Morg

Chapter 9

   She reached out for the nearest one. It slipped through her fingers. She crawled slowly towards another and tried to grab its tail, but it twisted away from her, then looked back over its shoulder. This is a good game, it seemed to say. She ground her teeth. She threw herself on to the third, but somehow it squeezed from under her. It was like trying to catch water. Then her cloak hooked on one of the thorns and she had a thought. Holding the cloak on both edges, she threw it over the nearest piglet, and then threw herself on top of it. The piglet wriggled and squiggled under the brown wool cloth. Standing on two of the corners with her feet, Morg scooped the other edges under the piglet and grabbed all four corners into her hands. She had a brown wool bundle with a piglet squirming in it. Triumph!

     She looked around. The other three were nowhere to be seen, hiding in the undergrowth. She felt the weight of the piglet. It might be young, but it was heavy. One was quite enough. She'd better get moving before the boar came to find her offspring. She started to crawl along another tunnel out of the thorns when she bumped into something soft.

     It was a dead boar. She must have been the piglets' mother. Morg realised that was why she'd been able to catch the piglet - it was exhausted and hungry. Morg crouched over the boar. She'd been killed a couple of days ago, Morg reckoned. She looked harder and a chill ran down her spine. She saw that the boar had been killed by a wolf.

     Morg scuttled out of the bushes as fast as she could. It was only when she was back on the path and walking a walk that was nearly a run, that she realised she did not know where she was. The path started to drop down through a steep sided gorge she had not seen before. Her throat tightened. She was lost.

     For a moment Morg panicked. It was almost dark and she was lost in a forest full of wolves and no-one knew she was there. Then she took a deep breath. Then another. She decided she had two choices. She could go back, and hope to join the old path. Or she could go on and hope to recognise something.

     She thought hard. Perhaps the sun could help her. She couldn't see it, but she could tell the sky was lighter ahead of her than behind. If it was lighter, that must be where the sun would set. She'd walked towards the sun when she left the village, in the morning. The sun had crossed the sky since then and was now going down. Head towards the setting sun, she thought. She hoped that she was right. As she was deciding she heard a noise, not very loud, far, far away. She was not sure, but it sounded a little like the howl of a wolf.

     Morg set off at a brisk trot. She started to chant a prayer to Cerunnos, the god of wild beasts, but then changed her mind. She should stay loyal to Alos, who had helped her so far. The boar had been a test, and the piglets, somehow, an answer to her prayer. Alos had chosen her own way. Would the goddess now help her safely home?

     She did not hear the wolves again. She decided that she had imagined the sound. Or that they were hunting in another part of the forest. But she kept her ears pricked, and the hairs on the back of her neck refused to lie flat.

     The path became muddy. Morg squelched on, trying to keep to the firm grass hillocks, jumping from tussock to tussock. Her shoes were made of thin leather, and they were soon soaked. The path had disappeared into a bog. Morg hesitated and looked around. The trees were thinning. She could see the beginnings of a stream, and maybe a clearing. She took a step, and went in up to her knee. She nearly lost hold of the piglet. She pulled out her leg. It was coated in thick, stinking mud.

     I mustn't lose courage now, thought Morg. If I do, I'll never get home. Clutching the piglet with renewed determination, she took a leap onto a patch of grass. Soon, she was through the trees and she was right. There was a clearing. Best of all, from the clearing she could see her hill, rising tall and black above the forest. Morg nearly sobbed with relief.