We didn't have much time left to us and I breathed a sigh of relief, when I saw what I had been looking for up ahead of us in the gathering darkness. It was a shallow impression in the land, which was surrounded by boulders on three sides.
"Over there boy!" I said directing the boy ahead of me because the wolves were more likely to go for him first.
"Stay back between these boulders, while I hold them off from the front."
"No!"
Surprised, I glanced down at the boy, who had suddenly given proof that he could still speak and quite vehemently at that. "No?" I asked.
"I want to help you!"
I nearly insisted that he do as I had told him to do, but I glimpsed the desperate need in his eyes and thought better of it. I liked the boy's spunk.
"Okay then." I drew my short sword from the holster it rode in on my back and handed it to the boy. The blade was just light enough for him to handle it, without it being too cumbersome for him to manage. "Stay behind me and protect my back."
He nodded his head vigorously in response as he gripped the sword hard enough to squeeze impressions on the steel handle. He was still pretty much where I had wanted him from the beginning, but he was there under his own terms and I respected that as a sign of strength that hinted at the kind of stalwart man he would be someday.
The sudden yipping and snarling taking place around us told me that the time for survival was once again upon us, as we faced off against man's ancient foe the wolf. I withdrew my sword and turned to face the snarling yellow eyed assailants arrayed out before me in a half circle.
There were five of them. A big mangy eared male made the first move as he lunged toward me. I half knelt forward on one knee and ripped my blade through the length of his stomach, while he was in mid flight and then quickly stepped aside to avoid his falling carcass. As his trailing death yip sounded out I flung myself to the right away from the boy, and decapitated a second wolf in one fluid swing of the blade in my hand. I quickly launched myself towards a third wolf diving in for the boy off to my left. I heard an anguished yip sound out behind me as I attacked the third wolf. The wolf tried to retreat, but my blade found its heart first.
I wheeled around sword at the ready, as fear gnawed at me to see what had become of the boy and the other wolves during my time away. What I found was a dead wolf lying at my feet that had been brutally hacked several times. My gaze went from the dead wolf to the blood dripping off the boy's sword. I glanced up the blade to the boy's white knuckled hands and finally my eye's drifted to the boy's frightened but proud face.