The Golden Flight by Michael Tod

and the scouting party moved up the scent-line, with Rowan a long squirrel-leap ahead. He climbed onto a stump and stood up to his full height, his nostrils twitching. The fox was close – probably in that clump of bracken just across the grassy track. He stared at it, every muscle tense and quivering, separating stem from frond with his eyes. The dark mass was heather, he was sure of that. Above it was a brown shape that might be an early tinge of autumn colour.
    Rowan leapt sideways as the fox sprang. By the time it recovered its balance he was running along the track, leading the fox away from where his companions were waiting in the stunted pine.
    Rowan ran, passing several single trees that would have offered him immediate safety, until he came to a clump with a thicket beyond. He leapt for the nearest pine trunk, hearing the snap of the frustrated fox’s jaws below him.
    He climbed leisurely up to one of the higher branches and watched it prowl about below, then pause, prick up its ears and, after listening for a moment, slip noiselessly away into the furze. Rowan listened too – human voices were just audible. He lay on the branch, the smell of warm resin strong in his nostrils, as two humans, with sticks in their hands and bright blue loads on their backs, passed underneath, heading towards the place where he had left his party.
    He ran down the tree trunk to the ground and followed close behind the humans until he was near the tree where the others squirrels were hiding.
    Rosebay and Willowherb had reported back, breathlessly.
    ‘Uz zaw a vox jump out at Rowan, him jumped zidewayz.’
    ‘ Rowan jumped zidewayz when the vox jumped at him.’
    ‘The vox mizzed him and him ran away.’
    ‘Him ran away when the vox mizzed him.’
    ‘The vox wuz chazing him.’
    ‘Him wuz being chazed by the vox.’
    ‘Slowly, slowly,’ said Meadowsweet as the sisters told the story, Willowherb as always echoing Rosebay. ‘He’ll be all right. Rowan will have some trick to play on it. Was it a fox or a vixen?’
    ‘Him wuz zleek and vat.’
    ‘Vat and zleek him wuz.’
    ‘Probably a fox then. Vixens are thin and scraggy at this time of year. Feeding the cubs wears them down. The scent was almost certainly from a male. You’ll remember it now?’
    ‘Yez,’ the sisters nodded together.
    Spindle and Hickory were sitting up, alert. ‘Humans coming,’ Spindle said. ‘Keep out of sight.’
    Rowan called up when the walkers had passed under the tree.
    ‘Come down quickly and follow me. The fox won’t come near the humans, and they never watch their tails.’
    ‘They don’t have tails to watch,’ said Meadowsweet, brushing whiskers briefly with Rowan.
     
     
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    On this same fine summer morning, two squirrels were talking together in one of the Ourland trees, much as their mother Marguerite and her brother Rowan had done years before at the Blue Pool. These yearlings were Marguerite and Juniper’s son and daughter, Oak and Burdock. Oak was named after his grandfather and Burdock after her great grandmother, both of whom were long Sun-gone and buried together, nourishing the Council Tree in Beech Valley. Their father, Juniper, had died heroically on the Mainland in the battle against the Greys at the Agglestone Rock the year before.
    Neither Oak nor Burdock had chosen mates this year, much to Marguerite’s disappointment, though each had a drey near to her own.
    ‘If we’d stayed on the Mainland,’ said Oak the Wary, ‘we’d both have been on climbabout by now. I’ve been round Ourland so many times I know every tree and bush. I’m bored – think of something for us to do’
    ‘I must admit that, with food everywhere, and nothing trying to kill us, life is just too Sun-damned easy,’ Burdock the Thoughtful replied. ‘We should be grateful to the Sun, but yes – I’m bored too.’ She was silent for a moment then said, ‘I know. Let’s be News-squirrels!’
    ‘What are