Excerpt from SHADOW OF THE RED MOON
by Walter Dean Myers
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"Aaack!" Kyra made a noise and started spitting at the dogs.
"Shut up!" Jon yelled at him.
The dogs kept up their snarling and yelping for a while and then moved a short distance away, piling onto one another. At first the pile was loose, but it got tighter and tighter as the dogs settled in.
"Hang on!" Jon called out. "We have to stay strong."
"You're scared!" Kyra called out.
"Yes, I'm scared."
"I'm not!" he called back.
At the sound of their voices, the dogs rose and began yelping and growling. They headed for the tree, some stopping a few meters away and baring their teeth.
Jon looked up at Kyra. He was clinging with both arms to the tree. He was scared. Not as scared as Jon was, perhaps, but still scared.
One dog came up to the tree and barked. He lifted his head, baring a row of vicious-looking teeth. He went around the tree several times, and then went back over to the pile of dogs and pushed his way into them.
They kept as quiet as possible. Jon was scared, but he was angry and frustrated, too. He had left Crystal City with the other children, running from the invasion of the Fens. Now he was cold, and terrified of dogs. Was this to be his life, running from everything? Struggling just to survive?
"Shadow!" Lin broke the silence.
A dog, hearing Lin's voice, yelped and ran around the base of the tree. He was answered by other dogs.
Jon saw Shadow. The unicorn stood on a small crest near the edge of the valley. Jon knew that even with his great strength he would be no match for the dogs. There were too many of them.
It began to snow. It swirled about the tree as the wind picked up.
Both Lin and Kyra stretched out their bodies on branches above him while Jon sat with his legs over a smaller branch, his arms around the trunk of the tree. The snow went down the back of his neck and he began to shiver. His fingers ached from the cold and from time to time his foot would go to sleep. Below him, huddled against the swirling snow, were the dogs. In the distance, the movement of shadows and lights were nightmare dancers that called to him, their voices through the dead branches inviting him to release his grip from the tree.
Jon fought the sleep that tugged at him. Each breath became painful as the cold air froze the moisture inside his nostrils.
He could see Kyra plainly; one of the boy's feet dangled from a branch just above him. He was turning his face, trying to avoid the stinging snow. Jon looked for Lin but wasn't sure the dark spot above him was she. He looked down to the ground, but he didn't see her there, either.
"Lin!" He called to her.
"I'm still here!" The answer came from high above him. Lin had climbed farther into the tree.
"Is Kyra awake?"
"Yes!" the boy answered. "There are Fens coming!"
Everything on Jon's body hurt. He looked down at the dogs. They were moving again, going about in quick circles, searching for a scent. Then Jon smelled what the dogs had -- the strong odor of smoke.
"Where are the Fens?" Jon called out. "Are they headed this way?"
"They're on the far side of the valley," Lin said. "I don't know if they're really Fens, and I can't tell if they're coming this way. They're carrying torches."
Jon strained to see through the snow, but couldn't. Below him the dogs circled about the tree and yelped. Some howled. The circle grew wider. One dog started off, then two others followed it. They caught up with it and the yelping began again as they huddled away from the others. The others followed, bumping and jostling each other until they were all assembled. They started of in a quick pace away from the odor of the smoke. They moved fast and were soon nearly invisible in the falling snow.
"The torches are headed in this direction," Lin said.
When it was clear that the dogs were gone, Jon slid down to the ground. Kyra came down and then Lin. Halfway down the trunk of the tree she pushed away from it and jumped. She landed on her feet but her legs gave way and she fell to the ground.
Lin winced. Her hair fell across her face and she pushed it away in anger.
"Why do we have to be out here?" she cried. "Why?"
Kyra knelt by her side as she gritted her teeth.
"We have to go on," Jon said.
Lin looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears, and tightened the corners of her mouth. She pulled herself to her feet, wincing as she did.
Jon could see the faint lights from the torches. They weren't that near.
"Those Fens will tear up the dogs," Kyra said, seeing Jon look toward them.
"I don't know," Jon answered. "If the dogs aren't afraid of the fire, it will be children with sticks against wild dogs. I don't know - "
"They're not children!" Lin's voice was filled anger. "They're not children! We are children. They are Fens!"
"Most of them are younger than I am," Jon said. "Some people on the Council think the plague might be over, but they still don't live that long."
"I don't care how long they live!" Lin said. "It's because of them that we're out here. We're children and children shouldn't be out in the cold running from dogs and climbing into trees and...being away from our parents. They aren't children. Children don't attack Okalians!"
"We have to go on," Jon said quietly.
He walked ahead of them, letting his feet drag so that he broke a path through the fallen snow.
He was cold. He had almost forgotten that he was cold, or how cold he was. As he walked he thought about what Lin had said, that the Fens weren't children. He wondered what the Fens thought of them.
From Shadow of the Red Moon, copyright © by Walter Dean Myers
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