Chapter Nineteen
Mashtuk heard Tillie coming long before she scrambled down onto the swale from the upper path. To his desperate mind, the urgent baying of the rest of the pack still sounded a long way behind her. Tillie was shouting at him as soon as she was in mind-calling distance. She was the swiftest and lightest of the hunters who had gone into the deep of the ravine that morning, but she had run so far and so fast that even her mindspeech came out in gasps.
‘Hippolyta says … I’m to mind … mind the cubs. You’re to go … go to the entrance. They’re coming … they’re coming, right behind me. Go, go!’
Mashtuk needed no second telling. Impatiently perched on his toes, he waited only until he could actually see Tillie begin her descent to the swale before he sped off, baying and roaring,
