonkra. Peter saw the back pack, it had rolled into a patch of ferns, hard to miss the red brown bag against the ferns. The vegetation shone green. And not the grey green of the beech forest, this glowed the green of the greenest grass. The most perfect lime green he could imagine. He took a breath of the peaty-musty air and eased himself forward.

We need that bag.

‘Girl. I’m going to move to the left.’ Peter said this without much hope she would understand, but it gave him some confidence. He sidestepped towards the bag until he bumped into Girl’s rear leg. With a big shove he got her to move her foot back and he stepped out from under her. Immediately a beast whipped around towards him, but Girl snarled and swung her great head towards it. The beast jumped away. Peter took the opportunity to dive at the bag, swing it up on one shoulder, and whirl to face the beasts. They stared at him unmoving and Peter had the strangest feeling they waited for his next move. For him to show weakness or doubt.

Girl lowered her head and grumbled at the thraqanonkra. They really did look a lot like the pirate’s four-legged friends. Red-Back had cared for the creatures, even if the manisaurs had been indifferent to them. But the creatures had been friendly enough to the pirate.

These thraqanonkra creatures had a more feral dangerous appearance, both in their lithe musculature, and the careful movement that showed them to be apex predators.

‘You’re very scary dudes.’ Peter eased himself towards Girl’s flank webbing. ‘Somehow the imp messed with your imprinting when he shot at you, right? That turned you from the blackbirders. Made you wild again. So what the heck are you going to do now? Why are you here at all’

Hungry…

‘Girl. You’ve just eaten. Don’t even think about eating any thraqanonkra, they’d be pretty nasty stringy things.’

Need…

‘And we want you eager to catch animal we could maybe eat.’

Help…

Peter stared. ’Couldn’t be.’

He swung into Girl’s flank webbing and the mount reared up to take him out of reach of the creatures. They now began to circle just out of swatting distance of Girl’s forelegs. They mewed and whined now, their tails low.

Girl dropped back to all fours, stretched her head out, and lowed.

‘What’s she doing?’ Jan said. ‘That sounded almost friendly.’

‘Yeah. You’re not wrong,’ Peter said.

Help… Need… Hungry…

‘Those sounds the creatures are making… they’re asking for help,’ said Peter. ‘I think. It’s almost like the first time I met Breeze.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Tiz.

‘Get Girl to fight them off,’ said Walt. ‘They’re super scary.’

‘No,’ said Jan. ‘Do they look like creatures about to attack?’

The thraqanonkra had formed up as a group and had dropped to their bellies. They whined again as they stared up at Peter.

Hungry… Need… Help…

Peter looked back at the group on the ground. ‘You’re right. They’re asking for help. They’re more intelligent that I had thought. Almost a language.’

‘What? You can understand them?’ Tiz said.

Peter looked in the bag. Only the chocolate and he didn’t want to give away the only food they had to creatures that moments before had been about to attack him.

‘Can’t give you chocolate. Some species find it poisonous. Dogs do. Besides, you’re not mammals. You’re not used to milk. No idea what it might do to you.’

The thraqanonkra began to circle and yip at him as if their aggression has reasserted.

‘That’s not good.’ Peter took hold of his protective niho taniwha pendent. The greenstone jade carving lay warm in his hand, he felt the beat of his pulse and calmed himself.

‘We’ve no food either beasties. If we had, I’d share it. But at the moment you’re as out of luck as we are.’

‘So we’re going to starve or get eaten by these creatures?’ said Tiz.

‘No,’ said Jan. ‘I think Girl’s going to help us all.’

Peter realized Jan was right when Girl lowered her head towards the thraqanonkra and warbled to them then cocked her head as if to watch them more closely.

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“Somehow Girl recognizes they’re not a threat,’ Peter said with wonder in his voice. ‘Not that they could do much to her, she’s so much bigger than they are.’

‘So what? They’re going to join us?’ said Walt.

‘I think so. It’s probably a bad idea but I don’t think we have much of a choice.’

They wound their way up the river. Sometimes on the edge, others Girl took to the water on all fours and bullied her way through the stream.

When they climbed above the river onto a bluff they saw the great continental river they had crossed and the wide plain that stretched away to the south where the cold lands extended towards the frigid tundra and snowbound mountains.

The river ran between white limestone cliffs. Many smaller streams fell down to join the main river from the steep sides hills that towered over the river. Once they came to a huge overhang that sheltered a space wide enough to host a couple of tennis courts, and high enough that the mount could not reach the top even when rearing up on her hind legs. Not that she tried. The mount kept up her pace, willing to carry them, but would not expend more energy than needed.

And all the while the thraqanonkra shadowed them. Sometimes in the river, or on the river bank. But always close by. Their yips and pleading voices never far. Though they had stopped asking to be fed and had begun to whine when they got forced too far away.

‘Needy creatures,’ Peter said.

‘Do you think they were always like this? Or just since your imp friend shot them?’

‘I don’t know. Every other time I’ve seen them all that wanted was to attack me. And et me I thought. I can’t remember hearing them saying anything to me either. Just that they scared the crap out of me.’

‘So they’ve gone from wolves to dogs?’

‘Yeah. Something like that.’

‘I don’t like them,’ said Walt as he twisted around to look back and up at Peter. ‘You shouldn’t encourage them. If we were on the ground instead of on Girl I reckon they’d attack. And me first.’

‘I never said I trusted them. And there’s nothing we can do to drive them off anyway. We’re stuck with them.’

‘You could shoot them.’ Walt’s voice went low and dangerous which made Peter smile.

‘Why are you so bloodthirsty all of a sudden?’

‘Thirsty I’m not. All this river water. But I’ve never been so hungry before.’

‘There’s more chocolate. Enough to keep us going over the pass. We’ll try to get over today, if Girl can keep up.’

‘She can always have a thraqa-monster as a snack,’ Tiz said.

‘Good idea. I’m almost hungry enough to eat one.’

‘I don’t think I could ever hurt one now I know they’re sapient. A creature that pleads with you for mercy? No way. I just couldn’t.’

‘Me neither,’ said Jan. ‘And I like it here. I think this is as close to paradise as I’ve ever been. The river, and the white cliffs. The trees are so incredibly lush and green. And the tree ferns look like they could be from home. Even the Nikau palms.’

Jan pointed to the top of a waterfall where a stream fell from a valley higher on the side of the mountain. A grove of palm trees competed for light where larger trees had been cleared, perhaps by a rockfall.

‘It’s crazy we’ve gone from snow clad mountains and plains, to tundra and now palm forests,’ said Tiz.

‘Still cold. Just not cold enough to kill the palm trees.’

Three hours later they climbed a bluff to get beyond a steep set of rapids that could almost be called a waterfall. They left the trees and forest then as they moved higher towards the pass. The only trees that remained this high up lay in the narrow gorge the mountain stream had cut in the rock of the mountain over the millennia. They crossed a wide undulating land covered with snow covered grassy tussock scattered with small tarns or lakes only a hundred meters across. Girl wound her way around the tarns without much guidance from Peter as he stared at the mountains where a gap in their ramparts had opened up. As Girl paced higher the patches of snow increased until only snowy piles showed where the larger tussock clumps lay. Ice rimmed the tarns but they remained free of snow so Girl could see where to place her feet.

Without an obvious sharp change the temperature gradually dropped several degrees and the wind increased, but since the sun still burned on their faces from a deep blue sky they remained warm in their thick Clan fur-feather clothing.

Once they left the trees and the river the thraqanonkra had crowded close, to pace Girl or to run ahead where they waited for her to catch up before they ran along the trail again.

‘There’s a trail,’ Peter said once he realized.’ We must be getting close to the pass.’

Girl moved more freely and stepped up her pace responding to his eagerness. He had not noticed when they had joined the trail it had just appeared beneath their feet as they intersected its wandering path from along a long ridge that led to the southern plains.

Walt shared out another piece of chocolate to everyone in celebration.

With all eyes on the approaching mountain saddle where the pass between the peaks would lay, no one saw the dark clouds that moved towards them from the south. Only when the wind increased and the sun fell victim to the mounting mass of storm clouds did Peter understand what he had done.

In too much of a rush to get over the mountain and the warm prosperous lands to the north he had forgotten his sailing coaches advice to keep a weather eye open.

‘Look to windward.’ Peter muttered. ‘I forgot to look to windward.’

Too late, the snow begun to swirl around them, the temperate dropped, and the wind whipped any warmth from their exposed faces.

Girl pulled up and turned her back to the wind. The thraqanonkra gathered close around now and Peter understood then.

They’ve been waiting for this. For when we have to get to the ground. And we have to now. It’s that or freeze on Girl’s back.

‘Either way. We’re screwed.’

Girl hunkered down against the wind before Peter could stop her. He had hunched his own shoulders against the wind and the imagined attack of the thraqanonkra.

Jan screamed. Peter turned in his saddle webbing. A thraqanonkra had jumped onto the mount’s haunch and now clambered towards them.

‘Peter.’ Walt squirmed against him as his voice wavered.

Another beast had jumped up Girl’s flank. The mount lowed long and slow, then turned her head, mouth open, and snapped at a thraqanonkra on the ground.

Peter grabbed Walt and swung him by the arm down the opposite side of Girl’s massive body, away from the thraqanonkra that prowled beside them. Tiz had already jumped. Jan scooted back until she rammed into Peter.

‘Get Girl to shake them off.’

‘Can’t. We’d just go flying too. Get on the ground. I’ll cover you.’ He pulled the imp’s gun from his back pack and lined up a shot at the nearest ravening beast. Though it still crept towards him on its belly. He looked to the one in front of him. It looked at him quizzically as if waiting.

Help… Cold… Hungry…

‘The trouble is beasties, now I know you have brains and can think, how do I know you’re telling the truth or lying?’

‘I’ll catch you Jan,’ said Tiz. And she slid down towards him like Girl’s flank had become a slide. Tiz stepped out of the way and let her land in a tussock.

‘You said you’d catch me.’

‘Shh.’ Peter lined up a shot on one of the beasts that now prowled around to face the three on the ground. A pop came from the gun, and the thraqanonkra fell to the ground without a sound. But the beast behind whined. Peter jumped and landed next to them with a roll on his shoulder. The pack hit the snow and pushed him to the side but little weight had ended up on it. The gun flew out of his hand.

Another thraqanonkra sniffed at the gun where it had landed, then picked it up in its mouth and walked towards Peter. Its eyes focussed on him as it grumbled, almost a whine, but more pleading or questioning. It dropped the gun at Peter’s feet then backed away.

‘Holy heck. Did you see that?’

The thraqanonkra sniffed at the fallen beast and pushed it with its nose. Suddenly fearful the fallen beast would soon be food for the others, Peter stood over it and kicked towards the other beast. It backed away.

Friend… Help… Cold…

‘Tiz. Take the gun,’ Peter said. ‘Aim it at any beast that comes close. But don’t shoot. Not unless you have to.’

‘No. Give it to me,’ said Jan. ‘I’m a better shot.’

‘You don’t have to aim. The gun somehow knows where to put the darts. Tiz? Be careful, watch them close. Jan, look after Walt.’

‘Why? What are you going to do?’

‘Get the saddle cloths off Girl.’

‘But the beasts are standing on it.’

‘Yeah. Like I said. Aim at any beast that gets close, to you, or to me. But we need those fur-feather cloths. We’ll freeze to death otherwise.’

I just hope one of those creatures does not decide to take my arm off as a down payment for a meal.