He was panting from fear and uncertainty. He knew he had to get away but he couldn’t out run a helicopter to say nothing of out running a bullet. He got up and moved from tree-to-tree trying to get an idea of what was happening around him. His worst fears were realized as he heard men yelling at each other over the din of the rotor blades. They were closer than he realized and he almost gave up hope.
Just when he was ready to make a break for it the she-wolf returned to his side. She rammed her head into his leg and the slight pain was enough to clear his mind from the paralyzing fear that had gripped him. The wolf moved off into the forest moving along the tree’s shadows and moving away from the briar patch. He followed her and aided by the helicopters flood lights they were able to move at almost full speed through the night.
His ankle didn’t bother him at all, and he was soon moving at the speeds that they had traveled yesterday. His heightened sense of awareness kept the hairs on the back of his neck raised and he was sure that any second a shot would ring out and he would fall to the ground, pierced by a sniper shot.
He wasn’t stupid enough to lower his guard, or slow down. With the helicopter falling farther behind them, he started to get a feeling of where they were going. He couldn’t be sure in the deep darkness of night, but he felt like they were running southward the way they had come the previous day. The wolf might be following the trail they made yesterday. If these people followed their trail to the briar patch, they would almost certainly follow them back here and hopefully they would be stuck in the endless loop that his guide was leaving for them. He marveled at the shear intelligence of this wolf. He might have been able to think about doing something like that eventually but the fear and the panic that had gripped him so completely had blinded him. He would have run aimlessly till he was caught.
Just when he was about to breathe a sigh of relief at their escape, he heard a sharp cry pierce the relative quiet out here away from that devil machine. It was a blood thirsty howl, but it hadn’t come from any wolf. His mind reached back to when he had run with his pack. The howl hadn’t come from any coyote either. That howl had come from a dog. He thought about how long it would take for those guys to find them.
The dog’s howl split the night sky and he added more speed as he ran after his guide. He may not be able to run from them forever, but he wasn’t going to just give up because of a dog either. He was a werewolf, King of the Forest, alpha to his pack and he would never surrender to anything, especially not to those who would hunt him down like a dog in his home.
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He poured more and more speed into his legs. Wherever the she-wolf was leading him he hoped that she had accounted for the possibility of being tracked by other animals. He had lost faith in her once and she had saved him time and time again, he would not lose faith in her twice.
They continued to run and he became more and more convinced that they were in fact moving south. The sound of the helicopter had faded but not disappeared. It must be following us. But it wasn’t traveling at even a tenth of its potential. It was possible that the helicopter was moving just ahead of the ground units using its flood light as a screen for the actual hunting party.
They continued to put distance between themselves and the sound of the helicopter. They heard the howl once more but it was much farther off then it had been before. He allowed his mind to wonder where the she-wolf was taking them. They were backtracking where they had traveled yesterday, of that much he was fairly certain but where were they going?
His eyes widened in surprise as his mind caught on the answer. The creek. Of course, the she-wolf was leading him back to the creek that they had stopped at to wash after their breakfast yesterday. The dogs wouldn’t be able to track them through the water. The creek would be deep enough to hide their scent but shallow enough for them to run in for a while. With the speed that they were capable of it would take these guys several days to pick up the scent again if the creek ran for any distance.
They ran for a long while, a lot longer than he remembered running yesterday. The sound of the helicopter was almost gone from the night air, but he didn’t allow himself to slow down. His guide kept pace with him, but she wasn’t slowing down either, her lead was pushing him to maintain their current break neck speed.
After some time, they reached the creek. He could see the moonlight being reflected off the water’s surface. He didn’t have time to admire his mother though. The wolf splashed into the creek and slowing only a fraction, she ran upstream toward the east. He crashed into the water behind her and followed her along the creek bed.
The bottom of the creek was mostly sand, and his toes squished into it as he ran. He slowed down as he had to work harder just to pick his feet up and out of the grasping sand and the surrounding water that came up to just below his knees. The wolf was still running but her speed had slowed as well. They had put a good deal of distance between them and the pursing men and dogs, but that distance would shrink very quickly if they couldn’t get some of their speed back. Unfortunately, they had to stay in the water otherwise their escape would be tracked by those dogs and everything they had worked for so far tonight would be for nothing.