Serafina and the Twisted Staff. Robert Beatty

he ordered his dogs, his voice low and sinister. There was something about the stranger’s rugged face and beard, his rustic clothing and the way he said his words that made her think he was an Appalachian man, born and raised in the rocky ravines and thorny coves of these very mountains.

      The first wolfhound pushed its muzzle into the folds of the dark cloth. When it drew its nose out again, its mouth gaped open. Its teeth were bared and chattering, dripping with saliva. The dog began to growl. Then the second dog and the third nosed the dark cloth, until all five had taken the scent. The wicked, snarling malevolence of the hounds stabbed her stomach with fear. Her only hope was that the trail of the cloth’s scent would take them in the opposite direction.

      The man looked down at his pack of hounds. ‘Our quarry is near,’ he told them, his voice filled with menacing command. ‘Follow the scent! Find the Black One!’

      Suddenly, the dogs howled, savage like wolves. All five of them burst from their haunches and lunged into the forest. Serafina jumped despite herself. Her legs wanted to run so bad that she could barely keep herself still. But she had to stay hidden. It was her only chance of survival. But to her horror, the hounds were running straight towards her.

      She couldn’t understand it. Should she keep hiding? Should she fight? Should she run? The dogs were going to tear her to pieces.

      Just when she knew she had to run, she realised it was too late. She didn’t have a chance. Her chest seized. Her legs locked. She froze in terror.

       No! No! No! Don’t do it! You’re not a rat! You’re not a chipmunk! You’ve got to move!

      Faced with certain death, she did what any sensible creature of the forest would do: she leapt ten feet straight up into a tree. She landed on a branch, then scurried along its length and hurled herself like a flying squirrel in a desperate leap to the next tree. From there, she bounded to the ground and ran like the dickens.

      With howls of outrage, the hounds gave chase, running and snapping at her. They coursed her like a pack of wolves on a deer. But they were wolfhounds, so they weren’t born and bred to chase down and kill anything as small as a deer. They were born and bred to chase down and kill wolves.

      As she ran, Serafina glanced back over her shoulder towards the road. The craggy-faced man looked up at the owl as the haunting creature came circling back round. Then, to Serafina’s astonishment, he threw his walking stick up into the sky. It tumbled end over end towards the owl. But it did not strike the bird. It seemed to blur and then disappear into the darkness, just as the owl flew into the cover of the trees. Serafina had no idea who the man was or what she had seen, but it didn’t matter now. She had to run for her life.

      Fighting off a single jumping, biting, snapping, snarling wolfhound was bad enough, but fighting five was impossible. She sprinted through the forest as fast as she could, her muscles punched with the power of fear. She wasn’t going to let these growling beasts defeat her. The cold forest air shot into her pumping lungs, every sense in her body exploding with a lightning bolt of panic. Coming up behind her, the first hound reached out its ragged neck, opened its toothy maw and bit the back of her leg. She spun and struck the dog, screaming in anger and searing pain as the dog’s fangs punctured her flesh. The smell of the blood excited the other hounds into even more of a frenzy. The second dog leapt upon her and bit her shoulder, tearing into her with growling determination as she slammed her fist into its face. The third clamped its teeth onto her wrist as she tried to pull it away. The three of them pulled her down and dragged her across the ground. Then the other two dogs came in for the kill, their fangs bared as they lunged straight for her throat.

      

      As the wolfhound charged in, Serafina threw her arm across her neck. Instead of tearing through her throat, the dog’s fangs chomped down on her forearm, shooting spikes of pain through her bone as she screamed. The second dog pressed in for the killing bite, but a fist-sized stone slammed into its head, knocking it back. Then another stone hit one of the other dogs, and it whirled to defend itself.

      ‘Haaaa!’ came a violent shout out of the darkness as a boy with long, wild hair leapt into the fray, striking and punching and clawing, flailing his arms in a spinning, growling attack.

      Fierce with pain, Serafina slammed the heel of her hand into the nose of the dog clamped onto her arm, pushing the dog away.

      ‘Get up! Stay bold! Run!’ the boy shouted at her as he attacked two of the dogs and cleared the way for her.

      Serafina scrambled up onto her feet, ready to flee. But just when she thought she and the boy were gaining the advantage and might actually be able to escape, one of the dogs came leaping out of darkness, slammed into the boy’s chest and knocked him off his feet. The boy and the dog rolled to the ground in a somersault of snarling, biting ferocity.

      The next dog lunged at Serafina. She dodged it, but another dog came at her from the other side.

      ‘You can’t outrun these things for long,’ the boy shouted. ‘You’ve got to get to cover!’

      She dodged a lunging bite, and then a second and a third, but the snapping mouths kept coming at her. She slammed a dog in the head and punched one in the shoulder, but the dogs just kept biting, biting, biting.

      She ran backwards, defending herself from the incoming bites, but then she crashed into a face of sheer rock wall, and could retreat no further. She crouched into an attack position, hissing like an animal caught in a trap.

      Just as a dog leapt at her, the boy tackled it to the ground.

      ‘Now!’ he shouted. ‘Climb!’

      Serafina turned and tried to scramble up the craggy rock face, but the rock was dripping with water and too slippery to climb. Emboldened by her attempt to escape, two of the dogs immediately charged. She kicked their heads away repeatedly with her feet. She swatted and punched with her fists.

      ‘Don’t fight, you fool! Climb!’ the boy shouted. ‘You’ve got to run!’

      Just as she turned to climb, another dog lunged at her, but the boy leapt onto its back, biting and scratching like a wild animal. The hound howled in vicious indignation and twisted around, snapping furiously at the boy. They went tumbling onto the ground in a fierce ball of battle. Two more dogs dived fang-first into the melee.

      Seeing her chance, she jumped up and grabbed the branch of a rhododendron, then hoisted herself up the face of the rock. She quickly found a foothold and another branch. Using the rhododendron bushes as a ladder, she climbed as fast as she could up the cliff. Try that, you handless mutts!

      When she had climbed out of reach of the dogs, she looked back. Two of them ran back and forth at the base of the cliff, growling as they tried to find a way up. The braver and stupider of the two tried repeatedly to run up the sheer wall, only to fall back down again.

      ‘Go on back to your master, you nasty dogs!’ she spat at them, remembering the dark and shadowy figure.

      But as she looked out across the woods it wasn’t their master she was looking for. She couldn’t see the other three dogs or the boy. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been consumed in a terrible battle. She hadn’t been able to tell who was winning and who was losing, but it seemed impossible that he could fight off all three of them at once.

      She waited and listened out into the forest, but there was nothing. The two dogs that had been on her had disappeared. They were running along the base of the cliff. Those mongrels are looking for another way up, she thought.

      She had to keep moving before it was too late. She climbed another fifteen feet until she reached the top edge of the cliff.

      Panting and exhausted, and bleeding from her head, arms and calves, she crumpled to the ground. She scanned the trees below her, searching for the boy.

      She