‘But what about you?’ Nab whispered.

‘I'll be all right. They rarely manage to kill us with their death sticks. We’re too quick for them. Now, keep quiet.’

They lay side by side on the earth behind the oak. Nab could feel the damp coming through his layers of bark and his knees were sore. As the Urkku came closer and he became more frightened, his hands reached out to feel the rough bark of the oak and he gained comfort from the power and strength of the tree. He looked at Rufus. The fox’s eyes were staring at the Urkku with a black intensity and his quivering body seemed about to explode with energy. They were now barely twenty paces away and Nab’s heart was pounding so strongly that he felt certain they must have heard his frightened rasps of breath. Rufus looked at him and put his paw on the boy’s arm; then he burst out from behind the tree and glided noiselessly away through the tufts of grass and around the fallen logs that littered the floor, his great bushy tail flowing away behind him.

Nab watched as one of the Urkku caught sight of a flash of brown and shouted to the other, pointing excitedly at the undergrowth. They both raised their guns and the boy’s heart stopped as two shots echoed through the wood; desperately he looked for the fox and then to his relief he saw him by the stile at the edge of the field running across to the other side of the wood where the trees were thicker and he would be safe. Then he heard another guttural shout and two more shots shattered the air. Rufus crumpled up and toppled over on his side; in a blind fit of grief the boy ran out from behind the oak tree and dashed across the wood until he fell on his knees beside his friend. His whole body was seized with uncontrollable spasms as he sobbed hysterically. ‘Rufus,’ he cried, and cradled his arms under the fox’s head to bury his face against the warm fur. The eyes slowly opened; a few short heartbeats ago they had shone with life and energy; now they were liquid brown and still and they looked at the boy with sadness and love and hope. The boy felt his hand warm and sticky where it held the fox and then the eyes closed and the head sagged. Nab knew he was dead and a surge of sickness welled into his stomach as the full horror of what had happened suddenly hit him. Through a blurred veil of tears he looked at the black nose and the mouth which was drawn back in death so that the teeth could be seen; he looked at the two triangular ears and he buried his hand in the deep fur around his neck. He was unable to accept that life had gone when the body was here exactly as it had been when they were both behind the oak. The eyes would never again look at him; he would never again see the fox’s head as it poked its way through the rhododendron bush and there would be no more stories on winter evenings. He kept going over these things in his mind to try to make himself understand but he could not grasp it; it was too much to comprehend. Still shaking violently as the tears flowed down his face he threw himself over the dead body of the fox.

‘Look, Jeff; I told you. It’s a kid.’

Nab heard the Urkku behind him and felt pressure on his shoulder as a hand gripped him and tried to raise burn up from Rufus’s body. He had forgotten the fox’s last words to him, that he was not to move until it was safe, and he realized with a shock of remorse that Rufus had been killed trying to protect him but now, through his own fault, it had been in vain.

The boy tried to jump up but found that he couldn’t; the Urkku had too firm a hold of him.

‘Steady, kid. Who are you? Chris, look at it! It’s dressed in bark; and look at its hair. I don’t think it can speak. What’s your name, kid? See if the fox is dead, Chris.’

Nab watched in horror as the other Urkku put his boot under Rufus’s body and kicked it over; the head pointed straight up for a second or two and then toppled over the other way. Then the Urkku pulled out a knife and hacked at the tail; when it had come off he kicked the fox over so that it landed nose down in the ditch, its once magnificent body spreadeagled and twisted crazily so that its back legs faced one way and its front legs the other. Suddenly all the sadness and grief that Nab felt turned into a searing anger and hatred and he tore free of the Urkku’s hand and flew at him, biting and scratching at the man’s face. The force and energy with which the boy charged were enough to knock him over and they rolled on to a tussock of grass as the gun went flying. Nab felt his nails sink into the man’s cheek and as he drew his hand down he felt blood.

‘Get him off! For God’s sake get him off.’

The other Urkku grabbed the boy tightly around the waist and pulled him away; he struggled ferociously but the Urkku was too strong and he was unable to break free. The man on the ground slowly got up, cupping a hand over his cheek where three large gashes oozed blood.

‘Come here, you little brat. I’ll teach you,’ and, while the other held Nab, he struck him across the face repeatedly with the back of his hand.

‘Take it easy Jeff; it’s only a kid.’

‘I don’t care – look at my face.’

‘You’ll be all right, it’s only a scratch. Well, we can’t leave him here. Best take him back home where Ma can decide what to do.’

Nab redoubled his efforts to get free as he realized with sudden panic that the Urkku intended to take him away from the wood. His mind swirled as hundreds of thoughts raced through it; images of the Urkku homes he had built up from conversations with Bibbington and Cawdor and Rufus; plans of escape; dreadful worries about where he would sleep tonight and what the Urkku were going to do with him; thoughts of Brock and Warrigal and Perryfoot and Tara coupled with terrible fears that he might never see them again. Then through all his panic would flash, clear and still, a picture of Rufus as he lay on the damp bracken dying, and the tears once again began to flood from him.

He felt himself being half dragged, half carried through the wood towards the stile and he was pulled roughly over it into the field. He was still struggling and biting and scratching but the numbness in his face and jaw and his desperate fight with the Urkku had taken their toll of his body and he could no longer muster the energy to do more than wave his arms around in a pathetic token gesture of aggression. He saw Silver Wood recede as he was taken across the field; the winter evening was now drawing in and the wood looked black, deep and impenetrable. Nab was somehow amazed that through all the terrible events of that afternoon it had remained exactly the same, nothing had changed; his rhododendron bush was still there and so were all the great trees. It had simply watched impassively as the horrors had unfolded before it and he felt vaguely resentful at its inability to help him.

They passed the pond as great black clouds began to appear in the grey sky bringing little spots of rain in the wind which stung his face and mingled comfortingly with his tears, as if all Nature were crying with him. As they reached the rise at the top of the little hill past the pond the Urkku stopped for a rest. Nab looked back at the wood standing aloof in the distance. It was his home, he had never slept anywhere else and now he was being taken away, perhaps never to see it again. His heart was heavy and his stomach felt as if a thousand butterflies were fluttering inside him; suddenly he felt the arms round his stomach tighten and he was pulled off again down the far side of the slope. Desperately he tried to fix a picture of the wood m his mind and his eyes clung to the treetops as they got smaller, until eventuallу they disappeared out of sight behind the top of the hill.

The single spots of rain that Nab had felt before now turned into a downpour; great sheets of water seemed to be falling from the sky and the Urkku were running across the fields, each holding one of his hands and pulling him with them. The rain was beginning to seep through his bark and his hair was dripping down his back. Soon Nab saw, through the rain, a group of buildings clustered together on the near side of a gently sloping rise. He guessed that these were Urkku dwellings and that this was where they were heading. They came to a gate and, opening it, were now on a rough stone track which hurt his feet as they raced along. There were buildings now on either side and Nab could hear the heavy breathing and constant shuffling of the cows inside; occasionally one would moo loudly as they heard the clatter of the Urkku’s boots on the track. Then suddenly they rounded the comer and the front of the farm faced them; racing up to it, the men stopped in the shelter of a porch.