CHAPTER 28
Rafe & Belo § 4
“Wake up, Belo! Quick, quick!” Rafe shouted as he shook his friend roughly.
“What?” mumbled the high pitched voice from under the cover of Rafe’s jacket.
“We gotta get goin’. Come on. Fast, fast!”
“What time is it?” Belo asked as he yawned.
“Three hours to sundown. Quit sittin’ and get movin’. Climb up on my back.”
“But why?” complained Belo, but when he saw Rafe raise his nose and inhale he cried, “Oh, dear!” and scrambled up to the big guy’s shoulders. Rafe started running as soon as Belo got a grip.
“Breeze is from da south now. Caught a sniff,” Rafe said in explanation of his hurry.
“Do you smell te same ting behind us you did before?”
“Yeah. What the harr can it be?”
“How te hesss would I know?
“Da runhh scent got so loud it woke me up, Belo. How’d dat frurruffin thing catch up so fast?”
“Don’t know,” admitted Belo. He decided not to say anything else when he realized how fast Rafe was running. The big guy would need all of his breath to maintain this pace.
When the sun was almost down to the horizon, Rafe finally slowed. Like any lupun, he could keep trotting along for days, but he had been sprinting for three hours and even the big guy needed a moment to rest.
“Stop for a second and let me get off. I’ll fly now,” Belo said but when he hopped to the ground he started walking instead. “I want to talk for a minute first.”
“About . . . what?” Rafe asked with a gasping breath in between the words. Belo really did want to talk, but he also knew that getting his friend to slow down to a kiropteran’s walking pace would be a tactful way of letting Rafe catch his breath.
“About tat ting behind us. I’m tinking I should fly back and get a look at it.”
“Dangrrrrrus,” replied Rafe. Belo knew he meant dangerous.
“I’m not going to get close to it, just fly overhead. Te sun’s far enough down tat I won’t get sunburned. Te more we know about it te better.”
“Ya got to be amazin’ careful. Ya hear?”
“I promise I will,” Belo assured him. “How far away is it?”
“Can’t tell for sure. Depends on how big it is. If it’s little then it’s real close but I don’t think it’s little.”
“Hmm. Well, wish me luck. Keep moving nortt and I’ll catch up to you when I get back.”
“Good idea.”
Rafe covered a lot of distance – he was well into the Veridis Hills by this point – and was beginning to worry when he finally heard Belo’s eek-eek-eeks above him. The lupun had been around kiropterans all his life and recognized the panic in his friend’s signals. As Rafe stepped out from under the branches of a tree to wave and shout to Belo, the big guy also caught a whiff of singed skin. Belo descended quickly and nearly collapsed when he reached the ground.
“What happened?” Rafe cried.
“Te eeessin ting shot someting at me and ten spit fire!”
“What’ya mean?”
“When I got close, I heard a bang noise and someting whistled trough te air close to me. Someting like a crossbow bolt but going so fast I couldn’t see it. Ten tis ball of flame belched out at me.”
“You burnt bad?”
“Not so bad I can’t fly but I’ve got some blisters.”
“And no eyebrows,” said Rafe. “Get up on my back again. I’m goin’ to run now.”
“Tank you,” Belo said as he climbed up. “I’m really not hurt badly but I’m shaking like a leaf.”
“Well, what was it? What kinda nasty-nasty somethin’ did you see?” Rafe demanded as he started moving. “What, what, what?”
“I don’t know where to begin. It’s big, Rafe, and I mean huge! Twice as tall as you and tree times as long. Looks kind of like a giant spider except it’s got six legs instead of eight,” said Belo, who was a stickler for details. “Te body sits up high because te legs are so long. It walked on four of te legs and waived te otter two around. Tose two in front have claws. Not regular claws but some kind of pincher-tings, like scissor blades maybe.”
“Strange, strange, strange,” mumbled Rafe.
“Even stranger tan I’ve said so far. Rafe, te whole ting is covered in metal! Not hide, not fur, not even a shell like a turtle. Just hard metal.”
“Must be wearin’ some kinda metal suit.”
“Maybe, but I tink te metal was really its skin.”
“Metal skin and not just a suit? Uurrrrgh. How can dat be?” The growl wasn’t actually part of the question, just Rafe verbalizing his concern.
“I don’t know but I remembered what you said tat first time you smelled it. Half animal smell and half man-stink was how you described it.”
“And somethin’ metallic I said. I did, I did.”
“Yes, and you were right about everyting.”
“Course I was. Why’d ya have to say I’m right when I’m always right?”
“Yes, I know you are. I was just making an observation,” Belo replied. “Rafe, te worst smell of all came when it spewed out tat ball of flame. Even I could tell it wasn’t a natural smell. Notting at all like burning wood.”
“Yeah, I know,” Rafe said as he sniffed. “Breeze’s been catchin’ up from behind while you’re talkin’ so I smell what ya mean. Real obb-nocks-sshuss.”
“Yes, obnoxious is definitely te right word. Maybe I should fly ahead and scout a bit since te wind’s on our backs. What do you tink?”
“Don’t worry ’bout it. It’s gonna shift in a minute so I can sniff what’s in front.”
“Good. I really could use anotter minute to compose myself before flying.” Belo had no reason to question his friend’s judgment about a coming change in wind direction. All lupuns were good at interpreting subtle clues about weather and Rafe was a grand master among his kind. Soon enough, the wind was in Rafe’s face as he carried Belo along. When the big guy stopped, the little one tensed.
“What is it? Why did you stop?” Belo asked.
“Hu-mens in front of us. Four of ’em. Two man-guys and two man-ladies, and four of their beasties. You know, them wagon-pullers,” Rafe explained. He took a deep breath and continued, “One of da guys is pretty big but da other’n ain’t, and there’s an old man-lady and a young one. Belo, da young one must be somethin’ special. I ain’t ever sniffed a hu-man that smelt just like her.”
“Hmmm. Did you say four of tose animals tey call waybeasts?”
“Yeah,” Rafe replied, and both of their stomachs growled in unison. They had not eaten since the night before. “Don’t you worry, Belo. I ain’t stealin’ a beastie from hu-mens. Wouldn’t be nice at all.”
“I know,” his friend sighed. “But we still have to decide what to do.” They remained silent for a full minute as they contemplated.
“If we snuck around ’em, we’d get past without them knowin’ we was here,” said Rafe.
“Yes, we could. But you know what tat would mean.”
“Yeah, dat thing followin’ us would run all over ’em.”
“Yes, it would,” Belo agreed. “Which would give us time to get away.”
“But we ain’t goin’ to do dat. We’re goin’ to go warn the hu-mens, ain’t we?”
“It’s te only nice ting to do.”
“Well, runhh it all to harr,” Rafe grumbled. “Why does bein’ the nice guys always cause us so much trouble?”