Quest Beyond Time by Tony Morphett

before entering the forest. He had been wrong. In future all fear would be judged against this desperate race in the fading light with the vision of filed teeth in his mind, and the sound of whispering in his ears.
    What he did not know, and what might have put a keener edge on his fear had he known, was that at their finishing line, at the forest’s edge, two River Yobbies waited patiently on horseback. Where they waited, the forest finished in an abrupt line, as if the land had been shaved by a giant razor.
    Here was where they waited, a little over a bowshot back from the forest’s edge. They scanned the trees. If their quarry was not out of the forest by nightfall, they were dead. If they came out, they would be dead. The Yobbies waited.
    In the forest, the light was fading, and Mike and Katrin ran. Mike had never run a race like this. He could taste exhaustion like metal in his throat, and his heart leapt in his chest like a wounded beast.
    And they ran.
    Ahead, they could see the fading light of day beyond the forest’s edge. They ran for it, ran for their goal.
    But around them, the pursuit was louder.
    And louder. The rustle became a dinning at their ears. The thump of feet landing on boughs and the squeals and giggles of their pursuers were the loudest noises in the world.
    Twenty yards to go, and the light fading fast …
    . . . and silence!
    Deadly silence. They ran into the silence as they might into a wall.
    Then the Forest Man slid down a rope and stood on a branch just above their heads.
    ‘Too late! You lose!’
    ‘It isn’t sundown yet!’ Mike yelled.
    ‘Hungry! Tell lies!’ came the high-pitched shout as the Forest Man launched himself at Mike.
    Mike threw out his shoulder and charged. For one terrible instant, he felt the Forest Man’s fingers reaching for his throat, and the zoo smell enveloped him, but his shoulder struck the creature to one side and he and Katrin were running together for the forest’s edge with the cry of, ‘Come back dinner!’ chirruping behind them.
    They burst from the forest’s edge at a run, leapt a shallow ditch and ran on. Behind them they could hear the disappointed high-pitched shrieking of the Forest People.
    And before them, a terrible roar of pleasure issuing from two Yobby throats.
    Mike and Katrin turned to see the Yobbies charging at them on horseback. Their swords were out, and swinging. Mike threw down the hang-glider, and waited.
    ‘Back!’ Katrin yelled.
    ‘
Back?’
But Mike was already turning and running with her, back toward the forest and its dreadful inhabitants.
    They were almost at the forest’s edge. They could hear the excited chittering within the dark confines of the trees, the sound now equally balanced with the drum of hooves behind them, then, ‘Down!’ Katrin yelled, and dropped into the shallow ditch they had leapt across moments before.
    Mike dropped down beside her.
    For one moment, they lay huddled there as the hoofbeats shook the earth on which they lay, and then there was a darkening of the sky as the horses leapt the ditch.
    Mike turned to see the momentum of the Yobbies’ charge carry them into the forest itself, and then he and Katrin were up and running in the opposite direction.
    Behind them they could hear the roar of the Yobbies and the screams and shouts and chatterings of the Forest People.
    They grabbed the hang-glider, carrying it between them, and forced their exhausted bodies in a flat run for the horizon, leaving the Yobbies and the Forest People to sort things out between them.
    As they ran, the sun slid down beneath the horizon, dying in its own flames.

CHAPTER 14
THE LITTLE PEOPLE
    Once, in the life he lived before his glider went through the hole in Time, in that life that now seemed so far away and long ago, Mike’s father had taken him to an old mining town. For a day or so they had explored and fossicked among the old mullock heaps, and Mike had been fascinated by it all. Most, he had been fascinated by