A Children's Tale Read Online Free PDF Page A

drifts of white powder on the ground and pine trees that dotted the gentle slope. Despite events of the previous day, spirits rose just as the sun reached its zenith at noon.
    William, having taken his turn carrying young Miles and a pack of blankets, stepped around a snowdrift that had mingled with a large rock. He shifted the pack and the boy's weight on his shoulders and scanned the sky. “Anybody else hearin' that?”
    Moira helped Angela over a patch of ice hidden by snow. Once she set the girl onto ground next to her she looked up quizzically. “What sound be that?”
    Captain Hunter, who was pulling O'Fallon on a crude litter, paused and frowned in concentration.
    William looked up and around again. “The hum. Thought it 'twere a bird, y'know? Like one o' them hummin'birds I heard of.”
    Hunter shook his head. “Too cold for that here. They'll be in the warmer lands.”
    Angela looked up. “I hear it, too.”
    Just as the sound reached Moira and Hunter's ears, Moira shot Hunter an alarmed look then gestured to a pair of dark shapes far overhead. “That's nae bird. Less they come with steam engines and two wings, mind ya.”
    Hunter snarled. “Steambats! Make for the trees!”
    The powdery snow fought the group as they staggered for the trees only yards away. Above, a pair of steambats hummed overhead like a pair of giant bees. Breaking the clouds, they passed over once, banked, then dove for the running figures like wolves to hunt. Bullets screamed. Streams of water-guided lightning crackled. Snow sprayed in great white plumes behind the group, drawing closer with every step.
Moira, with Angela in her arms, reached the thick stand of trees first. Depositing the young girl behind a tree, she spun and knelt in one smooth motion, pistols in hand. Steadily, she aimed while the plumes of snow and the hail of bullets clawed at the heels of her crewmates. William tripped on a hidden branch, Miles spilled with a scream of terror into the snow.
    Without a glance back, William grabbed Miles and threw himself at the trees, falling on a patch of packed snow. They slid breakneck towards the forest. Further behind, Hunter dropped the litter and bodily drug O'Fallon to his feet. Hauling the quartermaster over his shoulders, the captain struggled in the deep snow, racing for his life while the bullets peppered the ground inches behind him.
    Moira took a deep breath to steady her aim. Overhead the steambat drifted left, then right like a bird caught on the wind. She waited, letting the shouts around her and bark of gunfire fall away. Suddenly the small silhouette of the closest aircraft's pilot crossed her gunsight. She smiled a wicked grin much the way a she-wolf snarls over prey and whispered, "Gotcha."
    Her pistols bucked twice. Time slowed for the sliver of a heartbeat. Two shots arced up and out of the trees along the path the attacking aircraft's own gunfire had taken. Three seconds later, time collapsed on itself. The pilot jerked once then twice. His steambat sprayed steam and heated water in a wide shower over the clearing before it banked wildly to the right. The second aircraft, caught off guard, narrowly avoided collision with his wounded comrade. He pulled up and over the damaged aircraft then banked to the left, which ruined any chance at a better shot at the people below.
    The wounded aircraft danced on the wind, fighting the pilot's attempt to regain control. Finally, the craft leveled out and gently turned around, heading back up the slope in the direction it had come. Behind it, a plume of steam traced its retreat.
    Hunter slowly eased O'Fallon down behind a tree and gulped in the crisp mountain air. O'Fallon looked pale but conscious.
    "We be all here? Sound off!" Croaked the quartermaster.
    Moira closed her eyes quietly a moment to steady her nerves, then she dropped her pistols into their holsers. She spared a smile to Angela and gave the girl a reassuring hug.
    Angela fought back a terrified, angry sob