In the Panther's Wake

Chapter 26

The panther appears from time to time, always far ahead, glimpsed through trees, beyond the soldiers. They stay on course; by chance, or maybe they know, maybe they too are following its steps.

Noon passes and I begin to feel weak again, my mouth bone dry. Markus looks weaker than ever, the whites of his eyes are yellower than usual, even against his painted face. Those terrible thoughts return to me again: the sickness, the poison, his wounds.

"Can you keep going?" I ask in a whisper.

He nods but doesn't say a word. The soldiers remain about a hundred metres ahead. Every once in a while they turn back, but only for a second, perhaps to be sure they have escaped Farkas' wolf pack. We keep close to the trees, using them for balance as much as concealment. We move tree to tree, I count my steps between each trunk; eleven, ten, eleven.

After a while the distance between them grows larger. The forest is growing thinner. I tell Markus and he seems unsure. But I continue to count; eighteen, seventeen, twenty. I can see a sheet of light ahead, and the panther flashes between the branches for the last time before disappearing into the brightness. And soon the soldiers are there too, breaking out into the open, the forest's edge.

"We made it," I whisper to Markus,

"Not yet, little brother."

We move forwards carefully, approaching the last few trees staying low to the ground. The soldiers have stopped just beyond the final row, a great plain beyond them, turning into hot yellow sands in the distance—a desert.

Markus and I lie by the roots of a large trunk just inside the tree line. The soldiers sit, take off their masks and lean back against some rocks. The sky is smoggy but silver in the deep afternoon light that burns from the other side of the forest, casting pale thin shadows over charred bushes dotted across the plain. The fire that once raged here looks as if it spread far beyond the forest's edge, all the way to the desert beyond. The black earth stretches on for miles.

"It's like being by a volcano," Markus says.

"It looks dead, like hell," I whisper.

"At least we're out of the forest."

"How do we get past them?" I ask.

"We could move down the tree line, and come out further along."

I shake my head. "No, they'll be out there. They made it past Farkas, we have to stop them. Something tells me soldiers don't usually come this far. This isn't their land."

"Because who would want to come here?"

I stare out at the bleak path ahead of us. Like tar it sits, the spiked shapes of burned out brush strewn all over the flat.

"I don't want to run away, not this time."

Markus looks at me, sees the menace in my eyes. He nods, "Ok, we'll wait till night. Then we'll cut them down, for everything they've put us through."

"For mother and father," I say.

"For us."

Markus and I stare fiercely at one another for a moment, then settle down into the forest floor; watching, waiting for the darkness, our old friend. In its gloom we'll be shadows. We'll take everything they have. Then we'll kill them.

**

The two of them soon settle down, coughing in the evening air. Markus and I watch silently, lying on our stomachs behind the final row of trees. The land blurs into the smog on the horizon and before it nothing moves, nothing climbs towards the sky. The total silence feels heavy and sad. The soldiers barely say anything to each other, the occasional low mumble rolls towards us but we can't make out the words. The sun finally disappears behind us, somewhere to the west beyond the city from where our journey began.